“Oh, you are so reaching,” she said scathingly. “Warm your ass on a brick, because it’s not getting in my bed.”
“It’s not my ass that gets cold,” he laughed. “Come on now, my little coya. What’s wrong, afraid you’ll have another of those hot little dreams and let me actually get a taste of that wet little pu**y?” His gaze dropped to her thighs. “I’ll make sure you’re awake for it. I’m a gentleman like that.”
“You’re a sorry excuse for a Breed and an even sorrier excuse for a mate,” she snarled. “How dare you order me to sleep with you. You didn’t buy me off the street, you crackpot.”
His brows lifted. “I’m going to wash your mouth out with soap. Be civil or we’ll try for two weeks.”
“You bastard!”
“Three?”
She was shaking. Anya couldn’t remember a time in her life when she had been more furious. It swept over her like a tidal wave, slammed inside her and sent heat searing her insides for vital seconds.
She stumbled against the onslaught, almost gasping as it peaked in her clit and sent a shot of pain racing through her system.
“Anya!”
Del-Rey’s chair slammed into the wall as he tore from his seat and raced to her, catching her before she hit the floor. Her face was suddenly pale, sweat gleaming on her forehead as her blue eyes stared back at him in stark pain.
“Brim!” He tore the door open as he held her to him, then picked her up in his arms.
Brim and Sharone raced from Command as Emma and Ashley moved from the lounge, fear flashing across the girls’ faces.
“I need transport,” he called out. “Contact Armani and tell her to be waiting at the door.”
Anya moaned, a low, pain-filled sound as she tried to curl against him. Sweet God in heaven. What the hell was wrong? He ran for the base exit as Brim shouted out orders for his personal security detail to be waiting. Behind him, Anya’s friends followed, weapons being strapped on as they ran, concern filling the air with a dark, fear-tainted scent.
What the hell had happened? One minute she was sniping at him and the next she was nearly passing out from pain? This wasn’t mating heat. Mating heat didn’t do this. He’d researched that f**king curse and it simply didn’t do this.
“Del-Rey.” Her voice was weak as he stepped through the doors swinging open into the late evening air. “What’s wrong with me?”
Fear filled her voice as her body tensed. Del-Rey swore he felt the pain that tore through her slight body. She moaned, her forehead pressing into his shoulder as a Coyote threw open the passenger door to the all-terrain/all-duty vehicle they used on the rough passes they called roads.
Sharone, Emma and Ashley jumped in through the back access door and braced themselves as the soldier moved quickly behind the wheel and set the vehicle into motion.
“Hurry, Martin,” he ordered the Breed furiously as Anya moaned again. “Get us to Haven as fast you can get through those f**king passes.”
He held her tighter, wishing he could take the pain, hating the cold sweat that gleamed on her pale face as he braced her against his broader body for the rough ride into the valley.
Each time she flinched, gripped her stomach and cried out from the pain, he swore he lost a part of his control. He was enraged, fury roaring through his veins and, yes, fear tearing through his mind. Nothing could happen to her. God, nothing could happen to her, because Del-Rey knew, if anything did, he would lose himself.
Anya had never felt anything like the agony undulating in her lower stomach. She swore it felt as though something were being ripped out of her body in pulsing waves. Ice lashed at her, then heat. She was sweating and she was freezing everywhere except where Del-Rey was touching her.
What the hell had happened? She remembered the anger coursing through her, tasting it in her mouth, wanting to claw his eyes out. Then she remembered the wave of heat that swamped her an instant before the pain began clawing through her system, and the ride down the mountain at breakneck speed before Del-Rey rushed her into Armani’s examining room.
She was breathing through another wave of pain when the doctor’s gloved hands touched her arm. Excruciating, unbelievable pain ripped through her, causing her to cry out as she fought to get away.
She heard a snarl filled with fury. That was Ashley. She opened her eyes to see the three women in front of the bed, bodies braced as the sound echoed around her of a door crashing in on the room.
Del-Rey had seen it through the window on the other side of the exam room as Wolfe and Jonas waited with him. Anything that happened to one mate where the mating heat was concerned had the potential to affect the other.
He watched Dr. Armani steady Anya’s arm, a syringe poised to draw blood, when Anya cried out and jerked away. Instantly, three enraged female Coyotes were blocking her, throwing the doctor back, death echoing in their feral growls as Del-Rey crashed into the exam room.
Anya was curled into herself, crying again, her neck arched and thrown back as she gripped her stomach through spasms of pain.
“I need blood, Del-Rey.” Armani was frantic, her dark gaze filled with worry as she faced off with the three women poised to protect their coya. “Get those feral little monsters out of my exam room!” she ordered.
Ashley turned on him. “I won’t leave her. Take my allowance for life. You let that bitch hurt her again and I’ll rip her apart.”
Sharone was growling; Emma had drawn a blade and watched the doctor silently. She was the most dangerous at the moment.
“Emma, sheathe that blade,” he snapped.
“I regret, Alpha, that I must deny your request.” Her voice was barely human. “She won’t hurt Anya like this again.” She turned enraged eyes on him. “You let them do this to her the first time. I swore then it wouldn’t happen again.”
Del-Rey moved to the bed, his hand brushing against Anya’s flesh as she suddenly turned to him, shaking, shivering as though freezing.
He eased onto the mattress, letting her crawl into him, easing her into his arms as she panted for air.
“What’s she talking about?” He looked from the doctor to the bodyguards standing so fiercely over her.
“She ordered us to stand down the first time they had her screaming in agony. Those three weeks they tested her to create that f**king drug they pump into her every week. They won’t hurt her again.”