“I’m sure you can.” Sofia’s low laugh grated on her already stretched nerves.
“Sofia.” Anya stopped her as she passed.
“Yes, Coya?” she asked with a mocking smile.
“Let me catch you touching him again while he’s unaware, and I’ll make certain you never enter this base again.”
Better yet, if she didn’t manage to get a handle on her rage, she’d make certain no one found the body.
Sofia’s brow lifted and amusement sparkled in her eyes. “You don’t have that authority, Anya. But I’ll play along and promise to be a good little girl while he’s sleeping, how’s that?”
“I don’t need your promises,” Anya informed her coldly. “Get out of these rooms, and don’t make the mistake of entering them again unless I’m present.”
“Once again, no authority.” Sofia wagged her finger at her. “Only a full mate can make that demand.” She paused and looked at Del-Rey’s sleeping form before turning back to Anya. “Separation order. Remember?”
Anya hid her shock, though she knew she should have expected Sofia to know about the mating. She had worked with Del-Rey all these years, been an informant against the Council. She was here at Base; Del-Rey wouldn’t have allowed it unless he trusted her to keep her mouth shut.
That didn’t mean Anya liked it. It sure as hell didn’t mean she liked the other woman.
She strolled past Anya then as she said, “He needs to be bathed with cool water as he sleeps. Mating heat and healing don’t work well together when the heat isn’t being satisfied. Poor little Coyote. He’s suffered.”
The door closed softly behind her moments later as Anya fought to still the shudders racing through her body. That woman’s hands had been on him. Stroking him.
She stared at Del-Rey, stretched out, only a sheet covering his hips, leaving long, powerful legs bare, giving a full, tempting view of hard abs, a powerful chest. Naked, he was imposing, arousing and aroused. The hard length of his c**k pressed clearly against the sheet.
Brim was going to pay for this. It was his job to watch over Del-Rey, to ensure he was protected during the healing phase when he was wounded.
Sofia was sensual, sexual; would she have dared to do more than simply wipe the sweat from his body? A part of Anya was certain the woman was capable of any perversion; another part of her knew better. Conflicting knowledge and emotions were whipping through her, tearing through her mind as she felt herself flushing, felt emotions she’d kept carefully contained rising inside her.
She knew Sofia too well. She had known the other woman all her life, and she knew the games she played. She was as calculating and manipulating as any Coyote Breed. Anya remembered Sofia directing her out of the labs, from the direction she would have gone, into the direction Del-Rey would be.
Yeah, she hated Sofia. She always had. But more because of the other woman’s mocking arrogance and air of superior knowledge than for any other reason.
Del-Rey shifted on the bed. Where he had been comfortable, locked in a haze of dark peace, he suddenly became aware of something more.
First, the heat. It tunneled through his c**k as he heard Brim talking. That wasn’t normal. The mating heat was always pushed back when healing took over. It was the only time he slept peacefully, the only time he didn’t ache like the bastard animal he knew inside that he was.
The mating heat pushed forward, locked inside his mind. He heard Anya, scented her. He swore he could almost feel the warmth of her body against him. He needed it, he admitted to himself. Here in this dark nothingness, he needed her to lie against him, to warm him. God, sometimes the cold went clear to the bone and chilled him until he feared he would never feel warm again.
He shifted on the bed. He knew he should be sleeping deeper, that the near unconscious state the healing put him in should be blocking whatever was rising inside him. Hunger. Need. A craving for Anya he was never long without.
His Anya. Like a flame in winter, soothing the cold and the fears that haunted the man who wasn’t fully a man, and tormented the animal that wasn’t fully animal. Sometimes the battle between man and beast inside him was so tenacious that he wondered how long he could contain the conflicting urges.
The animal demanded that he take what belonged to him. That he steal her, kidnap her again. He wanted to throw those f**king hormonal treatments to the wind and force her to suffer as he suffered. He was ready to howl with the hunger inside him for the relief he knew they were both desperate for.
The man ached though. The man needed her acceptance. The man needed her touch given voluntarily, without the demand of the mating heat that surged between them. The man, arrogant and filled with his own sense of hunger, craved her acceptance.
“I’ve missed you.”
He heard her voice, like summer rain, washing over his senses as a cooling touch covered his brow. It didn’t ease the heat raging through his body, but it was better than nothing. At least in this tortured, demented nightmare, she was speaking to him rather than taunting him, just out of reach, always slipping past his desperate touch.
“Brim’s a dead Coyote, Del-Rey. He shouldn’t have let her in here. Let her touch you.”
She must have meant Sofia. He had warned Brim to never allow Anya to know Sofia had bathed his brow and chest while healing from that gunshot wound months before. Had he told her?
It had hurt Anya. He didn’t want her hurt.
“God, just being close to you makes me wet.”
Her little sigh had him tensing in need now. She was wet? She wanted? He was hard and willing to give. But he knew better than to open his eyes and reach out for her. When he did, the dream would be gone, as would her touch. And he needed her touch like the land needed the rain. He needed to soak it in, feel it inside him, soothing him, refreshing him.
“I’ve missed you so much, Del-Rey. Like you were before you kidnapped me. Teasing me. Just your eyes would smile and I wanted to see your lips smile too. I wanted to feel that smile in a kiss and know it was all mine.”
He wanted to give her such a kiss. A kiss filled with the promises he wanted to keep, the security he wanted to give her.
There was so little security in a Breed’s life. So little they could depend upon. They had nothing to truly believe in except this. This promise that nature gave them with the mating heat. That there was a place for them. That at least in nature, they were accepted.