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  Justice

  Laurann Dohner

  Book 4 in the New Species series.

  Justice North is the face of New Species. Seeing him up close makes Jessie’s heart race. He’s the ultimate alpha male—big, muscular, exotically beautiful…and dangerous. Of course he’s off limits. But then the sexy man purrs and all bets are off.

  Jessie Dupree is a mouthy, fiery human female who brings out the animal in Justice. She wants to show him how to relax, and he’s all for anything she wants to do, but Justice has sworn to protect his people and to take a Species mate. He’s torn between the woman he wants and the oath he’s taken.

  Jessie knows a relationship between them probably won’t end well; heartbreak is inevitable. But that won’t stop her from freeing the wildness inside Justice and spending every moment she can steal wrapped around his hot body, making him roar with passion.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing

  www.ellorascave.com

  Justice

  ISBN 9781419937569

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Justice Copyright © 2011 Laurann Dohner

  Edited by Pamela Campbell

  Photography and cover design by Syneca

  Model: Nick

  Electronic book publication November 2011

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  The publisher and author(s) acknowledge the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks, service marks and word marks mentioned in this book.

  The publisher does not have any control over, and does not assume any responsibility for, author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  Justice

  Laurann Dohner

  Dedication

  To my wonderful Mr. Laurann, who has always shown me that love is possible and true love is lasting.

  Chapter One

  Jessie watched Justice North from the far corner of the room and bit her lip. She really wanted to work up the nerve to approach him. He’d been on the news often but he appeared even taller and better-looking in person.

  Not too many people intimidated her but the man who had been appointed the leader of the New Species Organization by his own people was one of those rare few. She respected strength and courage, something he seemed to have in abundance.

  She debated the wisdom of having a conversation with him. Justice gave orders to her bosses and held the power to change some of the task-force policies that she didn’t agree with. The chance of finding another opportunity to have a chat with him was slim to none. She wasn’t allowed to attend briefings her team leader held with the tall Species leader. Her opinion was irrelevant to him but the issues were important.

  She hesitated, considering the ramifications. Tim Oberto would haul her ass into his office if he found out she’d gone over his head. He’d be his normal loud self and tear her to verbal shreds.

  Her gaze swept the room, studying the New Species. They were brave for all they’d endured, every single one of them a victim of big business screwing them over.

  A pharmaceutical company, Mercile Industries, had created genetically altered humans using animal DNA, had reared them inside secret facilities and forced them to endure decades of horrendous testing on their tortured bodies. They’d done it to make money and worse, they’d been funded in part by the government.

  My tax dollars, she grimly acknowledged and clenched her teeth over how deeply that pissed her off. Mercile had pitched proposals to come up with miracle drugs that would help injured US soldiers heal faster, become physically stronger and enhance their reflexes. Those idiots in DC had eaten it up and signed the checks to pay for the research but later denied having knowledge that live test subjects were involved.

  She gave them some credit for acting immediately to discover the truth when rumors surfaced of the illegal practices. Once officials had proof, military and police forces had worked together to rescue any survivors imprisoned by Mercile Industries. New Species were created with US tax dollars and born on American soil, which made them citizens.

  The first facility had been raided and the survivors had been rescued—freed. Locations of three more hellish places were discovered after employees were interrogated. The teams had hit them hard and fast, rescued more victims and all hell had broken loose. Hundreds of victims needed to be housed. They’d been placed in secure locations and the blame game began. The US had given the New Species a newly built military base, which they turned in to Homeland, a Species-run community to keep them safe from the outside world. Under pressure from the government, Mercile Industries was quickly settling claims brought by New Species. With some of that money they’d bought a second large section of land they named Reservation.

  A big body bumped Jessie, drew her from her grim thoughts and she smiled up at the male. New Species were easily identified by their animallike features. They weren’t completely human but weren't all genetically altered with the same genes either and dubbing them with that title spanned all the differences. Some had been mixed with large-feline DNA, some with canine and some with primate.

  “Sorry,” he grumbled as she peered into a pretty set of catlike eyes.

  Feline, she silently identified his mixed species. “No problem.”

  He moved on and she sighed in disappointment. Not many of them wanted to talk to humans. She couldn’t blame them after all they’d been through. Mercile Industries had labeled each one with a number and called them experimental prototypes. The staff had treated the children as if they were subhuman, lab rats, without souls. They’d led cold, harsh lives, only leaving their cells for training or testing.

  The new race they’d created wasn’t docile as Mercile had projected in their grand scheme. Some of the growing Species rebelled and killed the humans who had spent years harming and torturing them. Instead of lab rats, the company had hundreds of angry, bitter, really strong prisoners who’d had enough of their shit. That fact made Jessie smile. Good for them. I hope they took out a bunch of those bastards.

  Mercile decided to see if they could produce children from the males and females. It was a faster process for a female to give birth to another altered child than it was to spend millions of dollars to replicate the procedure that created them. Mercile had wanted to be rid of the originals, start over and learn from their mistakes. Their attempts to breed the unfortunate victims were unsuccessful. The males and females were unable to procreate.

  That’s when Mercile started selling the other experiments they'd created. Jessie felt rage thinking about the Gift Females the drug company used to lure in more investors. They purposely made smaller females with nonaggressive-animal DNA and used drugs to control their growth rate to