Stay down. Don’t risk being seen. Stay covered.

Definitely stay covered.

Amanda lay on her side, her back to Kiowa as she tried to hug the wheel cover and keep from touching him.

Cold hard reality had almost returned. Enough to realize what had happened and to remember in bleak clarity the hours before when it had all begun. How long had passed? It was nearly three in the morning now, Simon had told Kiowa a bit ago. The lights from the vehicle following them flipped in and out of the back glass, casting odd shadows around her.

Nearly three. It had been just after seven when she had closed her door on the trick-or-treaters. Seven hours. In seven hours her life had changed so drastically she was certain she could never right it again. She shuddered at the thought of it. Not in distaste. She wished it were in distaste, it would make it easier. It would ease the tears that slid silently down her face and the ache that lay heavy in her heart. What had she done? How had it happened? And why was she still being tortured with the need for more?

“How much longer, Simon?” Kiowa snapped from beside her, his voice harsh as he demanded the answer.

“A little over an hour,” Simon answered back. “Callan has one of the new cabins ready. They’re gathering intel now. We should have something when we get there.”

“Sinclair there?” His voice was a raspy growl. He was pissed. Good, so was she.

“He’s flying in with Elizabeth and Cassie now. He should be there just ahead of us.”

She could feel the tension filling the Jeep now. Between her and Kiowa. The more she burned, the madder he seemed to get.

Could he tell? she wondered. Did he sense the building arousal? Just what she needed. The son of a bitch didn’t just drug her with some kind of weird animal aphrodisiac, but he could sense the effect of it.

“Dash Sinclair is in on this?” She spoke up then, stilling the tears as anger washed over her. She had met Dash Sinclair and his wife Elizabeth. Their daughter Cassie was a sweet, if odd little child. They had met with her father during one of the endless meetings the month before.

“None of us were in on anything, Ms. Marion, but protecting your hide,” Simon told her harshly. “Things are turning out bad, I admit, but we did our best.”

“Your best sucks,” she informed him furiously. “They’ll find me.”

Her father would not take this lying down, she thought. If the Breeds thought they had trouble before, it would be nothing compared to what her father and brother would bring down on them now.

“They have to know you’ve gone first,” Kiowa snapped. “The five men I took out behind your house disappeared, Manda. And they didn’t walk away. Your security detail is still sleeping peacefully and breathing. For the moment. And your father doesn’t have a clue you’re gone.”

She blinked back at him. She remembered Tammy Brock then, her nervousness, her request to use the bathroom. How had they convinced Tammy to help them? Better yet, why had her bodyguards ignored the back door indicator light as they had? At no time was she supposed to use that door after dark. She never had.

“The security detail was helping them,” she whispered in shock. “They had to be. Tammy deactivated the alarm on the back door when she went to the bathroom, but they should have known that. The safeguards would have warned them of that.”

“Damn, she’s a bright one, Kiowa. You might want to consider keeping her.” Simon’s glowing praise was slightly mocking.

Bastard.

“Why would they do that?” She shook her head, refusing to turn and even glance at Kiowa. If she looked at him, saw his eyes, his mouth, she would be a goner. “I can almost understand Tammy if it’s money. Kylie is so sick. But why did the guards help?”

“Well, that’s one we’re trying to figure out,” Simon answered her. “Who’s this Tammy person anyway?”

She quickly explained what had occurred with Kylie’s mother. The trip to the bathroom, Amanda seeing that the alarm had been deactivated. As she spoke, she had to forcibly push back the building awareness of the man at her side and the slowly rising hunger. It was like a demon inside her, claws raking at her womb, demanding the hard thrust of his cock, the white-hot release of his semen.

“Rumor drifted in that the hit would be made just after Dash made contact with the Feline Breeds,”

Stephanie revealed, her voice soft, obviously less antagonistic than the two chest-beaters sharing the vehicle with them. “We were delayed in putting together a plan to protect you when his wife, Elizabeth, went into labor. As soon as they were able to travel, Dash met with your father. He didn’t seem to take the threats seriously.”

Amanda couldn’t control the hitch in her breathing then. Neither her brother nor her father had taken a threat against her seriously? They hadn’t even told her?

“You’re lying,” she whispered then. “My parents wouldn’t risk my life.”

“They put a damned good detail on you,” Kiowa assured her. “The four men protecting you are the best. All he had to go on was a rumor, no hard intelligence. And I believe you refused to move into the White House for any length of time.”

Sarcasm colored his voice now.

But he was right, she had refused to move into the official Presidential home for any reason. The fight had been a bitter one. Why hadn’t he told her there might have been a threat? She might have changed her mind.

No, she amended that thought, she wouldn’t have. She was high on her own independence, her new job, her friends and her home. She would have required proof, not rumor.

“What now?” she asked then.

“Now, we get you to safety then contact your father,” Kiowa answered her sharply. “And we keep you there until the vote on Breed Law comes up next week. With your safety assured, President Marion will vote the bill in rather than shoot it down because you have a gun at your head.”

“And since you’ve mated with a Breed, why everything’s just going to be peachy now,” Simon drawled mockingly. “Ain’t we all lucky?”

She would have jerked up if Kiowa’s hand hadn’t suddenly pressed her back down.

“What the hell is he talking about?” she snarled, flipping around as she held the blanket close to her nakedness.

“Ignore him. He’s a twit,” Kiowa advised, his voice dangerously soft.

“Funny, he doesn’t sound like a twit. An asshole maybe, but not a twit,” she pointed out furiously. “Why did he say that?”

“Because he wants to cause trouble. Simon likes causing trouble. Don’t you, Simon?”

Amanda did not trust his tone of voice in the least.

“Oh yeah, trouble is just my middle name, ain’t it, Steph?” he drawled.

“Or something,” she replied. The underlying messages were driving Amanda crazy.

“You’re lying to me,” she told Kiowa then. “Why lie to me now?”

He breathed in roughly. “Look, Manda, it’s about as clear as daylight that you don’t want to know anything more than you already do. Just stay down and leave things alone for now. We’ll talk later.”

“I don’t want to talk later,” she replied with all the false sweetness she could muster. “I want to talk now. I want to know why the hell he called me your mate and just exactly what being a mate entails.”

His brow lifted sardonically. “As you stated earlier, you are very well aware of what an animal is. You figure it out.”

She could feel herself paling. It didn’t help the heat building in her pussy.

“What did you do to me?” Fury was enveloping her. Unfortunately, it was driving a less wanted heat higher.

His teeth flashed as he smiled. There, at the side of his mouth, his canines glittered savagely. Her shoulder ached as though in response, the heat there spreading through her.

“Do you really want to know, Manda?” he asked, his voice dangerously rough, leaning closer as she stared up at him with wide eyes. “Or would you rather just stay nice and peaceful right now, and let that heat just simmer in your snug little cunt rather than burning out of control? Keep pushing, and baby, it’s going to burn.”

She remembered the burn. And it was getting there.

“I don’t like being treated like a child,” she snapped in response. “Stop trying to hide things from me.”

“I’ve treated you like a child?” He growled. “Maybe you don’t remember some of the more memorable moments we spent together. Want me to remind you?”

His hand went for the blanket.

“Fuck. Duck and cover. We have choppers coming in low.”

Kiowa ducked and jerked the blanket until it covered them both, head to toe, insulating them in the center of a cauldron of heat as the heavy throb of helicopters broke the silence of the night.

“We have Breed soldiers ahead of us and behind us. Enough firepower to take out a militia, and we’re close to the compound,” he assured her, jerking her closer to his body as he lay half over her.

“Don’t.” He was pressing against her nakedness now, one hand low at her back, his bare chest rasping her nipples.

She didn’t give a damn about choppers. The flames were beating at her brain, burning through her body. Her senses couldn’t think of anything else or remember anything else except the feel of him pressing into her, moving in her, swelling…

She whimpered as more of her juices spilled from her pussy, preparing her for him, making the need bloom within her with a force she knew she couldn’t deny for long. What had happened? It still made no sense that her body would overrule her mind and force her surrender to a man that, first, she didn’t know, and second, wasn’t even her species. But it made little difference to her body as her nipples pressed into his chest, burning with the need for his touch.

“Please don’t touch me,” she sighed against him. How was she supposed to control the fires whipping through her body when she could feel him so close? The length of his body pressed against hers, the tempting pleasure of his cock pressing against her lower stomach, shielded only by the material of his jeans.

He stared back at her, his expression brooding as her fingers pressed against his shoulders, caressed the hard muscles of his arms. She couldn’t stand not touching him. Her body hungered for him, craved him. His hand moved slowly then, his fingers cupping the curve of her cheek, his thumb smoothing over her lips.

“It’s going to happen again, Amanda.” He kept his voice low, controlled. “How much longer do you think either of us can deny it?”

The danger had receded into the back of her mind. She didn’t care who was following them, what the helicopters were doing, or how close they were to safety. All she cared about was Kiowa pressing close to her, his body warming her.

“Don’t get all hot and bothered, boys and girls,” Simon snapped. “They’re coming in for another pass. They go for three and we’re on shoot and run. We’re close enough to make it and we have troops on standby.”

“This is turning into a fucking fiasco,” Kiowa muttered as he stared down at her, his eyes hot and glittering with demand. “Flat in the middle of a likely war zone and all I want to do is fuck you again.”

Her eyes fluttered closed. She wanted to be strong. She really did want to be strong. She needed to be strong, to deny the frantic lust beating at her brain.

“I can smell your heat, Manda,” he whispered then, causing her eyes to fly open in alarm. “It smells like honey syrup. And I’m really partial to honey.”

She trembled convulsively as his hand slid between her thighs, his fingers moving through the glaze of moisture there before he retreated. Shock held her captive as he lifted his hand then, her juices laying thick on his fingers and brought them to his mouth and allowed his tongue to move slowly, erotically over his fingers, licking them clean.