And that had Scheme’s blood running cold. No scent. That meant a Breed had learned how to camouflage himself.
“Who’s accessed the scent neutralizer Ely created?” Tanner shocked her as he questioned Cabal.
“You have a scent neutralizer?” She turned back to him in surprise. “Since when? Even the Council scientists couldn’t come up with anything to keep Breeds from detecting Breeds.”
“Vanderale Laboratories has been helping us with it.” Tanner poured a cup of coffee, his voice still tight, his body tense. “We developed it with their help just this past month and just started testing it. Evidently it works.”
“Only Ely’s supposed to have access to that,” Cabal said. “But according to her, Jolian had been in the labs lately chatting with her.”
“Chatting with her?” Tanner asked dangerously.
“Chatting,” Cabal said coldly. “Passing the time of day. Ely says they’re friends.”
Tanner turned an accusing eye on Scheme. “Harmless, is she?”
“We don’t have enough to confine her yet, Tanner,” Cabal informed him, his voice still hard. “Until we do, all we can do is watch her.”
“Then you watch her,” Tanner ordered harshly as Scheme leaned back against the kitchen island, crossed her arms over her breasts and waited.
She wasn’t going to debate this one.
“By the way, Scheme’s clothes came in this morning.” Cabal surprised her with the announcement. “She has several dresses in there to choose from for the party tomorrow night.”
“Finally, some decent clothes.” She straightened and headed for the door as she glanced back at the two men following her. “Has it ever occurred to you two that sometimes you get a little intense over things?”
She caught their confused looks.
“What the hell do you think we’re too intense over now?” Tanner bit out.
Scheme paused, turned to them, and smiled sweetly. “The wrong person.”
And she wasn’t wrong about Jolian. There had been a few Breeds that Scheme had taken a personal interest in over the years. Jolian had been one of them.
“Has it ever occurred to you that you can be too damned trusting?” Tanner retorted harshly.
“Yeah. It has.” She nodded somberly. “Every day of my life for the past eight years. But this isn’t one of those cases.”
With that, she turned on her heel and entered the foyer, before striding quickly to the stairs.
She had been too trusting many times, but not since Chaz. Chaz had taught her the value of questioning any trust she had. She no longer trusted in people; she trusted in herself. In her ability to profile.
She hadn’t failed in suspecting Tanner of being the spy; his profile had fit the possibility. Jolian didn’t even come close to a possibility.
“God forbid we ever give her the chance to say ‘I told you so,’” Cabal muttered.
“Don’t tempt fate,” Tanner growled. “Because I have a feeling she would exact payment out of our hides.”
Scheme smiled. Of course she would.
As they topped the stairs, Callan was heading from the end of the hall, where it turned to his family suite, his expression tight, his eyes glowing with fury.
“We have a problem,” he grated, stopping at Tanner’s door as Cabal moved ahead of them and entered the rooms.
Scheme watched as Cabal grabbed the electronic detector and began moving over the room, finally nodding the all-clear.
“Your father has just held a press conference.” Callan directed the disgusted comment to her. “He’s claiming you’ve been kidnapped and brainwashed. Reports are already coming through of the pure blood societies arming and preparing to go hunting. They’re going after Breed hides.”
“We expected this,” Tanner pointed out to him. “The party tomorrow will alleviate a lot of the suspicion.”
“Callan!” Jonas stalked into the room. “We just blocked a transmission out of Sanctuary. Someone’s attempting to upload information on the mating heat. We broke the encryption on it; it was sloppy for a change. They have everything.”
“And if it gets out, we’re fucked!” Callan’s growl was a primal, furious rasp. “I want a complete blackout on transmissions out. Cell phones, sats and landlines as well as Internet. Whoever our spy is, they’re getting ready to make their move.”
“I’ll get a statement together and prepare for a news conference after the party tomorrow announcing the engagement,” Tanner informed them quickly. “Jonas, have you tracked where the transmission came from?”
“We’re working on it. It was bounced around Sanctuary like a damned ball. It’s just a matter of time.”
“And the spy knows that,” Scheme informed them. “He’s getting ready to make his move. He’s trying to get the information on mating heat to Father to create chaos within Sanctuary when it’s released. That will allow him the break he needs to take David and get him out of the estate.”
“Move.” Callan nodded to Jonas. “Do whatever it takes. I want that bastard found. Now!”
Jonas’s gaze was fiercely intent as he turned and left the room, the accompanying Breeds following quickly behind him.
“Tanner, get that statement ASAP,” Callan rasped. “Let’s defang this bastard before I have to kill him myself.”
And he could do it. Tanner watched as the pride leader stalked from the room, his expression savage, his eyes cold amber. Callan had protected them for nearly ten years before the world ever knew they existed. He had killed, silently, remorselessly, and he had assured the safety of the other members of his main pride as they healed and grew to enjoy the freedoms he ensured for them.
Tanner knew Callan wouldn’t hesitate to go hunting Council members or collaborators again if the need arose. It was a risk they couldn’t take. Not now, while the world was watching them so closely.
Grimacing, he turned to Cabal as his brother made his way to the connecting suite.
“Cabal, find that bastard,” he growled.
His brother shot him a cold smile. A smile of promised agreement. “I’ll slip out of my rooms and go hunting.”
Tanner blew a restless breath out before turning to Scheme. She had the television on, working the remote to show several major news channels at once on the screen, searching for threads, for hints of how her father would attack next.
“It’s only a matter of time,” she murmured then. “News of the mating heat is going to break. Ten years is too long for anything that explosive to stay hidden.”
“We’ll counter it.” His eyes narrowed as she shifted, subtly pressing her thighs together as the scent of her heat filled his sense once again.
She had been burning for hours and refused to sate the need. He could smell it building in her now. Hell, he had scented it building within her the first hour after they had left their bed that morning.
She shifted again, finally sitting down in the chair at her side and leaning forward as she watched the news. Her gaze was restless as she scanned each view on the television screen, listening to the alternate statements, one of which was a review of General Tallant’s accusation that the Breeds had kidnapped his daughter and were now brainwashing her.
“He always has a fallback position,” she murmured. “What’s his fallback this time?”
“Hell,” Tanner suggested, moving to her as he stripped his shirt off.
He was tired of waiting. The scent of her need called out to him, stroked over his senses like vibrant fingers of an electrical charge. Like static. Sensitizing him and reminding of the pleasure he had only ever found with her.
He pulled his boots off behind her chair, released the belt of his jeans as he straightened, and released the snap and zipper as he rounded her seat. By the time he was beside her, she was turning to him, her brown eyes like rich milk chocolate, melting and heating as he stripped the jeans from his legs.
“I should be watching this,” she breathed out as he knelt in front of her and lifted the remote from her hand. “I have to figure out what he’s planning.”
“In a minute you can watch it,” he promised. “The playback works really well on that model. You won’t miss a thing.”
His fingers gripped the bottom of her sweatshirt and lifted, revealing her creamy tummy as she leaned back in the chair, her hands going to his bare shoulders.
Her nails scraped at his flesh, reminding him of a cat’s kneading. Smiling tightly at the thought, he leaned forward and nipped at the skin he revealed, drawing her shirt up and over her breasts before she lifted her arms and removed it herself.
Her braless breasts were swollen, the hard tips of her nipples lifting out to him. They made his mouth water. Made need claw at his balls. But the glimmer of emotion and need clenched at his heart. God, she made him relish every moment that he breathed. He had never felt so alive, so filled with power as he did when she looked at him like that. Like he was the center of her existence at that moment, the forefront of her focus. Like he belonged to her as much as she belonged to him.
It hit him then. As her slender fingers eased the material of her sweatpants down her thighs, it slammed into him. He belonged. To someone. For someone. He was a part of a whole, rather than a cog in a community fighting to survive. If he died today, the world would go on without him. If he died today, this woman would always remember him. His touch, his kiss, his warmth as he held her at night. She would be alone. Forsaken by the heat that bound them. Unable to ever love again as she loved at this moment.
And he couldn’t allow that. He would survive for her. And he would make certain she survived for him.
He took the material of the pants from her hands as they cleared her knees and finished removing them before he spread her thighs and stared at the dew-laden curls between them.
She was so wet that her cream glistened on the soft pink folds and silken curls.
“Don’t leave me,” he whispered.
“Never,” she whispered. “You make me whole.”
He had to clench his teeth against the emotions that swept through him. She made him whole.
His hands slid up her thighs, then to her hips, pulling her forward as he moved closer. He wanted to worship her. He wanted to show her all the pleasure she gave him. He had every intention of lowering his lips to the sweet essence that eased from her pussy, but he found himself pressing into her instead.
Her breath caught. He heard it.
Her womb spasmed with pleasure as the head of his cock snugged inside her. He could smell it. That pleasure. Racing through her, making her wetter as she stared back at him from beneath hooded eyes, her hands wrapped around his wrists as she watched him begin to work his erection inside the sensitive flesh of her heated sex.
Tanner paused there, his eyes closing at the feel of her surrounding that sensitized crest. Beneath the head he could feel the barb throbbing just beneath this skin, preparing to swell, to erect at the point of his release and lock him inside her.
“I love your soft curls,” he whispered as he pressed deeper into her, grimacing at the flexing of her inner muscles, at the tremulous sigh that left her lips. Those soft curls were clinging to his shaft as he retreated, drawing his gaze, holding him mesmerized with the wondrous sight of her response to him. Silky soft cream glistened on the head of his cock before it disappeared inside her once again.
“’Cause you don’t have any,” she gasped.
“Maybe.” He had to fight to breathe. To keep from taking her hard, fast. To work his cock inside her with slow, steady thrusts, a little deeper each time, feeling her shift, lift, her legs wrapping around his hips as her hands smoothed over his shoulders.
Why had he never taken her like this before? he wondered. In this big overstuffed chair, on his knees before her, watching as each inch of his erection possessed her. It was the most erotic sight of his life.
