Styx's Storm (Breeds 16)

CHAPTER 14

"Come on, you're going to dinner wi' me." Styx stood in the bedroom as Storme walked from the shower later the next evening, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared back at her impassively.

The past twenty-four hours hadn't been easy ones for her. A sense of impending doom, of disaster, had settled over her, warning her it was time to go.

Over the years she had developed an uncanny sense of danger, a premonition of coming disaster, and that self-preservation instinct was riding her hard to run.

"I'm not hungry." Tightening her fingers on the towel, she stared back at him with a sense of trepidation. She couldn't leave the house, not yet. Not until she had a plan in place and an idea where to run.

Each time she had moved for the back door since the evening before, she had felt a bull's-eye painted on her chest. When Styx had walked from the house, she could have sworn she saw it painted on him as well.

And it scared her. It scared her more than her own emotions scared her, and those emotions made her damned nervous.

"Too bad." He shrugged, as though it didn't matter. "Get dressed, lass. I've grown weary of your stubbornness now. You're going with me."

Storme's lips tightened. "You don't want to force this, Styx. I'll only embarrass you."

A red brow arched in mockery as his blue eyes gleamed with confident arrogance. An arrogance she hadn't really glimpsed until now. That look had her stomach clenching, her pussy creaming, and something softening in her chest that shouldn't be softening.

Had she been so busy surviving that she had missed out on more than she had ever imagined? Was she only a woman who could sense danger, but had no idea what her own emotions were? All she had was the knowledge that it was time to run.

"Then I'll only embarrass you back by turning you over my knee and paddling that cute little arse of yours," he informed her, his voice hard as she watched him, wishing things were different, wishing the past ten years hadn't been as they were. That she had learned what other women had learned by now. That she had deciphered her emotions as a teenager, like most women did. Instead of standing here wondering if he would truly paddle her for embarrassing him, and wondering why her butt cheeks were clenching as though it might be enjoyable.

Storme had a very bad feeling he wasn't joking about the spanking, just as she had a feeling he might have scented the sudden rush of excitement that heated her clit and the inner depths of her pussy.

There was a strange look in his eyes. One of pure male determination and male lust, and that look was frankly terrifying to some hidden, feminine part of her psyche. That look had warning signals flaring in her brain that were nearly as imperative as the self-preservation instinct urging her to run.

"I'm not much of a social person, Styx. Besides, I get damned tired of watching you and Cassandra Sinclair fawn all over each other," she informed him as she dropped the towel and padded to the small dresser where he had deposited what appeared to be some rather sinful underclothes earlier. New ones. She loved new under pretties. She'd been forced to stop wearing them years ago because she just couldn't afford them. But these, damn, she couldn't resist.

Pulling the drawer open, she lifted a pair of violet silk panties from inside and paired them with the matching silk camisole.

Pulling the underclothes on, she ignored the hunger that tightened his face, or she tried to. There was no way to halt the slick dampness that eased from her sex, or the hardening of her nipples that pressed against the cool silk.

When she felt his fingers curling around her upper arm to turn her to face him, she also felt the weakness that suffused her, the feminine sexual submission that flooded her entire being.

If sexual submission threatened to overwhelm her, then male sexual dominance burned in him. His expression was tight with it, his entire body tense, aroused as he faced her.

"Tonight is a very important celebration," he growled down at her. "You will dress as you would dress to celebrate a friend's special night. You will be polite, and by God, Storme, you will stand at my side as my woman, or I promise you, it will be something we'll both regret."

"What's going on, Styx?" Her voice trembled, an indication even to herself that she had no idea how to handle this situation, or the relationship developing between them.

He stared at her as though a question plagued him, a suspicion he couldn't fully release.

"I know when to behave myself," she assured him mockingly. "But it rather helps if I'm given the truth of a situation I'm about to enter into."

His lips tightened for long moments. "Do you want to avoid Breed Law for a little while longer, Storme?"

Breed Law. Storme stared back at him as her heart seemed to drop to the pit of her stomach. She couldn't afford to face Breed Law and she knew it. The years she had spent speaking out against the Breeds would only come back to haunt her.

"I haven't committed a crime against Breed Law since coming here." She swallowed tightly. "I make certain of it. I didn't even seriously try to escape last week. I don't leave the cabin, I don't socialize ..."

"And you're holding information vital to a member of the Breed Ruling Cabinet," he reminded her. "Information you're refusing to hand over. Very carefully placed, very subtly written in the public laws, but clearly spelled out in the Breed version, such an act committed by Breed, human, a member of Haven or Sanctuary or not, is an offense against Breed Law."

She hadn't considered that. She remembered now listening during several pure blood society meetings as Breed laws, the public ones, were discussed. That particular law had come into question as the members of that society had tried to define it. There had been no other way to understand it other than as Styx just explained it.

"Okay, so I want to avoid Breed Law a bit longer," she stated with an attempt at flippancy. "What do I have to do?"

"Just as I said." He released her as though her flesh burned. "Stay at my side and at least try to pretend that you consider yourself my woman. That's the only way I can protect you at the moment."