Cross Breed (Breeds 23)

“Khi, this has gone too far and for too long,” he said with quiet firmness. “You and Lobo need to figure this out … ”

“No. No.” Her hand sliced through the air as rage slipped the tether she’d kept on it.

As long as there was hope, she’d been able to keep the anger at bay. As long as there was a chance she’d been able to take each day with some semblance of control.

“Khi, the waiting is killing you and its killing Lobo. You have to settle this with your mate,” he told her, not for the first time.

“No.” She shook her head again. “Tiberius will be back … ”

“With his mate,” he broke in on her words, staring down at her gently, regretfully. “Tiberius has mated, Khi. He’s returning to the estate with his mate to take his place as Lobo’s second-in-command. Your mother’s death has been co

nfirmed, Tiberius is mated. Lobo won’t hold back any longer.”

She stepped back, feeling as though she’d taken a blow. Breath catching, she barely restrained a cry of disbelief, certain she couldn’t have heard the Breed correctly. She couldn’t have, it wasn’t possible.

“Despite your claims of hatred for him, Lobo seems to have found himself unable to tell you this. And I’ll warn you now, you’re pushing him too far. He’s your mate. An Alpha Wolf who has restrained himself to give you time to adjust to what you know is the truth. It’s time to begin adjusting to it,” Graeme’s tone hardened, his eyes taking on that freaky, scary look she always pretended didn’t bother her.

“Then I’ll leave … ”

A bark of laughter met the claim. “And do what, girl? Once the Mating Heat begins burning inside you do you think you can hide it? And it will burn, Khi. You’ve delayed it to the point that once it kicks in every Breed for a mile or farther will sense it. If you don’t allow the mating before this happens then you’ll drive Lobo crazy with it. You don’t want that,” the warning was another she’d heard before.

She knew what he believed would happen, how the Heat would snap alive inside her once the hormone he was injecting her with lost all effectiveness.

“I don’t want him,” she snapped, the anger pushing past her control. “For God’s sake, Graeme, he was my step-father.”

He grunted at that. “You know that marriage was one of convenience only … ”

“He was still married to her.” She was almost shaking with fury now. “It doesn’t matter if she’s alive, if she’s dead or somewhere fucking in between.”

Jessica Langer Reever. She’d ensured the death of her first husband, attempted to kill her Breed husband, as well as her only child. She was pure evil. She had no heart. She had no soul.

“Doesn’t matter, Khi,” he sighed heavily, shaking his head as he began shutting down the various machines he’d used to run her blood samples that evening. “Married or not, whether his wife was dead or alive, that’s your mate. You know it, he knows it. And the time to face it has come.”

She couldn’t face it. She couldn’t allow it to happen. The woman he’d married wasn’t just any woman, it was her mother. And it didn’t matter what Graeme believed—she knew, knew that Lobo had had sex with that conniving bitch. She’d known it since the week after her sixteenth birthday when she’d walked into her mother’s bedroom and caught them.

She swallowed tightly, hatred and disgust welling inside her at the memory. Naked, their bodies sheened with sweat, Lobo’s powerful muscles flexing, his hips driving between Jessica Langer’s thighs as he buried himself inside her. The memory of it enraged her, burned inside her like acid and ate at her in ways she couldn’t explain.

She was fighting to breathe, to keep from screaming at the injustice of the position she found herself in. She couldn’t accept it, she couldn’t bear it. Besides, it wasn’t Lobo she loved but Tiberius. Tiberius who had mated. Who was returning to the estate with the woman he loved. And that was all her fault. If he hadn’t left, if he had loved her, then she wouldn’t have to face mating a Breed she hated.

“Khi, you need to talk to Lobo,” Graeme advised her then. “Don’t keep pushing him. Don’t keep challenging him.”

“There has to be a way to stop this.” There had to be.

But he was only shaking his head. “I’ve done everything I can do, ran every test I can think of. There’s no way to stop it.”

“So I should just accept it?” She sneered, feeling a shudder race through her body. “I should run upstairs and spread my legs for that bastard and let him steal my goddamned choice from me?”

He actually had the nerve to roll his eyes at her.

“That temper of yours is gonna get you in trouble, girl,” he grunted. “And lying to yourself isn’t going to help you either. Grow up. You’re not sixteen any longer and Tiberius never was a good stand-in for Lobo. Admit why you want to hate him and deal with why you don’t.”

Her lips thinned.

He thought he knew so much. Him and Lobo both. They thought they knew so much more about her than she knew herself.

“Go to hell,” she snarled, turning on her heel and stomping to the curved staircase that led from the underground caverns where Graeme kept his mad scientist lab to the house above it.

She’d be damned if she’d give into any of them so easily, especially that bastard Wolf, Lobo. He sickened her. Enraged her. He’d married a woman to ensure he could establish his pack and ignored everything else. He’d ignored her bruises, he’d ignored her disappearances, and he’d ignored every pleading look she’d given him to make it stop. He’d ignored it for his pack. And she’d ignore him and his damned Heat now. And she’d find a way to make him pay for it.