Megans Mark (Breeds 6)

"Enough!" She struggled against him, her fists pressing against his chest as his hand moved to her thigh, his fingers coming too close to the blazing center of her body. God, she needed his touch. Had needed it for days. And now it was so close, satisfaction so near that she could taste it. It tasted of cinnamon and brown sugar. Of nutmeg and male heat. Pure male heat.

"Enough?" He grunted the word, the rough growl in his voice sending shudders quaking through her body as the animalistic sound seemed to echo around her.

"This won't solve anything. " She tore from his grip, very well aware that he had let her go, and that it had nothing to do with her own strength, which had completely deserted her now. Even her damned knees were still shaking.

"It will solve many things. " His gaze was heavy-lidded, his expression possessive, lustful. "You're mine, Megan. You know it as well as I do. You've sensed it from the very beginning. You know it. "

Her head lifted as she fought the need pulsing heavily through her veins.

It was mixed with fury. She hadn't asked him to do this to her. She hadn't asked him to interfere in her life, to attempt to use her. And he was trying to use her.

The curse he was so insistent that she court was one that would destroy her. She had seen the destruction years ago in her nightmares.

"Stop. I can't do this. "

He lifted his brow. Megan felt her teeth gritting as anger surged hot and heavy inside her veins, mixing with the lust to create a cauldron of heat that blazed through the center of her body.

The lust wasn't so bad. Actually, she kind of liked that part, she had to admit. But his heavy-handed, know-it-all male stuff was going to get on her nerves fast.

He shook his head slowly as he crossed his arms over his chest and stared around the room.

"Why? So you can continue to hide, Megan? What is so frightening about knowing the truth?"

"The truth?" She pushed her fingers through her hair as bitterness welled inside her, "And how do you know the truth, Braden? I don't sense truth;

I sense whatever was felt at the time. That doesn't necessarily mean it's the truth. "

Another painful piece of knowledge that the curse had taught her.

"In this case, it could bring you the truth," he pointed out softly. "The Council wants you dead, Megan, and they won't stop until you are. Unless you stop them first. Will you die for them?"

Will you die for them? She didn't want to die. She wanted to live. She wanted to fight as she was meant to fight, to know adventure, life. Love. She wanted all those things she had dreamed of as a child. Before she had begun feeling the remnants of broken lives and broken dreams. Before she had realized the danger she could become to anyone she worked with, anyone she was around.

"You don't know that. " She shook her head fiercely.

"You can't be certain. "

His laughter was rife with knowledge, dark and brutal. His expression was a grimace of savage, remorseless truth.

Of course they could kill her. He was proof that they could and would tamper in ways nature had never intended.

"I can be certain. " He tilted his head as he watched her.

"And you know it's the truth. You know it, Megan, just as well as I do. "

She flinched at his words. The news was still filled with stories of new horrors discovered within the Breed Labs, and the records found. The experiments, so horrible, so demonic that even now, years after the first Breed had come forward, the world could only look on in shock.

"Aimee was one year out of the Labs," he reminded her then. "If you read the files that were confiscated when the Lab fell you would know that before her rescue she was a toy. She hadn't grown in strength, in effectiveness, so she was turned over to the Council Trainers and guards for their pleasure. "

"Stop. " She didn't want to hear this.

"They raped her. Day after day, night after night. They allowed her to run; they let her fight and they laughed at her weakness as they raped her. Over and over again, Megan. Because she wasn't human. She was a creature. A toy. Without worth. "

She wanted to cover her ears, to block out the remnants of memory, the muted screams she had heard as she stood beside the SUV. Knowledge. She had been able to block it for the small amount of time she had been there. She had kept a careful distance, hadn't touched the bodies, hadn't

touched the vehicles. Had refused to open her senses enough to feel the pain screaming through Aimee's body. But enough of it had slipped past the barrier she had slammed up that she knew of the betrayal.

"I can't tell you why they were killed. " She clenched her fists as she crossed her arms over her chest, fighting to hold back the chill moving through her. "It doesn't work that way. "