Cross Breed (Breeds 23)
“Cassie, sweetheart, it’s time to go now.” Dash Sinclair pushed through the foliage that hid her from the door, his amber gaze piercing as it went over her. “Are you all right?”
Was she all right? His guards had checked the area before she entered it; no one knew the visitor had been there.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Looking around the atrium, seeing the Breeds who still searched it, she turned back to him, realizing with heavy sadness that her time there was finished. “It’s not like I’m actually outside, right?”
He stared behind her, his eyes narrowed, nostrils flaring as though testing the air for any unfamiliar scents.
“Why are they searching the room?” she questioned him then. “They searched it before I came in.”
If they found her visitor, what would they do to him? Her father would be furious. Whoever he was, he carried no scent, which meant he was trying to hide from Breeds. No doubt he was the enemy.
“There’s been trouble in the main house,” he told her, a growl in his voice. “Come on, let’s get you back upstairs.” He held his hand out to her, his expression implacable when his gaze returned to hers. “It’s getting late.”
She was being dragged back to her room as though she were a toddler. Evidently the trouble had already been taken care of and her father had somehow realized she wasn’t in her room when he went to check on her.
“And of course I’m still a child who has no idea how to defend myself, nor do I have guards on my ass twenty-four-seven.” She ignored his outstretched hand and pushed past him instead. “For God’s sake, Dad, I’m not ten.”
She didn’t wait around for his reply or the confusion she knew she would glimpse in his eyes. He couldn’t understand, couldn’t know the hell her dreams were becoming or the anger that clashed through her every waking second.
She was going to die here soon. So very soon.
If her father had just let her have this time, in this place, maybe she could have stolen something for herself. Maybe she could have figured out why the man whose gunsights she’d felt on the balcony outside her room didn’t terrify her.
Why he drew her.
Why she ached for his warmth for just a moment, just for tonight. Because tomorrow night would be too late. She’d seen the vision of the bullet, the blood. She’d watched herself fall within that waking dream.
She’d be dead.
• • •
He watched her leave, a shadow within a shadow, and waited for the Breed Enforcers who followed her father to clear the room. It took them a while.
Of course, they knew he was there. What they couldn’t smell, they could sense, and they sensed him. Rather than moving or becoming nervous because of their continued search, he merely waited, patient, unconcerned. At first, half of them left; the others were still and silent, waiting for movement. They waited for a quarter of an hour; then they all left, but one.
He would have grinned if he didn’t know that slight movement would give him away. The Breed they left was damned good. Patient. Deadly. Experienced in the hunt.
This one waited nearly an hour.
“You’re good,” the voice whispered through the darkness. “Whoever you are, you’re damned good.”
Yeah, he was damned good.
He remained calm, patient. He wasn’t worried in the least. He knew how to do this, and he was good at it.
“I’ll be waiting,” the Scots Wolf assured him, his brogue more apparent now. “If you want to live, you’ll stay the hell away from her.”
The Breed didn’t attempt to hide his movements or his ire as he stomped to the doors and disappeared through them.
Still, he didn’t move. He remained on the ledge far above the atrium and simply stared down at the pool where Cassie had sat.
He’d nearly been caught, and that fact wasn’t lost on him. He hadn’t been listening for company; he’d been too busy listening to the quickening of her breath, smelling the spice of her innocent arousal, the sweetness of her. It had been a hell of a risk to take.
She was a woman worth risking his life for.
What Breed wouldn’t risk everything for his mate?
• CHAPTER 1 •