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“They deserted you, Ria,” he said, his voice quiet, but filled with anger. “They should have raised you.”
“They should have done exactly as they did.” She turned
and faced him then. “Actually, they should have done much less, in order to fully protect themselves. I’m a hybrid, Mercury, and not even a particularly effective hybrid. My talents are simple, my instincts regressed. For all intents and purposes, I’m merely human. They risked themselves in what little they did, and I’m grateful for it.”
“They didn’t love you,” he growled.
She smiled sadly at the accusation. “They loved me, Mercury. And they love me now. I didn’t tell you what I was because I’ve never forgotten the value of silence. My lover died in front of me. Begging me for mercy. Begging me to stay Dane’s wrath. Because my lover betrayed me. He risked my capture, as well as the Leo’s, Elizabeth’s and Dane’s. My bad judgment could have destroyed us all. And it never will again.”
The limo door opened as she finished speaking. Drawing her jacket closer around her, she never felt the cold as she stepped out into it. All she felt was the heat, clawing at her insides. She had waited too long and she knew it. Sating the horrific arousal tearing her apart wouldn’t be easy. Nor would it be gentle.
Mercury escorted her to the cabin, stepped inside ahead of her and waited as she entered. He closed the door slowly, then locked it.
The sound of the click was like a bomb going off inside her mind. Her knees weakened, and her tongue began to itch. She closed her eyes. She didn’t have the glands beneath her tongue that Mercury did; she didn’t have the hormone needed to induce mating heat. But she could still feel the anomalies in her own body. She had felt them since the first time she had come in contact with him.
“What was his name?” Mercury asked her.
Ria knew who he meant. She shrugged out of the leather coat before sitting down and unlacing her boots.
“His name was Jason. He was the son of one of Leo’s contractors. They never realized what happened to their son. Dane had his body flown back to Jo’burg and placed where he would be found. It appeared an act of random violence.”
“He deserved it, Ria,” Mercury growled.
She turned to face him slowly. “He didn’t deserve it. I could have saved him. Dane looked back at me before he killed him. He gave me the choice and I remained silent. Because I knew if I stayed his hand, Leo, Dane and the Breeds they had rescued over the years would never be safe again.”
The choices Dane had been forced to make broke her heart. The choice she had made that day had never broken her soul.
“Which doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell your Breed mate that you’re a Breed,” he pointed out, and though his voice was calm, she could feel his anger.
“Because I no longer consider myself a Breed, hybrid or otherwise,” she said. “And I wouldn’t have, as long as I could have kept that part of me in submission. There was no reason to tell you, simply because I had no intentions of allowing it to be free.”
His lips lifted in a silent snarl as he paced to the other side of the room. He didn’t try to touch her. She was burning, in agony; the pain that swept through the arousal was killing her.
“Are you regretting the mating?” she asked him then. She had expected this, but that didn’t mean she welcomed it.
He turned back to her slowly. “Have I said I do?”
“You haven’t touched me. All day.”
His expression transformed. It became hard, savage, relentless.
“You want it, you’ll take it. No excuses. Claim what’s yours or you can suffer for it. Knowing what I know now, I’ll have no mercy, Ria. You’re a Breed, and whether you like it or not, the instincts of that animal are inside you. You can use them, by God, or we’ll do without all that wild, hot sex we’re both dying for.”
She stared back at him in surprise. “You’re not serious, Mercury. Breed males don’t wait for their mates to make the first move. When did you lose your senses?”
“When you screwed up my mind and my soul with every emotion I swore I’d never feel for a woman,” he snarled back at her. “When I realized you’ll walk away before you’ll fight for any damned thing you want. A man has his pride, and a Breed has even more. You want it, mate? Come and get it.”
CHAPTER 25
Ria’s eyes narrowed on Mercury. Those leather pants cupped and loved the erection straining beneath them. The heavy boots made his legs look more powerful, stronger than ever before. The T-shirt made her mouth water at the way it stretched across his chest.
Her mouth watered period. She needed his kiss. She needed the mating elixir filling her senses, taking her down that dark path of sexual hunger and need. It was a craving. A greedy addiction. Her nails curled at the thought of taking it, of tasting it, becoming gluttonous with the taste of him.
“Take your boots off,” she warned him.
His brows arched, but he obliged her. He sat down on the couch, releasing the buckles and pulling the boots off before he leaned back and stretched his arms over the back cushions.
Ria’s breathing became heavy, laborious.
