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He drew away a second later as the phone at his side rang.
“There’s no way to impersonate me to my mate,” Callan growled as he stared back at Jonas. “If you’re in doubt regarding an order, bring Merinus to me. It’s the only safety precaution we can depend on. Until then, find out what the hell is going on here, and where these fucking orders came from.”
“Gentlemen.” Kane sighed as he lowered the phone that had rung at his side moments before. “Our problems have just been added to.”
Callan’s gaze cut to him.
Just what the hell they needed, a bigger problem. As though dealing with Jonas and Ely butting heads over the enforcers again wasn’t enough.
Kane looked at them all mockingly. “Ms. Rodriquez has just notified her boss that her job is being blocked, she’s been insulted, and she’s requested the Vanderale heli-jet to be sent to transport her to the airport, where the Vanderale private jet is to pick her up. Let’s kiss our funding good-bye right now. It was nice while it lasted.”
CHAPTER 10
In her life Ria couldn’t remember ever being so furious as she had been when she walked out of Sanctuary. And she couldn’t even explain to herself why the burning anger was rushing through her so powerfully.
The moment she entered the cabin, she put her case on the bar and lifted the laptop from it before setting it on the counter and lifting the screen.
She pulled her email up, very much aware that her connection was through Sanctuary’s secured network and would be intercepted. She didn’t bother to encrypt the email she typed out to Dane, and pushed “send.”
She let a smile tip her lips. She had no intention of leaving Sanctuary, but it would bring Dane on their asses like a ton of bricks.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Mercury stated as he passed by her on the way to the kitchen. “And you need to eat. You haven’t eaten today.”
She curled her fingers against the counter and bit back the smart-assed comment hovering on her lips. Yeah, she was a bitch. She knew she was a bitch, but it was an attitude that worked for her. Usually. She had a feeling the consequence of that attitude might be more than she could handle at the moment. And besides, she knew how to be a cautious bitch. It was the intelligent path to take when Dane was in one of his crappy moods as well; she hoped it worked with Mercury.
“This isn’t the time to treat me as though I were one of your underlings,” she informed him coolly, though she felt anything but cool. “Sanctuary has some serious problems at the moment, Mercury.”
“And canceling their funding is going to help that?” He snorted as he faced her from the other side of the bar. “If there’s a power play within the ranks, then we need to figure out who’s doing it and what the hell is going on.”
“Why should I bother? Why should you?” She glared back at him, pushed to a limit she hadn’t known she had. “Do you think I haven’t read your Sanctuary file?” She hadn’t been given the lab files. “Are you aware, Mercury, that your pride leader has all but disavowed you?” Her accent slipped free. Dammit. “Ah, why the hell do I care? Obviously you don’t.”
She reached behind her to release the bun at the back of her head, her headache intensifying with each moment it weighed on her head.
The long strands of hair rippled through her fingers as she turned away and pushed her fingers through it in frustration.
“Do you know . . .” She went silent as she turned back to him. “Mercury?”
He was moving around that counter, slowly. His eyes were hammered gold rather than amber, those blue sparks intensifying the color once more.
Berserker. Once, long ago, his ancestors had terrified English conquerors with their savagery and strength.
It wasn’t rage she saw in his eyes though, it was hunger. Arousal. The same arousal that had tormented her since that kiss days before. The one that had left her burning each night, enflamed, tossing and turning in her bed as she struggled against the need for his body and her need to protect her heart.
“I like this blouse.” He stopped in front of her, the backs of his fingers caressing along the shoulder of the silk blouse she wore. “Why don’t you take it off?”
“Take it off?” she whispered. “How insane would that be?”
Did his expression appear more savage than normal? His eyes more sensual?
“That way I won’t have to rip it off you,” he stated, his voice rough, watching as his fingers rubbed against the material before he lifted his gaze to hers. “I wouldn’t want to destroy such pretty clothes.”
She wanted him to rip the shirt from her. She wanted something she didn’t understand, something she had never faced about herself before. She wanted her lover to be wild. But as much as she wanted him to rip her clothes from her, she wanted to rip his as well.
And that terrified her. She wasn’t a wild lover. Hell, one of her lovers had even told her she was much too polite in bed for his tastes. But Mercury, he made her want wild. He made her want to be wild.
She backed away from him, watching his gaze flicker, his expression turn mocking.
“Afraid?” he asked her.
