AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No.” Shaking off the loose grip, she was out of the SUV and striding quickly to the house as she pulled her bag from her shoulder, opened it, and dug the house key from inside.
She never had a chance to use it.
The front door swung open and that damned cigar-smoking Coyote with the smug smile and knowing gray eyes leaned against her door frame with arrogant confidence.
“Hello, kids.” He grinned around the cigar clamped between his teeth before reaching up to grip it in his fingers and lower it from his lips.
“What is he doing in my house?” Turning to Stygian, Liza found herself jerked back to reality with a suddenness that had her breath heaving.
The distance was gone. The inability to feel the panic, fear, but especially the overriding hunger and desperate need for something she had no idea how to describe, came crashing inside her as the abrupt appearance of the Coyote sent a rush of adrenaline crashing through her.
Dog straightened from the door frame, his expression morphing from the smug arrogance to complete business.
“He’s merely helping his men complete the security system the Bureau ordered for backup in the house,” he told them. “I apologize for the inconvenience, ma’am.”
“Don’t call me ma’am and please get the hell out of my way.” Brushing past him, Liza entered the living room to find Chelsea, a suitcase sitting beside her as she stared around the house with a frown.
“You’re leaving?” Liza came to a stop, her emotions, already thrown into chaos with too many sensations and suspicions, rife with confusion.
“I think you know we can’t stay here, Liza.” Chelsea sighed, her brown eyes somber. “Malachi and Isabelle have offered their spare room until this is over.” Her lips tilted at the corner. “Besides, there are a few too many Breeds lounging around here.” Her eyes slid to the Breed stretched back at the bottom of the stairs, propped on his elbows and watching them with mocking silence.
Loki. He pretended and played at charm and sensual abandon, but there was something tormented and angry that drove that Breed.
She barely held back the agonized cry trapped in her throat as fear slammed inside her. How did she know that? How could she sense those emotions churning inside the Breed? And why had she sensed her father’s lies and deceits at the office? Sensed them with such strength that it was like staring inside him and seeing his hatred for Stygian and his fears for her.
“I understand.” Forcing herself to nod as though she did understand, Liza admitted she didn’t understand a damned thing anymore. “Hopefully this will all be over soon.”
“That’s what we hoped when Malachi’s crew showed up. You know, I like Ashley and the girls who visit, but these male Breeds are pricks.” Chelsea shrugged as she glanced around the room at the Coyote Breeds working there. “Oh well. I guess we have to take the good with the bad, right?”
“So we were taught,” Liza agreed, aching with the loss tearing through her.
She hated this. She hated everything she was losing and everything she could feel threatening to come alive inside her. And for a moment, she hated herself for the weakness she could feel. Fear. Panic. It was all there.
The knowledge that there was something at the edge of her mind waiting to destroy her tormented her.
The aching arousal and burning need for Stygian’s touch only seemed to make it worse. Whatever was awakening within her, it had begun with this hunger for a Breed.
“Come on, Liza, we knew this was coming when Isabelle was nearly taken.” Chelsea sighed as Liza watched her painfully. “We’ve just been fighting it, hating the fact that we’ve had to give up our freedom for a while.”
Perhaps all Chelsea was giving up was her freedom, Liza thought. Liza could sense losing so much more than her freedom though.
“Maybe.” Liza shrugged. “Tell Isabelle and Malachi I said hi.”
What more could she say? She couldn’t beg Chelsea not to leave when she knew herself that even she couldn’t stay. Not right now. Perhaps not ever.
Striding to her, Chelsea gave her a tight hug. “It won’t be too long, Liza,” she promised. “And you know we’re going to invade that hotel they’ve stuck you in and have a total girls’-night-out shindig.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” A tight, brief hug and Liza released her friend before stepping back.
“Well, come on, Loki.” Chelsea gave the Breed one of those superior, you-are-my-servant looks that she was so well known for.
Loki eased from the stairs with a lazy smile and amusement gleaming in his dark gray eyes. “‘Please’ not in your vocabulary, sweetheart?”
“Neither is ‘sweetheart,’” she assured him. “So let’s get moving. Isabelle promised me lunch.”
“Lunch sounds good.” Loki seemed a bit more energetic at the mention of food.
“You weren’t invited,” Chelsea informed him.
