“You could have betrayed me at any time over the past six years,” she admitted to herself as well as to him. “You’ve known we were mates, yet you still waited to claim me. You wouldn’t have done that if you were loyal to the Council. But you didn’t answer my question.”
“I wanted your trust, simply because I’m your mate,” he finally answered her quietly. “I didn’t want it because I was suddenly more than I seemed. I wanted it, the same way I gave it.”
The same way he gave it.
And he had given it. Any other Breed would have been enraged with her father when he overheard that conversation, but Dog had known a strike against Cassie’s father would have destroyed her. And a strike against Rhyzan would have forced her father to defend the other man.
For six years, Dog had done everything she’d asked of him, no matter how difficult, and often the payment was such a blatant effort to draw her interest that she couldn’t help but agree to it.
Sunbathing in a bikini that had her parents scolding her for weeks when they caught her on the roof of the house in it. A scarf she had worn to a party left behind. Once he’d demanded that she merely talk to him for several hours on a secure sat phone he’d left for her. She’d been up half the night on that damned sat phone, listening to his voice, laughing at his often ribald humor.
“If I hadn’t trusted you, I wouldn’t have played that asinine game with you for six years and I damned sure wouldn’t have met you at the hotel,” she told him quietly as the Dragoon took a fast turn from the highway onto private land. “But that doesn’t mean I trust you with anything other than my life, Dog. And keeping more secrets, keeping me in the dark about what’s going on now, will only make it harder for me.”
He slowed as a sprawling ranch house materialized from the darkness and the wide door of a garage slowly opened. The Dragoon shot inside and shut off.
“Come on, in the house. That heli-jet is only a minute or so away working in a sweep pattern, and Mutt and Mongrel need to cool the vehicles down in a hurry.” She scooted across the console and took his hand, jumping from the vehicle and hurrying behind him as the two Coyotes worked to quickly pull the heat-masking covers over the Dragoons.
Damn Rhyzan.
Whatever his problem was, it was beginning to piss her off. God help him if she got access to the secure Mating Statutes again. Because if she wasn’t mistaken, there was definitely a way to turn the tables on him and ensure the Breed Ruling Cabinet clarified that little Reconsideration Petition.
Then she was going to make his life hell.
• • •
Dog couldn’t explain exactly what he was feeling, or what the hell it was that softened in his chest the moment Cassie had followed him without question. She hadn’t hesitated, hadn’t balked once. She hadn’t demanded to call her father or Jonas; she’d trusted her mate.
She’d had no reason to trust him, not really. Six years of messages and infrequent calls whenever she needed something wasn’t a friendship; it wasn’t a relationship. It was all that had kept him sane, though. From the moment his lips had brushed hers in that damned hospital after he’d been forced to wound her on Seth Lawrence’s island, no more than a whisper against petal-soft lips, he’d lived in hell.
Whoever thought Coyotes had it easier with Mating Heat had obviously not been talking to the males. It was ice in his gut, a chill that went to the bone, a need for his mate’s warmth that felt like talons raking beneath his flesh. Until he was close to her.
The simplest touch, his hand against her back, the warmth of her sinking into his palm through her clothes, and he was warm. Being near her would have been enough, but touching her, sharing her kiss, her lips on his flesh, his against hers … it was like life itself.
As he showed her through the single-story home, then led her to the master bedroom, he could see the weariness in her pale features, the worry in her pretty blue eyes. And the hunger. The scent of her need was like a drug hitting his senses and spurring his own.
“I need to check with Mutt and Mongrel before we turn in for the night.” He cleared his throat as she turned to look at him, her expression somber. “I won’t be long.”
Dammit, emotions weren’t his strong suit, and he was damned if he knew how to handle them.
“That works.” She nodded as she sat down in the chair positioned close to the bed and began unlacing her boots. “I didn’t pack anything to sleep in.”
“Grab a shirt from my pack. I have extras in there,” he told her. “I shouldn’t be too long, but I need to keep up with Rhyzan’s movements for a while.”
“I just want to go back to sleep anyway.” She sighed. “Rhyzan’s little meeting woke me up.”
The sexual excess earlier with her mate had exhausted her. Dragging her ass out of the bed when the chime of the doorbell sounded had been almost impossible. Now that she was coming down from the adrenaline caused her by her anger and then their flight, that weariness was washing over her once again.
She undressed quickly after he left the room, then pulled a T-shirt free of Dog’s pack as he’d offered. It almost swallowed her smaller frame, but it beat being naked.
She brushed her teeth, washed her face and, taking a deep breath, returned to the bedroom. A silent, empty bedroom. Pulling down the blankets, she slid into the bed and turned off the lamp next to the bed.
She wished there was an electric blanket. She was cold and alone. And far too uncertain about the Breed she had accepted as her mate. Or the future awaiting them now.
• CHAPTER 10 •
She hadn’t marked her mate.
That thought penetrated her sleep, filled her mind as she felt Dog slide into the bed beside her, his powerful body warm as he pulled her against him. She hadn’t known how chilled she felt until he wrapped around her, or how aroused until she felt his hardened shaft against her belly.