His tongue slipped past her lips, mated with hers, rubbed at it, felt the silken softness and the measure of the woman as she accepted him with soft innocence.
It wasn’t mating heat. It was just a man and a woman, that was all. Surrounded by warmth, by the attraction and the flaring emotion that happened only once in a lifetime. When one man and one woman fated to be together, came together.
That moment had happened in the bar when their eyes met. When their lives had merged and destiny had given them that one and only chance.
One chance. One moment out of time and Malachi refused to lose it.
She was his mate.
Letting her go wasn’t an option.
Holding her, ensuring her safety, her protection and, God, loving her. Those were his only options.
Easing back, he stared into the soft depths of her cobalt eyes and whispered, “For the first time in such a long, lonely life, I touched love.” Trailing his hand from the back of her head where he’d held her to him, he let his palm cup the fragile line of her jaw as his thumb brushed over her kiss-swollen lips. “You’re my mate, Isabelle. Frightening you is the last thing I want to do, but Breeds, like the animals we’re created from, heed our instincts, unlike man. Every instinct that makes up the creature I am knows what you are to me. Courting you isn’t an option. Wooing you isn’t in the equation because nature won’t allow the humanity inside us to chance losing that one moment, that single chance we have to claim what is ours. Or to allow our mates the opportunity to fear or to doubt and to turn away. That’s all mating heat is, baby. That’s all nature meant for it to be. Everything else is optional, but staying together, learning our way and learning what true love, what soul mates, were meant to be isn’t a choice any longer. It’s now a part of everything we are. It’s like death and taxes. Inescapable.”
She swallowed tightly. “Breeds don’t pay taxes.”
Trust her to have to point out the one flaw in the ages-old saying.
His lips quirked in amusement. Nature was indeed the perfect matchmaker, because this woman would be more than a challenge. She would keep him on his toes. There wouldn’t be a chance to be the lazy, shiftless Coyote that all of his Breed pretended to be.
“Breeds don’t pay taxes,” he agreed. “We have mates to keep us in line instead.”
Her head settled on his chest, her cheek against his heart as Malachi let his hand smooth from her shoulder to the middle of her back.
“It’s not going to be that easy, Malachi,” she whispered. “You know it’s not.”
He knew it wouldn’t be. “What is the old saying?” he asked softly. “Nothing worth having is easy? If it were easy, baby, would it be as important?”
He found a curl of hair that trailed over her shoulder and caught it between his thumb and finger. Rubbing it, experiencing the softness of it, he stared up at the ceiling as he inhaled slowly.
“No, it won’t be easy.” The scent he caught assured him of that. There was very little time left. “We need to get dressed, baby.”
She levered up and stared down at him. He could smell the trepidation, the edge of nervousness rising inside her. “Why?”
“We’re about to have company.” Moving from the bed, Malachi gathered her clothing, handed it to her then collected his own.
Rule was leading the pack, so to speak. He could smell his commander’s anger, just as he could smell the anger of the men with him.
“What’s going on, Malachi?” Nervousness was edging into fear as she pulled her dress over her head and allowed the silken length to fall to her feet.
Hell, they hadn’t had enough time, not enough to combat what he sensed was coming, he feared.
“Commander Breaker, your father, uncle and grandfather are coming up the hall,” he told her. “The commander is trying to delay them. Breaker never moves that slow, which means they’re not heading to a meeting. They’re coming here.”
He glanced at the bed, and on the sheets he saw the proof of the innocence he had taken not long before.
“Great,” Isabelle muttered. “Just what I need. How did any of them even know where I was?”
Exactly. Neither Breaker nor Stygian would have informed the three men of Isabelle’s whereabouts, and her sister and friend wouldn’t have known. At least not for certain.
A hard knock at the door signaled the arrival of the group.
“How did you know they were coming?” she hissed as a startled flinch had her jerking toward the door.
“I could smell them,” he sighed. “The commander is pissed and your family more so.”
Striding to the door, he gripped the knob and opened it slowly, placing himself in the small opening he made.
“Can I help you, Commander?” he asked Rule, though his gaze met that of her father, Terran Martinez.
“The Martinez family is here to collect the girl,” Rule stated coldly. “Produce her, Malachi.”
The order grated on the independence and pride that Malachi knew he had a surfeit of. He pulled his gaze slowly from the father and met his commander’s. “They can see her, but no one is collecting her.”
“The hell we’re not.” Terran Martinez was clearly furious. “I’ll be taking my daughter home, Coyote, whether you like it or not.”
Hell, this wasn’t the footing he’d wanted to begin his life with Isabelle on.
He could feel her moving toward him.
“I feel I should inform you, Commander Breaker, Isabelle Martinez will not be leaving this room. To allow anyone to force her to leave will be breaking Breed law.”
He had no idea how much these men may or may not know about mating heat. There were times the people of the Nation knew more than anyone wanted them to know. He was informing his commander subtly that Isabelle was now his mate, and therefore under every Breed’s protection. Including Rule’s.
“Mr. Martinez,” Rule said softly. “As I told you, this meeting will be held with civility, and the only way Ms. Martinez will go anywhere is if it’s her wish.”
Isabelle stepped to her mate’s side. “Dad?” Confusion and hurt laced her voice as Malachi allowed her only a sliver of room to face the men confronting him from the hall. “What’s going on?”
“Get out here, Isabelle.” Stone-faced and furious, Terran Martinez spoke in a tone that had Malachi’s hackles immediately rising and a growl rumbling in his throat.
Isabelle laid her hand on his arm, a move that was immediately noticed by all five men as they stood in the hall.
“Perhaps it would be best if we discussed this in the room,” Rule suggested calmly, if mockingly. “You never know when or where a damned journalist is hiding.”
And he was right, Malachi knew he was right, but he was loath to have the fury of the Martinez family invading the scent of his mate’s pleasure that filled the room.
“Malachi,” Commander Breaker growled in a reminder that the walls didn’t just have ears, but could have eyes as well.
Turning his head slowly, he looked at Isabelle. He could smell her confusion, her fear and her hurt. The three scents were an affront to the protective instincts that raged inside him for her.
“Malachi, it’s my family,” she said softly. “I won’t turn them away.”
She didn’t say she couldn’t turn them away, she said she wouldn’t. Restraining a sigh, he stepped back and steeled himself. Because he had a very bad feeling that this first test of the world against the union he had dreamed of could very well steal the dream from his desperate, greedy grasp.
Chapter Seven
Then your smile lit my world.