Rye was battered, bloodied, his shirt nearly torn from him and his throat bruised. Dane looked worse. Blood matted his tawny hair, smeared across his face, and his lips were bleeding, his nose.
She glanced back at Mercury. He had his back to her, his hands braced against the wall, ignoring all of it as he obviously fought to get hold of himself.
What the hell had happened?
She gathered her clothes together. Jeans and socks, a bulky sweater. Enough clothes that he wouldn’t lose his mind, he had warned her.
She slipped into the bathroom, uncertain what to think, what to feel. Uncertain who or what the animal was that her lover had turned into.
“Fuck.” Dane came around with a slow, slurred curse as Mercury dropped his hands from the wall and turned back to the room.
He stalked across the room, jerked a clean shirt from the dresser that had had its top cracked clean through, and tugged it on over his head.
It was tighter than normal. His jaw clenched. Feral displacement.
He pushed his fingers through his hair and fought it back. The need to kill was like a hunger burning inside him. He turned and focused on Ryan DeSalvo and Dane Vanderale, and his lips tugged into a primal, silent snarl.
“They slipped into the fucking room,” he bit out. “Nothing but shadow and they thought I wouldn’t attack?”
Ryan lifted his gaze from his boss, and Mercury saw the suspicion in his eyes. Just as he saw it in everyone else’s.
“He’s right.” Ryan shook his head and breathed out roughly. “Dane slipped in. He likes to play games with Ria. Hell, he thought it would be funny to scare the hell out of her. We didn’t know she had company until we were already in the room.”
“Li’l witch never has company.” Dane chose that moment to cough out the accusation. “She’s so damned grouchy no one can put up with her long enough to stay in a bed all night beside her.” He cracked his eyes opened and focused on Mercury. “Figures it’s you.”
Callan’s growl was intimidating, furious. “You slipped past her guards, broke into her cabin and thought for one damned minute that you could sneak up on the Breed sleeping with her?” He jerked to his feet, his long tawny hair unrestrained and flowing around his shoulders. “Son of a bitch. Do you know what? Vanderale can shove its fucking money because I’m sick of your games.” He jabbed his finger toward Dane. “Obviously genetics fucked up with you, Dane, because anyone of the first Leo would have better sense.”
“Hybrid,” Ryan snorted. “Just wait, Lyons, you’ll find out what fun raising a hybrid is.”
“He tries to slip up on me again and he’ll find out how a hybrid dies,” Mercury snapped, barely in control, but hanging on to it as Dane sat up slowly.
“Get him out of here.” Jonas rose to his feet, his gaze meeting Mercury’s, his silver eyes flat and hard. “Out to the living room and patch his ass up before I finish it off for him.”
He ran his hands over his short hair, and Mercury’s jaw bunched as they helped the other Breed to his feet.
“Dane.” That growl was still in his voice.
Dane turned his head painfully, wincing at the movement.
“Invade our bedroom again without warning, and I’ll kill you.”
“You’re not killing anyone. If you were, you would have done it tonight.” Ria stepped from the bathroom.
Mercury swung around, and something inside him stilled instantly.
She wasn’t pale or crying. Her eyes glittered with irritation, and a flush of anger mounted her cheeks. She was dressed in jeans and a bulky sweater and there was nothing to threaten whatever primal rage had built inside him at the thought of her nakedness being revealed in front of the others.
But she wasn’t happy with him either. He could hear it in her voice, seeing it in the look she shot him.
“Hell,” Dane muttered. “Rye, did we bring the knapsack?”
Rye grimaced. “It’s in the living room.”
“Don’t worry.” Dane was limping as they helped him from the room. “I have your fucking bribe.”
CHAPTER 13
Ria laid her bling on the cabinet. It was quite a nice hauclass="underline" several nearly perfect diamonds, emeralds so brilliant they were nearly blinding and a tiger’s-eye stone that swirled with magic and majesty.
She slid the stones into a velvet bag, tied it off and tucked it into the pocket of her jeans, then flipped her sat phone closed and erased the speed dial set to go straight to Leo’s emergency number. Her threat to Dane. Had the bribe not pleased her, she would have called and tattled to hell and back.
She wasn’t mercenary. It wasn’t the worth of the stones or even the stones themselves. It was the fact that they seemed to keep Dane from involving her in games that were too messy to consider allowing Leo to catch them in. She was a sucker for the games herself, but she did have a bit of caution. Dane had none.
To say Mercury was upset over the payment was putting things mildly. There were still tiny, rumbling growls echoing in his throat. And those tiny sparks of blue hadn’t completely left his eyes.
Feral displacement was a phenomenon that Breeds couldn’t control, though, and he had all the signs of it, but it was firmly under control. Dane still had his heart in his chest, and Rye still had his head on his shoulders. Ria was contenting herself with that even though she suspected Dane might have lost more blood than was wise.
“Look at her, Rye.” His tone was amused despite the pain in it. “I’m surprised she didn’t pull her jeweler’s glass out.”
She turned to face him, her insides still shaking, the knowledge of how close Dane had actually come to dying horrified her.
“You have a trip scheduled to Asia next week,” she told him. “I expect natural pearls when you return.”
He gave her a hooded look and glanced at the velvet bag. “I just paid you a fortune.”
“Two fortunes aren’t enough for what you put me through tonight,” she snapped, feeling the tears clog her throat again. “You’ve lost your mind, Dane.” She couldn’t control the accent that slipped into her voice either, and she knew every man in the room could smell her pain and her fear.
Dane grimaced at that, his gaze sliding to where Mercury attempted to place her behind him once again.
“I’d say you’ve slipped the path a bit yourself, love,” he drawled. “Why doesn’t it surprise me that you’ve mated a feral?”
“There’s no mating.” Mercury snarled the denial, and Ria thought her heart was going to break.
Hell, he could have just remained silent.
Dane stared between them, his golden brown eyes thoughtful for long moments.
“My mistake,” he finally said slowly as he glanced to Rye. “She can’t do anything the easy way, can she?”
Rye laid his head back on the couch and stared at the ceiling while Dane settled into the corner and stared back at the other Breeds in the room. Especially his brothers.
“Don’t start,” she warned him as she slid around Mercury once again, certain Dane was going to begin baiting Callan and Jonas. “This has gone too far.”
Dane shrugged. “Very well. You called for extraction. Pack your bags and I’ll have the limo sent from the private airfield we landed at. Rye and I hiked in. I doubt you want to take that path out, though. We’ll have you safe and sound in your own bed within hours. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Her lonely, cold bed. Without Mercury’s hard, warm body.
She turned back to the others, her gaze moving over Callan and Jonas’s suspicious, savage expressions. They weren’t pleased, and they knew something was going on.