“Why didn’t you mention this before?” he asked her coldly. “This information seems rather convenient, Armani.More of a carefully prepared lie than any hidden truth.”

Yet, hadn’t Charity told him that it had been she who had contacted the journalists six years before? She had finally been caught in her deceit against the Council while helping the Winged Breeds. She had been in three of the Labs the Wolf Breed Enforcers had received information on, only to escape with the scientists before they could be caught. She had been in several of the Labs that freed Feline Breeds had sworn she had aided them at, in various ways.

He cursed.A low, vicious sound that grated on his own ears. Armani’s chuckle didn’t help the anger growing inside him.

“The fun part in dealing with judgmental assholes, is watching them fall when the truth finally hits them. Welcome to the real world, Aiden. Let’s see, you’ve hated and reviled your mate for six years, and still you haven’t even questioned how she came to be your mate.Or if she is even truly your mate. Have you even considered thinking past your dick yet?”

The woman had an evil mouth.

“She is my mate.”

“Yet days ago you stood before me and said quite the opposite.” She tilted her head as she watched him knowingly. “What changed your mind?”

“Does it matter?” he snapped out.

“Actually, it does. Let me tell you what I know, that you are unaware of, Aiden.” She held up one hand and began counting down. “Number one; six years ago, to save your worthless hide, a virgin went to her knees and forced your erection when you would have died instead. In doing so, to hide the sudden swelling beneath her hands, she was forced to swallow your semen. The change in her body began days after. I have all the tests she ran on herself carefully documented. You didn’t mark her, so the saliva where the Breed hormone is more prevalent didn’t create the same effects Faith had from Jacob. But your semen created changes in Charity that were not apparent in Faith until after her mating withJacob, and her ingestion of…”

“Dammit, I don’t need to hear about my sister’s sex life.” He pushed his fingers through his hair, trying to fight the knowledge that they were trembling.

“You are missing the point,” she sighed in exasperation. “The point is,certain changes begin with certain sexual passages. Faith was merely in heat for six years. Uncomfortable, at times painful, but Charity has gone farther than this.

“The hormone in your semen reacted in an entirely different way. I won’t get too technical on you, as I’m certain you wouldn’t understand,” she said, her tone superior, knowing. “But the fact of the matter is, she was the perfect specimen for the Council, because her body already had your DNA infecting her, slowly, too slowly, shaping itself and her ovaries, to prepare her to accept your unique sperm.”

“Get to the fucking point,” he snarled. He was sick of the lesson in biology and her careful sarcasm.

“The point is,” she said with heavy patience. “The scientists found a way to advance the ovarian change. Her eggs must be compatible with your sperm to breed. To this point, neither my colleagues normyself

have figured out a way to do this. Charity’s body holds the answers. To help your sister and your Pack Leader’s mate, we must know those answers, Aiden. Charity knows this, the rest of us know this, now you must accept it.”

“They hurt her,” he said softly, unable to still the rage that climbed inside his body at the thought of it.

“She nearly bled to death in my arms, whispering of rest. She sleeps now as though she hasn’t slept in years.”

“She hasn’t, Aiden.” Armani’s voice was now filled with regret, with compassion. “She has worked tirelessly to help others, even though she knew time was running out for her. Her body was making demands she couldn’t answer, and the Council was growing more suspicious of her. Now that she’s free, you won’t be able to control her; you won’t be able to bind her. You have no idea the nature, or the training of the woman you have taken. But I trust it will be amusing watching you learn.”

She stood to her feet then, her dark eyes glittering from the rays of the moon, mockery lining her expression.

“You’re too smug to suit me,” he bit out. “What are you not telling me, Armani?”

She shrugged slowly. “There are some things,Aiden, that you must find out for yourself. I look forward to watching you struggle through it. I expect it to be amusing.”

“You find too much amusement at my expense,” he grunted in disgust. Her laughter was light, amazingly feminine. “I must find my pleasures, small though theyare, where I can. I gave up my fiction fetish for this practice,” she growled irritably. “I should be amused somewhere.”

She moved away then, obviously finished with him.

“Armani,” he called out softly.

She paused, glancing over her shoulder questioningly. “I pity you should a Breed mate with you. You may find we’re a bit more intelligent than you give us credit for.”

“I never imagined you weren’t, Aiden.” Her smile was less than comforting. “I’m just waiting on you to prove it. As for a breeding; ah well, we will see should it happen, perhaps. We shall see.”

She turned back and walked away from the cabin slowly. Her shoulders were stiffly straight, her stride determined, though not hurried. A grin edged his mouth. Damn, he wanted to be there should it occur that she did mate with another Breed. Watching the doctor fall would be more than amusing.

Chapter Fifteen

Charity came awake slowly, for the first time in more months than she could recall there was no pain, no racking shudders twisting through her body. But the depths and severity of the arousal had changed. What had once been agony was now a deep-seated compulsion.

Behind her, Aiden slept deeply. His arm was wrapped around her waist, keeping her back locked to his chest, his body sheltering hers. His heat surrounded her, warming her. That cold core of agony that had once been lodged in the very depths of her midsection was no longer there. Instead, heat burned. She could feel the arousal tingling over her body. Like starvation, or an unquenched thirst, she couldn’t convince it to ease. There, of course, had to be a scientific reason for the change, she thought, concentrating on the clinical rather than the physical aspects of the changes overwhelming her.Which meant she needed a lab. She needed blood work, vaginal and saliva samples; the list went on. If Nicole Armani were here with the Breeds, then she would have a lab. She would have the supplies and the equipment needed for the tests.

“Do not move.” Aiden’s voice was husky and deep as she prepared to do just that. Charity bit her lip as she felt his breath fan over the tender wound at her shoulder. When she felt the long canines bite into her flesh the night before, she had expected to awaken in more pain than she had started out with. The wound wasn’t painful. Rather it was sensitive, receptive to his lightest breath and aching for a deeper caress.

She fought to keep her mind distant from his touch as his hands stroked the clenching muscles of her abdomen, easing the ripples in her womb. She needed to keep as much information as possible in the forefront of her mind. The changes overwhelming her once again were varied and intense. The pain was gone, but she didn’t like the sensations that had moved in instead. She closed her eyes as she fought her response to him. His cock was swelling along her buttocks now, thick and hard. The thickness of the Breed cock was overwhelming anyway. Talk about being packed. It had taken both hands to wrap around it in the Lab, and hiding the fist-sized knot that had risen halfway in the shaft had nearly been impossible.

What it had done to her cunt amazed her, even now. She should have ruptured.Should have been so filled with him that she was damaged forever. Instead, the overly sensitive tissue of her cunt had relaxed, eased,accepted the possession rather than tearing in protest.

“You’re thinking too hard,” he whispered at her ear. “I remember that look on your face, Charity. As thoughyour are deciphering a particularly difficult puzzle.”

Her eyes opened, her head tilting to glance at him as he watched her from behind her shoulder.

“You used to watch me?” It had been so long ago, but she thought she remembered every detail of their time in those damned Labs. “I never saw you watching me.”

“I didn’t want you to see.” He lowered his head, his tongue swiping over the wound at her shoulder. Charity couldn’t control the shudder that worked over her body. Oh, that felt good. Better than good. It was almost climactic, almost a sexual actitself . She bit her lower lip, fighting the moan that would have escaped her throat.

“Why?” she asked breathlessly. “Why didn’t you want me to see?”

“If you had thought I was watching you, you would have changed,” he breathed at her ear, his voice smoky, rough with arousal as his cock heated her backside. “I wanted you to react naturally. I wanted to see your expressions, see the myriad emotions that would chase across your face when you thought no one was looking.”

Charity whimpered in longing as he turned her more fully to her back. He leaned over her, his silvery eyes gleaming with sexual intent as his hand stroked her tight abdomen almost absently.

“Every time I looked at you, all I could think about was fucking you,” he said ruefully. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to control my body?My need for you? Each drug injected in my body made me weaker, took more strength to fight. I cannot tell you the times I nearly lost all control.”

Her eyes widened in surprise, then in shock as his palm slid between her thighs. Charity couldn’t halt her whimper of desire. She lifted to his touch, her thighs falling open of their own accord, giving him easier access to the flesh he now cupped in his hand.

There was so much to do. So many things she needed to make sense of, to find the answers to, yet her mind was fragmented, her body’s demands so intense, so desperate, she couldn’t hold onto the sensibility needed to probe into the puzzle before her.

“So lose control now,” she whispered heatedly. The feel of his hand between her thighs, his fingers probing into her creamed slit, was driving her insane.

Practical thought was merely a whisper of a memory of what she should do. The heavy ache in her body was a demanding scream for what she better do. She needed him, every hard inch burrowing inside her clenching cunt.

His lips quirked slowly, his eyes darkening as he watched her closely.

“I can still see your mind working,” he whispered, his voice thick with amused patience.“As though you are cataloging and filing away each response, each sensory reaction. I don’t like this clinical side you possess, Charity.”

“Who can think like this?” She licked her lips, desperate for his kiss. “Trust me,Aiden, my mind is completely on you.”

“Oh, I have no doubts there,” he said gently, his fingers strumming against her wet, inner lips. He was teasing her, deliberately, knowingly. “Yet a part of you is watching all this, clinically dissecting each touch, each sensation, as though it were no more than an experiment.”

His eyes flashed for a second with anger before it was carefully hidden, as though his knowledge of her attempts to reason out why and what caused such reactions angered him.

“What more can itbe ?” she asked him, watching him, not bothering to hide the conflicts within herself.

“We aren’t mates, Aiden. Not as you think we are. It’s the drugs…”

“Like hell it is,” he snarled. “Do you think when the drugs are out of your system, that you will be free of me? That before the drugs you weren’t destined to react to me this way? You are fooling yourself, Charity. You know this.”

She breathed in roughly as his fingers moved suddenly, parting her, pressing deep inside her. She shuddered in reaction, her pussy rippling in response.