"Your job is to stay alive." He walked over to the coffeepot to refill his cup. Megan made certain she moved far enough away to keep from so much as brushing against him. "We'll get organized and see if we can figure out what the h.e.l.l is going on. You're the link_" The look he gave her when he turned back was hard, cold. "That means you have the answers."

Which made sense. But that didn't mean she had to like it.

She glanced at Lance then, noting the tension in his muscular body, the merciless anger that glittered in his blue eyes. d.a.m.n, she was glad she wasn't feeling that. She couldn't have handled it. It destroyed her, the fear and worry that filled her family because of the job she had fought for so desperately and the weakness the empathy caused within her.

"Well." She breathed out roughly, containing the shiver that worked up her spine. "So much for our complaints that Broken b.u.t.te is too quiet."

Lance snorted at that.

"Those are your complaints, Meg. Not mine. I had enough excitement when I worked in Chicago," he snapped.

He was angry. Really angry this time. She stared at his closed expression, the haunted pain in his eyes, and felt her chest tighten.

"I'm sorry." She stared back at him directly, hating the fact that he was worried enough about her to be so furious.

"Darnmit, Meg, I don't blame you." He reached out, his arm looping around her shoulders as he pulled her close for a brief, hard embrace.

"Check in on schedule," he told her roughly then. "And watch your b.u.t.t."

She hugged him back. Hard. Then watched as he left the house. For some unexplained and upsetting reason, his touch rattled her. As though her body was faintly protesting, uncomfortable with the once comforting embrace of the cousin who was more like a big brother.

She listened until the sound of his Raider faded into the distance, leaving a deafening, tension-filled silence between her and the Feline watching her closely. She turned to look at him, seeing the curious gleam in his eyes, the quizzical look on his face.

"What?' she asked with mock impatience, controlling her breathing, mainly to control the abrasion of her sensitive nipples against her lace bra. What the h.e.l.l was wrong with her? She had never been aroused by so little in her life.

He inhaled slowly. What the h.e.l.l was he sniffing for?

"Nothing." He finally shook his head slowly. "Get ready. I want to make a trip back out to the gully to look around and I want you to stick close. From now on, baby, just call me your shadow."

"Puss in Boots." She glanced at the boots. The man had some fine legs in between, too.

Tension filled the air. It wasn't angry tension; it was hot, blistering in intensity. He set his coffee cup on the counter, moving closer, his shoulder brushing against hers as he pa.s.sed her, moved behind her.

Megan stood completely still, feeling the displacement of the air around her, the way he moved, turning until his chest nearly touched her back, his breath wafting over her sensitive earlobe.

"You know, Meg," he breathed out softly, his voice rough, growling, "you'll call me that one time too many, and then I'll have to show you which of us belongs on top. And it isn't you, sweetheart. I'd be careful pushing me, if I were you. The scent of that sweet, hot little p.u.s.s.y has my mouth watering and my c.o.c.k pounding. I might show you not just who belongs on top, but exactly how a Breed teaches dominance to his woman."

She felt herself pale then flush, her eyes widening at the realization that he could actually smell her arousal. That he knew she was wet, hot. Ready to take him. That he fascinated her more than any man ever had. It was a fascination that scared her to death.

"Get your vaccinations first,'' she snapped, moving away from him, covering her embarra.s.sment with snide anger rather than dissolving in his arms the way she wanted to. She would be d.a.m.ned if she would. Just what the h.e.l.l she needed-the hots for a Breed, and he hadn't even kissed her yet. Could life get more complicated, please?

"Megan, the snide Breed remarks don't become you," he finally chastised her as she moved to place more distance between them. He only followed her. Stalking her. "If you want to insult me baby, then keep it personal.''

He was right, her insults weren't fair. Megan turned her back on him, forcing herself to breathe, to find just a moment of stability amid the conflicting needs surging through her. She wanted him so badly the ache was a pit of fiery longing in her womb. She had forced herself to keep distance between her emotions and the men that existed in the periphery of her life. But she wasn't maintaining distance with Braden. The irresistible draw he was becoming made her angrier at herself than at him.

She turned to face him again, her eyes widening as he came flush with her body, trapping her against the counter, his thighs pressing against hers, his erection cushioning itself in the soft warmth of her abdomen. Her womb clenched, spasming with a s.e.xual hunger that nearly took her breath.

"Don't." She pressed her hands against his chest, shaking her head, certain that if he touched her she wouldn't be able to fight.

"Sweet." He inhaled deeply, bracing his hands on the counter, his arms holding her in place as her hands flattened against his chest. "You're hot and wild, Megan. I could make you hotter. Wanna try me?"

She shuddered as his head lowered, his lips catching the sensitive lobe of her ear, licking it with a slow, seductive move of his tongue. A hard shudder raced up her spine as heat began to envelop her.

Her c.l.i.t swelled in a resounding yes to his question; her b.r.e.a.s.t.s grew heavier, her nipples harder.

A shiver streaked up her spine, then back down again before a tremor of need sliced through her s.e.x. She knew she couldn't hide it. As his head raised, his gaze meeting hers, she knew the hunger filling her was reflected in her eyes. It wasn't just a need for s.e.x. It was a need for everything. To curl in his arms, to rub against him, to find a place to rest. And she knew the illusion that she could do just that couldn't be real.

He inhaled deep, his eyes darkening as sensuality suddenly darkened his expression. "Get ready to ride,''

he growled rather than touching her further as she expected. "We either get this show on the road or we head to the bedroom. Your choice. Otherwise, you're going to find out exactly how a Breed f.u.c.ks the fight out of tempting little wildcats like yourself. Now get moving. One way or the other.''

He kept trying to remind himself that he wasn't like her. Not really human. Not the right man to start an affair with a woman who had no idea what she was getting into with him, s.e.xually speaking.

His lips quirked at the thought. Her snappish little comments against his Breed birth hadn't bothered him. He saw more than he was certain she wanted him to. The clash of emotions inside her was clearly felt, as was the arousal, hot enough, deep enough to b.u.m a man to his soul. And it frightened her.

He drove across the desert, the gentle rocking motion of the Raider making the silence inside the vehicle seem all that much deeper. It was hard to forget what he was, who he was, when the heat of her arousal scented the cool interior of the closed vehicle.

He was a Breed. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d of the human and animal species. His genetics were a mismatched collage of human and lion DNA that made him stronger, faster, more predatory, more vicious than any human should be. He was identified by the genetic marker of a lion's paw on the inside of his left thigh, and by the longer, sharper canines at the sides of his mouth. Not that those were the only anomalies, but they were the most apparent.

His s.e.xuality was hard, driven. If there was anything better than s.e.x and a wild, hot woman, then he hadn't found it.

It was better than a good b.l.o.o.d.y fight, and he loved those, too.

Adrenaline was the spice of life, be it s.e.xual or lifethreatening. But he had never taken a woman who wasn't a Breed. And he had never taken one as fragile as the woman sitting beside him. The one burning, slick and wet and ready for him.

From the comer of his eye he watched her rub at the earlobe he had nipped the other day. He had broken the skin. The small curve was abraded, though it didn't look as though it should cause her any problems. But she kept rubbing and tugging at it as though it bothered her.

"I didn't bite you that hard," he grumbled as she continued to toy with it.

"You're not making me feel guilty for it."

"Think what you want to." She glared back at him. "It's still sensitive."

He flashed her a lazy smile. "That little nip was nothing. You need to toughen up, sweetheart."

It was nothing compared to what he had ached to do to her earlier. As his tongue had licked over the little abrasion on her lobe, he had longed to move to her shoulder, to taste the sweet flesh there, to rake his teeth over it, to mark her in a way no other man could ever mistake.

That need surprised him. He had never known a desire to mark a woman. This woman he wanted to mark in all ways, so that no other male could ever mistake to whom she belonged.

"You need to refrain from biting," she parried with an edge of nervous arousal. Oh yeah, she felt it too. The need was burning inside her just as hot, just as fierce as it was burning in him. He could feel it, could smell it.

He shifted in his seat to relieve the pressure against his swollen c.o.c.k. The scent of her arousal was driving him crazy. He wanted nothing more than to hold her beneath him, his teeth gripping her sensitive shoulder as he worked his engorged c.o.c.k as deep inside the melting depths of her p.u.s.s.y as he could go. And she was melting. So hot, so wild that her frustration was making her angry. Making him impatient.

"I'll see what I can do about that," he grunted as he turned and made his way down the inclined entrance into the gully. The same path Megan had taken the day before.

"You stopped here before coming into the gully the other day," he remarked, determined to do the job he had been sent to do before he did the woman. "Why?'

He watched her as she stared into the entrance to the deep gully, her gaze reflective. He could feel the subtle tug of her ability to pull his natural shield around her. It was intimate. As it enfolded her, shallow though the protection was, it bonded him to her, made his spirit a part of hers.

"Someone followed the jeep down on foot, wearing hiking boots. The tracks were fresher than the tire tracks. Did you see who it was?" she asked then, peering from the side window as she pushed the dark shades above her eyes to see the ground clearly.

He shook off the knowledge of the deepening bond, relaxed his guards against her and allowed her to pull the shield further around herself.

"That was me." He eased the Raider into the wide gully before coming to a stop. "I found the jeep about six hours before you came through. I made it to about here, smelled the stink of the Coyotes around the bend." He pointed to a fissure at the other side of the gully. "I noticed this area is riddled with fissures and caverns. They're like a maze inside, many of them connecting together. I was able to slip through those to work my way closer to the cavern they were hidden within."

Megan nodded. "We had a particularly hard rainy season about ten years ago. The gullies stayed flooded and many of them washed out deep grooves into the stone. This is one of about a dozen of the hardest hit areas. The floods in these washouts would come hard and fast, many revealing small caves that go deep beneath them and now collect water when it does rain."

"I worked my way through those washouts until I found a way to get around them," Braden continued.

"I wasn't far from you when I heard you call in to Lance. They were waiting on you."

"But why me?" That was the one she didn't understand.

As he started the vehicle forward again, she lowered the window, staring up at the steadily rising walls that grew steeper as they moved deeper into the gully.

He didn't answer her. There was no way to answer her until they found out the reason for the Coyotes'

arrival.

He drove around the steep bend, pulling to a stop behind the black SUV Mark and Aimee had driven.

He watched as she glanced around the area, her eyes narrowed, almost distant as she seemed to listen to something he couldn't hear. Finally, she gripped the handle of the door and stepped out of the vehicle as he set the security controls and followed her.

He continued to watch her. Leaning against the front of the Raider, testing the wind every few seconds for the rancid scent of Coyotes as she stared at the SUV, her expression solemn, intense.

"They looked so young." Sadness washed over her, regret for the lives wasted before they could be lived.

"Aimee was twenty-three. Mark was twenty-four,'' he told her. "Neither had been out of captivity long enough to know freedom."

She moved to the open doors of the SUV. The smell of death was thick, the blood-soaked interior boiling with heat beneath the afternoon sun. She didn't throw up as he would have expected her to. Her expression tightened as she leaned in and bent forward, checking beneath the driver's seat, then in the console beside it.

She flinched every few minutes as though she were in pain. Or feeling that of another.

"Did your people have time to go over it?" she asked him then.

"Thoroughly." There was nothing to be found. A few fast-food bags, gasoline receipts. No notes, no letters, nothing to indicate why they had left or why they had died.

"So why are we here?' She moved back, turning to face him with a frown on her face.

"Because those Coyotes waited here for almost twenty-four hours for you to arrive. We checked the SUV. This canyon is another story. We're going to go over it, inch by inch. Every tributary leading into the rock wall, every cavern. We're going to go over it. Because the Coyotes that are dumb enough to stay with the Council are the ones too stupid to cover their tracks well. They've left something here. They were here for too long not to. Now it's up to us to find what they left and to figure out why they want you. And they do want you, baby. Real bad."

Fear flashed in her eyes but only for a second. It was followed closely by anger, then determination.

"They can want on then." A cool little smile curved her lips. Calculating, filled with cold purpose. "So where do we start?"

Chapter Five.

They started with a perilous climb from the bottom of the gorge to the uppermost section of the cliff that rose above it. More than ten feet from the ground, handholds were few and far between; and though a fall wouldn't lull her, it would sure as h.e.l.l hurt.

Their destination was the grouping of small, narrow openings into the cliff houses above. Weathered by sand and rain, the openings created dark, shadowed crevices with a narrow ledge running between them.

In the heat of the day, the climb sapped her energy as perspiration poured from her even before they reached the first set of small caves. Megan had been amazed that the large, brawny Coyotes could have existed for more than a few hours inside them, until she flattened herself against the stone floor and scooted in.

"The cave is much larger inside," she called back as she flipped on the flashlight she carried before moving further inside. The risk of rattlers was high in the area, not to mention a dozen other poisonous denizens of the desert. The caves were cool in the heat of the day, and warmer in the cold of night-the perfect hidden shelter for wildlife.

There was nothing to be found but a lingering, subtly noxious smell. Her senses detected no danger, no presence of life. Only the cold, evil intent that had filled the Coyotes.

"Those boys stink," she muttered as she pushed herself farther into the cave and made room for Braden's larger body.

"Yes, they do at that." Unfortunately, the distracting scent of the remnants of the Coyote Breeds' body odor was instantly overshadowed by the smell of manly heat that tempted the senses and made her erogenous zones wake up and howl. She clenched her thighs, feeling the wet proof of her attraction to him dampening the outer curves of her c.u.n.t.

And he wasn't exactly uninterested. She flushed as his gaze touched her; the heavy-lidded, sensual awareness moving over his expression was less than comforting.

Rather than staring at the hard body moving across from her, she moved the light over the cave walls. The cave extended well back into the ridge, easily ten feet wide and perhaps twelve long, with several wide fissures opening into the wall and leading further back into the cliff.

"I had no idea the cliff houses were this large," she murmured, directing the beam of light to the widest fissure. It looked like a doorway opening into stone.

"That fissure leads to another inner cavern at the base of the cliff. I tracked them that far before I found the tunnel that led to the one they had trapped you inside. I don't believe they had explored far though; the tunnels are like a maze as you get deeper into the ridge."

She glanced at him as he spoke, watching the confidence in the way he began to move about the cliff house.

"So what are we looking for? " She rose to her feet, the ceiling barely high enough to allow her to straighten.

Braden's shoulders were stooped, his head lowered as he glanced back at her.

"Jonas and his men didn't have time to go through the two upper caverns fully," he said. "I just want to be certain nothing was missed."

"How did you manage to keep from getting lost in the tunnels?" The thought of an inner maze within the stone was daunting, and she didn't care to attempt to search one.

"A good sense of direction." Amus.e.m.e.nt laced his voice. "Don't worry; the tunnels shouldn't pose a problem. They wouldn't have left their vantage point to search them. They were waiting on you, and knew you weren't likely to use them."

She inhaled roughly before moving to the opposite wall and shining the light closely on it. She didn't want to think about the Coyotes waiting on her, watching for her.

"These haven't been here long." She ran her fingers over the stone, marveling at the forces that had created them. "The storms that washed out this gully were horrible. Before it was nothing more than a small chasm. Now it's almost a secret stone wonderland. I'll have to let the cavers' a.s.sociation know about these tunnels so they can explore and map them."

It was imperative to get the proper GPS trackers within the tunnels and caves in case the unwary became lost within them.

"And another of nature's secrets becomes unraveled," Braden murmured.

"But lives are saved." She shrugged at the faint condemnation.

"Especially the children who lose their way so easily."