Leopard 04 - Wild Fire

beneath the surface, and if he didn’t find out what it was, all of them could die here.
    “I was there when Cortez’s men swept into the village. They killed several people, including a woman who was visiting Adan and Marianna, his wife. Their grandson, Artureo, hid me before he went to try to help the others. He’s seventeen, but very adultlike. He ran back to help his grandfather and they beat him down with the butt of their weapons and dragged him away. Everywhere I looked there were people dead or dying or screaming for the loss of their loved ones.” She wiped her hand over her face as if she could wipe away the memory.
    Conner poured her a glass of water and thrust it into her hands. His fingers brushed hers and the air fairly crackled with electricity. She jerked her hand away as if he’d burned her, spilling droplets of water across the floor. Sweat trickled down his chest. Desire clawed at him. Her close proximity in the confines of the small cabin shredded his nerves of steel, leaving his body shuddering with a dark need so intense he had to grit his teeth and turn away from her just to draw a breath.
    “I heard their demands and knew I had to try to help. When we’d buried the dead, we tried to figure out how to get them back. No one had ever seen the inside of the Cortez estate and lived to tell about it, at least not anyone we knew. We couldn’t rescue the children ourselves. I remembered what you did and when Adan’s request for help from Special Forces was turned down for political reasons,” there was contempt in her voice, “I thought of you, and how you’d infiltrated the enemy camp using seduction.” She shot him a look of disgust before she continued. “I knew if anyone could get inside that camp, it would be you. You’re certainly more than capable of seducing Imelda Cortez.”
    His heart squeezed down so hard, so tight, for a moment he thought he was having a heart attack. He nearly staggered under the unexpected pain of it. His breath hissed out between his teeth and he didn’t even try to prevent the snarl of rage from escaping. He took a step closer to her. “You want me to seduce another woman? Touch her? Kiss her? Be inside of her?” His voice was deadly quiet.
    Her gaze flicked away from him. “Isn’t that what you do? Isn’t that your specialty? Seducing women?”
    He jerked the glass from her hand and threw it against the wall with a leopard’s force. It shattered, the sound loud in the confines of the room; glass rained down like tears onto the floor and mingled with the water. “You want me to fuck another woman?”
    Each word was enunciated. Distinct. Punctuated by a threatening growl. Deliberately he was as crude as he could be.
    The arrow struck. Isabeau winced, but she lifted her chin. “You obviously were very successful fucking me, but then I was an easy target, wasn’t I?” Bitterness fed her fury.
    “Hell yeah, you were,” he retorted, his gut twisting into knots beyond anything he’d ever known. His own mate wanted to pimp him out. If that wasn’t the best revenge a woman could think of for a male of his species, driven to be with their woman for nine life cycles, he didn’t know what else would be. He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled.

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    She gasped, took a step toward him, her fingers curling into fists, but she stopped herself from attacking him, holding her hurt and pain in check, although she couldn’t stop it from showing on her face. “I figured I wasn’t the first. And I wasn’t, was I?”
    Mates didn’t lie to one another and he’d done that enough. “Hell no, you weren’t the first,” he snapped.
    “But you’re damn well going to be the last. Get yourself another man to do your dirty work for you.”
    He spun around, desperate to breathe air that was free of her scent. His cat had gone crazy, roaring with rage, raking at his insides until he was on fire.
    “I don’t need another man to do it,” she taunted. “You were plan B. I told Adan I could get in by seducing one of the guards and I know I can. Did you really think I wanted to see you again for any reason? Adan refused, but I learned from the master. I guess I should thank you for that.”
    Fury rushed like fire through his veins. The animal rose to the surface in a heated rush of fur and teeth and claws, nearly exploding through his pores. He moved, a blur of speed, his hand