“Do you think you can go on hurting like this?” His question was a hard, rough growl. “The pain is killing you, Charity.”

“Saves you the trouble,” she cried out furiously, fighting her need to arch to him, to rub against him. God, he was heavy and hard against her, and she needed him so desperately. Alternately, fury whipped at the edges of her mind. He was being less than considerate of a condition that was basically his fault. His next words exploded through her, though, searing past the arousal to an anger bordering on rage.

“Beg me and I’ll ease you.” She glimpsed the cold smile on his face, the flash of his canines. Finally, mercifully, the pain eased again until she could breathe normally and felt less like vomiting in his face. Bastard, he would have deserved it.

“Fuck you, Aiden,” she snarled.

She brought her knee up fast, not overly hard as the pain left her weak and dazed, but hard enough. His eyes widened as he paled before falling to his side with a groan of pain, his hands going instinctively to his offended cock.

Knowing retaliation would be quick, she tried to roll from the bed, to crawl from him. She couldn’t believe she had struck out. Couldn’t believe she had actually done it. Amusement flashed through her for a second as she remembered the look of horror on his face before a growl of animal fury sounded behind her.

Chapter Five

Pain was pain, she thought, as he gripped her shoulders and jerked her back to the bed. The constant flashes of fire through her body were worse than anything he could inflict on her, short of broken bones. He came over her, his knees a vice about her legs as he stared down at her with dark, icy calm. She knew she was supposed to be frightened of his anger; she could see it in his eyes, feel it in the waves of fury emanating from him. His assurance that she would cower beneath his rage was there in his self-satisfied expression.

“I won’t beg you, and I won’t cower before you,” she bit out, her teeth gritting as her muscles tightened again in defense of the pain that struck her womb.

She was shaking, perspiration coating her skin as she fought her tears. And Aiden was only making it worse. The touch of his body, his weight holding her down, his hands warm and calloused as he held her wrists above her head, combined to increase her arousal and in return the fiery waves of hunger that swept over her. The pain was brutal, like a fist punch to the gut as her womb spasmed in need.

“You’re so desperate to be fucked that your whole body screams out for it,” he sneered. “You’ll beg soon.”

“Not to you,” she snarled back. “I’d rather fuck a mongrel Coyote than ask you for anything, Aiden. Bastard that you are,you’d leave me hurting anyway.”

He narrowed his eyes as the corner of his upper lip lifted, showing the sharp canine in deadly relief.As though the sight of it frightened her. She would have snorted if she could find the breath to push that much air through her body at one time.

“You will go to no other,” he bit out. “When you decide to ask me nicely for relief, Charity, perhaps I will be nice and extend it.”

He jumped from her then, staring down at her, breathing hard and rough as he watched her. Her eyes went down his body, until her gaze locked on the thick bulge beneath his jeans.

“You’re horny too, Aiden,” she said softly. “Maybe you need to beg me. Ask me politely for relief and perhaps I will extend it.”

She gasped then as a particularly hard contraction tightened her abdomen. She curled quickly on her side, fighting the waves of pain as she felt more of her juices leak from between her thighs.

“Damn you!” she cursed him breathlessly. “It’s your fault. You did this to me, and you hate me for saving your miserable life.Bastard.”

“Is that what you believe, Charity?” He leaned close to her, his teeth bared in his own anger. “That I hate you? I do not hate you, darling, for saving me. I hate you for tying me to you.For taking my choice and my will from me. But more than anything else, I will never forgive you for betraying me as you did, and leaving me helpless in that bitch’s hands.That I won’t forgive you for.”

* * * * *

Aiden stalked from the bedroom, unable to look at her, to smell the sweet scent of her need. She was his mate. He hadn’t truly believed it, had paid little heed to Cian’s claims in the weeks before they attacked the Labs. He hadn’t truly believed. He believed now.Had believed before bringing her to his home. But that didn’t mean he had to like it. It didn’t mean he couldn’t fight it. He pushed his fingers restlessly through his hair as he heard her moan again. Every muscle in his body tightened in agony. The blood burned in his veins, seared his cock. He ached for her, like nothing he had ever known in his life. And he knew he wouldn’t deny her much longer. He moved to the stove where a pot of stew bubbled merrily. She had to eat. She was too thin, too weakened to carry a child if she did conceive as Cian had said she would. Right now, he doubted if she could even withstand his lust or the sexual intensity that would come from their mating. What terrified him the most, though, was wondering if she would survive how his body would lock with hers, ensuring his seed every chance to find root within her body.

He heard her moan again.A bleak, pain-ridden sound that tore at his soul. Damn her. He flipped the stove off, setting the pot to a back burner as he flipped the cooking spoon into the sunlit sink. His cock was heavy, fully erect, confined behind the material of his jeans and begging for release. Arousal had never fired his blood with such a firestorm of hunger.

He remembered the day she had coaxed his erection to bursting relief. After taking his first release into her mouth, she had followed Bainesmith’s orders and left the Labs. It was then his hell had truly begun. Hard, aching for her, his cock had stayed erect, desperate for relief. With mouth and hands, Bainesmith had drained him more than once into her fucking vials for testing. For hours, until he hung limply on that fucking metal cross, sweat dripping from his body as they put his unwilling arousal to hard use. And he had fucked.Just as they wanted. When they wheeled the unknown woman’s gurney to him, adjusted her to allow the penetration into the hot depths of her pussy, he had fucked her.And fucked her. And still he had not eased. Bainesmith had been more than pleased. Thankfully though, after the first time Charity had sucked the seed from his body, the further swelling in his thick shaft had not occurred. The fist-sized knot had stayed silent, though he could feel its need just

beneath his desperate flesh.

When he was finally returned to his cell, his body thick with sweat, his cock coated with the woman’s sap and his own seed, he could do nothing but collapse onto his cot and swear his vengeance.On Bainesmith and on Charity.

But how do you reap vengeance when it’s your mate?

She cried out again, the sound low, tortured. She was in need.Her body hot and pulsing, pleading silently with him to fill it. The drugs injected into her pushed her natural arousal higher; those injected into her womb increased her fertility. She would carry his child.

His hands trembled as his cock throbbed to the point that he was forced to grip it in defense. He bared his teeth in helplessness. She was his.His mate. And by God, now was as good a time as any to prove it.

Chapter Six

“Do you know what will happen when I take you?” Charity opened her eyes in surprise as Aiden moved to the end of the bed.

Her eyes widened as his shirt drifted to the floor and his hands went to the worn leather belt threaded through the loops of his jeans. Her mouth watered. She could almost sense the hot male taste of his thick, hard flesh. She remembered it clearly, relived it often in her dreams.

“You haven’t asked me politely yet,” she reminded him, trying to snarl then wincing at the thick arousal in her voice.As though he had to ask. She knew when he touched her she would go off like skyrockets. Her breasts ached now, her nipples feeling more swollen, if that were possible, than ever before. He released the metal buttons on his jeans, one by one, as her breathing increased.

“Do you know what will happen, Charity?” he asked her again. The heavy warning in his voice had her swallowing tightly with nerves and shades of fear.

“I know the basics,” she bit out. “I’m not stupid. And I’m not ready to fuck you yet, either. Beg me, Aiden.” Her womb clenched in protest.

His hands paused. The jeans were undone, yet still covering him.

“You know the basics of Wolf Breed sex?’ he asked her carefully. “You know how I’ll lock inside you?”

She remembered then, the hard knot she had barely kept hidden from the scientists as Aiden shot his

seed into her mouth. She trembled, her eyes widening as she stared up at him. Like an animal, he would lock inside her, ensuring his seed had time to reach her fertile womb. She moaned bleakly. Her eyes closed as she fought the knowledge of what was to come. Now she understood the reasons behind the careful blood tests the scientists had conducted, trying to match her blood to one of the Coyote Breeds stationed there.Looking for a match.A breeding pair.An animal that would lock inside her.

“Don’t touch me.” She jerked away from him as she felt his touch at her shoulder. “Get the hell away from me, damn you.”

She scrambled to the headboard of the bed, refusing to look at him. She fought to ignore the pleading ache in her body, the arousal that only seemed to grow. How the hell was she supposed to bear this if he touched her?

“The pain is killing you, Charity,” he said softly.

Her gaze flickered to him, then away, as he shed his jeans. She shuddered. She knew how thick and hard his cock was, and knew how desperately her body needed it.Her body, her heart, but not her mind. She wasn’t a breeding vessel.

“Aiden, I can’t do this.” She shook her head desperately. “Please, please leave me alone. The pain will go away…”

“I remember a time when I begged you similarly,” he reminded her coolly. “Do you remember that time, Charity? Yet, you sucked me to my release regardless, and then left me to suffer the agony of needing only your body, and being forced to accept the alternative.”

“At least you were fucking instead of bleeding to death,” she snapped, staring at him, enraged. “If death is so preferable to you, no one is stopping you now. Want me to help you load the gun?”

He moved up on the bed, crawling to her, his eyes a cold, hard gray as he watched her.

“I fucked for them, Charity,” he growled viciously as though she hadn’t spoken at all.“For hours. I could not get enough, could not come enough. I screwed every hole I was given access to that night, and still my cock would not soften. Now, you will relieve that ache, Charity.The ache that has lingered ever since that cursed day.”

He was furious because she had saved his miserable life? She gritted her teeth in fury. Why was she surprised? For some reason she had thought over the years that he would have seen the good sense behind such a move.But oh no, not Aiden. She should have known it was too much to hope for.

“They would have killed you.” She slapped at his hand as he touched the hem of the shirt she wore. “I couldn’t let you die then, but by God you can go to hell now.” She glared at him, trembling with anger and need.

“And now, I will not let you die.” The material shredded beneath his hands.From hem to neck, then down the back as he tore the cloth as easily as paper.

She cried out, struggling against him as she fought to get away from him, to resist the scent of him, the touch that beckoned and made her body plead for more.

“Easy, Charity.”He caught her close as she fought to jerk away from him. He was warm. She shivered with the need to burrow closer. Oh God, his body was so warm it seemed to sink into that hidden, frozen core of her soul that never seemed to melt.

“Let me hold you for a moment.” His arms tightened around her as she fought to breathe. Her back was plastered to his chest, his arms holding hers clamped to her side, his hands flattening on the painfully clenched muscles of her abdomen. His fingers stroked the skin there, delicately massaging and easing the shuddering muscles.