Mercury's War (8 page)

    He hadn’t even touched her. He hadn’t kissed her. But the thought of her death nearly drove him mad.

    Mercury shook his head at the thought. It seemed impossible that he was destined to live his life alone because a woman he had never touched, never held, had died.

    In ways, though, perhaps he was better off. The worst thing a Breed could have was a weakness. A mate, a child, were the epitome of weakness. Their loss could destroy a man’s soul, but it could rupture a Breed’s sanity. And Mercury vowed long ago to always maintain his sanity.

    He wanted Ria. Wanted her like he had never wanted another woman in his life, even Alaiya. But there was no chance of her getting close to his soul. Ever.

CHAPTER 5

    Ria came to a bleary-eyed stop the next morning as she opened her bedroom door and met with a sight she couldn’t have expected, no matter the circumstances. Rather than sleeping in the spare bedroom, Mercury was propped against the wall beside her bedroom door, his drowsy gaze holding hers as he came to his feet.

    His chest was bare. Gloriously, incredibly, strong-and-hard bare. And he was seriously ripped. All that powerful muscle flexed and rippled beneath his skin as he rose and caused Ria to lose what little mental capacities she had left.

    All he wore was a pair of thin, light cotton sweatpants, and the gun he had picked up from the floor beside him. Good Lord, she couldn’t handle this. She could feel a flood of response surging through her body, sensitizing her nerve endings, forcing her to fight to control her breathing.

    “Where did you sleep?” She winced at the rough sound of her voice.

    Mercury stared at the floor for a long moment before lifting his eyes to her once again.

    “Guess I slept in front of your door.” It was said with weary acceptance, as though he didn’t quite believe it himself.

    Ria shook the thought away. God, it was just too early for this.

    “The beds are comfortable,” she muttered, stalking past him to the kitchen and the coffeepot she had prepared the night before.

    “Yeah. They are.” His voice was cool, yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that the undercurrent she heard in it was more confusion than sleepiness.

    She filled the coffeepot with water then turned back to him.

    “Don’t touch the pot. Do not get your own coffee first. First cup is mine. Understood?”

    His eyes narrowed, his gaze flicking from the coffee to her before he nodded cautiously. “Fine.”

    “Good. I’m taking my shower. I need to go back to the office this morning.” She turned and headed back to the bedroom.

    “Why do you need to go back to the office? I thought you weren’t working on the weekends.” The suspicion in his voice-hell, his voice itself-seemed to grate across her nerves.

    She paused at the door.

    “Don’t talk to me. Don’t question me. No comments, no nothing until I drink my coffee.” She shuddered at the effort it took to think. “Just… be invisible or something.”

    She moved into her room and slammed the bedroom door closed, ignoring the surprise on his face. She just couldn’t handle thinking. If he spoke to her, if she was required to respond in any way, there was no way she could manage even a semblance of civility.

    Waking up wasn’t her favorite pastime. Especially in strange places, to the sight of a man she wanted to lick like candy.

    She was an early riser, but a grouchy one. She could out-growl a Breed first thing in the morning any day of the week. And if anyone dared touch her coffee before she got that first fresh cup, then she could get rabid. It just tasted different after that, she swore it did. And it was her coffee, so she should know. That first cup was hers, or someone paid for it.

    Okay, she was a bitch; she readily admitted to it. But hell, she went without sex for years, worked long hours and put up with no small amount of frustration in her job. She deserved to have a few quirks.

    Half an hour later, dressed in a straight black skirt that fell below her knees and a white silk blouse, Ria wound her hair into its comfortable bun and pushed her feet into the leather shoes she wore in the office-whichever office she happened to be working in at the time-and headed back to the kitchen.

    Her brain was in semi-working condition, and as long as Mercury hadn’t messed with her coffee, then she could tolerate him. As long as he wasn’t sleeping in front of her door again.

    That was just odd. It wasn’t as though she was actually in any danger, especially with two more Breeds parked outside her front door.

    Mercury was standing in the kitchen reaching into the cabinet for a coffee cup as she entered the room. He was dressed in the black enforcers uniform that just looked way too good on him, his hair slightly damp from his own shower.

    She snagged the cup as his hand came down and headed straight for the coffeepot. And if that was a chuckle she heard behind her, then she might end up kicking him.

    Turning back with the steaming, full cup, she moved past him and headed to the dinette table that sat off the small kitchen.

    As long as he didn’t try to talk to her, she was fine.

    The first sip of the dark, rich coffee was ambrosia that began firing her brain cells. The second and third had the heavy sluggishness in her mind beginning to ease. She was able to reach over and snag the remote then and flip on the wall-mounted television across from her for the morning news.

    She was aware of Mercury carrying his own cup of coffee to the table and taking the seat to her left. He leaned back in his chair and watched her with silent amusement. She could handle silent amusement. As long as it stayed silent for just a little while longer.

    Finally, the first infusion of caffeine was seeping into her bloodstream and making its way to her brain, when she turned to her silent companion.

    “You forgot the pot,” she informed him.

    That golden brown brow lifted. “I was supposed to bring it with me?”

    “Well, if you weren’t here I would have just brought it with me.” Didn’t everyone? “So it’s your job.”

    His lips twitched, but he didn’t comment. Instead he rose, turned and moved to the kitchen. And Ria enjoyed the view. Those snug black mission pants did indeed mold over a very fine male Breed ass. The kind that just made your hands itch to cup and test the hard muscles beneath.

    “You’re a bitch in the morning, did you know that?” he asked as he returned with the coffeepot.

    “Yeah well, get that first cup of coffee in me and you’ll revise your opinion. I’m actually a demon from hell. You were just smart enough to stay out of my way.”

    He poured the coffee for her.

    “No sugar or cream?” He seemed surprised as she shuddered.

    “God no. What would be the point?”

    He grunted as he took his seat and refilled his own cup.

    “You’re going to have to make another pot,” she told him as she leaned forward, propping her arm on the table and paying attention to the early morning stock reports. She had missed them last night.

    “Me?”

    “Uh-huh.” She turned up the sound to catch the Asian markets before reaching across the table for a leather legal pad folder and flipping it open to make notes. She might have to call her broker.

    She heard him clear his throat and ignored it. He was helping her drink it. A pot was usually enough for her.

    “Just a word of warning. You might not like my coffee,” he said.

    “Three level scoops of grounds from the canister into a clean filter and a pot of water. You can’t screw it up.” She waved him toward the kitchen. Surprised that he went, she was actually curious now exactly how far she could push him.

    Yeah, she was a bitch. But she was resigned to her little faults and had learned to live with them.

    As she watched the financial reports and then turned to world news, she was aware of Mercury bringing the refreshed coffee back to the table. Keeping her eyes on the newscast, she pushed her cup toward him then waited on him to pour.

    The first sip was ghastly.

    Her eyes opened as she stared down at the cup, then up at Mercury.

    “You did that deliberately,” she accused in amazement. “Why did you do that?”

    A frown jerked between his brows as he clunked the pot to the table and glared back at her.

    “Coffee takes a knack, dammit,” he snarled back at her. “I don’t have the knack. Now live with it.”

    Live with it? She opened her mouth to snap out a refusal. Before the words could leave her lips, he was in her face. Right in her face. Leaning down, arms braced on the table as his brown eyes seemed to glow with anger.

    “Live with it.” The rumbling growl of displeasure wasn’t faked. Mercury, she had found, didn’t play intimidation games.

    Ria cleared her throat nervously. “You could have warned me.”

    He leaned back slowly. “I believe I did. But your ‘Demon from Hell’ attitude chose to ignore me. Now, if you want to go to Sanctuary, finish that damned coffee. We can get breakfast there.”

    Breakfast. She stared back at him wide-eyed. Okay,
that
was his problem. Men got cranky when they were hungry.

    “There are Danishes in the cabinet.”

    The look he gave her wasn’t polite. Okay. So maybe not Danishes. Of course, that didn’t mean she was drinking the coffee. Some things she just wasn’t about to be intimidated into.

    
It could smell her. The scent of her arousal, the scent of her soul. It called to the animal, it made the animal ache, made it hurt. It wanted her. It wanted to hold her, to touch her, to mark her before she was jerked away from it, before anything or anyone could jerk her from its grip and take her from it forever.

    
But it waited. Waiting was killing it. It had waited so long, forced itself to patience for so many years. Just a little longer. It couldn’t push the man much harder or awareness would cause the man to restrain it once again.

    
It would not be restrained. While the man slept, the animal awakened. It prowled through the man’s mind then, laid to waste whatever remained of the rusted shackles that had once held it. And it protected the woman. Its woman.

    
Soon, the man would have no choice but to allow it freedom. Sweet, precious freedom.

    How the hell had he ended up sleeping beside Ria’s bedroom door rather than the guest room where he had laid down? Mercury couldn’t make sense of waking there, knowing he had gone to sleep elsewhere. Hell, he never walked in his sleep. Wasn’t it impossible for a Breed to walk in his sleep? Some unwritten law or something? There had to be.

    Yet, that was the only explanation. It didn’t matter that the explanation sucked. The fact was, when he awoke, that was where he sat, beside her door. And he felt as though he hadn’t slept a wink. Weariness tugged at him, leaving him frustrated and fraying the edges of his control. Mercury prided himself on his control at all times.

    But as he stood in the office Ria insisted on returning to several hours later, he found himself frowning more often, and found the scent of her tempting him further.

    He checked his tongue again. He couldn’t stop doing that. There was no sensitivity, no swelling of the glands, none of the signs of mating heat except the inability to think of anything but fucking her.

    “You don’t have to stand in here glowering at me all morning,” she informed him as she kept her gaze on the file she had opened before her. “I’m perfectly capable of working alone, you know.”

    “I assumed you were.” He wasn’t going anywhere without her.

    She lifted her eyes, staring at him without raising her head, her expression less than friendly.

    “If you don’t stop glaring, Mercury, I’m going to kick you outside.”

    “You can try.” He would actually have preferred it if she had. He was dying to find a reason to get his hands on her.

    She blew out an exasperated breath before turning her attention back to the file she was going through. She was too intent on it. He could literally feel her mind working as she read, feel her searching for something.

    A frown furrowed her brow and her fingers rubbed at the corner of a page. As though she were working through a puzzle, stroking the paper in an attempt to coax it into giving her the secrets she needed.

    Mercury glanced down at the paper, seeing one of the new reports that had been faxed to the Bureau in Washington the week before concerning an attempt to hack into the communications equipment the previous month. It was pretty straightforward, if detailed.

    The hacker had managed to infiltrate the government-backed satellite the Breeds used. Sanctuary’s communications experts had traced the link as far as Germany before the hacker ended the connection and disappeared.

    “This would have never happened with a Vanderale satellite,” she sighed as she ran her fingers over the first lines of the report. “You would think your government would have a few protocols that actually work.”

    Her voice was disparaging.

    “The satellite’s an older one. We hadn’t had problems until the hacker managed to get past the first defense by inputting the correct pass code on the first try.”

    She shook her head slowly. “That shouldn’t have been possible unless someone gave them the code.”

    She continued to stare at the paper as she bit her lip thoughtfully.

    “The pass code changes daily,” she murmured.

    Her finger ran over another line of printed words.

    “Odd,” she said before shaking her head and turning to the next page. “You need a more advanced program.”

    “We need funding to pay for it.”

    He met her gaze as her eyes lifted slowly, her expression pensive as she watched him.

    “You need to update your systems,” she pointed out. “You have millions of dollars’ worth of Vanderale equipment that isn’t even on the market yet. That makes you a security risk. Therefore, a financial risk to the company. Unless there’s something in these files to convince me otherwise, then I can’t in all good conscience suggest a reversal of the decision to halt funding, Mercury.”