He worked quickly to open canned biscuits and lay them in a baking pan as Amanda stared back at him miserably.
“I wouldn’t choose abortion,” she whispered.
He looked up at her again as he slid the pan in the oven.
“Will you give me my child?”
There. Emotion. She saw for just a second, bleak, pain-ridden. A glimmer of fury in his eyes before he shut it away.
“No,” she said then, knowing that any child she carried would have her heart. He braced his hands on the counter and nodded slowly, his gaze turned to the floor for long seconds. When he looked back up at her, the possessive glitter that filled his eyes caused her to take a careful step back.
“If you heard much at all, then you know the full truth,” he said tightly. “You’re my mate, bound to me whether either of us likes it or not. I won’t let you go.”
She shook her head slowly.
“You will,” she whispered softly. “Because you won’t want a woman that was forced upon you, Kiowa. One that doesn’t share your dreams, your needs, or the future you want to pursue. I don’t want your future,” she said painfully. “I have my own dreams.”
“And your child that you refuse to give up?” he snapped. “What part will it play?”
“My child will be just that. Mine. I would love it, give it my name. I would treasure it.”
“But not his father?” Those eyes were alive now, and fury fed them.
“What do you want me to say?” she cried desperately. “You’re trying to hurt me, to wrap me in guilt and make me feel responsible for this. I’m not.”
“That’s a child’s response,” he bit out. “An adult adapts, Amanda. You’re right; when this is over you’re most likely better off leaving. A child could never handle me, let alone my life or the difficulties involved in raising my kid. My kid, lady. I’ll be damned if my kid will be treated like an animal by anyone. Nor will it be raised without its father.”
She fought to control her breathing, the racing of her blood. She could feel the arousal building with it and she couldn’t afford the weakness. Not now.
“You’re being unreasonable,” she argued. “I don’t even know you. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t think I like you much. What basis is that for raising children?”
“A hell of a lot better than I had.” He flipped the bacon with a furious motion of the spatula. What could she say to that?
“Wolf Breeds will be accepted after the Breed Law enacts…”
A hard, mocking laugh left his throat then as he speared her with those black eyes of his.
“Wolf breeds?” he asked her softly. “What does that have to do with me, Amanda?”
She licked her lips nervously.
“That’s what you are…” He was shaking his head before she finished.
“No, baby,” he said silkily. “It wasn’t a Wolf breed that knotted in that tight pussy of yours. It was one of those nasty old Coyote Breeds. How acceptable is that?”
Chapter Fourteen
“Coyote Breeds are considered the vermin of the Breeds,” her father told Alexander thoughtfully as they went over the Breed Law Act that the Feline Breeds had submitted. “They are said to be soulless. Without redemption. They were created to be the jailors, lapdogs to the scientists and military personnel that oversaw the other Breeds.”
“Is there anyway to adapt the law to exclude them?” her brother asked, his pale gray eyes resting thoughtfully on the papers spread out on the table in her father’s private living room.
“We can’t exclude them without raising more questions,” her father shook his head slowly. “The Feline Pride leader has suggested allowing them to handle the situation on an individual basis. They’ll police the different Breeds as needed.”
“It’s going to be hard to do…” Alexander murmured.
“Aren’t they human as well, Vernon?” her mother asked gently. “Humanity can overcome a lot of things, even selective breeding. You’re talking about men here, not animals.”
Her mother, Delaney Marion had a voice like silk and a heart as soft as a marshmallow. But she made sense. As Amanda listened to the conversation and studied for the all-important final test before receiving her teaching certificate, she admitted her mother’s argument made more sense than any others she had heard.
“In this case, we’ll have no choice but to pray that’s true,” her father sighed, running his fingers through his thick, gray hair. “But the Coyote Breeds are going to be trouble, Della, you can bet on it. I can feel it.”
Her father’s instincts were always good.
“They’re animals,” her brother had stated, his voice icy cold, his eyes matching the tone as he looked up.
“They’ll be more than trouble, they’ll be a blight. We should just give Lyons sanction to kill them all like the diseased creatures they are.”
The memory wasn’t a pleasant one. As Amanda ate the breakfast Kiowa fixed and fought the lust rising within her, the memory taunted her. So far, the Feline Breeds were being accepted reasonably well by the world. The reports of their creation, treatment by their creators and the plans to use them against the general population were horrifying. The fact that so many Breeds had died rather than kill, and fought so hard for their freedom redeemed them in society’s eyes. Reports of the Coyote were another story. They were created and trained to guard and hunt the others. The reports on that Breed were terrifying. Vicious, bloodthirsty, as cruel as their handlers.
But Kiowa was none of those. He was a man, with plenty of faults, she admitted, but he wasn’t bloodthirsty. If he had been, he would have helped the kidnappers rather than rescuing her. The Feline Breed leader seemed to accept him well enough; he actually seemed to like him from what Amanda had seen.
“Stop thinking so hard.” Kiowa moved her empty plate from in front of her as well as the glass that had held the milk he forced on her.
She watched him curiously as he washed up quickly.
“I need to take a shower.” He placed the last dish in the drainer minutes later. “Stay in the cabin. The mountains are heavily patrolled by Feline guards and they don’t know you yet. We also have several trained wolves and a mountain lion or two patrolling. They definitely won’t like you. If you don’t smell like a cat, they eat you.”
She knew her expression reflected her shock.
“Go on to bed and try to sleep. It’s been a hell of a night.”
Weariness seemed to drag at her anyway, but it did little to dim the need burning bright in her womb.
“Where are you sleeping?” she asked him.
He stiffened.
“On the couch. If you need me, just let me know. I won’t bother you otherwise.”
If she could handle it. The words seemed to linger in the air around them despite the fact that she hadn’t voiced them.
Could she handle it?
Could she handle the consequences if she didn’t?
“How did your mother conceive you?” She didn’t know where the question came from. He watched her closely for several, long moments.
“She was taken while coming home from college one night. The Breed scientists often kidnapped their breeders. If they were ovulating, they kept them and bred them. If they weren’t, they tried to force ovulation. If they couldn’t make them take, then they let them go.”
“How did your mother escape?”
“She was ovulating. She was artificially inseminated with the altered sperm and then locked in a cage. A week later, tests were negative for conception. They released her. Evidently, there are very few women compatible enough with the altered genetics to actually allow conception.”
“How was it negative?”
He smiled sarcastically. “You’re a smart one aren’t you? Coyote sperm is evidently viable for much longer periods of time within the female womb. Up to two weeks was the latest report I believe. The unique hormone created by the altered genetics can also force ovulation on its own. As it did with my mother, I guess.
“Once they learned this, they started searching for the breeders they had turned loose. It was years later unfortunately. Shit happens. My mother died in a car crash when I was five, no one but my grandfather knew of my existence. Even her new husband had no idea I existed. By then, there was no checking the body for previous birth since she was more or less cremated in the crash. Too bad, so sad. Kiowa got away.”
“Then…” Her heart was racing in her chest now, a hard anxious beat that unfortunately had negative results.
“You’re ovulating now.” He nodded. “I’ve locked inside you twice and chances are you have all kinds of little Coyote sperm racing around in your womb. But you might hit it lucky, baby. As I said, most Breed sperm isn’t compatible with a normal female. Chances are good it won’t catch.”
That was not regret she heard in his voice, she reassured herself.
“I’ll go to bed.” She rose quickly to her feet and headed out of the room. She had to think, but thinking and being in the same room with Kiowa wasn’t going to work. Immature, he had called her. A child. Unfortunately she wanted to rage at him just as she would have her father or brother when they were doing something unreasonable or enforcing a rule she disagreed with. If it were merely a question of disagreeing, then she would be in his face now. From what she had overheard, it was much more than that. The hormone that was making her crazy for his touch was no more his fault then it was hers, though. How could she fight that?
“You do that.” His quiet snarl behind her pricked at her heart and she didn’t even know why.
Chapter Fifteen
How was she supposed to sleep? Her mind wouldn’t settle, but even worse, neither would her body. She stared at the dimly lit ceiling, tracking the fragile motes of light that managed to slip through the heavy dark curtains and tried to find some way to accept this new reality she had been dragged into. Kiowa was furious. She could see that now. Where her father and brother turned icy, letting their anger freeze rather than burn, Kiowa pushed it back. He buried it under years of acceptance, beneath the tragedy of a childhood that never was and dreams he didn’t dare have. She remembered the look on his face when he pulled from her, his swollen cock popping free of her, the knot barely subsided as she stared up at him in horror that first time. An animal she had called him.
His expression had shut down immediately, becoming quiet, emotionless, as he calmly left the Jeep. It had been the anger. He fought it, just as she fought for freedom. Now, his anger was escaping and she was bound to one person in a way she feared she would never truly be free of. If what she had overheard Callan saying was true, then nature had taken her choice away from her. She turned to her side, curling into a tight ball and pushed back the need lancing through her body. It was getting worse. Horribly worse. She closed her eyes and tried counting sheep, she bit her lip until she tasted blood. She covered her head with the blankets, but the ache just grew and grew. Her breasts were so tight and swollen she feared her nipples would burst. The touch of her own hands against them sent sensation ripping to her womb, warning her she was in for a long hard battle if she meant to deny what her body hungered for.
Would she have wanted him even without the hormone building in her system? She would have, she thought, remembering his natural inclination to touch her as she had always dreamed of being touched. His teeth tormenting her nipples. His hand landing hard and heavy on the waxed mound of her pussy. She flinched at the thought as a white-hot streak of remembered pleasure seared that swollen button of nerves. And his cock. She clenched her thighs at the thought of it. The pleasure pain of being impaled on that thick stalk had her juices flowing thick and heavy from her hungry cunt. She moaned in bleak of acceptance of the fact that she would only be able to fight the arousal for so long. The building pain was almost an agony, her womb clenching, spasming as the withdrawal tore through her.