Gray moved down the hall, slammed open the door to the stairwell, and hauled his ass downstairs. He had a raging hard-on, a black soul, and a need to slam his fists into something puny and sneering. Too bad Lucian Roman wasn't standing in front of him right now, barring his way.
Damn that veana.
Damn himself for being such a fucking fool, for allowing himself to enjoy even a moment of her transition from sleek animal to smooth and supple female. He'd just wanted to put his mouth on her for a moment, taste her. Christ, what was wrong with him that he couldn't give her up, let her go-kick her out?
Once he hit the basement level, he stalked down another long hallway, then rapped his fist against a metal door until it opened and an irritated Impure muttered, "Jesus! The house on fire or something?"
Gray gave Vincent Seal a fierce look, though the six-foot-four dark-skinned male was a veritable wall of muscle. "I need some weapons."
Vincent's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "Gotten tired of the cat already?"
"Tired's not the right word," he uttered tersely. "You going to let me in or what?"
"Shit, do I have a choice?" Vincent drew back, opened the door wide. "You're like a pissed-off bear."
"It's this female," Gray grumbled, stalking into the room. "Females are so impossible, irritating, frustrating, and sometimes unbearably..." He stopped when he saw that Vincent wasn't alone. "Oh, hey, Piper." Turning, he tossed Vincent a what-the-fuck look.
Behind him, Piper laughed. "You were saying, Donohue?"
Putting his hands up in surrender, Gray said, "Not talking about you."
"'Cause I'm not female?" she returned good-naturedly.
He snorted. "Not that kind of female."
"He means the kind with fur, Pip," Vincent said with a chuckle. "Why don't you put the poor thing out of her misery, G? I know a good vet. Cheap, fast, and discreet."
Gray cast the male a violent glare. He wasn't looking to off Dillon. Not today anyway. He hissed, "Weapons?"
Still chuckling, Vincent said, "I'll get them. Glock and a couple blades work?"
"Just blades. Those fixed Warriors you have locked away."
"The sweet sisters." He nodded, his gaze appreciative of Gray's choice. "I'll be right back."
When Vincent went into the other room, Gray turned his attention back on Piper. "Can I ask why you're down here lying on Vincent's bed?"
"You can ask." She fixed him with an imperious stare. "We're not rekindling that fool's errand we called a romance. We're actually sharing some notes about what we extracted from your pretty, pretty brain."
That got his attention. "Something worth sharing?"
"Looks like the senator had a direct line into the Order's mainframe. Like, able to call them up anytime-with just a thought."
The ancient clan of fools was constantly surprising him. Gray crossed his arms over his chest, the female upstairs momentarily and blissfully pushed aside for a moment. "Was that an implant, or did the Order gift him with a temporary power?"
She shrugged. "Not sure yet. But we're working on it." She gave him a knowing look. "If it is an implant, that's pretty useless."
"And if it's a gifted power," he reasoned with a sudden grin of satisfaction, "there may be a mental thread we can jump on and ride inside. The senator is lost to us now, but it stands to reason there are others hooked up to the Order's direct line."
Vincent returned with his hands full. "That's what we're counting on." He handed the weapons over to Gray. "Here ya go, buddy."
"Thanks." Gray started for the door. "Let me know when and if you get something useable."
"Wait a minute, fearless leader."
At the door, Gray glanced over his shoulder, eyebrow raised at Vincent. "Yeah?"
The male's dark eyes narrowed as he stood next to Piper on the bed. "You never said what those were for."
"No, I didn't," Gray answered before leaving the room.
Dillon was still in the bathroom when she heard Gray return. She felt like a hundred kinds of idiot-and then there was that shame thing she was working. For the first time in her life, she felt trapped. Really trapped. Not by a cage or a secret life, not by a past she'd been just freaking stellar at running from or a bathroom she'd run into, but by something she wanted. That feeling when Gray's mouth was on her, when his hands were on her, was terrifying-terrifyingly beautiful. A feeling she'd never allowed inside herself, maybe because she knew it could equally sustain and destroy her.
And she couldn't live with either one.
She got to her feet, her paws, and stalked out of the shower. God, she was thinking like a weak little bitch. This wasn't her; this wasn't how someone like her functioned. She was proactive, not whiny. She kicked ass, not kissed it-unless she initiated things and unless it got her what she wanted.
She stopped at the door and sniffed. Heady and tempting, his scent was pushing through the cracks, forcing her to deal with it, with him. Goddamn it, this should've been easy-an easy exchange of power. Hadn't she done something similar a hundred times before with a hundred different bodies?
Maybe that was the problem.
Releasing a breath, she pressed her head against the door. Gray Donohue wasn't just a body. Sure, she'd tried to make him that-shit, she'd really tried, over and over for a year-but the Impure wasn't having it. And, if she had to admit her weakness, maybe she wasn't having it either.
She lifted her head and closed her teeth around the handle. With a quick push, the wood went flying back, hitting the closet door. First thing she saw was Gray, standing over a table near the chair he'd occupied earlier. He was messing around with a couple of blades. Her insides twisted a fraction. The male who'd hurt her, the one who'd raped her in Cruen's laboratory so long ago, had used a blade like that-pressed tight against her throat.
She didn't like blades in Gray's hands.
He looked up then, his eyes hard, his expression harder. "She has emerged." His tone bordered on sarcasm.
"Nice bathroom."
He snorted, then turned back to the blades.
"Listen, Gray," she began.
His gaze never faltered from his work.
"It wasn't about your hands, okay?"
Those hands closed tighter around the handles of the blades.
She swallowed the unsettling feelings running through her. "It wasn't about the scars."
He grabbed a piece of leather and began to sharpen one of the already-sharp-looking blades. Back and forth, a rhythm of irritation.
"I don't know why I said that," she continued, her gaze following the movements of his hands. "Maybe I do. Fuck. I don't know. I just couldn't keep-"
"You know what, D?" he interrupted, turning his head, his gaze pinning her.
She didn't like that look in his eyes. It was too harsh, too disappointed. She was getting that a lot lately, and it wasn't as easy to blow off as it used to be. "What?"
"I don't care," Gray said plainly, the skin tight around his jaw. "I don't care what the reason is or what game you're playing now. I'm not forcing you into this, any of this." His eyes darkened as he pointed the tip of the blade in her direction. "You need to get in or get out."
Dillon flinched a little, the hair on the back of her neck standing up. Gray thought her run to the bathroom and that verbal diarrhea she'd spouted off at him regarding his hands was the petulant old Dillon rearing her massive cat's head. Of course he did...He had no idea what was going on within her, and she wasn't about to tell him. If she ever wanted to be free from the bonds of her jaguar, to control her shift once again, ever again-she would have to finish what she'd started.
What they'd started.
"I'm going out tonight," he said, returning the blade to the strip of leather. "When I get back, I'll expect your decision. You either want my help or you don't."
"If only it was that simple," she whispered to herself, heading for her mat, her eyes down.
"It is that simple," Gray said, his tone now even, lacking any stain of emotional hurt.
A fact that, as she put her head down on her mat and heard his exit from the room, worried her more than it probably should.
Alexander attempted to gain control of the room, but the minute the Beasts had seen Titus appear, it was like trying to contain firecrackers inside a box. After the initial shocked rants, each paven began dropping one verbal bomb after another.
Lycos: "Bags are packed. We need to go."
Helo: "What the hell is he doing here?"
Phane: "We need to get the fuck out of here! Now!"
Only Erion seemed to contain his alarm as he turned to Alexander, Nicholas, and Lucian and said, "Do you know who this is? The goddamn Order. Inside your home."
"He's not just the Order," Lucian muttered under his breath, his large palm cradling his daughter's sleeping head-though his gaze was trained on the paven who had just flashed into their library and was looking a little worse for the journey.
"What the hell does that mean?" Lycos demanded, his wolf flickering in and out of his face.
Alexander met Nicholas's concerned gaze and silently cursed. They hadn't wanted to go there yet. The Beasts had just arrived a few weeks ago, and with all they'd had to deal with from Dillon-all they'd come from with their maniacal adoptive father, Cruen, all they'd learned about being a Roman brother, a son of the Breeding Male, they didn't need this dumped on them too.
"Whatever else he is," Erion stated calmly, though he moved closer to Titus, inspecting him, "he is Order and he has seen us. He will report back to them that there are mutore about."
"Oh, he isn't going back," Phane said, moving to the other side of Titus, ready to spring.
Lycos shifted closer to the paven as well. "The cage is free now."
Chuckling, Helo said, "Contain an Order member. Not possible. And even if it were, they'd find him here. All the magic in the world can't keep them from connecting with one another. It's like a goddamn beehive."
Erion nodded in agreement. "They find him, they find us. And know mutore are on the loose."
"They already know."
Alexander, Nicholas, Lucian, Sara, Kate, Bron, and the entire crew of Beasts turned to face Titus.
The ancient paven looked ill, pale, like he could barely keep himself upright. But somehow, he forced himself away from the chair that had carried his weight for the last five minutes and addressed them all. "That's why I came. The Order knows about Dillon, knows she's a mutore. And"-he looked directly at Sara-"they know Gray is harboring her."
He hadn't been inside the Paleo in months, ever since he'd led the mission to retrieve Samuel, Jacobi, and Uma. Not that he'd wanted to give up working in the field. In fact, there was nothing he enjoyed more-nothing that got his rocks off more than the adrenaline rush of search and rescue. Except maybe the high of escape. But as the leader of the Impure Resistance, he'd come to understand that his safety was top priority and had resisted the call, the innate desire to be inside the action. After her rescue, Uma had taken over leadership of the program, and had, over the past few months, retrieved more than a dozen Impures from the castration pit.
Slipping into the hole after Uma, Gray spider crawled his way down. The dirt smelled like danger and blood, and the scent got his own blood churning-it also pushed the thoughts of the Beast in his bedroom aside and allowed him to sink into action mode. Goddamn, he'd missed that. Sometimes he felt like a paper pusher, scenting nothing but the stale memories of those connected with the Order.
Gray moved quickly, leaving the darkness of the sky above for another darkness in the tunnels leading to the Paleo. A few feet below him, Uma halted. She glanced up at him, her brows drawn together. Gray focused, listened, heard not only her thoughts, but the thoughts of a Pureblood guard several feet below. He motioned for Uma to press back against the dirt wall. When she did, he dropped, silent and quick, right onto the back of the surprised paven. He wasted no time, no breath. Grabbing for the male's neck, Gray executed a quick snap, let the paven's body fall to the ground, then gave a soft whistle to let Uma know they were clear.
She dropped down beside him with a whoosh and gave him a troubled smile. "They know our way in."
"It was only a matter of time," Gray said, grabbing for both blades. "Weapons ready?"
She nodded. "Glad I had a partner today."
He grinned. "Let's go get our Impure," he said, then turned and took off down the hallway.
It was only seconds before they encountered more guards. Goddamn it, they really were compromised. Blades up, eyes peeled, his mind worked quickly. They were going to have to find a new way in next time.
Two Purebloods cut off their path. Without word or thought, Gray and Uma sprang into action. Back to back, they fought them off, their moments quick and complementary of each other. It was over in minutes, and when the guards were toe-up and no longer breathing, they continued down the hall, gazes vigilant.
"We're going to need to get around the center of the Paleo," Uma whispered when they hit the small opening into one of the cells.
"I'll retrieve the male." Gray pulled a Glock from his waistband and slipped it into her hand.
She gave him wry smile. "I'll cover you."
They were through the hole in seconds and giving each surprised Impure they encountered within the cell a quick sign of silence before they headed to the break in the cell bars.
Gray dipped into his mind, listening, focusing deep-trying to separate each voice, each thought, to get the ones he wanted. How many Order members were here? How many Impures were being blood castrated at this very moment? Where was the male they needed to find?
As he slipped through the cut in the bars, he shifted his focus, his eyes and mind working in tandem. Where are you? Where are you? He sifted through all the thoughts and conversations until he felt the call, heard the strain...
"Oh, shit," he uttered. He reached out and grabbed Uma, pulled her to the side. Hiding behind a thick column that circumvented the massive oval, he turned to face her, whispered, "He's in there."
Uma looked up. Her eyes widened as she took in the two bodies strapped to the stone tables. "Goddamn it."
Gray's brow lifted. "No Order members around."
She sniffed. "How much does this feel like a-"
"Trap?" he whispered. "Too much. They may have guessed we'd try to rescue this particular male. Anything to stop the advancement of the Resistance."
"We're going to have to abort, come back for him."
"He's about to be blood castrated," Gray hissed angrily.
"We can't risk it." Her eyes didn't meet Gray's when she said those words.
"You mean risk me," Gray whispered back caustically.
"The Resistance can't exist without you," she said, her gaze lifting. "I thought this would be an easy grab."
Ire slammed into Gray, and his mind pounded with thought and with the pleading words of all those around him. Easy grab. That phrase was pretty much sitting in his gut like a rotten piece of flesh.
"All right," he said, giving Uma a quick nod. "Let's go."
For a split second, Uma looked at him as though she were surprised he'd acquiesced so quickly. But not wanting to upset her good fortune, she nodded and pushed away from the column, heading for the cell. Gray watched her go, and once she was through the bars and on her way toward the hole and the hallway beyond, he turned and, with a quick check of the voices near, jerked out from the shadows of the column. He sprinted into the very center of the Paleo, past unused tables dotted with dried blood. He knew Uma had turned around and was watching him now, no doubt pissed off and contemplating what to do next. But she couldn't yell for him, couldn't risk that.
Just as Gray couldn't stand back and risk the lives of the two males strapped to the tables before him. He'd come for one, but he was going to release both.
His blades out, he began cutting their bindings. He heard the panicked voices of guards in his mind, up and running, coming closer, but it just made him work faster.
Once he'd cut them both free, he shouted for them to run, to head for the cell straight ahead. He saw Uma waiting there, her eyes wide and angry, her breathing heavy as she ushered each Impure through.
"Go!" he shouted, feeling a guard come up behind him. He turned back just as the Pureblood struck him hard in the chest with his fist. Slamming back into the cell bars, Gray braced himself for the shock of pain, then pushed forward, blocking the paven's next blow. Utilizing his blade, Gray ripped into the male's hand, then doubled back for a quick and deep strike across his throat. The paven dropped to the ground, but on his descent, pulled a dagger from his waistband and slashed it into Gray's side.
Electric pain shot through Gray, but he wasn't about to stick around to check the damage. Several guards were on their way down to the oval and the tables. His adrenaline high, he ran toward the cell. His mind screamed with the voices of all the Impures around him.
"Take us too."
"Breach! Security to the center of the Paleo."
"Don't leave us!"
"Take her," begged an Impure inside the cell, pushing a young Impure female toward him. "Please! We'll hold them off."
This was bullshit, Gray thought as he caught the woman with his arm. He wanted them all-no one deserved to be down here, a prisoner for blood, the Order taking from them whatever it wanted.
With the female held against the side that wasn't bleeding profusely, Gray scrambled through the hole. He heard the Impures close the entryway as he hauled ass down the hallway.
It took every ounce of strength he had to reach the exit, then push the female up the hole in the ground. Thankfully, Uma and the Impure males were at the top and helped the female the rest of the way.
"Go!" Gray yelled at them. "The Pureblood can only take four. Go!"
Uma shook her head. "You go with them. I'll stay."
"Not a chance." Gray eyed the Pureblood male who for months had been helping the Resistance with flash travel. A debt he'd insisted on paying when Uma had rescued the Impure female he loved. "Do it," he ordered the Pureblood. "Take them to Resistance headquarters, then come back for me."
The Pureblood nodded, grabbed them all.
"Gray!" Uma yelled.
"I'm right behind you-go!"
As they flashed away, Gray crumpled to the ground, blood gushing from the wound in his side. But he refused to pass out, refused to return to his compound and his warriors a dead male, refused to not be the one who ended the nightmare belowground-refused to allow Dillon to remain a Beast forever.