"I didn't lie to you, Grace," he finally sighed. "I stretched a few truths and didn't tell you exactly why I was there."

"You used me to kill a man."

"I rid the world of a monster, and I'll prove it to you," he said. "What you do after that, is up to you."

"And if I go straight to the police?" Of course she would go straight to the police. Was there any question of it?

"Then I'll do everything in my power to protect you." The regret that shimmered in his voice had her chest tightening. "But once I'm behind bars, others will kill you. I won't be able to save you then." He was lying to her again, of course.

"Grace. Give me a chance." His hand lowered from the steering wheel to her knee. The shock of his calloused, scarred hand against her bare flesh for the first time sent a riot of sensation cascading through her.

It was his hand , for God's sake. On her knee . It wasn't like it was tucked between her thighs.

"I gave you a chance." She tried to jerk away from him, but his hand only tightened, holding her bound legs in place. "And look where it got me. More lies. And more threats. No thank you, Matthias, I think I've trusted you too much already."

CHAPTER THREE

Matthias felt his fingers tighten on the fragile width of her knee and forced himself to relax. He wouldn't hurt her, and he didn't want to frighten her further.

Already the scent of her fear was nearly overpowering the soft, subtle scent of the arousal that filled her each time he was near her.

It was one of the reasons he had rarely touched her over the past weeks. He had kept his distance as much as possible, knowing that until he had dealt with Albrecht, he didn't have the time to deal with what he knew was coming with Grace.

Jonas thought it was such a closely guarded secret that Wolfe Gunnar, the leader of the Wolf Packs, adhered to the strict order of silence on the subject of mating heat. But Wolfe wasn't a fool. He knew his enforcers were a danger to themselves if they weren't aware of what could happen at the most unlikely moment.

Matthias knew what mating heat was, just as he knew that Grace was his mate. The glands beneath his tongue had been sensitive for weeks, and he could feel them becoming swollen tonight. Those glands were filling with a mating aphrodisiac, a hormone that would push sensuality, sexuality, into the bounds of extremity.

It would affect Grace worse than it would affect him. She would be unable to deny her natural response to him, unable to hide from it. She would be as helpless within it as he would be once he began touching her.

The fine, almost imperceptible little hairs along his body were prickling with another hormone, one more subtle, but no less intense. His cock was rock hard. His balls were drawn tight. And he had learned in the past week that jacking off only made it worse. There would be no satisfaction until he found his release within the snug depths of Grace's body.

And there the problems would truly begin. If what Wolfe, Jacob, and Aiden had explained to their enforcers months ago were true, then during his mating with Grace, he would become more of an animal than he could have ever imagined.

Even now, as his fingers lingered on the flesh of her knee, he found a pleasure in that small touch that he had never known before. Even in the midst of the most sexual acts he had performed during his sexual training in the labs, he hadn't felt such pleasure as he did now in simply touching. He was one of the younger Breeds. Barely thirty, but he hadn't escaped that phase of training. Not that the scientists had included sexual training for any pleasurable benefits. As in everything else, even that phase of training had held more sinister purposes.

When entranced by their lover, a man or a woman could be convinced to trade their soul for the love of the one capable of giving them such extreme pleasure. Powerful figures could be blackmailed, the sons and daughters of such figures could be used for information. Wives could be seduced, husbands could be tempted. It was all the same to the council. Every weakness could be exploited.

In the years since his release, Matthias had never used the talent he had found to please a woman, to betray one. Until Grace, he had refused to involve any woman in the dangerous, bloody life he led. He was an assassin. The council had taught him how to be an assassin. He carried the scars from his failed attempts during training, and he carried the marks of his successes since his escape. He didn't kill for money, and he didn't kill from hatred or greed. He killed for mercy. He killed to make the world a safer place, not just for his own species, but for the non-Breeds as well. Council members, scientists, trainers, and soldiers many had been released once they were revealed. If they were smart, they lived the rest of their lives without picking up their old ties. If they weren't, then Matthias or one of his kind made house calls. And there were many who eagerly, if more secretly, renewed those old ties.

He had gotten lucky with Albrecht, though. He was impossible to forget. And Matthias just happened to have been at the right place at the right time, before the Breed rescues ten years before. He had seen Albrecht with several scientists, heard the scientists refer to him as "director." Only council members were given that distinction.

Matthias had remembered, and he had given the bastard a chance. A chance Albrecht had deliberately ignored. The proof of that was in the bloody, broken bodies of the mated Breed pairs he had managed to capture over the past years. Young Breeds, independent. Rather than seeking the Wolf or Lion Breed compounds when mating heat overtook them, they had tried to figure it out on their own. And they had died in the effort.

The horrifying evidence that Albrecht was once again experimenting with Breeds was too much to ignore, and Matthias had been called in.

He had used Grace to make his house call, and gaining her forgiveness wouldn't be easy.

"Where are we?" She finally asked wearily, staring up at the ceiling of the SUV, trying to hide her response to his touch.

"We're about two hours from your cabin," he told her softly, enjoying the feel of her satiny knee and the flesh in the curve of her leg against his fingertips.

"You researched me well then," she said, fighting to control her breathing. The scent of her arousal was growing. The glands in his tongue were thickening. He should stop touching her, he should place both hands on the steering wheel and concentrate on driving the vehicle rather than driving them both crazy with lust.

"I researched you for months," he admitted. "I followed you at night when you jogged and tracked your movements otherwise. You were under surveillance for nearly six months." He hurt her. He could smell the scent of her inner pain, and he hated it.

"Why did you choose me? Why not the head of security? Or the head manager? Why a lowly assistant manager with limited power?"

He snorted at that. "You mean the lazy manager who has shifted all the work, responsibility, and information to your shoulders, while claiming the fruits of your labor?" He asked. "I didn't have to smell the laziness on that woman to know the truth of her. All I had to do was read the file that had been prepared on her."

"How did you know Albrecht would be here during the security upgrade?"

"I have my sources." He shrugged.

"How many of you are working together?"

Matthias flashed her a grin. "How many of us did you see?"

"You had help," she bit out. "How else did you manage to get my luggage or have my car moved? You couldn't have done this alone."

"I kill alone and this is all that matters." He wouldn't tell her different. There was always a chance she wasn't the person he thought she was, and he didn't dare betray the others. "Stop asking me questions, Grace. We'll talk when we get to the cabin."

"Stop touching me then. And I swear to God, if your fingers go any higher, the first chance I get I'm cutting them off your hand."

His hand had slid higher, inches above her knee, and despite the vehemence of her order, she was enjoying it. The smell of her arousal was now covering that of her fear. The air around him was indolent with the scent of a wicked storm. He could feel the wild pulse of her blood beneath her flesh, and he knew it matched his own.

"I've been dying to touch you, Grace," he finally admitted. "Holding back these past weeks has been hell on my control."

"Well isn't that just too damned bad," she snapped, though he could hear the breathlessness, the hunger inside her. "Because you don't have a chance in hell now. Unless it's rape you're after, big boy, you fucked up when you pulled that trigger. I wouldn't sleep with you now if all that mating heat crap the tabloids printed were true."

He almost winced. Those tabloids had no clue. And neither did she. Because he would have her, and by the time the mating heat was finished with them, they would both be begging for it.

***

SHE couldn't believe this mess. She couldn't believe Matthias had actually killed, in cold blood. He hadn't even given Dr. Albrecht a warning.

She shuddered at the memory of it. The memory of his face, so dispassionate. There had been no anger, no fury, it hadn't even been emotionless really. Just unconcerned. What he had done had caused not so much as a flinch of remorse.

How many others had he killed? Would he kill her the same way?

Grace turned her face away from him and stared at the door of the SUV. The seat was reclined fully: that, in combination with the dark night and the rural area they were driving through, left her completely out of site.

She was stretched out, bound, helpless. Most women would have been begging for their lives, screaming, crying. She was trying to think instead. To wait. To steal a chance to escape. If one came. She had a feeling one wouldn't come. And begging would do her no good. It wouldn't have done Albrecht any good, either.

She had been falling in love with Matthias, and perhaps that was the part that hurt the most. They had spent most of her breaks sharing coffee in her small office, and the evenings enjoying quiet dinners together, or long walks in the park.

He fascinated her. Drew her. Knowing what he was, the horrors he had experienced had pricked at her heart, and her woman's heart had wanted to erase those horrors with softness. She had even told her family about him. About the Wolf Breed whose eyes were so filled with loneliness. Who smiled as though he hadn't known he could do so. Who watched her in a way no other man ever had. Her father had wanted to meet him. Her mother wanted to cook for him. Her brothers offered to teach him to play football.

She blinked back her tears at the loss. At both their losses. He had no idea what he was missing out on when he lost her family.

She liked to say she was fully a part of reality, and reality demanded that she accept that Matthias wasn't just going to let her go. He couldn't afford to. The whole Breed community would suffer for what he had done tonight, if the authorities ever learned of it. And Grace was well aware of his loyalty to not just the pack he claimed as his own, but to the Breeds in general.

She closed her eyes as she felt his fingertips stroking her leg again. His palms were horribly scarred, the faint ridges from those past wounds rasped over her flesh, and her soul. They brought pleasure and pain. Pleasure from his touch, pain at the knowledge of all he had endured. She thought she had gotten to know him. She knew he could kill. He'd told her of some of the assignments he had been sent on during his time in the labs. She'd known he had killed since then in the confines of the investigative work he did. She hadn't imagined he could kill in cold blood, though. Shooting a man from the behind, without warning, somehow seemed worse than killing one face-to-face. She knew there were rumors that Albrecht had been part of the Genetics Council. Rumors that he had ordered deaths, worked on the genetic alterations, and perhaps even been a part of what the press called the twelve-member directorate. He had been the head of the Genetics Councilthe shadowy figures that financed, directed, and oversaw each stage of the Breed development. All Grace had ever seen was a mean, disillusioned old man, though. One that didn't even have the common sense to close the door to his suite and who was constantly searching for his appointment journal.