I wanted to tell him everything, but all I could hear was the unfiltered hatred in his, and Jenkins’ voices, when they spoke about aliens and the Coalition.
My beast agreed.Claim first.
He was going to hate us. Me. He was going to hate me. “No, I’m not FBI.”
“What’s your name? At least tell me that much.”
“Lyra.”
“Last name?”
I gave him the name listed on my falsified human documents. “Smith.”
He burst out laughing. “CIA then. Got it, LyraSmith.” He groaned and reached for his shoulder. I shoved his hand out of the way. “I’m surprised they let you keep Lyra.” He redirected his hand, lifted it to run his fingertips over my cheek. “Too unique. Pretty.”
Was he delusional? How much blood had he lost?
“So, the CIA is trading with the Coalition for specialized technology and not sharing with the rest of us.” His sigh made me want to pull him to my chest and hold him tightly. “Why am I not surprised?”
When I didn’t respond, he continued. “So, who were those jerks in the lab?”
“They belong to a criminal organization called the Silver Scions.” I was pleased to have a question I could answer honestly. “Not all worlds in Coalition controlled space have joined the Interstellar Coalition of Planets. Some refused. Some individuals, like the three in the morgue, join groups that make them criminals on their own planets. They take their chances with the Hive—and the Coalition Fleet—and live by their own rules.”
“You destroyed the body. Why did you do that? You destroyed evidence in an ongoing investigation.”
I looked away, couldn’t maintain eye contact with the irresponsible, lust-filled images running around in my head. I wanted toinvestigateall right. His naked body. My question, when it finally came, was a blatant invitation. I barely recognized the seductive whisper in my own voice. “You want to arrest me, Detective? Put me in your metal handcuffs?”
“Oh, yeah.” The timber of his voice had changed. Gone deeper. My gaze darted to meet his and the heat I saw there made every muscle in my body freeze.
I swallowed around a very large lump in my throat and whispered. “They wouldn’t be able to hold me.” One twist of mywrists and the thin metal would snap. I was female, but I was not human. I was Atlan. Even on my world, the enhancements the I.C. had given me made me far stronger than I should be.
“Prove it.” His gaze dropped to my lips. I tried to distract myself by checking his wound for the hundredth time, noticed my hands were shaking.
“I think you’re in pain and delusional from blood loss.”
“Try me.”
Holy. Gods. His meaning was crystal clear and everything feminine and wild in me lit up like an inferno. Atlan Warlords restrained their females during claiming. My body was biologically wired to crave that kind of domination. Our males would transform into their beasts and lock their mates’ wrists in mating cuffs that were then secured over the females’ heads. The restraints held the females in place for a thorough claiming. No escape from the beasts’ desires. Their needs. The beasts’ thrusting cocks.
Only one option when a sexy, powerful male like that claimed a female. Surrender. Give in to the pleasure.
Except Detective Ethan Blake was not an Atlan Warlord, nor a beast. He was off limits. A human male on a planet where my mere presence was a breach of Interstellar agreements and protocol. For some inexplicable reason, my body was reacting strangely to this male. That did not mean I could give in to my insane urge to touch him.
Mate! Mine!
Gods help me, I was going to lose my mind ifshedid not stop.
Maybe touching him was the problem. He was too close. I could smell his skin. See the way the light shimmered in his hair. Count the flecks of gold around the center of his eyes. Two colors in his eyes. An outer ring of dark green and an inner circle of gold.
I shifted my weight to stand, but Ethan’s hand clamped down on top of mine, preventing me from leaving his side. “How did we get here? That fucking hurt.”
He’d already seen the ReGen wand. As ridiculous as it was, I didn’t want any more secrets between us. “Transport beacons.” I plucked the silver button off his chest and held it up for him to see. “Coalition technology. Specifically, their Intelligence Core. It’s the alien version of the CIA.”
“Thought Coalition could only transport between designated transport stations?”
“That is usually true. In special cases, the beacons are used for site-to-site transport.” I spoke with a cool, crisp, professional voice because if I didn’t, I might allow myself to do very bad, bad things. Bad. Lick him up and down and ride his cock until I screamed, bad.
“So they lied about that, too. What did we have to do to convince them to share this tech?”
