Lora Leigh - Soul Deep

“No.” She gasped, her nails digging into his shoulders as convulsive tremors shook her body. “Have to. Have to. For both of us, Kiowa.”

“We’re almost done, Amanda.” Dr. Grace’s voice was tear-roughened, and Kiowa hated realizing that. “Just a little bit more.”

“The viable sperm have nearly exhausted themselves,” Dr. Martin reported. “As soon as you’re finished, extract the camera. If the rest break through, then it’s God’s will.”

God’s will. Nature’s curse.

Kiowa clenched his teeth as Amanda screamed out in agony again.

“Kiss me, Kiowa,” she cried out then. “Please I hate this. I hate sounding like this. Make me stop.”

“Ah God. Baby…” His lips covered hers, his tongue plunging inside her as she met him with a desperation that broke his heart.

Her lips sucked at his tongue and he tasted the release of the hormone, filled her mouth with it and gave her what she needed. He muffled her screams, held her to his chest and did all he could to comfort her when he wanted to do nothing more than kill those hurting her.

“My God…” Dr. Grace’s voice was ecstatic. “My God. Dr. Martin, look at that. Do you see the change? It’s a new hormone. My God, we’re going to crack this.”

Kiowa didn’t give a damn what they were doing. Amanda was kissing him as though both their lives depended it, and though she still flinched and shuddered with pain, at least those agonized cries had been smothered.

She was sleeping. Finally. Hours later, Kiowa carried Amanda into the cabin, laid her gently in the bed they had shared and pulled the blankets around her. She had finally escaped the pain the only way she could. She had passed out.

Sitting beside her, he smoothed her hair back from her face before leaning down to kiss her lips gently.

He didn’t know what the hell had happened in that lab, but both scientists had begun shouting orders back and forth, babbling about additional samples, blood and new hormones. He didn’t give a damn. He just wanted her out of there, away from the pain she had deliberately inflicted on herself.

“I’m okay…” Her voice was hoarse as her eyes opened weakly, her lashes fluttering against her cheeks.

“Yeah. You are,” he whispered, his hand smoothing over her hair as he gazed down at her bleakly.

What the hell was he going to do without her? If they created a hormonal block, or even a cure for the mating heat, how would he survive losing her?

“I had to do it, Kiowa,” she said then, her eyes reflecting her own inner turmoil. He could see the battle waging within her, though he had no idea what it was over.

He breathed in deeply.

“Dash managed to unearth the Council reports on my mother,” he said softly, staring down at her, knowing he couldn’t hold her forever. “She wasn’t just held and artificially inseminated. When it was realized she wouldn’t conceive, evidently one of her guards raped her…and mated her.” He swallowed tightly. “I never intended to force you into this. I kissed you because you were going to scream. I continued because I couldn’t stop. I would do it again.”

A weak smile tugged at the corner of her lips.

“No excuses, huh?” she asked then.

“None.” He didn’t believe in them.

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, Kiowa,” she said, her eyes drooping sleepily. “Now, I do want to go home…” The end of what she would have said slurred slowly until sleep took her.

She fell asleep as she shattered his soul.

He leaned down, kissed her soft lips and breathed in roughly.

“I love you, Mate,” he whispered then. “I’ll always love you.”

Then he stood and walked to the dresser. Ovulation was over, there would be relief for her, at least for a while. Long enough he prayed, for her to forgive him, but he doubted it.

There were few things to pack. He didn’t own a lot. His guns, his knives, the tools of his trade. A few changes of clothes, his jacket. He was packed within the hour and standing on the porch steps, once again staring back at Dash Sinclair.

“Did she conceive?” Kiowa asked, his voice controlled. Calm.

“There was no conception.” Dash crossed his arms over his chest and glanced at Kiowa’s duffel bag. “The additional hormone is looking like a blocker,” he reported. “According to preliminary tests, it could be used to ease the effects of the mating heat. It could be years before we’re certain though. Dr. Grace doesn’t think she retrieved enough to actually make any headway.”

Kiowa nodded bleakly.

“Let her know if she needs me…whenever…I’ll come to her.”

“Why not just stay, Kiowa?” Dash asked him then. “She's your mate. You know you'll never be satisfied without her. And the threat against her may not be over. The blood supremacists somehow managed to blackmail one of the Secret Service agents protecting her. He drugged the others so no one could help her.”

“I can't force her.” He shook his head. “This wasn't her dream, Dash. It's not my life she wanted. I won't take that from her. But I'll make certain she's protected. I'll always protect her.”

He picked up his duffel bag and moved down the steps.

“Kiowa. Your mother didn’t remarry,” he said then. “The final report came in last night. Your grandfather lied to you. There was no marriage, no other family. From what the investigators found, she spent those years searching for you and her father. I don’t believe she willingly gave you up. The investigators say that for a period of a year and a half, both Joseph Mulligan and his daughter disappeared. When she resurfaced, she was searching for her father. I believe he kidnapped you after he learned what happened.”

“It doesn’t matter now.” Kiowa shrugged, careful to keep his expression blank, the pain inside. “It’s over now and they’re all dead, Dash. Every one of them. Tell Amanda I said goodbye.”

He walked away. Each step was a burden; every foot away from the cabin was another knife in his heart. He would come to her, if she needed him. But he wouldn’t force anymore from her than he already had. He would let her live her dream, and he would dream of what could have been.

Colorado Mountains

The cabin wasn’t as big as he remembered it being. Kiowa stepped into the dim light of the well-made log structure and stared at the small living room with a man’s vision rather than a child’s hatred.

The television was still mounted to the wall, the collection of movie discs stacked around it. There were dozens of movie discs. His grandfather, Joseph Mulligan, hadn’t scrimped in the education he had meant to give Kiowa. Books lined the walls, a layer of dust covering them, the dull, fine powder covered the entire room.

To the side was the bathroom. A tiny cubicle with a bath and toilet. It was dark, heavy with oppressed silence. Next to it was the bedroom Kiowa had never used. He could see the bed from where he stood, the narrow lines unbroken, still perfectly made with the thin sheet that had covered it during the years he had lived there. Alone.

He stepped through the room, heedless of the tracks he made in the dusty floor and entered the kitchen.

A chair sat beneath the small table in a corner. The stove and refrigerator separated by the sink on the other wall. The cupboard sat in the same place it always had been, duller, smaller than he remembered.

He walked to it, opened the squeaking door slowly and stared inside.

The quilt was there, just as perfectly folded as it had been when he placed it on the shelf. A can of beans sat on the bottom shelf. A few magazines on another. It was as empty as his childhood had been. As empty as his life was now. Leaving Amanda had been the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.