SS: 'LifeMate' ch-4 pg-15 09/9 - Page 5

He sat very still, his mind working at a furious rate. Had his captors managed to find a way to shield their thoughts? They were protected most of the time by his own weekness. During the daylight hours he was helpless & vulnerable. But at night they had been cunning enough to stay away. Although they had drained his blood & his strength, he was mentally strong enough to command one of them should the venture near at night. It was his last chance to escape or seek a way to end his life before they could use him against his own species.

He studied the mind of the single person entering his prison. She was a young female. He kept his eyes closed, conserving his strength, waiting for that one moment he knew would come. He would reach past the strange barriers in her mind, rip past each strange compartment until he had total control. He would force the human female to his biding. Escape or death, whichever it took to win this battle.

He could smell her now, a clean, fresh fragrance suggesting the outdoors, the rain forest after a cleansing downpour. A hint of exoticflower & something else, something wild, something not quite human.

Asad felt his muscles tense at the unfamiliar ador, a strange quickening, a heat spreading thought out his body, but he held himself under control.

Nothing could prevent his attack. It was the first mistake any of them had made & he would use it, capitalize on it. The demon in him was struggling to break free, listening to the steady heart beat, the ebb & flow of blood in veins. Hunger grawed at him endlessly, mindlessly, brutally.

He waited unmoving, listening to the soft padding of her steps. There was only a whisper of sound, yet he smelled her excitement, the edge of fear & adrenalline. She was moving closer.

All at once the soft foot fall ceased, her breath exploding out of her in a soft hiss of shock. "Oh No"! There was a rush of movement toward him, the rustle of clothes. Asad clearly heard the shocked horror in her voice. She had not been expecting him.

Zoya couldn't believe the terrible sight, the man pale beyond imagining. His blood draining away on the floor. The heavy chains around his chest seemed burned into his very flesh. His hands were manacled & blood seeped from a multitude of wounds. She couldn't belive he could suffer so much & still live. She knelt beside him & felt for his pulse.

Asad opened his eyes to stare into her face as she squatted beside him, heedless of the blood smeaning her clothing as she leaned in close. Her fingers settled gently against his neck. Her large strangely turquoise eyes filled with compassion.

"Who did this to you?"

Even as she whispered the question, she was pulling out a small instrument from a tool belt hooked around her waist to work at the lock on the heavy cuffs. She care fully avoided looking at the cameras. She knew were locked on him.

"We don't have too long. Can you walk? They'll send sucurity after us & we have to run.

He was a bigman & Zoya didn't think she had a prayer of packing him out in a fireman's curry. She would try it through.

She had come to this place thinking it was a research lab for exotic jungle cats. She had never expected to find a half-dead, obviously tortured man imprisoned within the walls. She had never seen so much blood, such a navaged face, such intense eyes. The cuff dropped off of his left hand & she stretched around him to work at the 2nd one.

Her hair fell across her face in a silky fall of blue-black strands. Faintly shocked that he could see the individual colors. Asad could only stare at her hair. For a moment he couldn't think, couldn't even breathe, drag air into his lungs. It was impossible, yet the hand he raised to the fall of black hair was smeared red with blood.

Red not a muddy gray. His fingers brushed her hair back over her shoulder with exquisite gentleness, an instict bred into his bones, exploding the line at her neck to him. She didnt seem to notice, working meticulously on the lock of the thick steel cuff.

Her skin was soft inviting. Like Satin. He bent his head forward, slowly, steadily, the fungs lengthening, the demon roaring, his body clenching. His breathe was warm against her skin. His teeth almost touched her pulse, that vulnerable pin point beckoning seductively.

She made a sound, frowning, still absorbed in her work. Asad inhaled, taking the scent of her deep into his body. He didnt have control of her mind & he was too weak to waste what was left of his strength on working out the intrcute puzzle. The moment the heavy steel dropped from his wrist, he wipped up his arms, locking her body to his as his teeth sank deep into her neck.

White-hot pain lashed through Zoya's body, danced like a whip of lightning through her blood stream, heating her body so that every nerve ending was alive & pulsing with fire. The pain gave way to a dark, erotic, slumberous ecasty. She was helpless to resist.

Zoya was certain struggled but he was like iron, her softer body buttering itself against his hard one & he didn't seem to notice.

She felt the strength growing in him, spreading through him, even as her own strength seemed to slide away from her. There was fire in her blood, moving through her body, muscles clenching, tightening, going boneless, pliant in his ironlike grip.