“Never.” That unemotional tone again.

She looked over at him as he rose from the bed, seeing the mask firmly in place.

“Are you ready for breakfast yet?”

Amanda eased up in the bed, aware of sore muscles, tender flesh. He had taken her long into the night, riding her with a desperation and a skill that had nearly destroyed them both on several occasions.

“Kiowa,” she said softly. “This is why I ran from you last night. If you won’t talk to me, then this mating thing is never going to have a chance.”

He grunted at that. “Last I heard from you, you weren’t giving it a chance anyway.” He moved to the dresser and pulled out a change of clothes. “I’m going to get a shower. I’ll fix breakfast while you take yours.”

Amanda lowered her head, biting her lip nervously.

“I’ll keep running, Kiowa.”

He stopped. She raised her head, watching the play of muscles beneath his dark skin.

“You run again and I’ll make you wish you hadn’t.” The tone of his voice was frightening, his eyes, when he turned to look at her, were so dead, so dull of emotion that she wondered where he hid the pain and anger she knew must be swirling within him. “Don’t make that mistake again, Amanda. For both our sakes.”

“The woman that bore you sent that dream catcher.” His grandfather pointed to the web, dripping with crystals and feathers that hung from the corner of the living room wall. “She made me promise I’d keep it here with you. Animals don’t have dreams though, do they, boy?” he snapped angrily. “It takes a soul to dream.”

Kiowa lowered his head, staring down at his hands. He had dreams, soft gentle dreams of a mother singing lullabies, her voice whispering around him.

“Be a good boy, Kiowa. Find your soul…”

His soul. “What was a soul?” the child he had been had questioned daily. It seemed to him that if one had a soul, they wouldn’t leave a child alone. They wouldn’t leave a child cold, shivering in a shack alone, uncaring of the fears that kept it from sleep.

Did mothers have a soul? he had wondered. How could they have and give their child into the care of such a man?

“You were created, Kiowa,” his grandfather had snarled. “Created and forced on a helpless woman. Evil created you and the evil they put in you will destroy you. I should have drowned you like an unwanted pup when you were born.”

Kiowa stood beneath the pounding spray of the shower and sighed wearily. The memories were brutal and ones he wished he could banish forever. He should have known better than to leave the life he had created for himself and taken a job that would give him time to reflect.

Amanda made him think of all the soft, gentle things he had once dreamed would be his. At fourteen, leaving the mountain, he had sworn that he would one day have everything his grandfather had made certain he had done without. Instead, Kiowa had learned that the dreams, the magic lives he had seen on the television, were all an illusion. And through the years, he hadn’t let himself forget it. Until Amanda.

Soft, gentle Amanda.

Her laughter had stolen his heart before he had ever touched her. The magic of her smile and the gentleness of her voice had soothed a part of him that he hadn’t known still ached. She had made him dream and damn if that didn’t hurt.

His lips quirked in wry mockery as he jerked the washrag from the small rack he had placed it on and soaped it quickly.

The mating was a biological, hormonal reaction. It wasn’t emotional. It wouldn’t miraculously make a woman love what she couldn’t accept. Just as motherhood didn’t.

“They told her the abomination they were placing in her body,” his grandfather raged at him when Kiowa had dared to suggest he was a child, not an animal. “They showed her the creatures they had whelped so far, mewling, disgusting little animals that looked like a babe and sounded like an animal. You’re no more than they were. Forced on her. She birthed you because her conscience wouldn’t allow her to do otherwise. But you sickened her from the day you were born…”

Kiowa flinched at that memory before scrubbing his face roughly with the soapy rag. It was over, but it still had the power to make him bleed. Amanda saw him as an animal, forced upon her by the mating heat, too hard, too rough for the dreams she had. She wanted more than she thought he could give her, and at the end of the day, Kiowa always prided himself on his honesty, if nothing else. There was very little he could give her.

He had enough money from the less than legitimate work he had done over the years, so she wouldn’t miss the material things she was used to, because he could provide them. But she was still President Vernon Marion’s daughter. Raised to marry an acceptable, elite member of society and to know she was not meant for the dregs of humanity. Kiowa was the dregs of humanity. Hell, some days, he wondered if there was even any humanity left within him.

Long minutes later, freshly showered and dressed in jeans and black t-shirt, he left the bathroom and stared at Amanda as she sat silently in the middle of the bed. She stared back at him with chilly silence, her hazel eyes resentful.

“I’ll fix breakfast. You have half an hour,” he informed her quietly, pushing the dark needs and his own anger deep into the place he had created for them years ago.

“You have half an hour to think then.” She rose from the bed, staring back at him with haughty distain.

“You can discuss this, and come to a reasonable solution, or you can start making plans on how best to lock me up. Because this is not going to continue.”

“I hope ham and eggs work for you,” he said calmly. “I’ll have to go down to the storehouse later.”

Her lips thinned furiously. “Fix whatever the hell you like. You’ll be eating it alone. And think about this, Kiowa. The vote on Breed Law comes up day after tomorrow. How long do you think you can force me to stay here after that?”

She swept past him, her head held high, her hair swirling around her like a short earthen cape as she stomped to the bathroom.

“Never thought I could keep you to begin with,” he murmured, quietly. “But that doesn’t keep a fool from trying.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

He was placing the eggs and ham on plates when she walked from the bedroom. Her long hair was still damp, her face pale as she flicked a glance at him.

“Call Dr. Grace back up here,” she stated her demand clearly, her voice snapping with authority. “I want those blood tests now.”

The arousal was feeding through her body; he could smell it, hotter, brighter than ever before and she was snapping orders at him like a general in the middle of a war zone. Unfortunately for her, Kiowa hadn’t joined the Armed Forces simply because he wasn’t enamored of orders.

“Eat your breakfast,” he growled instead. “Then we’ll see if we can’t do something to improve your mood.”

The smell of her heat was making his mouth water to taste it, to feel it consuming him. Her head raised slowly, her eyes glittering with fury, with lust when she straightened her shoulders and said, “Over my dead body. I refuse to fuck you again until I’ve finished those tests.”

He frowned at that. He knew how painful the arousal could become. Could she really keep the stubbornness intact that long?

He smiled slowly, remembering the first time, how she had pleaded so sweetly, so heatedly.

“No.”

Strangely, a look of hurt passed across her face, as though he had wounded her with that one word.

“I’m not hungry,” she said then and turned for the door, swinging it open forcibly before stalking out to the porch, and God only knew how much further.

He stared at the opened door in shock. She was in heat, clearly as aroused as she ever had been, and she was walking away from him? He shook his head before following more slowly, curious as to what she thought she was going to do, or where she was going to go.

Two wolves guarded the porch. Amanda stood at the steps, staring down at the animals that watched her with challenging canine expressions. When she glanced back at him, Kiowa nearly winced at the fury reflecting in her eyes.

“Amanda…” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and hunched his shoulders defensively. “I cannot stand the thought of the pain you’ll be in. Even for the blood tests alone.”

“It is not your choice,” she snapped, turning away from him and staring down at the wolves. “Tell them to move.”

He breathed in roughly. The woman was going to rip his heart from his chest and she didn’t even see it. Had no concept of the hell she was forcing him to face.

“It’s my place to protect you,” he said softly. “How can I do that if I let you do something that will so clearly cause you such pain?” He shook his head in confusion, fighting the impulses to do as she wished and the instinctive howl of the animal that demanded she know no pain.

“Do you think this arousal doesn’t hurt?” She turned on him then and the scent of her need had lust ripping through his loins. “High and mighty Coyote Kiowa really doesn’t give a fuck though, does he?”

she snarled. “If you don’t get that scientist back up here, for those tests, then you can watch me hurt anyway, Kiowa. And hurt and hurt. Because you will not touch me until I do this.”

“Why is this so important?” He fought the flames of his own anger, the emotion fighting to be free.

“They can’t help you, Amanda. Nothing can break that bond with me no matter how much you wish it.”

“It could create a cure. If nothing else, something that will ease the symptoms,” she argued back. “If not for me, then for someone else.”

“There is no cure needed.” He wanted to bare his teeth in a primal snarl of rage and only barely managed to contain it. “Why are you so desperate to leave me? Isn’t it enough for me to know you don’t want me?”

She gave him a look of incredulity. “You think this is just about you? That I don’t want you? Wouldn’t want you even if weren’t for this heat?” Her lips thinned, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. “Kiowa, I want to know that what I feel, that what I see in you, is more than just a biological urge gone haywire. And if I can’t have it for myself then at least my children will. Now tell those animals to move.” Her voice hardened.

The finger that poked into his chest surprised him, stilling the anger long enough for a germ of amusement to enter. She stood before him like an enraged coyote female, her eyes glittering, her teeth bared in her anger and that little finger braced in his chest.

“What about me? What about the rest of the women who endure this? What if something happened to you, moron?” Her voice rose then, and he saw something akin to fear in her eyes. “What do I do then, Kiowa? How much pain will I endure then?”

“Nothing will happen to me.” He wouldn’t allow it. Not now.

“God, you are so arrogant.” She brought her hands to her head, holding it as though in pain. “Forget it. Just forget plain reason. Read my lips instead. I am not fucking you until I have those tests done.”

“I’ll kill the bastard who hurts you,” he yelled back, consumed by his anger now. “Do you hear me, Amanda? I don’t care, be it male or female, I will not be able to control my fury.”

He was nose to nose with her, forcing himself to hold his hands back to keep from shaking her to make her understand.

“Get over it!” she snapped. “Now get them back up here and then walk away. Go hunting. Hell, go get drunk, I don’t give a damn. But if they aren’t up here in fifteen minutes flat, then those mangy wolves can bite my ass or clear out, because I’m going to that lab and I’ll get the damned things myself.”

Son of a bitch. Dammit. Fuck. His dick was throbbing like a toothache, his instincts were screaming at him to fuck her into silence, but something else was warning him that he wasn’t going to win this fight. It was what he saw in her eyes. It was one of the very things that had drawn him to her to begin with, that spark of determination, of strength.