Masked By Danger by Christa Wick

Chapter Three

Despite the increasedchaos all around, and the blood rushing in his ears over the mere possibility of his mate getting shot, Cade heard her trying to communicate with him.

Her high-frequency supplication was broken and clearly out of practice, but he heard her all the same.

Calm down, Cade, and I'll get you out of here.

Cade growled over the crackled command.

Alpha female or not, the she-wolf was out of her mind if she thought she could disappear without a word for a dozen years, then throw orders at him.

His canines extended. The urge to bare them at the patrol cop and the male detective following Iris felt like hooks gouging and raising his top lip.

The only submission he would accept was hers—her heat, her body positioned chest down and ass up, her pussy dripping with enough arousal to ease his thick passage into her.

Iris stepped around the cop, again using her body as a barricade, only this time, to block Cade from harming the man as she repeated her command.

Damn it, Cade. Stand down!

Before he could respond, the crack of a high-powered rifle sounded.

The plain-clothes detective nearest to them who’d been shadowing Iris the entire time, dropped to the ground, half his head exploding as the bullet intended to merely injure Iris caught him in the temple, killing him instantly.

Iris screamed and threw her body over her fallen brother in arms, her hands coating in blood as she tried to drag his corpse behind the nearest car as cover. Her grief was as thick as her anger; he felt both ebbing from her in waves. Clearly, she’d been close to the dead man.

He shot one arm out, his hard grip seizing Iris around the waist as she reached for her gun to return gunfire. Though he couldn’t be a hundred percent certain, from his vantage point, it looked pretty damning that the bullet had been aimed at her.

Which meant one thing…

Hunters on the roof, boss!

The words in Mathis’s high-frequency came through just as Cade saw one of his vans screeching down the street toward him.

Spinning, he threw his body backward as the van slammed to a stop next to him, its side door open. Twisting as he fell, Cade pinned Iris to the floor at the same time Mathis threw the vehicle into drive and hit the accelerator.

A quick jerk on her wrist disarmed Iris. He tossed the gun from the van before shutting the door as another rifle shot ricocheted off the bumper. Hearing the shot, Cade threw himself across his mate's body.

She fought, twisting and jerking. Her fingernails swiped at him to draw thin streams of blood across his cheek as her knee angled for a clear shot at his groin.

He pressed a hand gently but firmly to her throat, just as his wolf would to exert his will on another. Staring into her eyes the entire time, he slowly denied her air, leaving her enough to breathe, but not enough to keep fighting.

When she finally quieted, he shook his head, drew a deep breath. "Baby, you're not supposed to smell like this," he rumble-purred, every instinct he possessed clouded by her scent.

Iris blinked once. Surprise pulled at the sides of her face, and then her mouth went slack. A second later, the plump lips hardened into a scowl.

"Get off me!" She pushed at Cade's thick chest. When he didn't budge, she pushed harder. "I said get off, asshole!”

"Not happening." With a warm rumble, he buried his face against her neck and inhaled. "Or don't you realize those were Hunters shooting at you?"

The van shuddered as the driver took a hard right. Tanner’s voice squawked over the radio that more shots were being fired outside the club.

"Two through four are clear!" Tanner squawked again, letting Mathis know that the other three vans were out of the hot zone. "Color change at the next blind alley, then going down the rabbit hole!"

Hunters held positions on two rooftops, leaving the cops to scramble for cover.

Cade lifted his head and barked at Mathis. "Head for Route 5. We'll catch up with them near Verona."

With the Hunters and the cops keeping each other busy, Cade settled his weight against Iris’s body. He tried to maintain a stern expression, but his horny wolf couldn't manage anything other than a smile.

Struggling against him, she snapped.

"That was my partner back there on the ground!"

Partner...

He growled at her use of a word too close to "mate" for his liking.

"Going back won't make him any less dead." Cade leaned in, sniffing again with the need to know just how deep her partner's scent went on her clothing.

As he dipped below the neckline of her shirt, something metal touched his lips. He jerked back, fingers glossing against his mouth to make sure it only felt like the necklace had burned him.

"You're shielding yourself with silver?" he snarled. Shoving his hand into her blouse, Cade yanked a delicate chain from her neck.

Suddenly, the van jerked right, the frame almost buckling as a low whine of carnal need sounded from the driver's seat.

"Boss, whatever you just did...undo it right-fucking-now."

"It" was Iris unmasked fully for the first time.

Holy fuck.

With the chain broken, her heat permeated every inch of the van. Energy poured from her body, the waves turning to a carnal howl only a wolf could hear. Unmated, she was a ticking bomb ready to go off on his mission, jeopardizing her life and everyone around her.

Unmated...

The word stuck in his head for a second before he crushed it like a tin can. Snarling, Cade reached between them.

"No…" Iris shook her head, the deep purple gaze pleading with him to stop.

He tugged once at the front of her pants, the fabric ripping beneath his claws. She wasn't unmated, just unfucked. She was his. If he needed Mathis to calm down in the driver's seat to finish the mission and keep Iris safe, then Cade needed to claim her.

"No," she whispered a little more forcefully.

Terror clouded the purple gaze, so that there was no she-wolf beneath him, just a frightened woman.

"Then control your heat,” he snapped, the fear in his mate's eyes warring with his need to protect and claim her. "Or I will."

Despite every inch of his skin burning with desire for Iris, Cade reluctantly eased his weight from her. She rolled to the side of the van and sat up. Her hands closed around the silver necklace. Finding the delicate clasp broken, she placed the chain around her neck then pinched the ends together.

Blue light erupted along her fingertips as she started murmuring.

Surprise coiled around Cade's growl. He squeezed to keep the sound inside him, the effort wasted as Mathis squeaked like a newborn pup from the front of the van.

"Boss, why is she speaking in witch tongue?"