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of her brain quickly analyzed the strange sensations that shot through her. Flames seemed to scorch her flesh; she swore she broke out in a sweat, and her nerve endings became so sensitive that even the whisper of his breath against her cheek was a stroke of pleasure.
    Sweet Lord have mercy, she thought. She was throbbing from head to toe, and so ready to throw him to the floor and fuck him that it was pathetic. She wanted to ride him. She wanted to feel all that male power and sleek, hard muscle brushing against her naked flesh, driving inside her.
    Her vagina clenched, her womb spasmed and the liquid heat that trickled between her thighs should have been embarrassing. She was so ready for him her knees were weak.
    But if she was ready for him, it was nothing compared to how ready he was. His cock pressed into her lower stomach through their layers of clothes, his expression gone enigmatic, but his eyes, the gold flecks in his eyes, were richer, deeper than ever before.
    “This is your warning,” he growled, as his hands clenched against the wall by her head. “Keep pushing me, Cassa, and I won’t stop next time.”
    “You’ll stop.” She could barely speak. Excitement churned through her system, making her voice as weak as her knees. “You won’t rape me.”
    “I won’t,” he agreed as his gaze flickered over her face. “But we both know mating heat will. Don’t we, mate?”
    Her lips parted in surprise. She had known, but she hadn’t realized he had. How long had he known? For how many years had he been screwing everything in skirts when he had known all along what was building between them?
    Before she could blast him, deny him or spurt out a protest, he pushed away from her, turned his back and strode from the kitchen. The only sound in the house after he opened the front door was the sound of that plate shattering on the door where his head should have been.
    “You bastard!” she yelled furiously, anger churning inside her now. “You tomcatting, whore-mongering snake.” Another plate flew for emphasis and shattered against the wall. “Your mate my ass!” She kicked an end table. “Not in this lifetime.” Would she ever admit it? she finished to herself silently.
    Because to admit that, she would have to admit so much more. To needs that haunted her through the night, and truths that dogged her through the day. She would have to admit she loved him. And that was something Cassa refused to do.

◆ CHAPTER 2 ◆

THREE DAYS LATER GLEN FERRIS, WEST VIRGINIA HAWK’S NEST STATE PARK
    It began here. In this unassuming little town. In the savagely hewn, subtly cruel mountains of West Virginia. Hell began here. A nightmare began here.
    It began with one man, one woman and a vision of monsters, of creatures that could be controlled.
    So long ago. A lifetime ago. A heartbeat in time, a drop of red in an ocean of blood.
    The mountains rose around the peaceful little town of Glen Ferris, nestled in the mountains like a babe in a mother’s arms. It hadn’t changed much, despite the passage of time and the technology that had birthed a new species. Glen Ferris remained more or less the same. Sleepy, quiet. Quaint.
    There was no sign of the vast network that had once worked to shelter and protect the Breeds that had known this area as one of safety. There was no hint on the quiet streets, or in the mountain homes, that these people had once risked their own lives, and the lives of their families, for creatures that weren’t man and yet weren’t animal. Just as there was no hint of the evil that had once visited and stayed much too long.
    It had begun here. Despite the attempts of the citizens of these mountains to save those Breeds that had been brought to them, still, hell had begun here. A hell that so few had known of. A hell that had birthed a darkness that wouldn’t disappear, that growled in the night, that screamed in silence.
    Here. Within these mountains. Within the home of a man and woman, and