CHRISTMAS HEAT

Haley McQuire was hiding in Sanctuary's extensive,

beautiful library the night of the pre-Thanksgiving

party. She didn't do parties well, and she didn't enjoy

them. Jonas Wyatt, Director of Breed Affairs, had

given her permission to peruse the extensive collection

of first-edition classics, but he had warned her that if

one of his enforcers caught her there, they would drag

her back to the party.

If she was found, she hoped that it wasn't by Noble

Chavin. She smiled a bit at that thought. Noble loved

books too, though. He would understand.

He was always at the library, choosing books she

would never have expected him to read. Carpentry

books, books on world history. He devoured them, it

sometimes seemed. And when he returned them, she

could quiz him playfully, and he always had the

answers.

And he talked to her about the books. She liked

that. Perhaps too much. And though he would

probably talk to her, she doubted he would let her

stay.

So when the door opened, she hid quickly. She

expected the breed entering the room to smell her

instantly. She was a human, and fairly easy for a breed

to detect. Haley didn't understand why she didn't.

Maydene Brock was a breed older, a nurse in the

labs. With her graying brown hair and pinched

expression, Haley had never really seen her as much of

a caregiver.

And perhaps she might have sensed Haley if the

men following her hadn't overpowered the room with

the scent of cologne.

Haley wrinkled her nose at the smell. Even across

the room, hidden behind a low shelf as she peeked

between the books, she could smell the obnoxious

scents.

"Do you have payment ready?" Maydene snapped.

"We need the code," Phillip Brackenmore, the head

of Brackenmore Pharmaceutical Research, informed

the nurse dangerously. "No code, no payment, breed."

Maydene sniffed. "We'll meet you at the hotel with

the code. We'll slip it out when Dr. Morrey arrives at

the party. Everyone will be busy with her," she told

them smugly. "When you transfer payment, we'll hand

you the code. I don't trust the two of you as much as

you would like to think I should."

"As long as you're there," Horace Engalls,

president and CEO of Engalls Pharmaceuticals,

replied. "Don't bother trying to betray us. We have our

own spies watching you, Maydene."

Maydene growled at that. "I know who your little

bitch is. She can watch until hell freezes over. All we

care about is the cash."

"And all we care about is the information to

complete our own research. The live trials on the

breeds you suggested aren't working out as well as we

had hoped."

"I warned you." Maydene's voice was smug as

Haley felt chills race up her spine. "Even Morrey isn't

responding as well as you had hoped, is she? I told

you, you need us."

"So we do," Brackenmore drawled. "We'll meet you

at the hotel and transfer the money to your account,

but we'll see what we're paying for first. Understood?"

"Quite well," Maydene sneered. "Return to the

party now, before you're missed."

Haley peeked over the top of the books that lined

the shelf she was hiding behind. She could barely see

them, and as the door opened, she eased back down

carefully, certain that if Maydene looked back, she

would sense her.

She waited. She waited so long. She could feel her

muscles cramping, feel the sweat that eased along her

spine, but she could still feel the danger.

She looked up at the vent above her and inhaled

slowly. Was that why Maydene hadn't smelled her?

The vent pulled the air out of the library and

circulated it, while another vent fed dry air into the

library to protect the expensive books. That combined

with the scent of men's cologne must have hidden

Haley's scent.

But Maydene must have suspected that someone

was in the room. As Haley began to consider the risk

of peeking over the books again, she heard movement,

a doorknob turning, a muttered curse.

She took a chance and watched as the breed made

her way from the library.

Just a few more minutes, she told herself. If

Maydene was suspicious, she might watch the door

from outside. She might be waiting for whoever she

had sensed.

My God, what were they talking about? Drugging

breeds? Selling information? She had to find Noble.

The breed enforcer would know what to do—he

would know how to handle this. She had to find him

before Maydene and whoever was helping her

managed to slip from the estate.

Carefully, she moved from behind the shelf,

thankful that someone had made the little hidden

reading nook that Merinus had shown her a few

weeks before. It had possibly saved her life.

Now, to sneak out of the library and get to Noble.

There was something about librarian Haley McQuire

and her staid little outfits that just made Jaguar breed

enforcer Noble Chavin insane.

He should be watching the ballroom, keeping his

eyes trained on the two men they knew would make

an attempt tonight to gain confidential breed

information from a source within Sanctuary.

Breeds betraying breeds, for money. For greed.

And the humans determined to destroy them. Several

breeds had already been killed in the past day, and if

they didn't stop that information from going out, then

more would die.

It had to be insanity, he decided again, as Haley

stepped into the ballroom from the direction of the

ladies' room down the hall, because nothing else could

describe his reaction to how completely luscious she

looked in the simple black'long-sleeved ball gown. Or

how she snagged his attention against all his best

efforts.

The gown swept the floor, the hem floating around

her like a dark, sexy dream as he tried to keep his eyes

off her. He was there to increase security, not to ogle

the little librarian, who seemed to hug the wall more

than she danced.

But his eyes had a will of their own. His gaze

swept over the full skirt of the gown, lifted to her

curved hips and trim waist, and he had to swallow as

he came to where the material draped from her

shoulders and barely hid the hint of curvy, sweet

breasts beneath. She might have believed she had

succeeded in hiding those curves with the folds of

material that draped over them, but he could have

assured her, nothing was further from the truth.

He should have stopped there. Dammit, he had no

business looking further. But he did anyway. He let

his eyes caress the smooth, creamy flesh above the

material, the graceful arch of her throat.

A stubborn chin. There was fire in her. Soft

rosebud lips, a pert nose, and eyes that mesmerized.

Dammit to hell, he knew better, but there he was,

staring into eyes that seemed to be looking right back

at him. Dove gray and ringed with the merest hint of

blue. Thick chestnut lashes surrounded them, and they

stared back at him as though as helpless as he to break

the connection.

Fiery red hair surrounding a gently sculpted face,

added spark and fire to her eyes, and the look of her

had his back teeth clenching as he fought unsuccess-

fully to drag his gaze away.

Back to her feet. Where the tip of one small black

shoe peeked out beneath her dress. The dress flowed

around her, drifted and moved like a whisper as

though teasing him, tempting him to brush it from her

legs to see all the pale, beautiful flesh he knew it hid.

Damn, if she didn't draw his gaze like a hidden

flame, one he was certain would erupt into a

conflagration.

He forced his gaze away then, far away, not even

looking at her feet but at her slender, graceful fingers.

She wore no rings. No adornments. As though

proclaiming to the world no ties and no bonds. She

was as free as the wind yet restrained by some force

inside her.

And she was moving toward him.

Noble let his gaze move to her face once again, a

frown edging at his brows, a sense of foreboding

rasping at the back of his neck at the look on her face.

Perhaps he should have paid more attention to her

face. Because there was an edge of fear in those odd,

blue-ringed gray eyes and the pinched line of her lips.

Her face was pale, but her chin was lifted in

determination and purpose.

His gaze moved around the room then. She had

come out of the hall and into the ballroom no more

than minutes after Phillip Brackenmore and Horace

Engalls had entered, the two pharmaceutical and

drug-research magnates.

"Noble." She all but whispered his name, and he

heard the sound, that soft hint of longing he wondered

if she even knew was in her voice, at the same moment

he glimpsed the entrance of the ballroom from his

peripheral vision.

He gripped her arm and jerked her behind him,

ignoring her soft little cry as orders began to snap into

the communications link at his ear.

"You stay!" He jerked her to the corner and pushed

her into the little alcove created by the fronds of

several potted plants. He pushed her to the floor and

pointed his finger to her pale face. "Stay till I come for

you. Understand?"

She nodded quickly even as he turned away and

began snapping orders to other guests, herding them

quickly from the confrontation brewing at the

ballroom's entrance and into the buffet room.

Why he hadn't pushed little Miss Haley McQuire

into the more secure room, he couldn't explain. It was

something about her eyes, that edge of fear, and the

fact that she had entered after Bracken-more and

Engalls more than anything else.

Or it could have been that niggle of insanity that he

had been trying to ignore for months.

"Librarian Haley McQuire is secured in the far left

corner of the ballroom, leave her in place," he spoke

into the small mic that curved along his cheek as he

helped secure the ballroom.

"She's a hazard in the ballroom," he was told, Rule's

voice cold. "Get her with the others."

"Negative," he refused the order. "Something isn't

right with that, Rule. I want her separated for her own

safety."

He heard the tension in the line. "For now," Rule

finally snapped.

Moments later, several things happened at once. A

breed female enforcer distracted Dr. Ely Morrey, and

Jonas jerked the gun from Ely.

"Move in on Brackenmore and Engalls," Rule

ordered through the comm link. "Secure them and get

ready to move them out."

Noble moved toward the two, staring back at them

with cold, brutal determination. They were involved

with whatever was going on. Involved in trying to

control and kill breeds. The bastards needed to die

now, not later.

"Please come with me, Mr. Brackenmore, Mr.

Engalls," he requested, his voice carefully bland,

unemotional. He wanted to kill rather than react

politely.

Those damned animal genetics. He could feel the

blood he needed to spill for the threat this man

represented to the breeds.

"What the hell is going on here?" Brackenmore

blustered, as Noble gripped his arm and began to

move him, his wife, and Engalls to the entrance,

waiting for the final go-ahead from Rule to escort

them from the estate.

"Director Wyatt will discuss this with you soon I'm

certain." Noble flashed his canines in a tight, hard

smile as he watched the other breeds filling the room,

keeping a careful barrier between the guests and the

clean-up of the situation that had just arisen.

Felines weren't the only ones in attendance. Noble

watched as Wolf Gunnar, pack leader of the wolves,

conferred with Del-Rey, pack leader of the coyotes, to

direct their own security forces in concert with the

felines'.

The pre-Thanksgiving party Sanctuary hosted

every year had never been so exciting. Now if they

could just make certain they kept the damned

journalists contained.

"Noble, give Brackenmore and the others to

Mordecai. I want you to contain your librarian and get

her sequestered," Jonas said into the link seconds later.

"We have a security report from surveillance that she

may have been close to a meeting between Bracken-

more, Engalls, and one of the lab assistants earlier in

the hallway."

Noble's head jerked in her direction. He could still

see the very edge of her skirt peeking out from where

he had pushed her.

The Coyote breed, Mordecai, his face scarred, his

icy blue eyes filled with death, took Brackenmore and

the others, and Noble strode across the ballroom

quickly.

Haley was still huddled there and stared back at

him, her eyes wide and touched with courage and

trepidation. He held his hand out to her and watched

as she lifted hers, her fingers trembling as he gripped

them.

"They're monsters," she whispered, and though her

eyes were dry, sorrow filled them. "Noble, they're

monsters."

The fine hairs along his body lifted in warning, but

even worse, the spots along his shoulders began to

tingle in foreboding. She knew something. In that

moment he knew, she had seen or heard something

that could possibly get her killed.