Deadly Game

bringing him to hard, painful life.

He had always been a large man, well endowed, and Ekabela's men had had a field day with him. One had been a master of torture, and he had inflicted those small, deep cuts in a precise pattern over every inch of Ken's body. He had lovingly called it art, and the men around him admired and encouraged those neat cuts, cuts designed to inflict the most pain while never allowing the victim to lose consciousness. Cuts designed to ruin a man should he happen to escape. They had skinned his back, but it hadn't been as bad-nothing had been as bad as that knife slicing into his most intimate, private part.

He could still feel agony flooding his body, the urge to beg them to kill him. The need to mete out justice to someone-anyone. He had known when he woke up in the hospital and saw the nurses' faces that the monster living and breathing inside of him had been revealed. And he had known he would never function as a normal man again. The raised ridges left him with little sensation, and if he wanted to feel again, feel any pleasure at all, stimulation would have to be rough enough to reach beyond the damage.

'Son of a bitch.' He bit the curse out between his teeth, his voice harsh.

His pounding blood flowed hotly to settle in his groin, and he clenched his teeth against the inevitable pain as rigid tissue reluctantly stretched, swelling into a long, thick bulge he hadn't known still possible. His breath rushed from his lungs and sweat beaded on his forehead. He gripped the edge of the bed and forced himself to breathe through the pain. All the while his gaze never once left hers. She'd done, with one stroke of her fingers on his face, what he thought no one could ever do for him again.

'Son of a bitch.' he repeated, fighting for air. fighting not to let the pain and pleasure, now mingling together, become the same.

'Ken?' Mari tried to push herself into a sitting position. 'What is it?'

He was hunched over, and whether he wanted to admit it or not, he needed help. She couldn't sit up; her leg was held tight, and movement threatened her precarious control, so she did the only thing she could think of. 'Jack! Jack! Get in here!'

Ken's hand clapped tightly over her mouth, and he bent closer until his lips were directly over hers, with only his hand separating them. 'I don't need him.'

The sound of the helicopter was loud outside, and she was fairly certain Jack hadn't heard her call. Ken had been so fast he'd muffled most of what she'd said.

A drop of sweat fell on her face and her eyes widened. She caught his wrist with her one good hand and tugged. When he reluctantly lifted his hand only inches from her mouth, she touched the droplet. 'Tell me what's wrong with you.'

'Every now and then I feel a few residuals from my little vacation in the Congo.' He shrugged. 'It's nothing to worry Jack over.'

'You don't worry Jack much at all, do you?' she guessed.

'There's no need. Stop squirming around before you hurt yourself.' He tested himself, straightening his body just a little, trying to ignore the way her lips had been so soft against his palm. He could feel sensation with her, every sense heightened beyond normal until he could almost taste her in his mouth. 'How well do you know Whitney?'

'No one knows Whitney, not even his friends. He's like a chameleon; he changes his skin when he feels like it. He presents one face, one personality, one day, and the next he's totally different. Personally I think he's a lunatic drunk on his own power. The government gave him too much authority without anyone to answer to, and he has too much money, so he's like the number one megalomaniac of the world. And I told him so on several occasions recently.'

'Are you aware he does very accurate profiling? I mean dead-on, Mari.'

She knew he was leading up to something, and she was already there. 'He has to have some kind of psychic ability. Otherwise, how could he have managed to choose the right infants in an orphanage? He knew we all had talents. He touched us, or was drawn in some way to us, because of our psychic abilities. That would have been impossible unless he was psychic himself. It's how he knows things about us.'

Ken swallowed the sudden bile rising in his throat. He'd had a bad feeling, ever since he'd taken Jack's mission in the Congo and been captured, that it had all been orchestrated. Even down to Jack's delay in Colombia so he couldn't lead the rescue team when the senator's plane went down.

He cleared his throat. 'You said Whitney wasn't exactly friends with the senator. Did Whitney know the senator's plane had been shot down in the Congo by the rebels a few months back?'

''Yes. We were told.'

'And did you know the first rescue mission was successful but that a man was left behind? Did Whitney know?'

'I overheard Sean telling him the news.'

'And how did Whitney react?' His chest hurt. His lungs burned for air.

'He seemed excited. I thought he was excited the senator was rescued, but then he said something about it being too bad that Freeman had to survive.'

Ken kept his face carefully blank as his world crashed around him. He should have known. Dr. Peter Whitney found great joy in using human beings in his experiments. He went to extraordinary lengths to manipulate people into position so he could record the events and trigger reactions he had predicted. He had done so with Jack and Briony, and now. Ken was certain, he was doing so by sending out Mari to guard the senator.

'Who gave the order for you to protect Senator Freeman?'

Mari hesitated, but it was clear to her that Ken was on to something-and it was entirely possible that they were on the same side. What could it hurt? As he probed her for information, she was collecting data of her own. 'I was no longer part of the protection team. I'd been moved over to another program. Whitney was gone, and with a little help from some others, I convinced my old team to let me go so I could get the opportunity to speak to the senator on another matter.'

Ken inhaled sharply. 'Is Whitney enhanced?'

She shook her head. She had loyalty to her unit, but certainly not to Whitney, and if this was a trap set by Whitney, he already knew her views on him and his despicable experiments. 'I tested him a couple of times, just to see. His bodyguards had to pull me off of him. I'm sure he isn't. Probably too chicken.'

'You attacked him?'

'I was hoping I'd get lucky and break his neck, but he has one guard, Sean, who is really, really good.'

The admiration in her voice triggered something vicious and ugly deep inside of him that he always took great pains to keep hidden. He turned away from her abruptly, keeping his back to her until he could bring himself back under control.

His fingers curled into two tight fists and his gut clenched hard. A black shadow moved in his mind.

'How did he react when you attacked him?'

'He smiled. He likes to smile just before he does something really nasty. That's when I was pulled off of my unit and moved to another program.'

'His breeding program.'

She forced herself to maintain control, neither flinching nor looking away. 'He sent Brett to me.'

Ken's gut knotted and the shadow in his mind grew larger. He could hear the thud of his heart pounding in his ears like the roar of a wounded animal. 'And just what did Brett do?'

'Brett is part of his new breeding program, and he's paired with me.'

The roaring reached a crescendo. His sight went to heat imaging, glowing shades of yellow and red, flashing like a warning signal as he spun back to her, his hand spanning her throat. 'What exactly did Brett do you? Touch you like this?' His palm slid from her throat to the swell of her breasts, stroking caresses. He shoved the blanket back, exposing her body, the smooth firm lines and the lush curves. 'This?' He bent his head to flick her nipple with his tongue.

Mari went rigid as sensations burst through her. She should be screaming, fighting, doing anything but what she wanted to do. She knew what this was. She knew he was taking advantage of her injuries and that he was deliberately using sex against her, but she had never felt the bright burst of pleasure that the mere touch of his tongue had brought her. Her fingers fisted in his hair, but instead of jerking him away, she held him to her, closing her eyes and savoring the feel of his tongue, his teeth, the heat of his mouth as he suckled.

He wasn't gentle; she could feel that the scrape of his teeth and his mouth was more ruthless than sensual, as