Authors: Lora Leigh
“Have you learned anything during the vastly unentertaining hours that the good city council has spent attempting to show their appreciation of the animals that funded their new school?” Del-Rey asked.
They were there for more than food and drinks. The reports Del-Rey had brought with him linked that Breed drug to Advert and one of the soldiers who had worked at Haven a year ago.
“Not a lot.” Brim shook his head. “The others aren’t learning much either. Mayor Raines is still grieving for his daughter. It seems there’s still no information as to why she disappeared during that attack eight months before.”
Jessica Raines hadn’t disappeared, except from sight. The secured cells in the mountain that rose above Haven had been her new home since the attack she had participated in.
Del-Rey let his gaze wander around the room again. “We have five pack leaders here. Wolfe Gunnar and his mate. Hawke Sanders. Dash Sinclair, his wife and daughter. Myself and my coya.
Jacob and his mate. Only Aiden and his pregnant mate, Charity, aren’t in attendance. You have near the full Wolf and Coyote Breed cabinets and their families in attendance and a lot of social pressure to get them here.”
The others were aware of that as well. Each Breed in the room was on high alert, prepared for trouble. Del-Rey could almost feel that trouble brewing, like a storm easing in, trying to slip up on them.
“Sentries outside aren’t reporting anything suspicious,” Brim murmured. “I can feel the tension, Del, but I can’t figure out where the hell it’s coming from.”
“Any further information from Sanctuary on the drug situation?” Del-Rey asked.
Brim shook his head. “Nothing new so far. We know the drugs went out with specific individuals in mind, but no names. Sanctuary has their own men watching the pharmaceutical and research company involved, but they don’t have much. Plenty of suspicion, not enough to prosecute.”
“Jonas Wyatt is waiting for evidence?” Del-Rey grunted. “That’s a new one.”
“He has a new secretary,” Brim explained. “I think he’s afraid to make a trip to that volcano until he’s certain she knows how to keep her mouth shut.”
In other words, the new secretary Merinus Lyons had hired had the security of knowing Jonas couldn’t fire or kill her. Del-Rey was betting Jonas was loving that one. Breed enemies had a habit of disappearing, proof or no proof. And Del-Rey knew there were several particular volcanoes that had been receiving more than their fair share of human sacrifices over the years since Wyatt had achieved directorship of the Bureau of Breed Affairs.
“Jonas, with said secretary in tow, will be arriving at Haven again tomorrow,” Del-Rey stated.
“She’s breeding. You can smell the scent of the child she’s carrying. I can’t believe Prima Lyons hired a pregnant female to work for Wyatt. It’s certain to scar the poor kid before it’s even born.”
Brim nodded. “Hell, he should send her to Sanctuary. A breeding female has no place around any of us. Even our own females. Our lives are too dangerous.”
With that, Brim strolled away, moving about the room once again as Del-Rey checked for the feel of the weapons he carried beneath his tux. The city council had asked that they come unarmed. They had come with their weapons hidden instead. Unarmed was undefended. Del-Rey went nowhere undefended. Especially where his coya was concerned.
Del-Rey caught Sharone’s eye, gave her a silent signal to make certain Anya stayed close to the three of them, then moved to where Mayor Timothy Raines was holding court across the ballroom.
Raines wasn’t a man that Del-Rey could make himself like. He was deceitful. His blue gray eyes barely hid his malicious-ness, but there was no hiding it from Breed senses. Del-Rey could smell it, a subtle acrid stench that sickened him.
“Ah, Pack Leader Delgado.” Timothy gave him a twisted little smile as he moved toward the group. “Join us. We were just discussing those nasty tabloid stories that are making the rounds again. Really. You’d think if Breeds were so animalistic, they would have never achieved human status.” There was the barest sneer in Timothy’s voice.
Del-Rey lifted his brow. “I don’t read the tabloids, I’m afraid. What are they saying now? Are we eating our meat raw again? Howling at the moon?”
“Knotting your females,” one of the men said and snickered with avid curiosity. “Turning them into nymphomaniacs with some kind of hormonal release from a kiss.”
Avid eyes latched onto him as he scratched his cheek, as though in confusion. Breeds didn’t deny the mating heat, but they didn’t admit to it either.
“They’re still harping on that?” He grinned. “From what I understand there were several of our Breed males that volunteered to prove differently. Did that ever happen?”
Del-Rey knew it had. Some of the younger male Breeds had publicly named lovers for several journalists. It had stopped the rumors for a while.
“That doesn’t stop the gossip,” the gray-haired public works manager chuckled. “Your genetics are still a mystery to too many folks, Delgado. Makes you good gossip fodder.”
Del-Rey shrugged. “Whatever works for them. It does keep the women interested in us though.
I’m sure quite a few of our males appreciate that.”
The men laughed, then looked around as though making certain none of their women were listening. It was amusing at times, and at others offensive. Del-Rey could imagine the furor that would erupt if the world learned the truth. That only with certain women did their animalistic nature show itself, and when it did, for now, there was no permanent escape from it.
Del-Rey caught the mayor’s gaze once more.
“Mayor Raines, when you have a chance, I’d like to discuss the request you put into the Coyote Cabinet last month.”
Timothy’s gaze sharpened, too much, and Del-Rey swore he caught the scent of death on the man. The request was to assign several Coyote males to the local police department and as security guards at city hall.
The little town outside Haven’s boundaries wasn’t large; it hadn’t attained the popularity of Sanctuary’s neighboring town, Buffalo Gap. He wanted to know what made Mayor Raines believe they needed the advanced talents of the Coyote Breeds for any security.
Raines’s gaze moved around the room before a smile shaped his lips. “I didn’t mean to bother you with that decision, Alpha Delgado,” he apologized with the utmost insincerity. “I assumed the lower members of the cabinet would take care of that.”
“There are no lower members of the Coyote Cabinet,” Del-Rey informed him. “I’m but one of six pack leaders, Mayor. Each of us chairs the cabinet.”
“Every army has a general, Delgado,” Raines laughed. “You head it, correct?”
As he did, by strength and by will. That didn’t make any of the others below him, they were his equal, they merely chose to follow him.
“Incorrect, Mayor, but we can discuss that as well when you get a moment. As you’re busy tonight, we could meet in the Coyote base sometime this week if you prefer. I’d like to see the proposal you promised the cabinet.”
Something flashed in Raines’s gaze. Something triumphant, certainly dangerous. “I’ll be sure to do that.” He nodded. “I’ll call soon.”
Like hell. Del-Rey made his excuses and moved from the group. He lifted his wrist and spoke into the small mic beneath the cuff of his tuxedo jacket. “We’re going to have problems. I suggest an exodus.”
“Grounds?” Wolfe murmured into the earpiece Del-Rey wore.
“Instinct, use yours. I’m getting my people out.”
He nodded to Brim and headed for the bar, where Sharone and the other females surrounded Anya, their expressions filling with dangerous tension.
Ashley shifted, hiding the fact that she had reached to the holster strapped to the inside of her thigh and the small handgun she carried there. Sharone was blocking any access to the side and Emma was covering her back.
“This one stays.”
Del-Rey heard the bartender’s voice, dark, ugly with menace through the bodyguards’ comm links.
Emma turned to Del-Rey, her expression icy, and mouthed,
Weapon on coya.
“We have a weapon on my coya,” he announced into the mic. “Get your women the fuck out of here.”
He moved for the bar, aware of Brim striding quickly toward it and a young Breed, Carlen, moving for the females. The Breed was Wolf. He wasn’t Coyote, nor was he one of the Wolves assigned to Anya’s small protection detail.
“Jacob, call off your man,” Del-Rey ordered as he heard Jacob screaming through the link at Carlen. He moved faster, breaking into a run as he watched the young Breed jerk a weapon from inside his jacket and attempt to push past Sharone to get to Anya.
“She has to die, Sharone,” Carlen growled, his gray eyes too dark, too dilated. Fuck, they were going to lose another of their people to that fucking drug. “You know she has to die.”
Carlen managed to lift his arm enough to aim.
Del-Rey’s mate was going to die before his eyes.
Sharone pushed Carlen back, then threw him several feet across the room when he lifted the weapon and fired at her instead. At the same time, a knife streaked from her hand and buried itself in his chest as he stared down at it in shock.
Emma was on the floor covering Anya even as she struggled; Ashley had jumped the bar and taken out the bartender. She cocked the sawed-off rifle she’d jerked from him and leveled it on the room as she moved from behind the bar.
“Sharone.” The Wolf Breed went to his knees as Del-Rey jerked Anya from Emma’s hold.
Emma was on her feet, catching a swaying Sharone around her waist as blood seeped from her shoulder. They both stared at the young Breed as he gazed at them in confusion and fear. He didn’t even know what he had been about to do. Del-Rey knew the effects of that fucking drug, and this Breed, it appeared, was a victim of it.
“Why did you hurt me?” He sounded like a child.
Del-Rey was aware of the shouts, the orders filling the room. The Wolves had the city council surrounded, but Del-Rey was watching the death of an innocent young man before his eyes.
“What did I do?” Carlen coughed, blood spraying on Sharone’s white dress as a whimper left her lips. “What did I do?”
He toppled over, still trying to lift the pistol, still trying to focus on Anya as his eyes glazed with death.
“Get this taken care of,” Del-Rey shouted as more of his own men surrounded them. “Grab that Wolf off the floor and get him to the labs at Haven. I want full blood work done. The rest of you surround me until I get my coya to the limo. Emma, Ashley, get Sharone to a transport and get her back to Base. Now.”
They were moving quickly through the ballroom, aware of the Wolves moving just as effectively.
Breeds were covering the humans, weapons drawn, eyes hard as mates and family were whisked from the room and into the late evening cold.
Secured limos were pulling into the drive, then moving out as quickly as they’d come in, as Breed Enforcers worked to get the pack leaders and families out of danger. Enforcers and soldiers stayed behind, covering them while still others took the rooftops, ensuring that snipers weren’t in place.
“I want that bartender in custody,” Del-Rey told Brim through the mic as he pushed Anya into the waiting limo. “I want him ready to be fully interrogated the moment we hit Base.”
“He’s in custody and rolling now,” Brim barked back. “Get your ass back to Base. Ivan should be your driver. There’s no way he could be compromised by that fucking drug; we just had him tested after our return.”
“I have Ivan. I want you at Base ASAP,” Del-Rey ordered him. “Don’t take chances and don’t bother with that fucking city council. I’ll take care of them myself.”
He slammed the door closed as he slid in, and Ivan sped away from the banquet hall. He could feel the fury filling him now. No other mate had been targeted. Carlen had gone after Anya. The bartender had been prepared to hold her there. Why?
He turned to her, his gaze meeting hers and seeing not one iota of fear.
“They have my purse and my wrap,” she stated. “Morons kept my gun and knives. If they had left me alone, Sharone wouldn’t have been wounded.”
Shock resounded through him. Where was the anger, the terror, the sheer fear she should have been showing? His mate shouldn’t be staring at him with furious brilliant blue eyes and a determination that normally only blood could quench. Others’ blood.
“Sharone will be fine,” he told her. “It was a shoulder wound. The worst it’s going to do is piss her off.”
“I’m past pissed,” she snarled. “You didn’t tell me to expect trouble, Del-Rey. That was damned unfair of you.”
Unfair of him? As though he had knocked her out of some sport? His mate was becoming more aggressive than he had ever anticipated. The thought of it made him hard.
“If I’d expected trouble, your ass wouldn’t have been here.”
Before he could stop himself, he was nose to nose with her. “Do you think for a moment I’d take my mate where I expected bloodshed? Expected some crazed fucking bartender and Wolf Breed to take a shot at her?”
He was yelling at her. Anya stared back at him, adrenaline and fury pumping through her. She was shaking with it, desperate with it. She’d fought Emma as the other girl held her down, fought not to protect herself or her soldiers, but to get to Del-Rey.
It had been the only thought in her mind. To get to him, to protect him. As though he needed her protection. As though he really needed anything from her outside of sex. But the knowledge, sudden and swift, had slammed into her. She needed it from him, and right before her eyes, it could have been stolen from her.
“I don’t know what you would do,” she cried. “My bodyguard is wounded and you could have been killed in front of my eyes, Del-Rey. I’m not a happy little camper right now.”
She was terrified for him. She was shaking, desperate; she needed to touch him, just to be certain, as though only touch would assure her that he was actually there with her.
“And you think I am?”
That growl sent a shudder up her spine. It sent sensation crashing through her adrenaline-laced bloodstream, and lust and emotion to sear her mind.
She could have lost him. It could have been him carrying a bullet rather than Sharone. Though he would have probably pretended the damned thing had never hit him, despite any blood he shed.