Authors: Lora Leigh
Anya slid back to the side of the room and breathed out roughly as Brim stepped into the short hall.
“She’s taking over. She’s got the pack leaders panting under her thumb, and I’ll be damned if she’s not setting up quarters for the Coyotes heading here. She’s even suggested hiring a damned cook, Del-Rey.”
Anya bit her lip as she glanced over at her mate and smiled brightly.
She peeked her head around the edge of the wall and waved at Brim. “She’s still here too.”
He stopped in his tracks. He looked from Del-Rey to Anya, inhaled and shook his head wearily.
“Hell, she even smells like you now. How the hell am I supposed to be on guard for her?”
“Why would you have to be on guard for me?” She opened her eyes innocently and stared from him to Del-Rey. “You’re on guard for a threat, Brim, not a friend.” She sighed with false hurt.
“And here I thought we could be friends.”
Brim looked at Del-Rey with curious pity as he jerked his head toward Anya. “What did you do, let her use Ashley’s hair dye?”
Del-Rey’s lips twitched, and Anya’s flattened as her eyes narrowed back at the two men.
“Remind me not to do you two any more favors,” she muttered.
“I’ll make a note to do that daily,” Brim growled before turning back to Del-Rey. “We need to talk. Alone.”
And Anya felt her heart sink. Here it was. The end. She hadn’t stepped on anyone’s toes but Brim’s apparently, and he was second-in-command. He had the right to object to anything she had done. To cut her out of any meeting. To reduce her back to no more than caretaker when he and the alpha were absent.
“Alone doesn’t work now, Brim.”
Anya stared back at Del-Rey, shocked. “She’s not just a mate; she’s my coya. One whose responsibilities and duties will be discussed as time allows. Until then, she’ll be present for all meetings. She can’t make the decisions she needs to make should both of us be incapacitated for an extended length of time if she doesn’t understand the decisions that need to be made.”
He held his hand out to her. Such a simple gesture, but one that had her eyes dampening as she moved to him and laid her palm against his. She was his coya. He had made her status clear, and by accepting his hand, she accepted the position. And the man.
It was a step, she told herself. One step among many.
CHAPTER 16
Anya sat silently and watched through the two-way mirror into the interview room where the bartender was being questioned. His name was Ron Coley and he had been hired out of Dallas, Texas, for the party that had been meant to turn into a massacre. He didn’t know who had hired him, just that he was to provide a distraction while the intended target was murdered by another member of the party. He’d had her picture, her name, nothing else.
“Who hired the staff for the party?” Del-Rey asked the Wolves’ alpha leader, Wolfe Gunnar.
“A catering service out of Boulder,” Wolfe murmured. “We screened the employees. He was listed as contract labor but his name and picture didn’t raise any red flags.”
Anya continued to watch as Jonas Wyatt, head of the Bureau of Breed Affairs, continued the, so far, civil interrogation.
“What about other employees?” Del-Rey asked. “Have they been detained or questioned?”
Wolfe gave a shake of his head. “Jonas has surveillance in place on the employees, but they were dismissed after formal questioning. Law enforcement in Boulder as well as in town are demanding answers to his detainment and inclusion in the interrogation. They were denied.”
Breed Law gave the Breeds autonomy in matters of security and enforcement, to a point. Jonas’s arrival made the detainment official; his questioning of the bartender was merely a formality.
Notice of punishment, whether it was death or imprisonment, would go before the Bureau tribunal once he had his recommendations completed. That tribunal was twelve members, drawn from the four separate committees that made up the ruling body of the Breeds’ society.
“Jonas isn’t going to get the information we need here,” Del-Rey murmured as they continued to watch. “The city council was in on this, Wolfe.”
“We know that.” Wolfe nodded as Dash Sinclair sat at his other side, eyes narrowed on the interrogation.
From where Anya sat at the side of the small room, she could see each man’s expression. The alpha leader of the Felines had remained silent, but his gray eyes glittered with wrath as he watched.
“Don’t imagine this will be overlooked, Del-Rey,” Dash spoke up then, his voice cold as he watched the interrogation. “Your coya is no less important than the lupina or the prima. We won’t let this go.”
Anya stared at the Wolf Breed, father to the incredible young woman who had argued for Anya’s separation from her mate. Cassandra Sinclair’s father was strong, but that strength was tempered with compassion, though she could sense inside him an awareness that, sometimes, blood had to be spilled.
“We’re going to have to deal with the town before we go much further,” Del-Rey stated. “Raines is running unchecked. In the past days we’ve pulled in enough information on each man to fry them all. My soldiers have found evidence of the drug we’re tracking in Raines’s house as well as four other city council members’ homes. The Coyote Cabinet is convening tonight to prepare a proposal on how to deal with this matter.”
Wolfe glanced over at Anya. “I hear your coya ordered that move while you were healing. None of us considered the women’s bags and wraps that were left there, and the fact that the council members in on this may have stolen those items knowing no one would be there to collect them.
It was an ingenious plan.”
Anya’s gaze focused on Del-Rey. Male pride was a tenuous thing; she should have thought of that before having any military plan proposed. As Brim had told her while Del-Rey slept, she should have waited, presented it to the alpha then to the cabinet rather than ordering one of the soldiers to prepare the proposal.
Del-Rey’s lips twitched in amusement as he glanced at her. “She ran Base with the same dedication and commitment that Hope and Faith showed her was her due as they overlooked Haven. I have you to thank for approving the time Hope gave her.”
Anya sniffed at that. Damned manipulating Wolves and Coyotes. A woman didn’t have a chance against them. They even taught their women how to scheme and manipulate. It should be illegal.
She turned her gaze back to the interrogation, barely restraining a yawn as Jonas Wyatt, the badass of the Bureau of Breed Affairs, asked the bartender again who his contact was and how he received his assignments.
“Man, look, I told you,” the bartender sneered. “I ain’t no damned Breed assassin, and if I was, I wouldn’t get caught.”
“You stink of blood, Mr. Coley,” Jonas drawled. “I have your file; I know you better than you know yourself now. You’re one of those disposable little peons. But even peons have information, and you
will
tell me what I want to know.”
“Or what, you’ll snarl and growl at me?” Ron leaned forward, his arms braced on the table as his pitted face screwed into lines of disgust. “Or you gonna bite me?”
Anya barely saw the blurred movement of Wyatt’s arm. But a second later, claw marks, deep and bloody, swiped down the bartender’s face, and he squealed like a gutted pig and jumped back as far as the chains would allow.
He stared into the two-way mirror, seeing the blood dripping down his face now, the marks that extended over his eye, then below the eye and down the cheek to his jaw.
Anya had never seen anything like it.
“Damn, Wyatt’s getting pissed.” The alpha pride leader stepped closer to the window. They couldn’t see Wyatt’s face, only Coley’s and his was filled with terror now.
“So, are you ready to answer my questions, Mr. Coley?” Jonas’s voice was cool, unfazed as the bartender began to shake in reaction.
Coley’s gaze jerked down to the table and he seemed to pale further. “That’s not possible,” he wheezed at whatever he was looking at.
“Look at me, Mr. Coley.”
Coley’s gaze jerked back to the Bureau director’s face.
“Very good. You will stay on topic, or I’ll make certain the next time I slice you that it goes to the bone, perhaps takes an eye. That’s not a pleasant experience for the victim, and it’s rather messy when I have to do it. I’d prefer not to have to resort to those means. Now, are you willing to give me the information I asked for?”
Coley swallowed tightly. “They said kill the girl. She was that Coyote’s wife or something. Kill her and the Coyotes would start dropping out of that base. We might even be able to get a few back to the Council. I was supposed to have help. There were supposed to be six of us. We were to kill the women first as we made our way out of the ballroom. As many as we could, paying special attention to high-ranking wives or lovers. Kill them, they said, and you break the Breeds’
backs. That’s all I know.”
“Who was your contact?”
Coley shuddered. “I got a kid.” He lifted his eyes, his gaze tortured now.
“Why should I care about your kid?” Jonas asked coldly.
“She’s only thirteen.” He swallowed tightly. “I know things they didn’t know I know. I heard about Breeds. You don’t hurt kids, no matter what. You protect my kid, and I’ll give you information I know you don’t have.”
“Such as?” Jonas asked him.
“The names of the city council members here and in Virginia near Sanctuary who are involved in a plan to take out the Breed leaders. And I got more. I got names of Breeds helping them.” He was still staring at Jonas in horror. “God, man, stop doing that shit, please. I’ll give you what you want, but you gotta protect my kid. I just do this for the money. That’s all. Just for my little girl.
I’ll give it to you.”
Anya stared into the room in horror. Her gaze flipped from the scene below to the cold, hard gazes of the Breeds watching as well.
“Gentlemen?” Callan Lyons turned to the others questioningly.
“His daughter is handicapped. Blind,” Dash stated. “Thirteen years old.”
“Call Wyatt back here,” Wolfe said. “I suggest we send out a team, collect the girl and then requestion Coley. He’s asked for asylum for his daughter of his own free will. Let’s see what we can get.”
They turned to Del-Rey.
“It’s your decision to make, Del-Rey,” Wolfe told him. “The hit was primarily against your coya.”
He stared into the room as Anya watched him, knowing exactly what his decision would be. That knowledge was frightening; she knew, even before he spoke, the stance he would take.
“The child is the most innocent in this whole mess,” he growled. “I’d like Brim on the team that goes after her. I’d suggest a team of enforcers only, fully sanctioned to retrieve the child at all costs. She’ll be watched. They know we have the bartender; they may have already taken the child themselves to assure his silence.”
Callan activated the speaker into the room. “Retrieval of minor child approved and sanctioned,”
he stated. “You have the full assurance of each alpha leader that her safety will be our top priority, Mr. Coley. As long as you cooperate.” Callan winced at the last sentence, and the expression on each alpha’s face assured Anya that no matter what Coley did, that child would never know anything but safety.
Children were the focal point of every Breed Anya had ever talked to. It didn’t matter if it was a rare Breed child or a human child on the street. Breeds were always aware when a child was around and they were always protective of them.
Coley nodded as Jonas handed him a handkerchief. “For your face,” the director stated, though Anya glimpsed the blood on his nails. “We’ll get a doctor in here to look at those scratches. We wouldn’t want your daughter frightened for you when she sees you.”
Coley sniffed, almost in derision. “She’s blind. She can’t see them.”
There were snorts from the alphas, contempt filling the sounds.
“Poor little girl,” Jonas sighed. “She has a father that likely doesn’t realize the talents she possesses. Why do you care if she’s protected, Coley?”
Coley stared back at him in confusion. “Blind doesn’t mean I don’t love her,” he stated harshly.
“She’s just a little scrap of a thing. You guys, you’re at war with the world and you know it.
You’re adults. I don’t want her hurt in it. She seems to think you bastards are cool or some shit.”
Too bad the father didn’t follow the daughter’s instincts, Anya thought as she shifted in her chair, aware of a slow, building heat in her stomach, as well as the mass confusion that was filling her mind.
How had she known what Del-Rey’s response would be? No one could have blamed him for wanting blood rather than to pledge his protection to a child whose father had targeted his mate and himself. Coyotes were sometimes more logical, less emotional than the other Breeds. They could be colder, less feeling. But Del-Rey’s voice had deepened with his thoughts on the child’s protection.
She clenched her teeth and rose to her feet as Del-Rey moved to counter her, standing as well and watching her with hooded black eyes.
He could smell the arousal, she knew. As it bloomed inside her, he would know that. A part of her was freaked out over that. Completely terrified that no emotion, no feeling, no hint of what she was doing or thinking could be hidden from him.
“Ladies’ room.” She swallowed tightly. “Should I meet you somewhere?”
“I’ll await you here,” he finally told her softly. “We’ll return to Base soon.”
Anya nodded before slipping quickly from the dark room.
In the hall, Sharone, Emma and Ashley surrounded her, their expressions concerned as they watched her.
“Wow, that heat stuff is bad again, huh?” Ashley stated.
“Shut up, Ash,” Emma hissed.
“Well hell, it’s not like she didn’t know it was going to happen when she refused that last shot,”
Ashley retorted. “I mean, she’s not going to, like, go to the tribunal again.”
Silence followed Anya then.
“Will she?” Ashley finally whispered, almost horrified as Anya lifted her hand in a signal for the bodyguards to remain outside as she pushed into the ladies’ room and moved to the sinks.