Authors: Lora Leigh
“Alpha Delgado,” Dash spoke quietly, “Anya’s injuries weren’t piddling. A gash in her thigh from a blade. A broken wrist. A possible concussion. Injuries delivered by your man in response to your rejection of her status as coya. This is an animalistic society. You rejected your mate, what did you think your men would believe?”
“We are not just animals,” he snarled. “Jax realizes what he’s done and punitive measures will be taken in accordance to Breed Law. I stand by the alliance we signed. Unless you refuse me access again, to my mate.”
Jonas sat down slowly on the corner of the desk, his gaze going to Cavalier. “You witnessed what happened?”
“I came in as he grabbed her.” Cavalier nodded. “She slipped, causing a blade that had been laid at the side of the table to slice her leg. Jax tripped and, as he tried to right himself, more or less threw her across the room. I admit, it was an accident. There was no clear intent to harm, only to frighten.”
A growl rumbled in Del-Rey’s throat. “And that is still unacceptable,” he snapped. “No man on my base has leave to touch a female in any such way, no matter the reason. Jax knew this, and he knows the punishment for it. He will be dealt with.”
“And you have him with you in your search for your coya,” Wolfe pointed out, his voice ice.
“Because he’s the best fucking tracker I have,” Del-Rey snapped. “He found her. A vehicle left the house and left Haven’s grounds. I want to know where my coya is.”
“Safe.” Hope spoke up. “From you and from your men until such time as she deems herself ready to face you again. Go back to Base, Del-Rey,” she said scathingly. “Maybe her absence will make your heart grow fonder.”
He stared back at her silently, long enough that the male Breeds in front of him began to bristle.
His fingers ached to curl into fists beneath the leather of his gloves, and he could feel his hackles rising as he faced off with the other men seconds later.
“Do you know where my coya is?” he asked one last time.
Breaking the alliance wasn’t something he wanted to do, but he’d be damned if these Breeds were going to rule his life.
Wolfe stared back at him unblinkingly.
“You kidnapped your mate,” Del-Rey snarled. “I’ve heard the tales, Wolfe. You tied her to your bed and kept her there until you killed her demon mother in front of her eyes. Should I read into that what I want to? Should I decide you raped your mate and forced her compliance? Don’t forget, Alpha Gunnar, I know well the ways of twisting words and events to suit my own designs.
Don’t play this game with me and don’t consider yourself more than my equal in this game we’re playing within the alliance. You will not control me simply because you think you control my mate.”
Jonas and Dash turned to Wolfe as he stared relentlessly back at Del-Rey. Finally the Wolf Breed alpha sighed. “Nikki won’t even tell Hope where she’s located. All we know is she’s safe and protected outside Haven. Where you can’t reach her.”
“Where I can’t reach her,” Del-Rey repeated, staring back at the other men with a sneer. “Fuck the three of you. To my knowledge out of this whole damned society Dash Sinclair is the only Breed to have treated his mate with any honor once he came in contact with her. I did my research. You can rail at me as you wish. Anya and I will feel our way through this mating the same as you were given the chance to. Unless your damned doctor manages to get her killed first.”
Wolf winced and looked at his wife. Hope was still glaring at Del-Rey, still furious.
“She came to us hurt and requested our help,” Hope snarled. “Did you expect me to simply send her back to you?”
“I expected you to allow me to see that my fucking mate was safe!” He throttled the demented screams that built in his throat. “I expected a chance to clean out my base and fix this problem.
The same as any Wolf pack leader would be given. You have no right to do this.”
“She needed medical care.” Hope shrugged as though unconcerned, though he could smell her concern. It was thick, fierce. “You don’t have medical in that base that would safely treat a mate in mating heat. Her bodyguards brought her to a doctor who could treat her. She requested protection for a period of twenty-four hours.” Her smile was mocking. “I’m lupina. Trusted. My alpha’s equal where my responsibilities are concerned. I have the authority to grant that protection for a short amount of time.” She tipped her head to the side inquisitively. “Did your coya have even enough authority to order your man’s hands off her?”
No, she didn’t, because of his stupidity, because of his lack of knowledge in what he had done by stripping her of status in his attempt to protect her.
“The second I learned of her confrontation with Jax, her status was reinstated,” he growled. “The second, Lupina. Whoever the traitor is that I’ve been tracking in my base, he is now aware of her importance to me. Two attempts have already been made on her life. She was safe as long as she had no status outside my lover. Is she safe now that she’s in your care?”
Wolfe reached out and caught his wife’s hand. His fingers twined with hers as her lips thinned and he turned his gaze back to Del-Rey.
“For the moment, your coya is safe, of that I have no doubt,” he sighed. “But you’re right, Alpha Delgado, you have the right to ascertain that yourself. I’ll talk to Dr. Armani myself and see if we can’t learn her location. We’ll go in together.”
Del-Rey’s lips twisted mockingly. “I have forty Coyotes heading to Advert. Be kind enough to give your Wolves guarding my mate the order not to shoot them on sight.” His expression hardened. “I hear Satin and her enforcers believe the only good Coyote is a dead Coyote. I’d hate to see one of my men die because of her trigger-happy little fingers.”
“If you know where she’s at and who she’s with, then why come here?” Wolfe asked.
“The alliance bylaws demand it,” Del-Rey informed him. “That alliance means everything to me, and to my mate, as well as our people. You’ve been informed, Alpha Gunnar, I’m going to find my mate.”
He turned and stalked from the office, Brim and Cavalier following silently as they left the house.
Jonas turned to Wolfe. “Do you know where she’s at?”
Wolfe shook his head. “Nikki isn’t saying. We have a meeting scheduled for this afternoon, but she hasn’t given us the location yet.”
“She’s a rogue,” Jonas bit out. “She needs to be reined in.”
Wolfe snorted at that. “Sure, Wyatt, you go for reining her. Let me know how that works out for you.”
“We need our own men in Advert,” Dash stated then. “Cassie’s afraid this is going to end in bloodshed. She’s pacing the floors, Wolfe.”
Wolfe grimaced. Cassie, or Cassandra, Sinclair knew things she shouldn’t know. She saw things she shouldn’t see, and if she was scared, then there was a hell of a risk.
“I want every enforcer available,” he told Jonas. “Feline, Wolf, Coyote, I don’t give a shit. Get them ready. I want half sent to Advert and half ready to fly with us. Whatever the hell is going on, we need to be prepared.”
“Doctors,” Hope whispered.
Wolfe looked up at her with a frown.
“She’s meeting with two council scientists she helped hide in Russia. The very two Nikki has been searching for to bring to Haven. Chernov and Sobolova. Her father is bringing them into Advert. She requested asylum for them.”
“Did you grant it?” Wolfe asked carefully.
Hope shook her head. “Nikki just told me before Del-Rey showed up. But that’s why Anya ran.
She’s afraid Del-Rey will kill them. He expressly forbade her to contact them. She’s breaking Breed Law and she knows it. She contacted Council scientists without the express permission of one of the alphas of the ruling cabinet.”
Jonas cursed, Dash breathed out roughly, and Wolfe felt a sigh of regret pass his lips. They had no choice but to give asylum to the doctors. Giving asylum to Anya wouldn’t be as uncomplicated.
“She had my permission.” Jonas shrugged, as though surprised. “Didn’t you get that memo?”
Wolfe’s head jerked up. Only one alpha had to be contacted. Responsibility then went to that alpha to contact the others.
“We’ve had server problems,” Wolfe said softly. “Had to shut everything down.”
“Ah.” Jonas’s eyes widened as he spread his hands. “Well, that explains it. Consider yourselves informed.”
“You informed Alpha Delgado?” Wolfe asked.
“Same memo.” Jonas smiled.
Wolfe chuckled.
“Manipulating bastard.” Dash accused him with a grin. “Remind me to watch the two of you more carefully in the future.”
“Hmm,” Hope murmured. “Dash is put out. He must not have gotten his memo either.”
Male chuckles filled the room, but there was a hint of worry there as well. The Coyote alliance was important to the Breed society as a whole, but more than that, Del-Rey and Anya were their friends. Their future was important to them too.
“Let’s get it together,” Wolfe said moments later. “Find out where Satin and her women are holding the coya and get a message to her. Let’s see if we can do this without killing anyone.”
“Let’s pray we can get this done without any of us getting killed,” Jonas sighed as he moved for the door. “It would look damned bad on the Bureau if we have to wade out of a war in Advert.”
And it would plain piss Jonas off, because war was the last thing the Breeds needed right now.
CHAPTER 24
Daylight was riding the mountains as the all-terrain moved over back roads, following satellite imagery of hidden cabins that could possibly be Breed safe houses. There were many in and around Advert, Del-Rey knew, though he didn’t know the locations of each as he should have.
He liked to say Coyotes were lazy and shiftless, that they were more rogues than warriors; otherwise, they’d be Wolves. It wasn’t true. They liked to play the game. They liked to convince the world they were that harmless, but the truth was, they were exacting in their deliberate sloppiness.
“Team one.” The general link opened to his comm. “Alpha, we’ve scoured this side of the mountain,” Brazon reported. “We found two cabins, empty. One with a vacationing family.
Thermal imagery gives us a single adult female, an adult male and two minors. That’s it.”
“Turn north,” he ordered. “There are five cabins on the slope. Thermal tracking picked up smoke from two of them.”
“Heading north,” Blazon acknowledged as Del-Rey propped his elbow on the side of the door and ran his hand wearily over his jaw.
God, where was she? Was she as cold as he was?
He stared at the thick, heavy blanket of snow that covered the mountains around them, and for a moment he was back in time. He was ten, staring out the bars over his windows as he watched the soldiers chain Brim by a collar around his neck, in the middle of a snowstorm.
There had been a doghouse to huddle in. There had been no warmth. The five-year-old Brim had been naked and depending on Del-Rey to save him. Because Del-Rey had sworn he wouldn’t let the boy die.
Brim was blue by the time the soldiers dragged him into the warmth of the cells. He had shaken and shivered for hours as Del-Rey coordinated the Coyotes in the cell so there were two to warm him and the others to hide it.
It had taken him nearly six hours to manipulate the guards and the scientists into deciding to bring him in. There had been so many others he hadn’t been able to save.
What if he couldn’t save his mate now? After the years he had trained to protect his people, would fate laugh in his face and let him fail with his mate?
God, where was she?
“Team six,” he spoke into the comm link. “Any sign?”
“Negative,” the team leader reported. “We have four and five working a grid through town, but nothing’s shown. City council seems to be meeting today. Strange for a Sunday, don’t you think?” the leader mused.
“Keep your eyes open, cover the back roads out of town as well. I want her found.”
“We’ll find her, Alpha,” the team leader swore. “We won’t let our coya go unprotected.”
But they had, and it had been his fault. He should have thought. The animal genetics were too close to the surface. He’d thought the Coyotes that knew him, trusted him, would see what he didn’t tell them. That he was protecting his coya as he protected his brothers. By denying her.
Instead, they had seen suspicion and distrust. She was a human, not a Coyote, and he’d rejected her despite the fact that she was his mate.
“Alpha Delgado, this is Base.” The communications supervisor came on. “Switch to private.”
Del-Rey flipped the link to a private channel, including Brim in the transmission.
“Delgado here.”
“Alpha, we found a transmission, erased. I was able to track it from the coya’s computer.”
“And?”
“Alpha, the transmission originated from her private computer to a public forum and bounced to France. Transmission was to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Separate identities. Another transmission tracked from Austria to the coya’s line in private chat arranging a meeting and then confirming said meeting for today. I ran the identities myself. Doctors Chernov and Sobolova from the Russian facility. She’s contacted Council scientists. Were you aware of this?”
God love her. He closed his eyes, battling his fears for her. Her drive to protect the Coyotes was going to get her killed.
He thought fast. “You didn’t get that memo?” Protecting her was his prime importance.
“No, Alpha, pack leaders did not receive their memos in regards to this,” the team leader stated soberly. “But there was that communications blackout and shutdown.”
“That explains it.” Del-Rey’s throat felt tight with emotion. “Your coya was contacting doctors she thought would aid our unique genetics.”
“So why meet them alone?” the pack leader asked.
“I don’t know, because she was fucking attacked in her own home?” Del-Rey snarled. “Stop asking me damned questions and find her. I want the location of that meeting.”
“There was reference to a secondary contact, Alpha,” he was told. “The only person she speaks to by phone or link is her family.”
Del-Rey’s eyes narrowed. “Track down her father and those three useless cousins of hers. Find out if they’re where they’re supposed to be, and if not, find out where they went.”