Authors: Lora Leigh
Just as he had warned her to be careful of the remaining Breed that had been in the labs. The one they had possibly driven past the point of sanity.
Gideon’s fury was becoming the stuff of legends already. The suspected feral fever that drove him had made him one of the most vicious assassins to come out of the creations science had dreamed up.
She had wondered why he was helping her. She had let herself believe it was out of concern for the three who had been imprisoned with him, but a part of her had known better. She hadn’t believed the man known as the Executioner—but also known for never harming an innocent—would strike out against the victims he’d shared the Brandenmore labs with. She still couldn’t believe it.
“He has no reason to kill them.” Gripping her upper arm lightly he began steering her to the elevators as Rule followed. “And we were petitioning the Navajo Council for this investigation. We can’t operate on their lands without apprising them of it. It will break the agreement we have with them and we’ll lose far more than we’ll gain. Even doing it your way would be seen by them as dishonest and cause sanctions to be slapped on us immediately. Ray Martinez does not tolerate Jonas’s games and he doesn’t care who it effects once he learns he’s being manipulated. There would be no way to convince him that Jonas wasn’t behind this.”
“There’s more going on here than Gideon is allowing us to see,” she bit out as the doors opened and he led her into the empty cubicle, followed by Rule. “He knows Malachi. He knows it was Malachi’s mate he saved from being taken by Council Coyotes. That means he’s watching. And he’s listening. I knew he wasn’t giving me the information I needed out of the kindness of his heart, but I can’t find any other reason for the aid he’s given us.”
“What was his relationship with the others?” Lawe asked.
Diane pushed her fingers restlessly through her hair as she exhaled helplessly. “Apparently good. The four found ways to help each other, often. There were several lab techs that attempted to help them whenever they could as well. When the order for termination went out, Honor Roberts had already been returned to her family. No one knows what happened exactly. The termination facility was destroyed but there was evidence more than one body had been placed in the cremation chamber that night. There wasn’t a guard or assistant left alive to verify it, though their computer files show the three were logged in and Judd and Fawn were terminated. Brandenmore decided Gideon must have found a way to escape and destroyed the facility. And Gideon was excellent with computers. He could have found a way—easily—to have falsified the entries.”
But why hadn’t she considered his motives sooner? She should have. God, she should have. She was just certain she could work around them. That she could find a way to take Fawn, and hopefully Honor, out of Window Rock without Gideon realizing what she had done until it was too late.
She knew why she hadn’t considered them before.
Every thought had been consumed with her niece, with saving the child whose innocence and sweet smiles made her remember what she was fighting for.
Lawe was silent. But she could almost hear what he could have said.
He had warned her. He had warned her she couldn’t possibly know what was in Gideon’s mind. And she didn’t. Was he there to harm or to help? Did he have a grudge or an atonement driving him? Was she risking the very people who may well be Amber’s last hope?
She had expected an argument, a confident denial and assurance that Lawe knew what he was doing, yada, yada, yada. She could have almost spit the argument out for him, she’d heard it so many times from other Breeds.
Instead, he remained quiet as the elevator made its way to the main floor.
She didn’t risk glancing at his face, she didn’t dare. She knew she wouldn’t be able to bear to see that arrogance, that confidence that he was always right in his expression.
She should have thought of this sooner. The moment she realized Lawe had been following her, she should have known what he would do. She should have known he would have warned Gideon they were searching for him. Knowing that, Gideon would be much harder to anticipate, and much harder to slip away from.
“The plans were already in place,” he said quietly. “Before you ever told me what you knew or who had told you. I figured it out, Diane. That’s my job. It’s what I do. It’s what I was trained for. To take the smallest of details concerning an operation and put them together, like pieces of a puzzle. Once you ran from me, and I realized the direction you were going, it came together.”
Yes, that was what he was trained for. And yes, he would have put it together. But she should have realized he would notify the Navajo Nation of who the Bureau was searching for.
And just to begin with, she should have realized she couldn’t run from him, she couldn’t hide from him.
He’d sat back in the past months and had left her alone. She had believed he would do so again. She had never truly believed he would follow her to Arizona when he hadn’t followed her to any other mission since he’d rescued her.
She’d been prepared to avoid his goon squad, but not him. Because there was no avoiding Lawe.
Now, Gideon knew they weren’t just after the others who had shared the hell of those experiments with him. He knew they were also after him, and that would make him a threat to them all. The sense of hopelessness that filled her was almost overwhelming.
What had she done?
Lawe ensured that he and Rule placed themselves in position to protect Diane as they exited the elevator and then the front of the hospital.
The SUV was waiting at the door as he ordered. Rule opened the back door, his gaze flint hard as he scanned the area while Diane pulled herself inside and Lawe followed.
He could feel that sense of hopelessness radiating from her and he knew he was the cause of it. He had no idea how to fix it. The pain she always kept buried so deep inside radiated outward with it, assuring him that whatever she was thinking had sliced deep inside her soul.
Feeling that hopelessness coming from her had his fingers clenching into fists of need unlike anything he’d known before her. His own helplessness rose like a demon inside him as he realized there was no way to stem the pain she was feeling. There was no way to ease it.
“Commander Justice, Director Wyatt and Pride Leader Lyons and his prima request that you meet with them when you arrive. A meal is being prepared as are reports for your arrival.”
“Please inform them that as soon as we’ve settled into our room we’ll contact them,” he replied as he kept watch on Diane from the corner of his eye.
Neither her expression nor her emotions changed. She didn’t react in any way that he would have imagined she would. She simply stared out the window, a light frown on her face as she watched the small city from the confines of the vehicle.
What was she thinking? Sometimes it was impossible to decipher her thoughts. Other people Lawe found easy to read, even Breeds. Diane, though, he’d never been able to accurately predict and that had the power to irritate the hell out of him.
She wasn’t angry, and she should be, he admitted. Had she admitted to him that she had worked him so easily, or that she had attempted to interfere in one of his missions then he would have been furious. With himself as well as her.
It hadn’t been easy to do, but he had given her just enough rope to hang herself, Gideon and the three individuals they were searching for.
Did she realize they were even working toward the same end? The survival of a child too small and too vulnerable to understand the changes going on inside her or to explain to anyone what those changes were?
He couldn’t allow his feelings or his pain for her to become involved in his decisions. If he allowed himself to sympathize or to understand how the three from the Brandenmore Labs would feel about being dragged into this war, then it could alter his ability to do the job Jonas had entrusted to him. And it could affect the survival of the Breeds as a whole. There were too many changes evolving in mating heat, too many children who were displaying unexpected anomalies and changes as they matured, to allow emotion to sway what had to be done.
His loyalty was to his mate, to his Pride leader and to the Breeds. In that order. He couldn’t allow anything or anyone to change that.
God knew he wished there had been no victims to the Council’s madness or to Phillip Brandenmore’s insanity. But there had been. Thousands of them. Every child kidnapped as genetic material, every woman taken as a vessel to grow the creations they envisioned and every Breed created had been a victim.
For more than a century research had evolved. Jonas actually believed the research had been going on for over a hundred and fifty years. One hundred and fifty years of the horror that had evolved to the lives they now lived.
He couldn’t allow himself to turn his back on it, or on those depending upon the decisions made now to preserve the future.
“Josiah, is the director’s mate with him?” Diane directed the question to the Enforcer driving.
“Yes, Ms. Broen. Mrs. Wyatt is traveling with the director, as is your niece, Amber. Your sister hopes you’ll attend the coming meeting this evening as well.”
Lawe watched as she lifted her hand and rubbed at her forehead wearily.
The scent of her hopelessness had slowly eased away, but it hadn’t been replaced by other emotions as it would with anyone else. There was only the scent of the woman, a fresh, summery scent that had altered only the slightest with his own and the mating hormone. The scent of the mating heat was there, but that altered mated scent hadn’t evolved as it should have.
He controlled his frown, his confusion. Each couple developed a unique scent, a combination of both of them that they carried after mating heat began. Its habit was to completely change each individual scent to ensure that the mates were one scent, just as they were one complete unit. Yet Diane’s scent was still uniquely her own. It was tinged with his scent, similar to that of an impending storm, but nothing more, and he found the primal genetics reacting to that with a wary lifting of the hairs at the back of his neck.
A warning of danger or an instinctive response to a situation that the animal sensed wasn’t quite right, Lawe acknowledged. He barely caught the growl that would have rumbled in his throat. He barely held back the sudden, raging need to have her or the scent of that need from filling the interior of the SUV.
He wanted her. Naked, willing. He wanted her arching to him, the heat of her pussy enveloping the engorged shaft presently tormenting him, and he wanted her to accept him.
To accept that he couldn’t face the danger she was so determined to challenge.
Lust was rising hard and fast inside him, and Lawe silently admitted the meeting with Jonas and Callan Lyons would have to be delayed for it. Locking his mate to him was a priority he couldn’t ignore much longer. The knowledge that she was somehow, emotionally and forcibly, refusing the mating had his senses in an uproar. Ensuring she carried his scent, if only for the few hours it lingered on her skin after he possessed her, was raking at his balls with merciless talons. The hunger for her was a fever in his blood, one that was rising beneath his flesh as each second without her touch went by.
The glands beneath his tongue began swelling, the hormone filling it and sinking into his senses with heated demand. There would come a point when denying it wouldn’t be possible. When he would have to have her, immediately, without the control needed to ensure he touched her, held and loved her as he ached to do.
It seemed that every time they came together it was with a flaming hunger that stole his ability to drive her to the edge of sensual madness with just his touch. The mating hormone fueled a different kind of hunger, ensnared them with the addictive, sexually charged fever they both found impossible to delay.
As though sensing the hunger tearing through him, Diane’s head jerked to the side to stare at him rather than the passing scenery.
Lawe had to clench his fists; his entire body tensing with the need to fuck her as the scent of her emotions finally reached him. Or rather, the scent of her hunger.
It slammed into him, as though the act of glancing into his eyes, seeing his need burning there for her, had opened the floodgates to her own.
And she ached. She needed.
She wanted him as he wanted her, fast and hard, with a pleasure so incredible it would burn them to the core and meld them to each other, heart and soul.
Nothing mattered to Lawe but holding her, feeling her wrapped tightly around him, crying out his name, her sharp little fingernails piercing the flesh of his back and shoulders.
That was what mattered.
Just one more time. Before he met with Callan and Jonas, he needed her, just one more time before reality intruded any further and attempted to steal her heart from him.
If he even had it at all.
The question was: Could he survive without the heart of the woman he longed for? Or would he experience the slow, agonizing death of his own soul because of her rejection of him?
Or because of his refusal to accept her?
•CHAPTER 14•
Diane always had the feeling she was on the outside looking in. Even before her parents had died. She’d been different. She had been different and she’d always known it. She had never felt accepted until the team had allowed her on that first mission. Until every last man had voted her in, not because her uncle was their commander but because they had trusted her to watch their back. They had trusted her to do her part and theirs if needed.
She’d found her niche in a world of blood, violence, and to her, ultimate justice. She’d been accepted, but there was still a part of her searching. A part of her that had looked around and wondered if that was all there was.
Until the night she had opened her eyes to see Lawe standing over her. To see him cutting the ropes from her, felt him pick her up and carry her out despite her protestations that she could still walk.
She would have fallen flat on her face and he had known it. She had known it. And he had carried her to safety while ignoring her protests.
Even then, barely conscious, dazed from the pain and the beatings her captors had inflicted, Diane had recognized that “something” she had searched for. She had realized it wasn’t a thing, but someone. A feeling, an emotion she had shied away from since the night Padric had died.
It had been love. That first look, the touch of his fingers against her cheek, the low croon of his voice as he promised her she was safe.
She had been waiting for Lawe.
The second time she saw him, she had looked at him and realized how hopeless having him might be.
He wasn’t just powerful, he wasn’t just dangerous. He was supreme male power with advanced fighting skills. But he wasn’t willing to share his world with her. She had seen it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. Felt it in the tightening of her chest and the feeling of being restrained, held back and protected.
He wanted her to forget her own needs, her training and her hunger to make a difference. He wanted to hold her back, for her to always know there was more for her and yet to know that she couldn’t have it and have him as well.
No, she would always have him. Mating heat ensured that they would never let each other go entirely. What she couldn’t have was any peace in it and still be herself. She couldn’t be complete.
She would always be on the outside looking in, and she hated that feeling. She would watch him leave to do whatever he would be doing. Overseeing missions, of course, or perhaps the rumor she had heard that Jonas intended to promote him to assistant director wasn’t just a rumor. Whatever his particular role, he would still be a part of the missions; he would still be commanding, directing, fighting for what he believed in. And she would still be on the sidelines wishing she were there. Wishing she had at least that much to remind her that she wasn’t a drain on oxygen. That she was helping.
As the SUV pulled beneath the hotel’s wide canopy Diane knew this would be her last mission if Lawe could arrange it. And there was no doubt in her mind that Lawe would definitely arrange it.
Waiting as Rule jumped from the front and opened Lawe’s door, she could feel the protectiveness suddenly closing around her, threatening to smother her.
She could feel Lawe’s gaze as she slid across the seat rather than jumping from the other side as she would have normally done.
Could she handle it? she wondered. Could she actually find a way to live with it?
Sliding from the vehicle, Diane was aware of Josiah joining them, moving in just behind her as Lawe placed his hand at the small of her back and urged her forward. As though she needed to be led rather than do the leading herself.
“Where’s Thor?” she asked as they moved through the automatic doors and across the wide receiving area to the short flight of stairs that led to the lobby.
“I’ve teamed him with Emma and Sharone,” he told her as they stepped up to the lobby. “They needed the stability right now.”
Emma was Ashley’s sister, and Sharone was the same as a sister. A littermate who had been trained alongside Ashley and Emma in Russia. They were close, and no doubt suffering the pain and fear that they would lose the vital, laughing young woman they relied so heavily on to vanquish the sometimes dark fears that haunted their lives.
“Stability?” she asked as they headed to the elevators, wondering if perhaps one of the girls’ rage was in danger of giving way to feral fever.
She felt closed in, as though the walls were moving in on her, as though she were being deprived of air, of freedom, and the only way to survive it was to find a way to push it back.
“They’re reeling from Ashley’s attack.” His hand moved to her hip, tightening, seeming to pull her closer as they stepped into the elevator. “They’re looking for revenge for Ashley and there’s no way to attain it. I’m hoping he can keep them out of trouble.”
“He’s good at that.” Diane concentrated on the digital display of numbers as the elevator rose.
She remembered a time when vengeance had been all she had thought of. When Padric had been taken from her and the team and Thor had been there for her as well. He had let her fight. He had let her take the lead and he had made certain when the grief had overtaken her that she hadn’t been alone.
“How long will he be with them?” Had Lawe taken him out of the equation because he had sworn he wouldn’t allow him to restrain her freedom?
Of course he had. He knew, if push came to shove, he would have to fight Thor, and she would never forgive him for it.
“Not much longer,” he told her. “The girls will return to the Citadel, the Coyote base, with the coya—she’s here at the moment to oversee Ashley’s progress. She’s close to all three girls and refuses to leave Ashley while she’s in the hospital.”
Diane nodded slowly, aware of Rule and Josiah glancing at her and then to Lawe, their expressions concerned.
What were they sensing? she wondered. It couldn’t be any emotion rising from her, because she made certain her emotions remained locked as deep inside her as possible.
But the deeper she tried to bury them, the higher the physical ache centered in her womb seemed to build. Like a fire blazing out of control and overtaking her with a heat she couldn’t avoid.
Thankfully, when the elevator stopped on the twenty-fifth floor and Josiah stepped out, the tension seemed to ease. A second later, a brief nod and Lawe’s hand was pressing against her back, guiding her firmly out of the elevator and down the hall.
There were Breed guards stationed at every room along the wide, elegantly carpeted hallway.
She saw Callan and Merinus’s personal guards, as well as Wolfe and Hope’s and Del-Rey and Anya’s. Each alpha had four personal guards while the second-in-commands, heads of security or other high-profile Breed leaders or Pack alphas normally only traveled with two.
Unless they were mated. If mated, those Breeds were assigned no fewer than four Enforcers for security to ensure they weren’t struck in retaliation or kidnapped for research.
“Here’s our room.” Lawe stepped to a set of wide double doors, slid the key card through it, then opened the door and moved aside.
Rule and Josiah moved ahead of her and then Lawe. Going through each room, checking for listening devices or any other electronic or digital threats.
And Lawe thought he was going to keep her standing at the door?
Her lips tightened as she determinedly strode past him and headed into the living area while Josiah entered the double doors that led to the sleeping area, and Rule went in the opposite direction to inspect the kitchenette and dining area.
Luxuriously appointed and opening to a balcony shielded with long, gauzy curtains, the soft dove-gray carpeting sank beneath her boots while the cream-colored walls, decorated with their subtly colorful paintings, gave a relaxing, peaceful air to the living area Diane stood within.
She felt anything but peaceful, anything but calm.
Moving to one side of the beautiful glass and wrought-iron balcony doors, she carefully, and with a sense of regret, closed the heavy, room-darkening shades.
The view of the man-made lake outside, the ducks swimming peacefully on the water and the tranquil breeze blowing gently across it should have been a sin to cover.
She could have used the breeze blowing across her face, filling her senses for a moment. But the risk that came with the Breeds’ lives didn’t make it worth it. Because it could all be blown to hell with one well-placed bullet.
It was too high a price for the experience of enjoying the perfect scenery.
“Inform Callan and Jonas that I’ll notify them when we’re ready to head to the meeting,” she heard Lawe murmur to either Josiah or Rule as they reentered the room.
“Will do,” Rule answered. A few seconds later the door opened and closed again, signaling their departure.
Diane moved to turn around to face Lawe, only to find him at her back, his head lowering, his lips suddenly at the base of her neck as he pushed her hair back, his tongue swiping over the mating mark left there.
A shudder of pleasure raced down her spine. Closing her eyes, she felt his arms wrap around her waist, pulling her to him as his lips moved to the side of her neck to the second mark he’d left on her.
A slow, leisurely lick over the small bite had her knees weakening and a whimper leaving her lips as frissons of excitement traveled through every cell of her body.
Diane couldn’t help but tip her head back to his shoulder, one arm lifting to allow her hand to curl around the back of his neck to hold him in place. Her eyes closed, her weight leaning into him as she surrendered herself to the exquisite sensations. Because she needed this, she needed him. Nothing else mattered and no other pleasure could compare to it.
“You’re breaking my heart,” he whispered, his lips caressing her, sending little flares of sensation to attack her nerve endings as he spoke. “The scent of your pain is killing me.”
She had to swallow back the need to spill out the anger she was working so hard to conceal.
He couldn’t help the instincts driving him any more than she could help her own needs, her own hunger to be more than just a mate.
She could only hide it within herself, arch closer to him and let the pleasure have its way as she hoped it covered the scent of whatever pain she wasn’t hiding effectively.
The hand that curled against the back of his head delved into the length of thick, cool black hair. It wasn’t as silky as it looked. There was a hint of coarseness to the feel of it, just rough enough to feel unusual, to remind a woman she wasn’t with a normal male.
Just as the rake of his teeth against her shoulder, the feel of his tongue, just the slightest rasp against her flesh, was just different enough, just exciting enough to sent a hard rush of sensation to ripple through her womb and clench around her clit with erotic pleasure.
Breathing in roughly as his hands slid around her waist and pulled the shirt free of her jeans, Diane barely restrained the moan that would have slipped free.
His hands touched the bare flesh of her midriff, flattening against it to stroke upward and curve around the aching rise of her breasts. The roughened pads of his thumbs stroked over the material of the bra, feathering over the hardened, sensitized tips sent erotic sensations slamming to her womb.
“I need you,” Lawe whispered, his lips trailing up her neck to her ear where he worried the lobe, first with the flick of his tongue, then with his teeth. “Let me have you, love.”
He didn’t have to ask. Surely he knew she couldn’t tell him no. Even if she wanted to. But even without the heat, Diane knew she couldn’t have denied him.
The very things that made her insane where he was concerned were the things that drew her to him. The strength and arrogance, the dominance and protectiveness, the honor that was so much a part of him.
He was so much more than just a man, and he held so much of her heart and soul that she wasn’t certain how to survive what he made her feel or the sacrifices she knew he wanted from her.
Turning in his arms, Diane waited for Lawe’s kiss. The warmth of his lips covering hers, his tongue flickering against them as the spiced-pear taste tempted her senses. The need for that taste, for the adrenaline-fueled arousal that would pump into her system, had her lips parting, her tongue waiting, flicking against his as her lips closed around it. Tucking beneath his tongue, hers rubbed and caressed, her lips tightened, drawing the hormone rich taste from the swollen glands as she moaned at the strength of the pleasure filling her.
The contradiction between the man himself and the taste of the mating hormone never failed to amaze her. He was one of the darkest, one of the strongest, Breeds she knew. Yet the taste of his mating kiss was sweet with a hint of spice. A taste of summer pears but with a hint of that vast well of sensuality he possessed that he kept hidden from the world.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, her fingers spearing into his hair to hold him to her as she arched closer, Diane allowed the emotions she kept such a tight rein on to rush through her senses.
There was no need to fight it now. There was no need to hide from him, no need to worry that vulnerability inherent in those emotions could be used against her. Because Lawe was right there with her. Lost to the hunger that flared through them, lost to the emotions that mating heat wouldn’t allow him to fight.