by Lora Leigh
She deserved much more from him.
“Before I destroy both of us.” She sighed as she turned away from him. “There is no ‘us,’ Lawe. There’s still just you and what you want.”
She looked alone, bereft. Staring at her, Lawe couldn’t believe the gift standing before him or the incredible strength and will she possessed. She was as strong as the woman who had given him birth. And he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she would die for him the same as Morningstar had died for her mate, Elder.
“After my escape from the labs I avoided every woman who I felt, even remotely, could have been my mate.” The surprise on her face was nothing compared to his own as he heard himself speaking.
Reaching out Lawe touched the side of her face with the backs of his fingers, brushing her hair back as he did so. “Not because I didn’t want you.” He cupped the back of her neck as that remembered ache of hunger shot through him. “Because I did, Diane. With everything I am, everything I was, I wanted my mate. I wanted to hold you, to have you hold me. I wanted to laugh and feel the contentment I knew other Breeds felt with their mates. I wanted to sleep with that sense of peace others spoke of. But even more, even more than that, I wanted to ensure that the evil I knew existed in this world never touched you. Because I knew the dangers, I knew the pain and horrors that I could bring to you. And I wanted nothing more than to vanquish all your dragons. And here I was, the greatest of all those dragons.”
She turned her head away, blinking. Damn, she was blinking back tears?
“Tears,” he whispered, amazed. “I never wanted you to have reason to shed tears or to feel the helplessness that rages through me when you do.” To know she hurt enough to cry made him crazy. It made all the animal genetics that raged inside him threaten to overtake him once again.
“You can’t hold back life, Lawe,” she stated, the frustration eating at her, and raking at the control Lawe was fighting to hold on to as he sensed it.
“I know I can’t hold back life,” he agreed as he pulled his hand back rather than tightening his hold on her. “I don’t want to hold back your life. I want to fucking share it. Damn it, Diane, I just want to ensure that nothing takes us from the other. We’re mates. If you die, then I may as well die with you. And if I die . . .” He shook his head, the other side of mating suddenly clearer to him than it had ever been. “If I’m gone, then you’ll be always alone. Always, Diane. Always suffering that loss because you’ll be unable to bear to have another man touch you. You would be completely vulnerable. You and any children we may have unless you’re in Sanctuary. Unless you’re protected and you understand that need for protection.”
Watching her face, watching the pain that flashed in her eyes, and the fear, he suddenly wondered if those Breeds who were still unaware of the true depth of it, would allow it to begin if they knew the truth. He knew that fear. The fear of being enclosed, of being imprisoned. She was terrified he would find a way to cage her, and Lawe couldn’t swear to her that the day wouldn’t come when it would have to be done.
Lowering his head he pressed his forehead against her temple, inhaling the scent of her. The mating heat, a spicy, fruity scent, a combination of him and her, a merging of who they were.
That was the mating scent. It was what mating did. It merged two beings, it merged their scents, and sometimes, when needed, it merged their dreams along with their hearts and souls.
“You are more than a soldier,” he promised her as he let his lips brush against her hair, as he inhaled the scent of both of them merging. “You are more than a mate, more than just a woman, a sister or an aunt. You can’t fight this fight alone, Diane, and that’s what you’re trying to do. Nor can you fight against rogue Breeds who can smell you coming a mile away. Or Council Coyotes who can smell your scent and know it for what it is. And if you’re taken because of it, if you’re taken, you become the same as the other mates the Council has captured. You become a science experiment.” Screams echoed in his head now. “Vivisected, screaming, begging and dying as they compare your organs, compare the changes to them, against those they’ve murdered in the same way before you.”
Pulling back, he stared into her tormented gaze and wanted to roar out his rage and his pain at what he saw there.
A woman fighting not just her hunger but all the dreams and all the needs she had never had to deny herself before. Dreams and needs he was asking—no, demanding—she give up. She was more than just a soldier, she was his mate. She was the woman he’d always dreamed of having and the one whose sheer bravery terrified him.
“Lawe.” She touched him. Her palm against his jaw, her fingers against his cheek. “Sanctuary is attacked at least once a year. I know of two attempts against the community during the social events Callan and Merinus are forced to throw throughout the year. Snipers have been caught twice attempting to get into position and Callan was nearly killed at an event thrown by a Breed supporter. Sanctuary isn’t safe either. And each time it was attacked, each time a Breed, a mate or any member of the community was harmed I’d die inside. I’d always feel I could have helped. I’ll always feel responsible.”
He tried to protest, only to have her fingers press against his lips to hold the words back.
Her hands weren’t silk and satin, but neither were they calloused and rough. They were a true woman’s hands. She used them. She worked with them. She touched him and he swore she breathed life into his soul the night he rescued her.
“I can’t be more than a soldier, Lawe. Even for you. It’s all I’ve dreamed of being. And, until you, it’s all I’ve dreamed of having. I don’t want a protector or a jailer. I want a partner. And that’s what I’ll have or I’ll have nothing or no one at all. Even you.” She stepped slowly back from him even though he could feel, sense, her need to crawl into his body and stay there.
And that was where he wanted her. Buried so deep inside him that he knew every breath she took. That he felt it. That he could reach out at any given time and assure himself of her safety, of her happiness.
As he watched her, she slung the strap of the duffel bag over one shoulder, the strap of the backpack over the other, then hefted the black duffel bag that contained her weapons. Lawe almost shook his head in bemusement. The gear looked far too heavy for her to manage on her own.
Yet she did manage it. It weighed heavily on her slender shoulders, pulled at her arm, yet she went out the door and slammed it behind her.
His eyes narrowed.
Turning back to the room, Lawe took his time and finished dressing. There was no gear to pack or collect. It was all stored in the back of the SUV Rule had left in the parking lot before heading out to Window Rock with all but one of the team members who had driven out with them.
He pulled on the sleeveless black shirt that matched the same-color mission pants, then the long-sleeved light shirt that buttoned over it. He laced his protective black ankle boots snugly and clipped the holster that held the laser-powered handgun. Finally, he tucked the sheathed knife he carried at the small of his back.
He moved unhurriedly to the door, opened it and left the room. Stepping out onto the covered walkway and glancing down at the parking lot where the SUV and the feline Breed Enforcer waited.
With his mate and her second-in-command.
Diane leaned against the front of the vehicle, and even across the distance he could smell the complete fury raging through her and spilling out to scent the air with the smell of sweetened heat and flaming ambrosia.
Damn, his dick was steel hard.
He’d gone from semi-hard to a full, engorged erection in about a quarter of a second. The glands beneath his tongue began filling with the mating hormone, the spice and sweet taste flooding his senses as he gave a resigned sigh.
She was pissed as hell and the knowledge of it sent adrenaline rushing through him as she stared back at him in challenge.
And it was definitely a challenge.
The soldier was facing him. The hardened expression,
the flattened line of her lips, the stance as she saw him. She straightened, her hip cocking, one hand resting against it, her fingers outspread.
She wasn’t tapping her foot. She wasn’t tapping anything. She was standing still, her gaze locked on him, her eyes burning into him.
The expression was all soldier, but that gaze, that was the woman’s gaze. It was filled with anger, with unrealized dreams, with a woman’s emotions. A mate’s battle for independence.
Mating and life with a Breed was hell on an independent woman. It was hell too on Breed women who were independence, strength and reliance personified.
Diane could have been a Breed female. She had trained from an early age, but rather than being abused or treated cruelly, her uncle had instead fought to teach her to protect herself and her sister. To react with instinct as well as years of training. To strategize and foresee all possible angles and problems that could arise.
She had killed to keep from being killed. She had fought in the darkest, deepest hellholes and in the concrete jungles where civilization should have ruled. She had moved in to take command of four of the meanest bastards in the independent military communities and she’d ensured all their bank accounts were well-padded and drawing excellent interest.
She wasn’t just a soldier and a commander either. She was a hell of an investor.
Breaking his gaze from hers, he turned and moved along the third-story walk to the metal stairwell in the middle of the long building.
He could feel the hairs at the back of his neck tingling. He almost paused to search out the cause, but it wasn’t a feeling of imminent danger as much as it was of being watched, studied.
If he paused to search out the cause, then he would be allowing his unknown enemy to know he was aware of him. Far better to surprise Gideon should he decide to attempt to catch Lawe off guard.
For now, he had his mate to deal with, along with a trip to Window Rock.
As he stepped to the concrete walk the sat phone at his side vibrated demandingly. His senses alert, his gaze still on his mate, Lawe pulled it free and brought it to his ear.
“Enforcer Justice,” he answered.
“We have a problem.” Rule’s voice was strained. That in and of itself was unusual.
Lawe picked up his pace to the SUV.
“Report,” Lawe ordered, his tone declaring his full attention to his brother.
“We had a situation here,” Rule stated. “Malachi mated a Martinez. Our little cousin, Isabelle, and her mate had a stalker. The stalker shot our favorite little Coyote, Lawe, Ashley Truing. They don’t know if she’s going to make it.”
Ashley Truing. She had colored, highlighted and streaked blond hair; perfectly manicured, painted and decorated nails—nails as false as the color of her hair. She had so many pairs of shoes it was said her entire room was lined with shelves to hold them. Not that he believed it. She gave the impression of self-interest, conceit and laziness, but she was one of the most dangerous female Breeds ever created.
Lawe’s gaze went to Diane’s as he moved faster. Instantly, she straightened and moved for the side of the SUV where she threw open the passenger door as Thor moved just as quickly to slide onto the passenger seat behind her.
The Enforcer Josiah was in the back rather than taking the driver’s seat as he often did, his Breed senses picking up the sudden sense of haste Lawe could feel surging through him.
“We’re heading in,” Lawe assured him as he grabbed the driver’s door that Diane had thrown open for him. “I’ll call you when we’re near.”
“Be sure to,” Rule stated harshly. “Gideon took out the stalker. We should have told Malachi who we were looking for, Lawe. He knows him. Hell, he knows a lot about him. Ashley’s in surgery, Dr. Armani and Dr. Sobolov are with her. I’ll contact you again when there’s more.”
The line disconnected.
The call was long enough to fully apprise Lawe of the situation but not long enough for an enemy to lock onto or to track.
Diane had taken the electronic starter from Josiah and had the motor running and ready as Lawe slid into the driver’s seat. Throwing the vehicle into gear, Lawe pulled out of the parking space.
“Ashley’s been shot,” he informed them. “Gideon’s already in Window Rock. He took out the shooter and then disappeared.” Glancing at Diane, he couldn’t help but fear that one day she could be in Ashley’s place. “It looks like we’re going to get that permission to investigate after all. Let’s see how quickly we can get this taken care of and get Gideon contained.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. “Notify Sanctuary we’re heading in and I want my regular team out here ASAP. It’s time to go hunting.”
A Breed hunting a Breed. Lawe had never imagined he would be in this position unless one of the Council’s malevolent Breeds were concerned, or that he would need to hunt a Breed who had known the most vicious of hells during his confinement.
Quickly, he explained the information Rule had reported, brief though it was.
Gideon was in protective mode, a far different role than he had been playing in past months. He had saved Malachi’s mate, Lawe’s first cousin, and he was known by Malachi. Rule was right; Lawe should have told the team the full identity of the Breed they were chasing rather than giving the minute details he had passed along. He should never have assumed Gideon was unknown by the team traveling with him.
They had searched for months for a Breed who had known the assassin. One who could give them some sense of the Breed they were searching for.
He wouldn’t have expected Malachi.
He wouldn’t have expected Gideon to protect a human, especially another Breed’s mate.
But he sure as hell hadn’t expected the vivacious, energetic and completely efficient Ashley to ever have been targeted or caught off guard by a stalker.
God help him if he ever had to face the day Diane became such a victim, because Lawe knew that if it happened, the animal would control him. And the animal was by far more savage than the man could ever be.
•CHAPTER 13•
Ashley Truing’s perpetually tanned flesh looked so pale, washed out and dull that Diane could actually detect the dark roots that were beginning at her scalp.
Normally, the professional color she had applied to her hair looked so natural, so well colored and streaked that it was impossible to tell it was artificial.
It was also not natural to see her this quiet, almost lifeless, as though the exuberance and vivacious life force that was so much a part of her had drained out with the blood she had lost from the laser-shot wound.
All but silent, almost always deadly when set to its highest setting, laser hand weapons could emulate the old-fashioned bullet-loaded weapons but with much more deadly results.
Thankfully, Ashley had had a med tech well versed in immediate care of such wounds. It had kept her alive long enough for the Breed doctors to get to her. Just as her Breed genetics and amazing inner strength had helped her live through a wound a mere human wouldn’t have had a chance of surviving.
Diane watched through the window of the ICU room as Lawe stood at Ashley’s bedside listening to Dr. Armani and Dr. Sobolov fill him in on her condition.
The Pride alpha and his prima, Callan and Merinus Lyons, had already been there and were currently in their suite awaiting Lawe and Diane at the Navajo Suites along with the Wolf Breed alpha and lupina, Wolfe and Hope Gunnar, and the Coyote Breed alpha and his coya, Del-Rey and Anya Delgado.
The nurses had reported that the Coyote alpha had to force the coya from the hospital. Ashley was one of her dearest friends, and she was inconsolable with worry.
“They lost her twice during surgery.”
Diane swung around to face Rule, the current commander in charge of the teams that had been sent to Window Rock ahead of them.
“Will she be okay?” Diane turned back to the glass looking into the dimly lit room as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans and watched Lawe.
&nb
sp; His expression was pulled into lines of worry as he stared down at Ashley. His arms were crossed over his broad chest, his eyes burning with fury.
Ashley looked like a little doll tucked into the hospital bed. A pale, still, lifeless little doll.
