by Lora Leigh
Each of the Cabinet members was given a chance to weigh in, and each agreed, as she’d known they would. As they spoke, she opened her senses, those instincts she’d always fought before, and allowed the ebb and flow of emotion in the room to drift through her.
Rhyzan was furious. But how could he have expected anything different?
“You know,” Dog finally spoke up, a mocking, condescending drawl that had her gaze jerking around to him. “This is damned interesting.” He took his seat, then sat back in his chair rather lazily. “All this protocol and opinion stating.” He turned to Rhyzan. “Why don’t you and I settle this like Breeds rather than wasting everyone’s time like this? The last one still standing decides.”
Dane lowered his head, shaking it slowly as he so obviously tried to control a grin.
“Works for me.” Rhyzan’s agreement was rather a surprise. “Now?”
“Not unless both of you want to be locked up.” Jonas came to his feet once again, the demand in his voice unmistakable. “The laws drafted for this society were done so for a reason. Now, by God, you can adhere to them.” He turned to Rhyzan, flashing him a savage look. “This Cabinet is adjourned, the petition that brought us here rescinded. Should you have other matters to bring before it, file the proper fucking paperwork.”
Slamming his chair back, Jonas stalked from the bench, wrenched open the door leading back to a private room and slammed it closed furiously.
Cassie turned, watching as Rhyzan gathered his files calmly, for all appearances not in the least concerned. But she could feel his fury, barely contained, boiling beneath the surface.
“He’s going to be a problem,” Dog stated, not bothering to lower his voice. “One I’ll delight in taking care of.” As he spoke, he slid a note her way.
Jonas is having Kenzi moved as we speak—Dane.
Thank God. Nodding, she turned around, her gaze finding her mother.
Elizabeth was watching her in concern, her dark blue eyes shadowed and worried. Whatever Rhyzan was up to, he’d picked a hell of a time to hit them with it. And now she had an additional worry. Someone else knew Lizette was alive.
Breathing out heavily, she turned back to Dog, her gaze glancing over the other Cabinet members as they stood talking, when it was snared by the Bengal’s. She stared back at him, seeing a warning shifting in his gaze before he turned away from her and spoke to his mate.
She didn’t know Graeme, but she knew Cat. Not well, but enough to know the other woman was more than a little concerned.
“I’m of the opinion that your life is far more interesting than I ever believed, halfling,” Dog stated, drawing a cigar from his shirt.
“You can’t smoke in here,” she told him absently, looking around, watching, sensing some undefined message as it drifted about the room. A warning she couldn’t decipher, a dark emotion so well hidden she couldn’t locate it.
“Really?” A match flared, and the scent of tobacco lighting drew her attention back to him.
He was more than simply furious. Drawing on the cigar, he slid his gaze toward Rhyzan again before coming back to her. She could only shrug at his unspoken question. Hell, she had no clue what the other Breed’s gripe against her was.
From the corner of her eye she watched as Rhyzan gathered his briefcase and moved in their direction, finally stopping next to the table. Laying her hand on Dog’s shoulder, she stared back silently.
“I’ve filed a request that you and your mate not leave the area,” he stated, doing a good job of holding back a sneer. “The Cabinet will have the proper filings before the hour is out.”
Dog’s shoulders bunched, tension gathering in him as a growl rumbled in his chest.
Leo chose that moment to step to the table, his gaze locking on Rhyzan, the pure power of the demand in that look impossible for the Breed to miss.
Rhyzan inclined his head to the first Leo, then and strode for the doors leading from the meeting room.
“He’s a problem, that one,” Leo stated as the doors closed behind the Coyote. “And he’s not finished with this.”
Dog snorted at the statement. “He better get finished, because there was no kid there that night.” He rose to his feet slowly, his arm sliding around Cassie and pulling her to him. “But he keeps on in this direction, he’s going to find himself in a mess of trouble he sure as hell doesn’t want, and I’m going to make certain of it.”
•CHAPTER 14•
Stepping into his residential suite several hours later, Rhyzan closed the door slowly, all too aware that he hadn’t closed the curtains over the balcony doors when he’d left that morning. The lights were out, leaving the room nearly pitch-dark. Not that he needed lights, no more than the Breed sitting across from him in the large easy chair needed them.
Setting his briefcase aside, he walked to the bar and poured himself a drink.
“Drink, Director Wyatt?” he asked.
“I helped myself.” Jonas lifted the glass when Rhyzan turned back to him.
He’d known Jonas for a lot of years, had seen him in a variety of moods, and he’d thought he’d seen him at his most furious. It was possible he’d been mistaken in that, because what he was facing now went far beyond furious.
Sipping at his drink, Rhyzan stared across the room, watching the Breed carefully, all too aware that the low rasping sound was claws against the upholstered arm of the chair, the glow of those eerie silver eyes like pinpoints of light.
“Do you have a suicide wish?” The low, Feline sound of wrath whispered through the room. “Sinclair may not care much for his daughter’s mate, but he is her mate. He’ll kill you.”
Yeah, he’d guessed that the day before when Sinclair tried to beat the hell out him. He’d taken that beating. He hadn’t struck back, because he understood, he even expected it.
“If I don’t beat him to it.” The rasp deepened, the sound of the primal, fully emerged, causing the hairs at the back of his nape to lift in warning.
“The request wasn’t intended as an insult,” Rhyzan assured the other Breed.
“You stank of your prejudice, your dislike and disgust toward her.” Those demon eyes flared as Jonas spoke. “You stood in front of an innocent young woman, one who has known nothing but danger, nothing but the risk of the horrors that could await her since she was a child, and insulted her with such base disregard that every Breed on that Cabinet was thirsting for your blood.”
Yeah, he’d gotten that before he left. It would have been damned hard to miss. Unfortunately, it was exactly what he’d intended. He’d had no choice in what he’d done, though.
“The missing child—”
“There is no missing child.” The growl deepened; canines flashed along with silver eyes. “Kenzi told you she thought she heard the guards discuss a child. There might have been a child. You lied.”
Oh, there had been a child—Rhyzan had no doubt of that—but it really wasn’t the child who concerned him. His initial investigation assured him that the girl was safe, possibly better protected than any of them.
The girl was a weapon, nothing more. A weapon he needed to threaten the freedom of the Coyote Dog and draw out an enemy he’d been stalking for years.
“I lied,” he agreed. “But I’ll continue to lie if I must. If I have to, I’ll have Dog dragged into a cell in chains and his mate languishing beside him if that’s what it takes. I’d hate it,” he assured the animal tensing to attack. “Believe that, Jonas, it wouldn’t be a choice I made unless I’m left no other recourse. And all I can do is pray to God it doesn’t come to that.”
He wouldn’t have a chance against a Primal Breed without some hellacious luck, Rhyzan admitted silently. Jonas could move with incredible speed when that creature came out to play, and avoiding those claws would be next to impossible.
When Jonas didn’t speak, didn’t move, Rhyzan ble
w out a weary breath.
“The disrespect you and the Cabinet scented was forced,” he admitted. “I have the highest regard for Cassie and hated doing it. Just as I hated messing with the mating compatibility tests after she mated with Dog.” Grimacing, he felt the tension rising, felt the Primal gathering itself to attack. “I suspect his grandfather is one of the twelve who head the Genetics Council. And his spies are here, in Window Rock.”
Stepping across the room carefully, he strode to the safe inset in the wall, activated the panel that hid it and pushed in the digital code. Opening it, he retrieved the file he kept there and tossed it to the coffee table in front of the director.
“I’ve followed them for years,” he told Jonas as one claw-tipped finger flipped the folder open. “The grandfather, then Dog and Cassie.” There were pictures, many pictures.
“Sit,” Jonas growled, with a jerk of his head to the couch next to him.
Stepping to the couch, Rhyzan sat down and leaned forward as Jonas placed three of the pictures next to one another.
The first, an army officer, the second a navy SEAL officer, and the third, the Breed Dog. Lifting a fourth picture, Jonas laid it above Dog’s and sat staring intently at the collage he’d made.
“Light.” The growl was still a harsh rasp, but it no longer had Rhyzan’s hackles raised.
Reaching to the lamp on the table next to them, Rhyzan flipped it on, watching the glow spill over the pictures.
“Why didn’t you bring this to my attention?” Still rough, but easing a fraction more, the voice rumbled with displeasure.
“I would have, if I hadn’t needed your anger, as well as Sinclair’s, to lend credence to my supposed threat.” Balancing his arms on his knees, he stared at the pictures. “I found reason to suspect some of the Wolf Breeds here at the Bureau feared Cassie, that their prejudice toward her genetics was making her a target. When word hit that she’d mated Dog, a transmission was picked up from the Bureau to his residence.” He stabbed his finger at the army officer. “He showed up here at the Bureau yesterday, but before he arrived he met with the two Wolf Breeds Dog confronted outside her suite. He left when he learned Dog was back in town after having ran with Cassie.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw the claws tipping Jonas’s fingers slowly ease back beneath the perfectly manicured nails and had to fight a breath of relief.
“He’s a hybrid.” Jonas glanced to him, his expression thoughtful.
“He’s a hybrid.” Rhyzan nodded. “And he’s mated a hybrid. According to the belief many scientists share, hybrids will give birth to Breeds that can’t be identified even with the deepest genetic testing. There will be no way to tell them from a human, and no way to eradicate Breeds completely if that happens.”
“A true Cross Breed,” Jonas murmured.
“He was here, Jonas.” Rhyzan stared at him intently. “And the interest he’s showing in the accusations against Dog and Cassie isn’t normal. Just because he left doesn’t mean he’s going to let his grandson go.”
Rhyzan turned his gaze to the pictures. When laid side by side, it was impossible to deny they were related. Grandfather, father, son, and above them, a young, blond Coyote female.
“What happened to the parents?” Jonas asked.
“The Breed mother died from wounds sustained when they were nearly captured, just hours after giving birth to their son. The father disappeared, and the grandfather spent thousands trying to find him. Ten years later he was killed by a Coyote team that tracked him to Washington State. According to what I learned, they spent several weeks attempting to learn if he’d been seen with a child but found no evidence to support it.”
Jonas closed the folder slowly over the pictures.
“Anyone else know your suspicions?” he asked.
“No one,” he answered. “He’s slick. He’s on the Breed Ruling Cabinet, plays the Breed benefactor and manages to get information he should never have access to.”
“What proof do you have he’s one of the twelve?” Jonas pinned him with those eerie eyes again.
“The father.” Rhyzan gestured to the file with one hand. “He had a sister. When he disappeared, she managed to wire him a couple hundred thousand when he contacted her. About a year after his death, as the Breed rescues were at their height, she received a letter he’d had arranged to be sent if something happened to him. She was killed several months later, but her daughter recently found that letter and contacted me.”
A fucking stroke of luck. He’d been in shock for weeks after he’d met with her and she’d turned it over to him.
Opening the file, Rhyzan pulled the envelope free and laid it on top of the pictures.
“He knows Dog is his grandson,” he said softly, laying his finger against the envelope and staring at Jonas as the Breed turned his head slowly, their gazes meeting. “He has no heir now. He knows that hybrids can possibly breed a child that can’t be identified as a Breed. And he knows they’ve mated.”
“Cassie hasn’t conceived,” Jonas pointed out softly.
“Yet . . .”
Reaching out, Jonas once again closed the file. “Do you have digital copies?”
Rhyzan nodded in a short, tight movement.
“I’ll take this, then.” Picking up the file, he rose to his feet and walked toward the door. “Stay away from Cassie and Dog until I finish this, or I’ll kill you.”
The door closed quietly behind him.
Rhyzan rubbed his hands over his face, shook his head and rose to his feet to collect his briefcase. He’d file the requests to interrogate Dog. The last thing Senator Ryder would want was for his grandson to be convicted under Breed Law. That would draw far too much notice.
He didn’t care much for his granddaughter, according to the girl. He tolerated her, he’d raised her after her mother’s death, but she’d always suspected her mother had been murdered. She’d drowned in the family pool. An excellent swimmer who rarely drank, yet she’d been found facedown in the pool and the autopsy revealed a high level of alcohol in her system.
She’d loved her brother, worried about him. He was her big brother. The fact that he’d disappeared and ordered her not to tell their father he’d contacted her when he’d disappeared had led her to suspect her father was behind her mother’s death.
Senator Ryder. He’d bought his way into politics and used his influence and good-ole-boy façade to engender a level of trust, even among some Breeds. He played Breed benefactor without even a whiff of his murderous hatred for them. He was the ultimate liar, the ultimate monster.
And Rhyzan was determined to unmask him. With or without Jonas’s help.
* * *
• • •
“You want to tell me what the hell happened down there?” Dog closed the door to the suite he and his mate were shown to after the hearing, watching her as she paced across the room, rubbing at her arms as she stared at the floor.
During the time he’d sat and listened to Rhyzan’s bullshit, he’d decided he was going right out and buying a fucking cape and some goddamned blue tights, because when it came to sheer self-control, he was fucking Superman.
“I’m not quite certain.” She shook her head, her confusion genuine as she said the words, her bafflement growing.
Dropping her leather case on the chair next to the bar, he unlocked his jaw, a sound of pure aggravation rasping from his throat. Pouring himself a drink, he considered the liquor for a moment, tossed it back and promised himself he was going to get something stronger real damned soon.
“So we’re just going to stay here and let him serve me up to a few interrogators without so much as a protest?” He snorted at that thought, anticipation rising inside him. “I’ve not had a good fight in a while. Might be fun.”
He’d kill the bastards with his bare hands.
She was silent, not even pr
otesting the threat. She stood next to the balcony doors just behind one side of the curtains and stared out at the sun-drenched landscape.
“Jonas won’t allow it,” she said quietly. “And even if he did, the Cabinet members wouldn’t.”
“You put too much faith in them,” he warned her, wondering what the hell that look on her face was all about.
It was the same look she’d gotten when Rhyzan had asked about that kid who didn’t exist. Haunted, almost fearful.
He narrowed his eyes on her, poured himself another drink and considered her for long moments.
He’d always known Cassie kept a lot of secrets locked inside her. It showed sometimes in the weariness of her expression, the haunted shadows in her eyes. He had a feeling that this time, though, the secret Cassie was keeping could burn both of them.
“Where’s the kid, Cassie?” He asked the question, wondering if she would lie to him.
She froze for a second, then with a heavy sigh, shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know where she is.”
At least she was honest with him.
“But there was a kid, wasn’t there? When that transport landed, Kenzi wasn’t alone.” He stalked across the room as she faced him, glowering down at her.
“I don’t know.” The barely smothered cry was filled with pain, with confusion. “All I knew then, and now, was if she wasn’t there when Kenzi was found, then she was safe and where she was supposed to be. I don’t know anything else.”
As she pushed past him, the scent of all those bottled emotions, fears, unshed tears and pain lashed at his senses. Turning, he watched as she faced him again, her lips tight, her exotic eyes gleaming with moisture.
