Cross Breed

by Lora Leigh

  “How did you know about her and Kenzi to begin with? Who came to you?” Which spirit, ghost of whoever, whatever the hell it was?

  When she turned back to him, he could see the torment on her face. “I’ve felt Kenzi for a couple of years, felt this coming. I didn’t know who she was, not until the night I contacted you. For years events have interconnected, always drawing me toward her. And I knew she was important.” Her fists clenched as emotion tightened her face. “I didn’t know it was my sister.”

  Cassie stared back at Dog as he stood near the window, watched his expression, the almost calculated look in his narrowed eyes.

  “How did you know those events were connected? Walk me through this, Cassie. Make me understand it before Rhyzan hangs me out to dry here.”

  And the assistant would do it too. Whatever he wanted, whatever he was after, he was more than willing to use her and Dog however he had to, to get to it.

  When had it begun?

  That summer on Seth Lawrence’s island, she realized. It was that first knowledge that the successful mating of Seth Lawrence and the cougar Breed Dawn Daniels was so integral to her future.

  From there, smaller events, people who had come into her life, events and odd occurrences, until she’d found herself in Window Rock the year before accepting Jonas’s offer that she head the Breed Underground Information Network. The division of the Bureau was created to pull in information and track the movements of Genetics Council sympathizers and supporters and those groups that followed them.

  Odd flashes of knowledge, a feeling of connection, of knowledge that someone so integral to her own freedom was waiting for her, that they needed her.

  As she spoke, trying to find the words to make Dog understand that it hadn’t been a matter of something telling her, or even showing her. It was that connection. It was a sudden flash of intuition, a meeting, looking into someone’s eyes and knowing where they should be.

  “The night you contacted me, you knew where that transport would be and when,” he reminded her. “How did you know?”

  She licked her dry lips, knowing he’d ask that question. She’d known that question was coming.

  “Chelsea Martinez, mate to Graeme’s brother Cullen, was part of the Breed Underground Network,” she said faintly. “The day I met her, the year before, I knew who her mate was, and I knew she was integral to my freedom. When the emergency alert her bodyguard, Tobias, managed to activate the night I contacted you sounded in the Network’s central command, I felt Kenzi slam into my senses, begging me for help.”

  That sudden connection had nearly taken her to her knees. Cassie barely remembered rushing to her office, fumbling, fighting to find Dog’s contact information on her phone and send that message.

  She’d been on the verge of sobbing in terror when suddenly the connection to her sister had severed just as quickly as it had come to her.

  “The kid was there with her?” Dog was watching her closely.

  Cassie nodded as her gaze slipped, drawn to the window behind him. Why her attention moved, she wasn’t certain. The sun-drenched desert was always beautiful, but it wasn’t the beauty that had her glancing from his eyes to the scene beyond. And it wasn’t the beauty of that tranquil scene that had the window popping, a baseball-sized fault suddenly appearing.

  She heard Dog curse, felt him slam into her and take her to the floor as a steady pop-pop-pop could be heard just below the alarms suddenly screeching through the Bureau’s intercom system. Dog’s curses were ringing in her ears as they hit the floor, close to the door as it exploded open.

  “Move!” the shouted order came as Dog dragged her through the door at the same time that the sound of the window shattering behind them could be heard.

  She came to her feet, kicking off one shoe, uncertain what happened to the other as Breed Enforcers surrounded them and rushed them along the halls.

  “Teams are heading out,” the Coyote Breed, Mordecai, yelled as alarms continued to blast through the halls. “Security has a location narrowed down; our enforcers are flying in.”

  She could feel Dog’s arm around her waist as he raced down the hall, nearly lifting her off her feet at times as he kept her close to him. They pushed through the basement doors and within minutes they were on the basement floor and pushing through the doors to Information Command.

  “Stay here.” Dog swung her around to face him, glaring down at her as he hurriedly strapped on a weapon, his gray eyes cold, hard. “Right here until I get back.”

  “Make sure you come back, Dog,” she ordered him. “Don’t you leave me alone. Don’t you dare leave me alone.”

  The very thought that he wouldn’t come back wasn’t something she could bear. She couldn’t face it.

  “Not even for a heartbeat.” His hand curved around the back of her neck, his head lowering, his lips suddenly catching hers in a kiss that rocked her entire body despite its brevity.

  And in that heartbeat, he was gone, pushing through the doors of the room and barking out orders. Savage, hard. Determined.

  Her mate.

  * * *

  • • •

  Dark had fallen before Dog made it back to the Bureau. They’d found the sniper’s nest, but the only scent to be found was a faint human scent and that of the weapon used. High-grade sniper rifle and matching ammo. The shooter had come on a dirt bike and left the same way just minutes after the satellite that watched over the Bureau began readjusting position.

  Someone knew the right time to be there, and exactly where the teams patrolling the desert would be. It was just a matter of timing, but what made them think that bullet would penetrate a window rated to take a much more powerful strike?

  They’d known the window would fail, which meant someone had already sabotaged the window’s high-grade electronics.

  By the time they returned to the Bureau, the Breed investigators had already gone over the shattered debris, found the corrupted electronics and had the evidence in one of the labs. Now the apartment he and Cassie were being given instead was being checked for similar defects in the windows and balcony doors.

  And the question remained. Was it a strike against him or against his mate?

  Stepping into Cassie’s former room, he came to a hard stop just inside the door, eyes narrowing on the two unfamiliar visitors. The two Wolf Breeds standing next to the window weren’t the investigators Jonas had assigned to go over the room and the window’s electronics.

  “Can I help you boys?” he drawled as he stopped just inside the door and allowed Mutt and Mongrel to move around him, flanking him carefully.

  The two Breeds, both tall, one with hints of auburn in his brown hair, the other black-haired with hints of dark gray and pale blond strands, tensed at his entrance. They faced him silently, their eyes moving from Mutt and Mongrel back to him.

  “We were just looking,” the darker Breed assured him, quiet confidence echoing in his voice as his pale green eyes met Dog’s.

  Dog’s brow lifted, his gaze dropping to the shards of the window beneath their feet.

  “You’re not the investigators,” he pointed out.

  “True.” The Breed inclined his head, the scent of confidence, of inner strength and control, never shifting. “Merely curious.”

  Hmm. Curiosity was a Breed fault, he admitted. He had plenty of it himself. Still, this didn’t feel like mere curiosity; this felt more like an agenda to him.

  “Satisfied that curiosity yet?” he inquired, moving farther into the room, drawing in the scents he found there as he kept his gaze on the two Breeds.

  “Not really.” The Breed sighed and looked around slowly before meeting Dog’s gaze once again. “But we’ll go now. Pardon the intrusion.”

  Now, who said Breeds couldn’t be polite? Not that they were, but this proved this one knew how to be.

  Dog didn’

t move. He remained in front of the doorway, watching as the Breed stopped several feet from him.

  There might have been a gleam of amusement in the hard features as their gazes met again.

  “Names,” he stated softly, one hand settling on the weapon strapped to his thigh.

  The Breed’s lips tilted in a wry curve. “John Kodiak.” His head tilted toward the more watchful Breed. “Troy Rain.”

  Then they waited.

  The air of steady watchfulness never shifted. Not once was there a hint of aggression, hatred or conflict. They just stood there, all patient and easygoing, waiting on Dog to shift.

  “Not going to happen.” He grinned, his hand gripping the holstered weapon as Mutt and Mongrel did the same. “So, tell me, John Kodiak and Troy Rain. What’s the sudden interest in my window that failed electronics don’t explain?”

  The two Wolf Breeds stared back for long moments.

  “Warned ya,” Rain muttered, amused and irritated at the same time, as Kodiak shifted a look his way.

  Dog arched his brow and kept his attention on the more silent Breed. If danger came, it would be from this one, he knew. That air of calm that surrounded the Breed had to be a shield of sorts. There wasn’t a Breed alive that calm and centered.

  “We’re no danger to you or to your mate,” Kodiak assured him. “As I said, we were just checking it out.”

  “Hmm.” Dog pursed his lips. He was highly doubtful of that. “You know I don’t believe you, right?” he pointed out.

  Kodiak nodded slowly. “Yeah. I was getting that feeling.”

  “Want to tell me something I’ll believe?” he asked. “Or do you want to fight your way out?”

  Kodiak gave him an ironic grin. “That our only choice? Hell of a day when a Breed can’t even be a little curious. It’s not like you and your mate haven’t been moved out of here.”

  He had a point, Dog admitted silently.

  “Fight or talk,” Dog suggested.

  The Breed stared back at him thoughtfully, his body shifting but not in preparation to fight. Or if he was, Dog was damned if he could sense it.

  That damned air of complete nonconflict was fucking freaking him the hell out just to begin with. Any Breed that right with himself and who and what he was needed to die, just for the safety of all Breeds everywhere.

  “Tell me,” Kodiak finally asked softly, his voice lower, his gaze thoughtful. “What do you know about your father?”

  •CHAPTER 15•

  Nothing.

  Cassie glared at the reports coming in on the tablet she carried as she and Ashley stepped from the elevator and headed up the hall to the apartment she and Dog had been assigned.

  Her irritation level was rising along with the Heat sizzling in her body, and she wasn’t dealing with it well . The message she’d received from Dog more than an hour before informing her that he was delayed wasn’t sitting well with her either.

  She knew he’d returned to the building long before that. The diagnostics on the remains of the window had come through even before he’d returned, so he couldn’t be waiting on that. Jonas and Rule along with the deputy director, Rhyzan Brannigan, were currently in a meeting with Seth Lawrence and his mate, Dawn, in regard to the window. Lawrence Industries manufactured the glass and electronics that reinforced the windows the Bureau used.

  The disquiet she could feel gathering in the pit of her stomach was making her off-balance, the irritation was growing, and the Heat was so damned uncomfortable she swore she was going to break out in a sweat.

  “All reports are in, Cassie,” Ashley stated as she followed her. “Even those from the dark web, and there’s not so much as a whisper of a Breed strike from anyone.”

  Not even a whisper. There was a whisper, there always was; she just had to find it. And normally, she was damned good at finding those all-but-silent murmurings. But then, normally, her body wasn’t rioting for a mate’s touch either.

  “Tell them to keep looking,” she ordered the other Breed, frowning as she tried to make sense of what she was feeling. “I want to know who that shooter was and who hired them. And I want that information now.”

  “Well, now is a little illogical,” Ashley drawled, the Russian accent filled with mirth. “How ’bout quickly?”

  Smart-ass Coyote.

  Stopping at the door to the apartment, Cassie slapped her hand to the biometric plate, waited for the door to disengage, then strode into the room.

  “Fine, quickly,” she snapped, the heels of her shoes clicking across the tile entryway. “Real quick if you don’t mind.”

  “Cassie, really, we’ll work our Coyote asses off to find it, if it’s out there,” the Breed assured her with a vein of flippant amusement. “But so far, there’s nothing.”

  There was always something. There had to be more than they’d found so far.

  Laying her tablet on the counter separating the roomy kitchen and living area, she turned to the Coyote as her hands propped on her hips and fought for patience.

  “Do you know how many times one of the windows created by Lawrence Industries has failed due to a strike such as the one today?” The back of her neck was tingling, her stomach tight with worry.

  “That I could find. The only failures were those caused by outside interference. Three, I believe.” Cocking a hip, the petite blond Coyote Breed consulted her own tablet. “Each was due to interference to the electronic shielding.” She looked up, gray eyes regarding Cassie in understanding. “Diagnostics found the jamming chip and Jonas and Rule will find the shooter.”

  The confidence Ashley displayed was starting to piss her off.

  “Not without a direction to look,” she forced out between gritted teeth. “That’s our job.”

  “And we will do our job.” Ashley flipped her hair behind her shoulder with a little shrug. “While we do our job, you need to jump your mate’s bones and relax a little. You know this will take a minute.”

  A minute? They’d been at it for hours.

  Unfortunately, Ashley was right. Cassie couldn’t think clearly, not like this. Not when everything inside her was rioting with the need for Dog.

  “I’ll go and harass Coyote ass to work faster.” Ashley turned for the door as Dog’s scent reached Cassie, drawing her, sending the need spiraling as she pivoted toward the doorway to the far side of the room.

  He stood, leaning against the door frame, regarding her quietly, his gaze somber rather than amused. He was bare chested, his feet bare. He’d showered if the dampness of his hair was an indication. The dun-colored pants he wore were zipped but not buttoned, and beneath them she could see the heavy bulge that indicated his erection.

  The door closed behind Ashley with a quiet snick, leaving them alone, staring across the distance that separated them.

  That disquiet she could feel had her stomach in knots now.

  “Did you find anything at the site?” She knew the reports so far said they hadn’t, but sometimes there were holes in the reports, she knew.

  “Just what we sent you.” He shook his head, grimacing. “Rule sent trackers out searching for the dirt bike, but he’s not optimistic. Once it hits the highway, it’ll be impossible to track.”

  She wanted to go to him. She needed to touch him. There was something that held her back, though, something that didn’t make sense. Swallowing, she glanced to the curtains closed over the balcony doors and rubbed at her arms nervously.

  “Southern view.” She turned back to him. “There’s no satellite gap there. They won’t be able to make the same attempt.”

  He followed her gaze but didn’t respond. When his gaze met hers once again, she could feel her heart beginning to race with a sense of fear.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered, unable to bear the tension rising inside her any longer.

  Where were the spirits, the vague images that once guided her, that helped her when she so desperately needed answers? For the first time since they’d mated, she felt a distance in Dog, despite the mating bond that had been strengthening between them.

  And it had been strengthening, building, binding them together and giving her a sense of hope that it would be more than just a physical mating for him.

  “Nothing’s wrong.” He finally shook his head, holding his hand out to her. “I need my mate, though.”

  She stared at his hand, moving slowly to him, hating the fear rising inside her and the uncertainty building like a premonition of danger humming in her head.

  Reaching out, she took his hand and let him lead her into the bedroom. A low light glowed from the table next to the king-sized bed. The comforter and sheet were pulled back invitingly. Despite the arousal burning inside her, a chill raced up her spine as he drew her to the bed.

  “Something’s wrong,” she whispered as he sat on the side of the bed and drew her between his knees. “I can feel it, Dog.”

  Her hands rested on his shoulders, the warmth of his flesh sinking into her palms.

  “Nothing’s wrong, baby,” he whispered.

  Releasing the braid and pulling apart the sections of her hair, he arranged them gently before turning to her clothes.

  The zipper at the back of her skirt slid free, the silk caressing as it slid over the tops of her stockings to the floor. When it pooled at her feet, he began unbuttoning her blouse unhurriedly.

  “I was so damned hard watching you in that Cabinet meeting I couldn’t decide if I should rip Rhyzan’s throat out or drag you out of there and fuck you.” His lips quirked ruefully as he pushed the blouse over her shoulders, forcing her to move her arms to allow the material to follow the skirt.

  “Look how pretty,” he crooned, his gaze moving from the white lace of her bra to the matching high-cut panties.

  His hands framed her breasts, his touch sending a wave of weakening pleasure and need to rush over her, almost obliterating the fear that had been building inside her.

  -->