Rule Breaker: A Novel of the Breeds (34 page)

Everything had happened so fast that night, though. All he remembered was seeing those horrified, shock-filled green eyes as the Coyote fell from her a second before the four Coyotes with the bastard had fallen dead as well.

Then Lawe and Jonas had hidden the sight of her from him. Rule had turned and rushed from the cavern. He’d called the Reever ranch for their medic, a female he knew would take care of her. He’d ordered blankets warmed and rushed inside, made the arrangements for her parents, ensured that her brother’s body was cared for properly. And he had nearly beaten the Coyote Loki to death before Lawe and several others had pulled him from the Breed. He’d refused to hear the Coyote as he swore he had been the one contacting Jonas that night.

Rule had wanted to kill him. He’d wanted to kill every fucking Coyote bastard there who hadn’t kept Mark McQuade alive for his fragile, broken little sister.

Everything that could have helped her or meant anything to her, he had taken care of, and he hadn’t even thought to wonder at the impulses that had driven him to take charge in such a way. To ensure that nothing else could hurt her, that no one else could harm her.

When her parents had arrived and had refused to go to the vulnerable, broken child who stood alone in the desert, staring back at them miserably, that animal had nearly rushed to her. Not until Jonas and Lawe had stepped to each side of her—his brother, along with the only man they called a friend at the time—positioning themselves as a protective barrier alongside her, had the animal stood down. At least a bit.

Rule remembered his anger at the parents, his disgust with their hesitancy to rush to her rather than standing at the son’s side as though he would suddenly open his eyes and declare the night some joke. It had been no fucking joke. Their son was gone; better to protect and ensure the life of the living child and grieve later, than to leave the living in the cold while trying to warm the dead, he’d thought at the time.

Grimacing at the memory, he finished drying her, then allowed her to move away from him while she combed her fingers through the long tresses of her hair. He’d actually had Lawe purchase him a particular brush when he and Diane had gone out the past evening. One he could use on silky, soft waves without harming the delicate strands of hair.

He’d looked forward to using it once the unbreachable shock of the night before had passed.

He’d longed to go to her last night as she’d lain in their bed alone and silent. The pain of being unable to confront her parents and the truth of what her mother had done had enraged her. Sometimes rage was better slept off, he’d learned over the years. And though the rage was gone, he thought perhaps he’d made a mistake, because something had hardened inside her instead.

“Am I allowed out of my perfect little prison today?” The caustic tone of her voice as she slid her arms into a bra and secured the front clasp had the animal stilling while the man watched her carefully.

He winced at the sudden, sharp pinching sensation that came and went too quickly to be anything but those animal instincts extracting vengeance for causing his mate to feel as though she were a prisoner.

Dammit, he was the man, he was the one in charge, yet he swore he could feel an alternate, detached spirit inside his soul growling out a refutation of that thought.

“You’re no prisoner, Gypsy,” he told her, glowering silently as those instincts settled marginally inside him.

Fucking animal instincts. If he could wrap his hands around that being’s throat and choke the life out of it, then he would do just that for driving him fucking insane.

“I can come and go as I please, then?” The confrontational expression and tone had him tensing at the knowledge that in pissing off the woman, he would be pissing off the animal side of her mate.

Namely him.

Jerking his jeans from the counter, he pushed one foot into the leg before doing likewise with the other and pulling the denim to his hips. He threw her a glare as he sat down on the comfortable stool in the corner and pushed his feet into black wicking socks then, refusing to give her what she was looking for.

At least, as long as he could keep from answering that question.

“I didn’t think so.” She did likewise, pulling on silky mint green low-rise panties before donning her jeans.

“The scent of the mating is detectable by every Breed with a nose to detect it,” he told her warily. “There’s no hiding, Gypsy. And your involvement with the Unknown . . .”

“My involvement with who?” She turned on him furiously as she pulled a dark gray T-shirt over her head before staring back at him in outrage. “You’re keeping me locked up here because you think I’m telling some fairy-tale group information about the Breeds?”

His jaw clenched as his lips parted to deliver a scathing retort. A growl rumbled in his chest instead as the words refused to part his lips.

Fucking animal. Son of a bitch, he
was
crazy. The only Breed in existence with an alternate personality that was literally all animal. Wouldn’t he just make the list as weirdest Breed ever?

Not exactly where he wanted to see his name highlighted.

“Why not let me know when you’re willing to confront me with honesty, mate,” he told her as the anger brewing inside him began to simmer.

His cock was becoming erect, and as she turned on him after shooting him a disgusted look and giving him a glimpse of perfectly rounded ass cheeks beneath those snug jeans, the urge to fuck that cute little ass nearly overwhelmed him.

“I’ve been a hell of a lot more honest with you than you’ve been with me,” she informed him, her face flushing with anger as her arms crossed over her breasts protectively.

He could sense the secrets she kept. At this point, he wasn’t smelling a damned thing, he was feeling it. She was his mate and yet she had no idea of the bonds that were beginning to build between them.

Just as he knew the vow she had nearly made as her pussy tightened on his cock. She’d nearly sworn her love. He’d sensed it, felt it, the emotion wrapping around him even as she broke off the words to declare that she loved what he was doing to her instead.

His pretty little liar.

All long hair, big green eyes and raging secrets. Secrets she was going to have to reveal soon, before it was too late for him and Jonas to help her or her parents.

“Listen to me, Gypsy,” he growled, moving before she could evade him and gripping her upper arm to hold her to him when she would have turned and flounced off.

Her anger only rose, as did the fury toward him that his instincts began to pour out to him. His mate was pissed at him, and her mate was pissed at him.

He was getting fucking tired of both.

“Listen to what? More of your accusations?” she cried out.

“More of my truths.” He tried to soften his tone, something he’d never done with another person in his life. “I can sense your deceptions, mate. Of all the people in the world that you can never lie to, that you can never deceive in any fucking way, I am that person. Do you hear me? Listen to me well, damn you, if you aren’t honest with me, then I can’t protect you and I can’t protect your family. Not without knowing exactly what they face and what I’m protecting them from.”

“My family doesn’t need your protection.” But he could hear the hesitancy, the sudden fear that filled her.

“Gypsy.” Releasing her, he raked his fingers through his hair in frustration as he tried one last time. “Sweetheart. Your brother died because he refused to trust those who could help him . . .”

“My brother died because his sister betrayed him.” Flat, hard, she spoke the words as though it were a trained response.

“Baby, no.” The softness of his voice shocked him as he reached out to touch her cheek, only to have her flinch away from him.

“Go do whatever Breed stuff you do when you’re not accusing innocent people of lying to you,” she charged, turning away from him, the insulting sense of her complete distrust causing the animal to react before the man could pull back.

He had her against the wall, using his stronger, heavier body to hold her there as she stared up at him in shock.

“I watched my mother lie screaming in inhuman agony as her living body was dissected just hours after her mate’s,” he snarled in her face, ignoring that flash of horror in her eyes. “Her screams cut into my soul like a blade whose sharp edge I can never escape because I was unable to warn the mate who could have saved her. I was too young, and I was too slow to slip past the guards plotting against them or to sense the packmate, the fucking brother Lawe and I wanted only to protect. One whose loyalty to the Council exceeded his loyalty to his mother. There is nothing, mate, not a fucking thing you can teach me about guilt, dark memories or nightmares. But have no doubt I have much to teach you about fucking loyalty to the only person you know in your heart can help you without betraying you.”

Her gaze flickered. For a moment, for the briefest moment he swore she was weakening, that the trust he knew she felt, that he could sense her about to give into, was suddenly jerked back.

Her green eyes hardened, her expression flushing with anger—at herself, at him, at whatever thought or brutal pain ravaged her heart.

“Did you betray your mother?” she asked then, the tears that thickened her voice unbidden, and hated—by them both. “Were your actions the ones that caused her and her mate to die?”

“My inability . . .”

“I’m the brother who betrayed your mother,” she retorted furiously then, the agony that raged inside her like her own beast shocking him with its strength. “Do you hear me, Rule? I’m the same as that gutless coward—”

His lips covered hers.

The kiss, filled with fury, with pain, with the need to cut off the agonizing torment of a child made to believe she was a monster, was infused with the hormone that filled the glands beneath his tongue with a suddenness he hadn’t heard of.

Anything to hold back the words she would have spilled between them. The knowledge that his mate couldn’t differentiate between an innocent girl’s actions and a depraved Coyote’s use of them.

Tearing his lips from hers, he stared down at her, watching as the tears she should have shed remained locked in her soul and flailed at his like the barbed whips the lab soldiers had used against him when he was just a cub. She didn’t shed the tears, but they dripped down her soul, gouging into it and leaving wounds that bled night and day. The sobs she held inside shuddered through her body, causing her to flinch repeatedly in barely perceptible little jerks that tore past her control.

“Say such a thing to me again and I swear to God I’ll make sure you regret it,” he warned, furious that she believed such a thing. “Never ever, Gypsy, let me believe you are even considering such thoughts inside that far-too-complicated little brain of yours, or the battle you’ll have with me is one you never want to face.”

Her lips trembled, then hardened.

“Go to hell, Breed,” she retorted flatly. “Better yet, get out of my hell and leave me the fuck alone.”

Leave her the fuck alone?

His hand moved, a quick reflex action that had him grabbing the curve of her ass and jerking her into the cradle of his thighs.

He’d be damned if she would defy him this way. He’d be damned if she would ever allow another such thought of herself to see the light of day, let alone the dark of a nightmare as long as he lived.

His lips curled over the sharp canines at the side of his mouth, a rumbling growl of dangerous intent sounding in his chest and echoing around them as her eyes widened before her lashes flickered nervously.

He was one second from tearing the clothes from her body and showing her, proving to her exactly why she never wanted to push him to such an extent again. His free hand was only a heartbeat from jerking open her jeans when the vibrating
ping
of the comm device lying on the counter went off with a distinctively coded sound, a warning he knew he couldn’t afford to ignore.

“Get away from me,” he all but whispered, though the deep animalistic sound of his voice sent a sharp wave of submissive wariness instantly striking at her senses. “Get away from me now, mate, and pray to God that by the time I finish this, I can forget the fact that you’re not just trying to destroy us, but you’ve already by God all but destroyed yourself, and that I will not tolerate.”

With that, he jerked away from her, reached out and snatched the link from the counter as he turned for the exit and stalked through it, placing the link competently in his ear and barking out a “What the fuck is going on?” to the Breed unlucky enough to send out the imperative summons.

“The McQuades have just been arrested for bringing another device into the hotel after requesting a private meeting with Jonas,” Lawe stated furiously as an enraged snarl could be heard in the background along with raised voices. “This time it was video and audio programmed with an electronic nano-nit. Jonas has just fucking lost his mind. Claws are out, and I need some fucking help here.”

Rule slammed the door behind him as he raced from the room, carrying his boots rather than taking time to actually put them on.

A nano-nit was serious.

The tiny, almost-too-small-to-be-seen electronic robot hitchhiked on the back of audio or video devices to the desired location, where it was only activated once the parent device was. It then worked its way from the device to attach itself to an electrical source to power up before following the current and homing in on the specific electrical identifier it was programmed to infiltrate.

A nano-nit was all but impossible to detect, the reason why Jonas had everything that came into the elevators scanned for audio or video before it reached the eighth floor. By doing so, he ensured that the hidden little bugs didn’t have the chance to infiltrate the independent wiring and network systems into which all cameras and wireless electronic devices were programmed.

The very attempt to get to the eighth floor with such a device was an infraction of Breed Law. To be caught with a nit was punishable by imprisonment and even, in some cases, death.