Rule Breaker: A Novel of the Breeds (41 page)

“Amber and I are excellent buddies, aren’t we, sprite?” Gideon spoke with an icy chill as Amber giggled back at him.

“Ba’ ki’y,” she seemed to accuse him as Rule tried to make sense of what she was actually saying and why she seemed so amused.

If he didn’t know better he would swear she was calling Gideon “bad kitty” each time he spoke in that merciless tone.

Rule eased to his knee, all too aware of Gideon moving slowly closer to the open balcony door, Amber held securely before him, protecting him as nothing or no one else could have.

“Let her go, Gideon.” The animal’s snarl was in the director’s voice now, animalistic fury pounding in waves of tension through the room.

“Da?” Amber swung around quickly in concern, her bright eyes going between her father and Gideon. “Gi gi, ba’ ki’y.” There was a slight suggestion of an explanation in her tone.

Rule searched for the link to his brother, found it immediately and drew on it. Instantly, Lawe was there, not in spirit, but in strength, animal senses and intuition.

Gideon’s gaze swung to him instantly as he stepped to the opened door, his gaze narrowing as though he could sense that bond.

“Interesting,” he murmured as though he too could sense what Rule was doing and how he was doing it.

That intuition, the animal senses that were strong to begin with, were suddenly off the scale, and what Rule sensed was far more than he bet Gideon understood.

This wasn’t the insane creature the Breeds had faced before. There was no insanity here. Cunning, intelligence, determination and . . .

Son of a bitch, that striped bastard held such affection for Amber that Rule nearly reeled from the knowledge of it.

Gideon shook his head and sighed before turning back to Jonas. “She’ll be ill for a few more months,” he told the director matter-of-factly. “She hasn’t been slipping away from you, Director, merely slipping away from the human moorings she once held. Once Brandenmore injected her, he began changing things within her. To ensure her future health, to ensure her life, I took it upon myself to complete what he started.”

The backs of his fingers brushed against the little girl’s face.

“You did what?” That was fear in Jonas’s voice, Rule thought.

Gideon’s lips quirked. “You see such secrets, such forms as to make a man believe he’s lost his mind. What you didn’t see, couldn’t yet see, was the fact that this sweet child was dying before Brandenmore touched her.”

“He’s lying,” Rachel gasped weakly. “It’s a trick, Jonas.”

Gideon glanced at her sympathetically before turning back to the director. “The file is in her crib. Brandenmore’s codes, encryptions and formulas for this particular serum. The same serum both Honor and the other were given.” Demonic fury flickered momentarily in his gaze as Amber laid her small head against his chest and jabbered something softly.

“Yes, sprite, Gi-gi is fine,” he promised gently, almost smiling back at Jonas. “A treasure you have here, Jonas,” he stated then. “A very unique one. Get the files to Ely. The serum that will complete her recovery is contained there as well. As we both know, she’s not fully recovered from her ordeal. You’ll learn why in the papers I left.”

“You’re not leaving,” Jonas snarled.

Gideon chuckled. “It was a great game we’ve been playing, my friend, and perhaps one day soon, we can sit down and discuss it, but that day is not today.”

“The hell it isn’t,” Jonas retorted furiously.

Rule knew the instant the Bengal decided the discussion was at an end. And exactly how he intended to end it.

“Catch.”

Amber flew from his arms as Gideon jumped through the open balcony doors to the two-man stealth copter that suddenly flew past.

Just that fast he was gone.

Just that fast, both Jonas and Rule missed the tiny child flying through the room as she giggled gleefully.

She wasn’t flung into the wall. She didn’t fall to the floor.

Rule watched in amazement as she was suddenly suspended from the ceiling, the nearly invisible lines holding her aloft a familiar sensation for the child, if he wasn’t mistaken.

“How?” Jonas whispered as both he and Rachel watched as their child bounced happily in the air. “How the hell did he pull this off?”

Rule looked from the baby, to Jonas, then back again.

He cleared his throat.

“Do you think he’s related to Dane?” he asked then, knowing Jonas wouldn’t miss the backhanded insult.

Was the director related to Gideon?

Hell, Rule was beginning think Jonas and Gideon didn’t share just genetics, but parents if it weren’t for the fact that he was a Bengal rather than a Lion.

The growl that left Jonas’s throat had him wincing.

“Maybe not,” Rule lied, though he was now convinced it was highly likely.

CHAPTER 29

Gypsy knew the second the Dragoon had increased speed and begun racing for the hotel that something was wrong. No more than a heartbeat later she felt something shift inside her own senses. A door opening so swiftly inside her that she had no idea how to close it or what to do with it.

“Go with it, Gypsy,” Lawe suddenly ordered as the Dragoon roared along the highway. “Rule’s in trouble.”

Rule was in trouble?

In danger?

She focused on that link, ignoring the doorway that had opened into Lawe’s senses and concentrating totally on Rule’s instead.

What was she supposed to do? How was she supposed to do it?

Centering her attention on him, she remembered how he said he could borrow from Lawe’s strength, but was he trying to borrow from her?

It sure as hell wasn’t her patience because she was going to kick his ass for making her wait to find out what was going on.

Eyes closed, she felt a glimmer of amusement touch her mind as Rule became so firmly entrenched inside her soul that she swore she could feel steel bolts anchoring him to her.

Mental strength, she realized. If he wanted stubbornness, she had that in spades.

Was that a chuckle echoing through her head without sound? Oh God, she was so going to kill him for this.

“Interesting.”
She heard the voice, felt Gideon’s name whisper through her mind. A second later she knew what was going on and felt her heart nearly stop in dread at the knowledge that the insanity Rule had described as Gideon held Rachel’s baby in his arms.

She couldn’t “see” what was happening. It was impressions, a sense of Breeds filling the suite, Gideon’s amusement and Jonas’s fury. And a second of complete terror at the knowledge that Gideon had tossed the child free of him as he jumped from the opened balcony door, over the railing to a two-person jet-copter obviously there to retrieve him.

Lobo Reever had a jet-copter. It was the only one in the area, she thought. At least, the only one she knew of. Except for the one the Navajo Covert Law Enforcement Agency owned.

The link between them immediately shut down as Gypsy blinked in surprise.

“Son of a bitch,” Lawe hissed through his teeth, his gaze meeting hers in the rearview mirror for the briefest second. “Tell me, Gypsy, just how many fucking secrets is my brother hiding from me?”

Uh-oh. She had a feeling Lawe just might be one up on the fact that Rule had been hiding Judd for the past nine years or so.

Bad Rule.

“He’s your brother,” she scoffed, glaring back at him. “Take that up with him.”

His gaze shot to hers through the mirror once again, the suspicious disbelief glittering brilliantly in the lighter blue hue.

“You know, Gypsy,” he pointed out, his tone rougher, frustrated as he turned his attention back to the road, “I’d be careful. Even as his mate, you’ll learn you’re not exempt from Rule’s manipulations.”

“I could have sworn I heard the same thing said to Rachel at some point concerning Jonas, just in the past weeks,” she mused, turning her attention out the window of the Dragoon once again.

For a moment, her thoughts had been distracted from her parents, their crime, and the decision she faced concerning her brother’s betrayer.

Eight years before, she’d shot a Council informer that the Unknown had been certain had betrayed her brother. He’d deserved to die for other crimes against both Breeds and the Navajo, but knowing he had been the wrong one cut at her.

The man who betrayed Mark deserved to hurt. He deserved to feel the same hell Mark had felt, knowing that his sister would be raped and killed and even the chance to help her was denied him. The fact that she had been rescued at the last moment hadn’t helped Mark. It didn’t salve her fury now.

Years of distrust made sense now. She’d been so angry as she’d watched her parents allow him to take Mark’s place. He tried to be a brother to Mark’s sisters, he’d married Mark’s fiancée, he’d taken over Mark’s company.

He’d thought he could live Mark’s life.

Her nails bit into her palms as she realized they’d curled into fists, prepared to inflict whatever damage possible.

Damn him.

She wanted to slip away now. She wanted to find him, wanted to tear his throat out herself.

The only thing stopping her was the knowledge that he had disappeared, just as she’d known he would. The Breed team sent to find him that morning had reported that he couldn’t be found either at his home or at his office.

Where would he go? she wondered. Where would Jason hide?

Eyes narrowed, she scanned the desert as it rushed by, going over old haunts Mark had once shown her, remembering bits and pieces of her childhood that she’d refused to allow herself to remember before.

As she did, she could “feel” Rule. As though the very fact that she was considering where he could be, where to find him, how to make him pay, had alerted Rule to her not-so-hidden desire to kill him herself.

She almost smiled as she felt him. Geez, it was the strangest damned feeling. He would just be there, like the caress of a breeze, but in her mind. She really wasn’t certain if she liked it or not.

One thing was for damned sure, though, she thought on a sudden sigh; there would be no going after Jason by herself, and there wasn’t a chance in hell Rule would allow her to kill him herself as Cullen had. And she wondered if anything else would exorcise the ghosts of her past?

...

Did she love him?

Had she just accepted the mating, nothing more?

Standing in the lobby of the hotel as he leaned against one of the stately pillars that supported the atrium, Rule crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the doors as he waited for Lawe to roll into the courtyard with his mate. Allowing her to make that trip without him had been hell.

He’d been a part of her in one form or the other since her final surrender to him the night before. Exploding like the fourth of July and crying out his name, she had opened every part of herself to the link he had forged within her soul. And still, he was damned if he could sense whether that love was there.

“Damn creatures,” Dane murmured as he sidled up beside him. “I can tell by your glare, fixated into space, that the lovely Gypsy McQuade is no doubt driving you to distraction.”

“You got back fast enough,” Rule grumbled. “How?”

Dane chuckled. “Father ensures that I have the fastest, most technologically advanced vehicles possible whenever I’m out of his sight. He’s somehow convinced himself it lessens the danger I may find myself in.”

“Or just gets you there faster?” Rule grunted. “Tell me, Dane, was that your technologically advanced personal jet-copter that Gideon caught a ride on earlier?”

“I was wondering if there was a way I could take credit for that one,” the Breed sighed morosely. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. And the black-hearted bastard is refusing to answer my calls.”

“Well, go figure.” What the hell did the fucking hybrid expect? He was dealing with a psycho, not just another manipulating, calculating Breed as he usually did.

“Gideon was nearly dead when I found him.” Dane’s voice lowered as he too leaned a shoulder against the pillar. “Nearly emaciated to the point of death, so savage Father feared he would have to have him caged. And the Leo does not keep cages on any of his estates, you know.”

Rule flicked him a look.

His dark blond brows were lowered, his green gaze distant as though his look into the past wasn’t a pleasant one.

“The secrets he knows,” Dane whispered. “So much intelligence, Rule. Insights into Breed physiology unlike anything you could even guess. The few months he was healing in South America after we found him, Mother was in scientific heaven just from his ramblings.”

“And once he healed?” Rule asked.

Dane inhaled heavily. “One night he was fevered and rambling about a transfusion and why it had driven him insane, speaking of the creature pacing, lurking and breaking free. Mother left the audio recorder on and went to check on another of the unfortunate Breeds we were attempting to coax back to health. When she returned, the recorder had been turned off, part of it obviously erased, and Gideon had simply vanished through a steel door or concrete walls. We’re really not certain how, because strangely, the recording from the camera trained on him was destroyed for nearly an hour up to the moment Mother returned.” Dane chuckled. “Smart-ass fucker had taken a moment to get into the camera and hack the programming from within the device itself. Though how he fuzzed the equipment before doing so eludes me.”

“What are you up to here, Dane?” Rule asked when the explanation finished. “Why not just go to Jonas, tell him you could acquire what he needed and allow Ely to continue the injections?”

“Jonas would have never allowed it,” Dane told him, his tone suddenly weary. “At the most, he would have injected them himself to take the responsibility from Ely’s steadily weakening shoulders, and only Gideon truly understood what he was doing. It was far better to maneuver my baby brother rather than watching that sweet child, or Jonas and Rachel, being destroyed from the inside out should something go wrong.”

Rule stared outside the main doors for long moments once again, his eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun as it spread across the glistening lobby floors.

“Callan so resembles Father that there are times I find an edge of jealousy rising inside me,” Dane said, his voice filled with amused self-disgust. “And such pride the Leo has in him, despite their differences. But if one knew the Leo as only Mother and I do, then they would see the pain he suffers each time Jonas is about. The guilt and self-recrimination, the unspeakable nightmares that have haunted him for years where one of his children is concerned. And this was before we learned of the reports he’d acquired that Jonas’s maternal genetics were from Mother rather than Madame LaRue, as we had believed. Since he learned that piece of information, his anger at himself often worries Mother.”

“Leo doesn’t seem to be the type to stress over past mistakes,” Rule offered. “Or children who were created rather than conceived by him.”

“Ah, but how little all but I and Mother know him,” Dane retorted mockingly. “Father suffers for past mistakes, decisions that resulted in less than the situations he anticipated, and the children who carried his genetics. His pride in Callan is absolute. But his pride in Jonas is ever growing, my friend. A pride that demands that Jonas acknowledge that choices are often made with a knowledge of the outcome and its tragedy, but they are never made without regret and without grief.”

“Jonas understands that.” Hell, of all people, Jonas knew that better than anyone Rule could think of. “Leo has amends to make, Dane. Many of them.”

“Jonas resents Leo for leaving him in the labs when he feels he could have gotten him out.”

Rule shook his head, staring back at the other man in surprise. “Is that what he thinks?”

“That’s what Jonas states. Often.” Dane’s look sharpened.

“No, Dane.” Rule was the one to breathe out roughly now. “It wasn’t that Leo left him in the labs. It was that Leo left Harmony there. That Harmony suffered as long as she did and that he was forced to turn on her to ensure her survival. He will never forgive the Leo for the price he paid when he lost his sister’s love. A condition that continues, even now.”

Silence stretched between them now. For the first time since he’d known him, Rule watched as Dane appeared saddened. No manipulation. No calculation. Just unaccountably saddened.

“It would seem, then, both Jonas and I have a particular grudge against our father,” he finally said softly before turning and spearing him with a sharp, fierce look. “Take that as a lesson, my friend. Don’t wait for your mate to declare her love. Don’t wait for her to realize her love. Give of yourself first if you must. Perhaps when you do so, she’ll realize what she’s refusing to allow herself to see for fear of losing once again that which sustains her.”

Rule narrowed his eyes back at the hybrid as Dane turned and moved away from him, heading back to the bank of elevators, his shoulders not as straight, his head not thrown back as arrogantly as normal.

He knew Dane had feelings for Jonas’s sister Harmony, just as he knew damned good and well Harmony’s love for her mate, Lance Jacobs, was absolute. A mate she had been given a chance to find through Dane’s and Jonas’s machinations, separately, though no less effectively.

He almost smiled.

He could smell the true affection and sense of loss and regret Dane felt, but the love . . . no, it wasn’t love. It had been close. Perhaps the closest Dane had ever come, or ever would come. The man jumped across continents like other men traveled across town. The chances of finding his mate, or of finding love, wasn’t going to be high.

Rule had a feeling when and if it happened, though, Dane would be thanking his father for whatever hand he’d had in taking Harmony from his son’s life rather than resenting it.

Straightening as the Dragoon shot in beneath the hotel awning, Rule strode quickly to the doors, Dane’s comment running through his mind.

Let her know how he felt. Let her feel it, he thought. Maybe, just maybe, she’d realize she didn’t have to hide her tender heart from him. Nor her fears.

He had her back, and he was about to prove it.

Dane wasn’t the only one to whom Gideon owed a favor or two.

...

The heavy iron door slammed closed with enough force that the cavern itself seemed to shudder from the impact.

A roar ripped through the underground space, sinking into stone before echoing back, only to be followed by another.

A glass beaker shattered against the doors, spilling a dark liquid that instantly turned to mist and filled the area with a hint of sandalwood and a male genetic scent that would have fooled any Breed living but the one who had made it.

“Motherfuckers.” The roar was nearly incoherent as the animal lent its voice to the explicit curse.

Another beaker shattered, this time, the scent evocative of desert nights with a hint of a rose. Poison should smell sweet, he’d always claimed.