Lawe's Justice (30 page)

But he couldn’t.

The message was there, and Diane heard it loud and clear.

“If I thought I could survive without it, then I would,” she said, keeping her own voice soft as her breathing hitched on a sob. “If I could, Lawe, I would, just for you.” And the first tear slipped from her eyes. “Because I love you so much it breaks my heart. You break my heart . . . daily.”

Her eyes closed as she fought back more tears, feeling him withdraw from her, that bond breaking as his cock eased through tender tissue then slipped from her entirely.

As he helped her to her feet, Diane stepped back, knowing what he would have done, and knowing she couldn’t bear it. Her hand lifted in an instinctive gesture, palm held out, in a silent denial.

She couldn’t bear it if he did as he had before. Cleaning her so gently, and with such obvious enjoyment, did something to her that made it harder each time to fight against his need to protect her.

“I’m going to shower.” Her voice was rough, from her tears, from the cries that had been torn from her as the pleasure exploded around her. “I need to think.”

“What’s there to think about?” he stared down at her, his expression dark and forbidding as he watched her. “We can’t deny what we have, Diane. The mating heat won’t allow it.”

She gave her head a hard shake. “Later, Lawe. We’ll fight about his later. After we’ve found what we came looking for, after Gideon has been neutralized. Give me that much at least.”

“And if I can’t?” The question was voiced harshly, as though the words were torn from the very soul of the creature that lived inside him. “If I can’t let you do this, Diane, then what?”

She felt tormented, tortured. As though the pain that lived inside her soul was raking at her with jagged claws.

What would she do if he didn’t allow her to finish this? If he didn’t stand beside her rather than in front of her and let her find the three individuals who were once injected with the same, or very similar, serum that her niece had been injected with? If she didn’t learn from them what had happened to those who had died from the injections and the facts surrounding those deaths?

Could she live with the failure?

“If you love me,” she whispered painfully. “If you really love me as you say you do, Lawe, then you’ll stand by me.” The tears she battled edged closer to winning the war when another ran down her cheek. “Because you know I won’t be able to bear it any other way.”

He may as well lock her in a cage, she thought, as she moved quickly to the bathroom and the shower she so desperately needed. She needed the escape worse, though. The few precious moments she could steal to think, to weigh her options and consider the future. Because the time was coming when she wouldn’t be able to run any longer. The time was coming when she wouldn’t be able to hide anymore.

The time was coming when a decision would have to be made.

•   •   •

Gideon stared at the wall across from him, a frown on his face as he heard Diane all but beg her mate to believe in her.

Lawe Justice was a hell of a Breed soldier, as was his brother, Rule Breaker. Gideon didn’t think much of their choice of names, but they did seem to rather suit them.

This, this bothered him, though.

Not that he should care either way. Hell, the more conflicted the two were the easier it would be to keep them distracted and to learn more about them.

The fact that they had missed the new electronic bug was pleasing as well. Keeping ahead of their little bug detectors was getting harder by the day. This one wasn’t as strong as the others, and there was a lot he missed of any conversation. White noise, which Breeds most always used when discussing missions, would completely incapacitate it. But information such as this was damned useful as well.

Lawe and Diane weren’t at their peak fighting abilities because of mating heat. That would make them weaker, slower. And they were the leaders, the commanders. With any luck, the others wouldn’t feel the need to work over or around the two. They trusted them. And Gideon was trusting them to remain immersed in each other while he found Fawn.

Her big dark eyes, so filled with tears. “Give him my blood,” she sobbed out to Judd. “Don’t you let him die!” she had screamed at the Breed as the chill of the night air seeped into Gideon’s bones. “Don’t you dare, or I swear, I swear I’ll make you pay.”

And Gideon had been dying. He had wanted to die. God knows it would have been such a relief, to slip over that edge of nothingness and find eternal rest.

She had denied death to him. She had begged and she had ordered, until Judd had found a medical kit in the transport vehicle. As fate had had it, there was a transfusion kit too, and she gave him her blood.

They had saved him, and he hadn’t wanted to be saved. He’d been too weak to stop them, too weak to do anything but glare at her in hatred.

He’d known that by saving him, she had only extended his horror. He had been right.

He’d tried to forgive her. He’d fought to get the memory out of his head. Then, a decade later, he was forced to allow his recapture to get into the labs once more to destroy the records kept on Judd, Fawn and Honor. To ensure that no DNA matches could be found when he’d learned the Brandenmore Labs were once again searching for them.

The suspicion that Judd and Fawn weren’t dead revived every few years, but this time, General Horace Roberts, desperate to find his only child, had demanded they search until Honor was found. That they search until it was proven that the others had died. He was certain his daughter would never have run away without help and the only friends she had known had been Judd, Gideon and Fawn. Gideon had planned it perfectly. He was certain he would have at least a few weeks before the testing began again.

Then, they had tested his blood. He had immediately been restrained, the paralytic pumped into his body, and then, they had killed him themselves. There on the autopsy gurney, as he screamed and begged, they had cut him open to investigate the changes found in his blood. The additional strength he’d acquired over the years had been strange enough, even to him. But after he’d died on that table beneath their scalpels, after they’d transfused him again, using the blood they had taken from her years before, the changes had begun multiplying.

Not that they had found answers after cutting him open. There was nothing there. No reason for the anomalies showing up in his body until he’d begun experiencing brief episodes of full-blown feral fever.

The thought of death had been wiped away. The pain that clawed at his insides didn’t mean he couldn’t extract vengeance, though. That was something he had never wanted. He hadn’t wanted to live, to develop a fever so agonizing the animal inside him had been forced free to pull him back from the brink of insanity.

As the man huddled in blessed silence within his body, the animal had raged and roared; it had clawed at the walls and snarled at the guards. It had stared at the scientists, remembered the girl, the blood the scientists had used as they laughed at him and he had sworn vengeance.

Her blood had destroyed him. And she was gone. He hadn’t been able to find her in ten years, and several times, he’d actually searched for her and Judd, then for Honor once he’d learned of her disappearance.

It was as though they had simply ceased to exist.

When he had returned to the wilderness where he had left the night he’d awakened after that first transfusion, there had been no sign of them. He had brief memories of the termination facility. A small metal building, a cremation vault and the bloodied bodies he’d thrown inside it. There were flashes of images of guards, looks of horror on their faces, the taste of blood overriding his senses.

The animal had raged inside him, for how long, Gideon had never been certain.

When he’d finally come to himself and made his way back to the scene of their escape, it was to find it all gone. The wrecked vehicle, the two guards, Judd and Fawn.

It was only later he’d begun to suspect the lie of it. Only later that the animal inside him had begun to dream of dark eyes in an adult’s face. But the features of that face he never saw in the animal’s dreams.

She would pay for that demand that he live. For whatever her blood had done that had changed him, that had stolen the time he needed to ensure she was never found. She would pay for the additional agony. And when he was finished with her, maybe, just maybe, he would put them both out of their misery.

•CHAPTER 15•

Amber was changing.

Diane stood next to her sister at the end of the crib and stared at the sleeping child. In just a few brief days, even she could see the changes. Tiny, so very tiny, for her age.

Her dark brown hair was longer, hanging down her neck in little ringlets. Her lashes had always been long, feathering her rosy cheeks. Soft baby lips were slightly parted as she lay on her back, her breathing slow and easy.

She looked picture perfect. A babe, innocent in her slumber, dreaming whatever bright, happy dreams happy babies had. But there were changes.

Her face was thinner, the features altered almost imperceptibly and appearing almost feline. Her hair was lighter, with soft black and reddened streaks showing themselves amid the golden brown.

There was the faintest point to a tiny ear and every so often a very distinct purr.

“She’s running a fever,” Rachel whispered, her voice husky with tears. “She’s been running one for the past two days. It’s spiked on us twice, going over a hundred, and Dr. Morrey has tried everything to bring it down. Nothing works. Then it will just go away on its own.”

“Should she be here?” Diane wanted nothing more than to reach out and pick her niece up, to cuddle her, to hold her closely and keep whatever was tormenting her from ever hurting her again.

“Dr. Morrey is in the next room,” she answered. “With Callan and Merinus traveling here as well, they decided it best to bring Amber. That way, she’s with us if needed.”

Another little purr left the baby as a small frown wrinkled her forehead before easing away.

Lawe stood behind Diane, his hand resting against her hip as he too watched the baby. She could feel his concern. Just as she could feel Jonas’s as he stood behind her sister.

“She’s healthy,” Jonas whispered. “Ely keeps a daily check on her. She’s not hurting.”

But that was little comfort today, when tomorrow it could all change.

“Did you get my report from the doctors in Argentina?” Diane glanced back at the director.

He gave a sharp nod. “The main scientists working with the girls were killed by Gideon, though.”

“Before I could get to them,” she agreed. “I only had their assistants that I could talk to.”

The information they had given her had terrified her. The girls had survived, obviously, but those assistants hadn’t understood how, or why. Because the stages of agonizing pain and adjustment owing to the serum had had the children begging for death more often than not.

Had her sister seen those reports?

“She’s so tiny,” Rachel whispered. “She’s not growing properly, even Ely admits it. If she goes through one of the stages those girls did . . .”

Fawn Corrigan and Honor Roberts had been older. They hadn’t been infants when the experiments had begun, nor had they been healthy children.

“Ely will be there for her,” Diane promised. “And we’ll find the girls, Rachel. I promise you we will. They’ll have the answers we need.”

She prayed they’d have the answers needed, if nothing else, the memory of what the scientists had done. Honor Roberts’s mother reported her daughter had possessed a photographic memory. There was nothing she heard or saw from that time that she had forgotten. She remembered it all, in blinding detail.

Those details had been what had convinced her mother to help her run. When the scientists had come to General Roberts to request he return his daughter to the labs, she had known she had no other choice. Because her husband believed her daughter had somehow been infected with Breed genetics. Genetics he wanted out of her.

“She’s not in pain now, Rachel,” Jonas whispered at her ear. “So far, she’s been relatively free of anything but our worry. Let’s pray it stays that way.”

Diane glanced at the director. He should have never shown Rachel those reports, but somehow she had known he would. Rachel hadn’t been raised as Diane had been, amid the blood and horror the world could spawn. Diane and their uncle had done everything possible to protect her, to ensure her life was more settled, that it was safer.

Diane was older, and she had longed to follow her uncle into his chosen career. The night their parents had died it had been Diane who had used the few tricks her uncle and her parents had taught her to save herself and her sister.

Just in case, they had always reassured her. She had never suspected their trips could carry the risk of their deaths, as well as her and Rachel’s. She had never known their secrets, their rescue of certain Breeds and aid in transporting them to a hidden base in Africa could have come back to destroy the lives they lived.

Rachel hadn’t been prepared for the life she had been thrust into.

Diane had sensed, and then known, she thrived within it.

“Come on, sweetheart.” Jonas kissed the top of his mate’s auburn hair. “Let’s let her rest. We can talk in the living area.”

They eased quietly from the room.

“This is the first day she’s napped in weeks,” Rachel said as Jonas closed the doors carefully behind them.

Her sister was beginning to look exhausted. Exhausted and worried out of her mind.

“We also managed to secretly kidnap one of the researchers involved in the testing at the Brandenmore labs, Jenny Austin-Carrew,” Callan Lyons, alpha of the Feline Prides, stated as he stood from the small table when they reentered the room. “She was a higher-level research assistant, and we’re hoping she actually worked extensively with the head scientists.”

“Have you questioned her yet?” Diane asked.

He gave a shake of his head as his wife, Merinus, moved to his side.

“Ashley was wounded before Jonas could begin questioning her regarding her work. We came right out here with her sisters, Dacey and Marcy. They were still at Sanctuary.”

Ashley’s sisters. The Truing sisters were true sisters. Sharone Bryce hadn’t been conceived by the same mother or the same genetically altered sperm that had been used to fertilize her each time she had conceived.

They were all littermates though, created in the same lab and overseen by the same scientists.

There were no records concerning how the sperm had been altered or who the main donor had been. The five girls, Emma, Ashley, and twins Dacey and Marcy, looked nothing alike, though. They could have been born of completely different genetics rather than from the same donor with the same animal genetic profiles.

“The twins are at the hospital with her,” Merinus stated. “Sharone and Emma are . . . hunting.” Merinus’s pause had Diane shooting Lawe a hard look.

“What or who are they hunting?” she asked.

“They’re with Thor searching for any signs that the Coyote team that bribed Holden Mayhew to kidnap Malachi’s mate didn’t have any friends as backup,” Lawe told her softly. “They’re questioning some of the people Mayhew and the team came in contact with and building a profile of their movements as well.”

They were being kept busy and out of trouble.

Diane raked her fingers through her hair then shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans and glanced at the others before asking: “Do we have any intel concerning the whereabouts of the girls or the Bengal Judd?” She hated the fact that part of this mission had been taken from her.

“So far, all we have is the suspicion that Terran Martinez brought them to his ranch. A few hours later they were picked up by a group of warriors wearing war paint and disappeared,” Jonas told her.

“Where did you get that information?” Diane asked him, her gaze narrowing in surprise.

“An anonymous call that we haven’t been able to trace.” His jaw tightened angrily. “Terran isn’t confirming or denying the report. He says that if such individuals came into the city looking for safety, then they were now safe, and neither he nor anyone involved at the time would know where they were, who they were with or anyone that could give them that information.”

Diane nodded slowly. “When the Navajo first learned of the children who had been rescued whose genetics matched some of their missing, they created a group whose job was to ensure the protection and hidden identities of those children. I haven’t been able to find even a hint of anyone who could even guess at who any of them are, but Braden Arness’s mated wife, Megan, and her family, confirmed the stories of them.”

The Lion Breed Braden had mated a Navajo empath from New Mexico with close ties to Window Rock. The assassin class Breed now worked with his wife whenever his skill set, or her investigative gifts were needed.

“We’ve informed the chief as well as his father, the medicine man, and Terran, who’s currently the Navajo’s head legal representative, of the situation regarding Amber. Their refusal to give us the identities of at least the two girls and allow us to debrief them concerning their stay at the labs will be viewed as an act of hostility toward the Breeds. As such, the Navajo Nation will no longer be considered a sanctuary for our people, and they’ll be pulled out with all haste.”

Diane sighed wearily as she stared at Callan’s forbidding expression.

This was simply the wrong way to go about it.

Shifting an accusing look toward Lawe, she clenched her teeth in anger at the fact that Jonas had decided it wasn’t prudent to wait for their arrival and allow Diane to do what she did best. Find the people she was looking for.

She didn’t like going behind Lawe’s back, but that was exactly what she and Thor had agreed to do as they waited for Lawe outside the hotel the morning they’d left.

If he thought giving Thor another assignment had changed that, then he was wrong. It had instead given Thor the chance to work as he and Diane preferred. Under the guise of a completely unrelated mission while Diane remained with Lawe and kept the Breeds off his back.

It was usually the other way around. She investigated while Thor ran interference with whichever parties were deemed the most hazardous to their job. But, she knew how to handle this part. She and Thor had perfected both areas of the mission parameters and understood how each worked.

“The Navajo won’t know who they are, where they are or, after all this time, how to reach them,” Diane informed them all as she faced them impatiently. “There’s not even a number that’s called anymore. No one knows how the group becomes aware that a pickup is needed, but they’re always there.”

“Then they have a Breed working with them,” Jonas guessed.

Diane shrugged. “Getting anyone to talk to any of you will not happen,” she told them. “I have some ideas, and once I begin investigating—”

“Once
we
begin,” Lawe injected.

She glanced up at him, feeling her chest tighten at what she knew she had to do.

“No, once
I
begin,” she reiterated softly. “They won’t talk to me if you’re around or anywhere close enough to identify them. You’re a Breed, Lawe. To them, you’re the same as a Coyote, a scientist, or a rogue.”

She watched his gaze turn to ice as Jonas cursed softly.

“I hate to keep repeating myself, but I know what I’m doing,” she stated, knowing that with the exception of her sister, possibly, no one there was willing to believe her at this point because of the fact that she was now a mate.

Her chances of investigating were thin to none, but this was her role to play, and if she simply stepped back, then there was no way Lawe would accept that she and Thor hadn’t planned something else.

“Diane, you’re the strongest woman I know,” Rachel said with an edge of bitterness, a clear indication she’d tried to discuss the matter with Jonas. “But the danger to mates right now won’t allow a single Breed in the vicinity to allow you to investigate this on your own.”

Despite the grief she heard in her sister’s voice, the knowledge it could mean her daughter’s life, Diane realized that even her sister couldn’t help her here.

“And all of you are willing to lose Amber for this?” She met her sister’s gaze and watched the tears that welled in her eyes.

“There’s nothing on this earth I wouldn’t do to protect my baby.” Rachel’s voice hitched on a sob. “But nothing is going to change how they’ll surround you or their determination and vows to protect you. Nothing will change the fact that not even my child is as important to Lawe or to the animal genetics that are a part of him as his mate is. Even Jonas’s orders won’t sway him.”

Diane refused to accept that.

Her head lifted as she stared back at the males watching her. “Every damned one of you will get over it,” she told them coolly before turning to Lawe. “You will get Thor back here if that protection is all important to you. He’s not a Breed; he won’t be seen as suspiciously as you will be.”

“He follows your orders,” Lawe growled. “If you told him to back off, then he would do just that. Your safety will always be endangered by the fact that you’re his commander.”

There was truth to that.

“He would cut off his own arm and tell me to go to hell before he’d allow me to do anything to place myself in a situation that would risk my capture by anything or anyone associated with the Council,” she informed them all firmly. It did about as much good to argue with them as it did to attempt to use fuel to put out a fire. And she knew that, to the bottom of her soul.