SIX

Anya paced Command through the night. She ignored Brim’s firm suggestions that she should retire to bed, glaring at him each time he suggested it, even though she had sent her bodyguards to their rooms hours before. 

She chewed at her thumbnail; she growled at the techs when they told her time and again there was no way to pinpoint their alpha’s position without comm going back online, and she wasn’t willing to risk that either. 

She ached from head to toe; exhaustion was a bitch she fought tooth and nail, and she railed at herself for not having the same stamina and endurance the Coyote Breeds had. She was supposed to be their coya, their female alpha, and yet she couldn’t manage two days without sleep? They could go for days; she had seen Sharone go for more than a week with barely more than a twenty-minute nap here and there, while Anya had collapsed more than once and slept like the dead. 

Daylight was peeking over the mountains as she stood by the silent communications techs and waited. All communications was shut down. Soldiers had been sent to Haven to inform them of status and to secure their own communications. Safeguards would go into effect once Del-Rey and his men returned, but as she had told the communications techs months ago, Del-Rey should have already placed safeguards for just this eventuality. 

As they had told her, he was never on base long enough and those safeguards required not just his permission, but also his help. 

It hadn’t been stated, but she had seen the look in their eyes. It was because of her that he was never there long enough to fulfill his own duties. 

So now she was staring at a silent comm board with no way of knowing if the Breeds in the field were alive or dead. No way of knowing if Del-Rey was safe or wounded. She couldn’t consider anything else. 

The two missing soldiers had been brought in an hour after her return, slightly dazed and bleeding from several wounds. Med tech had been forced to send them to Haven as they didn’t have the supplies or the experience to treat them. 

They needed their own damned doctors. What if Del-Rey was seriously wounded? Dr. Armani didn’t know enough about Coyote genetics to do more than stitch them up. And sometimes, with the Wolf Breeds, severe wounds caused unexplained infections, fevers, almost rabid behaviors in some cases, if the wounds were bad enough. 

If that happened to a Coyote Breed, then they could die. Del-Rey could die. 

It had been nearly eight hours since she had returned, she estimated; looking at the clock again, perhaps closer to ten. They had left the caverns late to go on the training exercise, later than usual. Otherwise, those hunters would have managed to slip right up on them. They were usually much farther toward the base of the mountain. 

Someone had been watching them. They had known about the exercises. Somehow, security had been penetrated enough that the enemy had nearly blindsided them. 

“Pacing the floor and glaring at the comm board isn’t going to make time pass any faster,” Brim told her as he stepped back into the command room carrying coffee. Two cups. God bless his heart. She took one of them. 

“That cup was for your communications tech,” he pointed out. 

“Comm is down; he can go get his own,” she muttered as she sipped at the caffeine-laced brew. 

It was rare that she could sneak the real thing past her bodyguards. And they always managed to make her spill it or find a way to steal it. 

Several times Ashley had found a way to just spit in it before she smiled back at Anya impishly, knowing damned good and well she wouldn’t be drinking it then. 

She caught the smile the communications tech threw Brim before he pushed back his chair and headed into the lounge. 

“You can get hyper as hell for all I care.” Brim shrugged. “It’s not going to change anything. 

He’s going to come in here tearing ass over this one, and it won’t be my ass he’s tearing this time.” 

She narrowed her eyes at him over her coffee cup. His thick black hair was cut short, short enough that sometimes it would spike on his head. Light blue eyes regarded her coolly. He always watched her coolly, ever since the first time she had seen him. Nothing seemed to touch Brim. He never worried, he never got in a hurry, he never got excited. He just wisecracked and glided through life. 

“He has no reason to tear anyone’s ass here,” she finally retorted. “It’s not our fault those bastards found a way to access our comm codes.” 

“You think that’s why he’s going to be pissed?” He let his lips quirk as though in amusement. 

None of that amusement showed in his eyes though. “Coya, you were out there with comm links deactivated, and without apprising Command you were outside the caverns. He’s going to tear the asses of every soldier that saw you slip out and didn’t report it. Then he’s going to strip your bodyguards to the bone. Ashley’s going to cry those pretty alligator tears for him and probably get off easiest. Emma and Sharone are going to take it like the soldiers they were trained to be, and that’s just going to piss him off more because he hates it when they go all stoic soldier on him. Then by the time he works his way to you . . .” Amusement might have touched his eyes at this point. “Well, let’s just say, he’ll probably have his most fun where you’re concerned. He’s been rather upset over that separation order, you know. Maybe you should start planning that official acceptance ceremony. You’ll need it once the two of you come up for air.” 

He was laughing at her. As though a wedding ceremony would do anything more than assure the Breeds of all species that Del-Rey had accepted her as his mate and their female alpha. She could refuse him, as Hope had explained, but if he refused her, then she could become fair game when it came to the more savage qualities that were a part of the Breeds’ genetics. Respect came in many forms. An alpha leader earned it. A human female could only marry into it in Breed society. 

“The poor baby,” she expressed mockingly. “Really, Brim, why don’t you just go ahead and have a laugh over it? I’m sure we’d all love to join in. Later maybe.” 

He chuckled then. “Ashley’s rubbing off on you. Or are you the one that taught her all that girly crap?” 

Her nostrils flared as she turned away from him and sipped at the coffee. Neither Ashley, Sharone nor Emma was here to steal this cup from her; she was going to enjoy it. 

Where the hell was Del-Rey anyway? 

“Do you think everything’s okay?” She turned back to Brim worriedly. “If he was hurt, we would know, wouldn’t we?” 

He looked at her in surprise. “He’s not hurt, Coya.” 

“How do you know?” She followed him when he turned away from her and picked up the e-pad he’d been filing reports on earlier. 

His gaze moved back to her. “If the alpha was hurt, a comm link would have been activated with an emergency distress well away from him. We would have received it, and every soldier on base and in Haven would have streamed over that mountain like killer ants. Satisfied?” 

She breathed in roughly and stared up at him in regret. “You don’t like me, do you, Brim?” 

Surprise flickered in his eyes then. 

“Why would you think that? You’re my coya, same as Del-Rey is my alpha. It’s against the rules to dislike you.” 

Was there amusement in his eyes? No, she must have been mistaken, but it was obvious he had no intention of playing fair this morning. He and Del-Rey were too much alike for that. 

“Thank you,” she whispered before turning away and pacing back to the lounge, where she sat down on the long couch that sat inside the glass-enclosed room. 

The caverns were inordinately quiet for this time of the morning. The Coyotes seemed to walk on tiptoes through the area as they moved about their duties. Teams hadn’t been called out, but that didn’t mean teams weren’t ready to go. Every soldier on base was armed to the teeth and ready to move if needed. They were dressed in their plain military uniforms, the ones with the Wolf Breed insignia on the shoulder. 

They needed their own insignia. It would promote a feeling of pride in their own endeavors. 

They were too often mistaken for Wolves, and she knew they often remarked on it. 

There was a deliberate laziness about the men that had originated with Del-Rey, one that had been picked up by the others. After all, as Del-Rey often stated, if they were perfect, they’d be Wolves. 

She finished the coffee slowly as she waited. When the cup was empty, she set it on the table and paced the room, her hands shoved into the pockets of the comfortable cotton pants she’d changed into after showering the night before. A long T-shirt fell to her thighs and her bra was irritating the crap out of her. 

She paced the room several times before throwing herself into the corner of the couch and glaring into the command room again. 

Brim was sitting in her chair. That was her chair when he and Del-Rey were off base. 

Unfortunately the order of separation gave him command of that chair while Del-Rey was on base, rather than allowing her to retain it. Brim should have been second-in-command to her with Del-Rey gone. Or out there protecting his alpha’s superior, arrogant butt. 

She leaned her elbows on her knees before pushing her fingers through her hair in frustration. 

Okay, so they weren’t going to be able to slip out and play their games anymore. At least, not without backup. She could handle that. She was so used to Base and communications being secured that she had deemed the threat acceptable. She had nearly made a deadly mistake, and that mistake weighed heavily on her shoulders. 

Sharone, Emma and Ashley weren’t just bodyguards. They were her dearest friends. She had been raised with them; she thought sometimes they were the sisters her parents had never given her. 

She rolled her shoulders, which ached from exhaustion, then shivered against the chill filling her. 

She felt chilled all the time, and she had grown colder still after Del-Rey hadn’t returned within an hour of her. How long did it take anyway to catch five bastards looking to kill? One of the Coyote snipers could have taken care of them easily. 

Breathing out in irritation, she curled up in the corner of the couch and dragged the little blanket that rested over the back of it over her. She was too cold. And too worried. If he was hurt, it would be her fault. And it wasn’t fair, she thought with an edge of self-pity. If anyone got to hurt him, it should be her. Not strangers that didn’t know him. 

The problem was, she thought, she didn’t want to hurt him. She was too worried to consider hurting him. She just wanted him home. 

Once again, Del-Rey was forced to follow his mate’s scent through the caverns to find her. With comm down, there was no calling Brim to locate his once again missing mate, and that was pissing him off. 

He checked her room first, but she wasn’t there. She wasn’t with her bodyguards and she wasn’t in the community or rec rooms. She wasn’t in the kitchen, or if she had been there, she was gone now. He thought perhaps he caught the scent of her there. 

Finally he stalked into Command and faced Brim. 

“Where is she?” he asked the other man as he slouched in the chair that sat at the back and to the side of the room. 

Brim glanced up from the reports he was filing on his e-pad, with a quizzical look on his face. 

“You’ve lost her again?” 

The unemotional expression, the chill in his voice warned Del-Rey that he and his second-in-command just might be coming to yet another disagreement where Del-Rey’s mate was concerned. 

It was becoming a common, ongoing fight between them. 

“Don’t fuck with me, Brim,” he growled as the other man laid the e-pad to the side of the command chair and stared up at him. 

Glaring down at Brim rarely fazed him. There were few things that did. The bastard. Del-Rey often wondered if his friend challenged him for leadership of the packs, which one of them would come out the winner. Or if either of them would. They knew each other too well, faults and all. 

“It’s a little early to be chewing her ass,” Brim finally answered. “She paced the command room most of the night worrying after your worthless hide. Let her sleep.” His response was voiced in a low tone that carried no farther than the two of them, but the deliberate insult had the animal inside Del-Rey rising along with his temper. 

“She’s not in her rooms sleeping, Lieutenant,” Del-Rey told him, his tone warning. “Now, I’ll ask you one more time, where is she?” 

Anger flashed in Brim’s gaze. “She’s safe. Let her sleep awhile longer.” He had reached his hand out for the e-pad again, when Del-Rey gave a low, savage growl. 

Brim’s jaw clenched. “She drank coffee not too long ago. You know what that does to her; Sharone has already reported it. A confrontation at this moment isn’t what she needs. She needs to sleep.” 

Del-Rey stared back at him, unblinking. 

“You let her drink coffee?” Del-Rey bit out. “Have you lost your fucking mind?” 

Brim’s jaw clenched as his light blue eyes flashed in anger. 

“Well, I wasn’t willing to spit in it like Ashley does,” he retorted mockingly. “Somehow that just seemed rather rude to me.” 

As though Brim cared about rude. 

“She’s not supposed to have coffee,” Del-Rey snarled. “She’s like the damned Energizer bunny from hell and you know it. She’s irritable and confrontational and threatens to kill anyone that gets in her way. Usually me the minute she sees me again.” 

Mating heat and caffeine did not mix well at all. Unless the male mate in question was into a little BDSM and a whole lot into a defiant, challenging mate. 

“She can’t eat chocolate, she can’t drink coffee, she can’t see her family, she can’t take a fucking walk at night.” Brim moved from his chair and glared back at Del-Rey then, the unemotional facade falling away. “You take everything from a woman that once had freedom and control and expect to play these asinine games with her that you’ve developed to get her back into your bed and then you wonder why she doesn’t inform you of what she’s doing whenever she’s doing it. 

Hell, Del-Rey, it’s a wonder she hasn’t shot you.” 

“And a wonder you haven’t loaned her the gun,” Del-Rey sneered. “I’m getting sick of battling you over her. You’re not her brother.” 

Brim’s lips quirked. “I think she rather needs a brother. Perhaps I’ll petition the tribunal for adoption. Someone needs to see beyond their own wants where this woman is concerned.” 

If it wasn’t for the fact that Del-Rey was damned certain Brim was seriously brotherly rather than in lust with Anya, then he would have taken him out years ago. They had been fighting over Anya since she first showed up in that damned bar, and the confrontations had only grown more frequent over the past eight months. 

“I’m losing patience with this, Brim,” he warned him. 

“Try being honest with her then.” Brim crossed his arms over his chest and glared back at Del-Rey. He was possibly the only man in the world who could get away with it. “You should have been honest with her from the beginning.” 

“Oh yeah, I should have told a sixteen-year-old virgin I intended to fuck the hell out of her after she grew up, and that I was going to shoot her father and cousins for the hell of it because they allowed her to endanger herself. Now, wouldn’t that have just inspired confidence in me? We’d have really managed to get her and those Breeds she protected out of that underground facility, wouldn’t we, Brim?” 

This argument had played out for nearly seven years now. For some reason Brim had all but adopted Anya since the moment he saw her. There was no lust, there was concern. And Brim rarely concerned himself with others besides Del-Rey. They had been fighting together since they were kids. They had been created in the same labs and plotted to escape them since they first understood they were prisoners and expected to kill. 

Five, Del-Rey realized. Brim had been five and Del-Rey had been ten when they first began planning. Brim had been fifteen and he twenty, and both were hardened killers, before they’d managed it. That had been nearly sixteen years ago, and until Anya, Brim had never questioned Del-Rey’s plots and schemes. 

“You should have warned her before you shot her father about what you had to do.” Brim repeated his years-old refrain. “All you had to do was tell her that if you didn’t do it, it would endanger their lives. She would have understood that. You didn’t have to shell-shock her.” 

“Well fuck, let’s just get our little time machine and go back and fix it,” Del-Rey sneered. 

Brim grimaced. 

“Where the fuck is my mate, Lieutenant?” 

Brim sighed. “She’s asleep in the lounge. She just went to sleep less than an hour ago, Del-Rey. 

She’s worried herself sick about you while you were out there. She already looks like she hasn’t slept in months. Leave her the hell alone for a while.” 

That was it. 

Del-Rey’s hand snapped out, wrapped around Brim’s throat and applied just enough pressure to assure the other man he was dead serious now. 

Brim’s gaze flickered. 

“We haven’t fought since you were fifteen years old and you decided you could take me and the alpha position in my pack. Do you want to try me again?” 

Brim stared back at him for long, tense moments before he sighed. “I swore loyalty to you. I won’t go back on it.” 

Del-Rey’s gripped slackened. “Don’t get between me and Anya, Brim. I swore when we returned I’d deal more fairly with her. Accept that, and let’s put this behind us.” 

“When she accepts it.” Brim shrugged. “Until then, you’re stuck with my shit.” 

Del-Rey almost grinned before shaking his head at the mess he had made for himself. 

“I’m going to take my coya to her room. You will tell her bodyguards, you will inform every soldier in this base, that any order she gives that would give her access outside this base is to go through me first. Are we understood?” 

Brim grimaced. “Wrong move.” 

“Are we understood?” he repeated. 

“Of course, Alpha Delgado,” Brim finally replied mockingly. “I understand English very well.” 

Mocking son of a bitch Coyote, Del-Rey thought fondly. 

“We brought back a prisoner,” he told Brim then. “He needs transport to Haven. We haven’t finished the detainment cells here yet and I don’t want to risk him escaping. See if you can find some secure communication with Haven and let them know that we’re bringing him in. Tell them I want to be involved in the interrogation.” 

Brim nodded and turned away to do that as Del-Rey moved toward the lounge. The door was closed; the interior was sound-proofed for meetings when needed, that was the reason he hadn’t caught her scent when he stepped into Command. 

She was curled into the corner of the couch sleeping. A small blanket was wrapped around her, and she appeared chilled. He wondered if she got as cold as he sometimes did. There were nights the cold went clear to his bones, the need to wrap himself around her warmth eating at his insides. 

It wasn’t all sexual. He’d had six years to form the bond he had with this woman, letting it go was impossible. 

He should have known when he first realized he was claiming her for his own that games wouldn’t work with her. She was too damned sharp, and too easily hurt by them. She didn’t see the cunning manipulations as he did. She didn’t play those games that other women caught on to so easily. She, quite simply, was just Anya. Unlike any other woman, unlike anything he had known in his entire life. 

He moved to the couch and hunkered in front of her, staring into her sleeping face. Hell, she looked sixteen rather than twenty-two. Her looks hadn’t changed much in the years since he had first met her. She still had that innocent curve to her soft lips, that impish tilt to her red gold brows. 

She liked to tease, and she liked to play. Sharone had sent video after video of his mate over the months. Catching her in a snowball fight with Ashley, recordings of the three women sparring in the gym as they trained her to fight. She laughed with them. She used to try to laugh with him. 

Hell, Brim should have shot him as soon as he realized what Del-Rey was doing. He’d have deserved it. 

Moving carefully, he slid his arms beneath her knees and around her back before lifting her against his chest. She’d had coffee; if she woke up, she was going to go ballistic on him. He hoped she slept for a while longer. A whole lot longer, if he was lucky. But she wasn’t sleeping on this couch in the command lounge. She had a bed. Two actually, his and hers. If she needed to sleep, then she could do so in comfort. 

As he moved from the lounge, she cuddled closer, her cold little nose burying itself against his neck as a little shiver worked over her. 

She was cold. A surge of possessiveness shot through him at the realization. The caverns weren’t cold. They were a comfortable seventy-one degrees almost all year long. If by chance any part of them grew chillier, then there were heating units in place to take care of that. 

He held her closer as he moved through the stone- and steel-reinforced tunnels to their quarters. 

Her bed had been turned down for her, he knew, the lights left low, but he was damned if he wanted to put her in her own bed. 

He wondered if it were possible that she would sleep through him putting her in his bed. He was more than willing to leave her dressed, though he wasn’t as sacrificing where his own clothes were concerned. Tucking her against his naked body would tickle the hell out of him. 

It was worth trying. Better to fight it out with her now than to try to seduce her there in a week or so. Maybe he just needed to put his foot down a bit. He’d never done that with her. Never given her boundaries other than that of not allowing her father on Haven or Base without his presence. 

She had simply forgone seeing her family rather than do it in front of him. 

He frowned darkly as he entered his own room. 

Or had she forgone seeing them? 

He glanced down at her. Dammit, he had stated she couldn’t see them at Haven or on Base without his presence. He was betting money she had seen them somewhere else. Why the hell hadn’t he considered that loophole? Anya would not have gone this long without seeing her family, even if it meant dealing with him. 

Cunning, conniving little imp. How had he been so wrong about her? And he knew clearly that he obviously was. Anya was stubborn as hell, but she loved her family with a devotion he was frankly jealous of. 

He knew clear to the bottom of his gut that she had met them somewhere else. No doubt with her bodyguards’ full endorsement. He was going to have to do something about the damned women running roughshod over him on his own base. His coya. That flighty little genius Ashley that so loved playing the dumb blonde. The too quirky Sharone and the quiet, manipulating little Emma. 

Hell, he hoped the Felines managed to temper some of that shit in the younger twins they were fostering. 

Shaking his head, he settled his mate carefully on his own turned-down bed and eased the little blanket she had tried to use for warmth away from her as he lifted the sheet and comforter over her. He didn’t bother with the lights. He stripped to his skin, slid in beside her and eased her into his arms. 

He almost groaned at the warmth of her body against his own chilled flesh. The way she settled in against him, mumbling, grumbling a bit with charming feminine irritation until she was as close to him as she could get, her nose buried against his shoulder, her rounded body tucked into his until he could feel her warmth seeping into him. 

His eyes closed as emotion threatened to swamp him. Fuck, he didn’t deal with emotion. It wasn’t his damned strong suit. In the labs he’d been created and trained within, he’d learned to let no one but Brim know his weaknesses. To let nothing touch himself. To never feel regret. To never know possessiveness. They were lessons that had been taught to him in the most exacting of ways. Lessons he had adapted to, too easily at too young an age, supposedly due to his Coyote genetics. 

They had rushed in on him the first time he had seen this fragile young woman though. Gently rounded, she wasn’t exactly slender. She was a nice handful for a man. Some might have accused her of being a little heavy. But she was perfect for him. With her rounded little rear, her plump breasts and silky thighs. He could hold on to Anya. She wasn’t skin and bones, nor was she muscular and hard. She was just soft. Soft and warm. And she was his. 

He let his hand smooth down her hair with the lightest touch as he ignored the heavy, desperate throb of his cock. He had learned how to push that pain back over the months. It wasn’t easy, but being able to hold her, being able to warm the ice that often tormented his insides, was worth it. 

For the first time in over eight months, Del-Rey felt warm. He wasn’t willing to give that up. 

Yes, he was going to have to put his foot down. She would sleep here, or he would sleep in her bed. Sleep. Hold her. He couldn’t demand anything more. He wouldn’t demand more. But by God, this he was determined to demand.