by Lora Leigh
that could have cost his mate her life.
CHAPTER 7
Liza knew the instant splinters of wood began raining around them exactly what had happened.
The report of a weapon couldn’t be heard, but with the cover a sniper would have in the woods surrounding them, a silencer would have been sufficient.
“Down!”
The word exploded from both of them as they went to the side, rolling over the small incline that led to the bank and the water lapping below as another projectile slammed into the picnic table.
“Oh yeah, the safest ride I’d ever take.” Liza snorted as she threw the Breed a hard glare. “Tell me you at least have a radio on you.”
Flattening against the incline, she had to resist the urge to peek over it and attempt to get a bearing on the shooter.
“We’re covered.”
Oh, he sounded far too complacent as he kept a tight hold around her waist and kept her from checking above to see if anyone was moving in on them.
Turning her head, she looked over at him instead. “Was this Jonas’s idea to draw someone or something out?” she asked, fighting back the urge to kick him, since Jonas wasn’t there to take the blow himself.
“If it is, then I’ll kill him myself,” Stygian grated as he removed one arm from around her and flipped his wrist over to stare at the face of his watch. Maneuvering the arm still holding her to him, he depressed the small cylindrical post at the side. “Rule, do you have eyes on the bastard?”
“Eyes on. We’re moving in. Stay where you are,” a voice came through the link as the watch face slowly disappeared to reveal the image of the Lion Breed Rule Breaker.
The urge to growl was beginning to tighten her throat.
“Bastards,” she muttered.
“Only technically,” Rule drawled without a change of expression. “Hold tight. We have a team moving in on your position.”
Hold tight her ass.
“We’re too exposed here,” she warned Stygian. “If they don’t have a bead on the son of a bitch firing at us, then we’re going to be screwed here.”
“Tell her to hold on to her panties,” Rule stated as though she weren’t even there. “We may not have a bead on the shooter, but we have thermal imaging all around you. He won’t get close enough to do any damage.”
“And did he have thermal imaging before we were shot at?” she questioned. “If he did, then he’s falling far short on the job, Stygian.”
Stygian didn’t say a word.
Glancing at him, she nearly rolled her eyes at the black and brilliant blue fury gleaming in his gaze.
“Are we going to sit here like paper targets waiting on some Breed-hating bastard to take us out?” she asked.
His eyes narrowed.
“Keep her there, Wolf,” Rule warned him. “We’re moving in. Dog’s team will have sights on him within seconds.”
Liza snorted again.
Narrowing her eyes, she stared around, taking in the peaceful setting and lack of tourists on that particular end of the lake.
“Seduction,” she muttered. “You just had to go the seduction routine, didn’t you?”
“I hope she’s talking to you, Wolf.” Rule chuckled.
“Move it, Rule,” Stygian growled, the rasp in his voice a dangerous, primal sound.
“Got it—”
Dirt exploded above their heads, the projectile that had managed to bury itself in the ground obviously coming from behind them.
Liza noticed neither of them bothered making a sound.
Following him, she threw herself to the right, scrambling for the dubious cover of the boulders stacked along the bank several feet away.
“Which way?” Back flat against the cool stone as she crouched behind the stone protection, she glanced at Stygian.
He’d found a small crack between the two boulders that he was peering through before easing back, still crouched and prepared to move.
“Whoever’s out there has to be the worst shot in the world,” he mused with animalistic fury. “Just enough to fucking piss me off.”
“Go out without a weapon again.” Liza rolled her eyes despite the concern she could feel edging into the adrenaline-laced excitement pounding through her.
“Yeah, why don’t you just do that?” he retorted back.
“Alas, the trusty knife is tucked in my boot.” She sighed as she reached up and activated the earbud at her ear. She knew she’d picked it up for a reason. “I left the trusty sidearm at home though. You promised to protect me, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember.” He sighed. But it was becoming clearer by the moment that his mate could do a fine job of protecting herself.
“We’re on our way, Munchkin.” Cullen stated. “We’re heading from the east dock. ETA is two minutes or less. Reever has an eye on your location and taking bead.”
She watched as Stygian’s head turned slowly, his acute Breed hearing no doubt catching the sound of Cullen’s voice at her ear.
“Watch out for the Breeds,” she stated softly as she turned her head to speak, hoping to keep Rule from hearing her. “I don’t have a good feeling about this, Cullen.”
They were being drawn out. Reever was in the trees somewhere, his handy-dandy sniper rifle poised and ready while Cullen raced toward them. Steven would be somewhere close by, and Claire and Chelsea each would have been alerted to Liza’s situation while God only knew what position Klah was taking.
There were times Klah scared even her.
“They take out a Bureau Breed and we’re going to have problems, sweetheart,” Stygian warned her.
“If Cullen finds out the Bureau was behind this little show-and-tell, then there will be even more problems,” she warned him in turn. “What the hell is going on here, Stygian?”
Was it a calculated move designed by Jonas Wyatt to draw members of the Breed Underground Network out into the open? Or was it Council soldiers determined to find the research projects the underground had hidden over the years?
“When I find out, I promise you, whoever’s behind this will pay hell for it,” he swore.
Whatever it was, he wasn’t involved.
“They have him,” Rule announced quietly. “Sights are on your shooter. He’s searching for your location. Mother—” She had a feeling the curse that cut off was due to the shot that was likely heard around the lake.
At least, they heard it.
The explosive retort was muted, coming from the East as the sound of the Navajo Lake Patrol water cruiser could be heard racing for the bank.
“The cavalry is here,” she murmured.
“Cleanup in aisle five,” Rule stated with quiet disgust as Liza and Stygian rose slowly to their feet as the lake cruiser eased up to the bank. “Jacobs just took our shooter’s head off.”
“Better his head than yours.” Jumping from the cruiser, Cullen’s glare was dark enough to shred any man’s confidence as he suddenly gripped Liza’s arm and turned her to the cruiser. “Get—”
The words broke as Liza felt his grip jerk before she was released.
Swinging around, she watched, her lips parting in shock at the sight of the normally unconquerable Cullen suddenly thrown against the largest of the boulders, his back nearly bouncing against the stone as an enraged, primal snarl tore from Stygian’s throat. His lips were peeled from his teeth, his incisors flashing in the brilliance of the sunlight as one hand closed brutally around Cullen’s throat.
Cullen stared back at the aberration calmly, as though this were an everyday occurrence.
“When you’ve finished—” Cullen began.
“Touch her again and you’ll lose your fucking throat.” It was like hearing a Wolf attempting to speak, his voice was so savage, so animalistic.
Liza could only watch in shock, seeing the slow flex of Stygian’s fingers around the strong column of Cullen’s throat as the other man simply stared up at him unconcerned, his arms relaxed at his side, his gaze mocking.
“Let him go!” Liza snapped as she watched Stygian’s fingers tighten again.
Cullen wasn’t moving. He wasn’t taking his eyes from Stygian’s, nor was he attempting to defend himself when Liza knew he could. She had seen him do so before.
Stygian’s fingers flexed at the sound of her voice.
“I said let him go!” Jumping forward, her fingers locked around his wrist, jerking back and nearly losing her balance as his arm followed the forceful pull she exerted on it.
Stygian caught her, his arm going around her waist as he caught her against him, ignoring her struggles as he and Cullen continued to stare each other down.
Stygian could sense the power, the promise of violence and the ability to fight as it pulsed beneath the other man’s flesh, but Cullen Maverick hadn’t used that power. He’d instead stood still and silent despite the hold that had tightened around his neck.
“What are you hiding?” Stygian growled at him. “Why would you allow a Breed to all but rip your throat out?”
Cullen’s gaze moved slowly to Liza. “For her.”
Liza stilled.
Stygian could feel her now: watchful, silent, her body tense at the answer the other man gave.
“For me?” Liza snapped. “Why the hell would you do it for me? You should have kicked his fucking ass.”
Rage was spilling from her, the scent of it fiery as she jerked out of his hold.
“Let it go, Liza,” Cullen said then, his voice soft as Stygian allowed him to continue to keep his gaze.
He was damned if he could decipher what the other man was trying to silently tell him though.
He hadn’t quite learned that whole male-to-male silent-messaging bullshit humans seemed to practice.
“Oh, I’ll let it go,” she snapped.
Stygian turned his head, watching as she stalked to the cruiser and in a graceful move gripped the side of the low vessel and vaulted into it. “I’ll let it go, forget it, ignore it, and I’ll even fucking pretend it didn’t happen.”
Stygian knew that one was a lie. She’d be throwing this up to him for years to come, he could feel it.
“Fuck,” Cullen muttered. “She’s going to be bitching at me for years.”
The comment matched his thoughts so completely that Stygian couldn’t help but throw the man another snarl. It was the animal pacing just beneath his skin, it refused to return still and silent to that place within his psyche where it normally watched, silent and content.
It wasn’t content any longer.
“Snarl all you like.” Cullen snorted. “You’re the one that backed off when she ordered you to, not me. So which of us do you think she has the most whipped.”
Stygian’s nostrils flared. He would have loved to go after the man’s throat again, but before he could move to do so, Cullen had managed to vault into the water cruiser and jump behind the wheel of the craft.
A flick of his wrist and it was expertly shooting backward before giving a hard turn on the water, digging in deep and cleaving through the lake before Stygian could more than step toward it.
Instead, he stood on the bank watching his mate until the cruiser disappeared around the small bend of the bank toward the east dock.
“I think he needs his ass kicked.” Rule jumped silently to the bank, followed by the four Breeds following.
“No doubt,” Stygian growled as he turned on the other Breed slowly. “Was this a Bureau strike and watch?” he asked, referencing Jonas Wyatt’s habit of making an attempt to draw enemies and friends alike out of the woodwork by staging an attack.
“Not with your mate in the line of fire.” Rule gave his head a hard shake, his black hair fanning against the side of his face as his deep blue eyes narrowed against the brilliance of the sunlight. “And he wouldn’t have put one of his enforcers where anyone could take him out. One of Cullen’s men just sniped that bastard shooting at the two of you like it was no more than spitting distance.” He nodded toward the cliff rising above the lake from the other side. “He took a next shot up there on the cliff and took the shooter’s head off, and that’s no shit.”
And no easy feat.
Stygian felt the muscles at his jaw flex. “Have you ID’ed him?”
“We had to use fingerprint ID.” Rule shrugged. “Report came back as a former trainer for the Genetics Council. What he was doing here, though, I’m not certain. Who was he shooting at? You or your mate?”
“Both,” Stygian bit out before moving to the edge of the incline and quickly making his way back to where he and Liza had been sitting. “How did he manage to follow us with you watching?”
“There’s no way.” A hard shake of Rule’s head was decisive. “He had to have already been here.”
“He couldn’t have known where I was taking her, or that we’d be here,” Stygian growled as he moved quickly to the cycle. “I want a background report ASAP and I want to know every fucking second of his life since the day he stepped into the Genetics Council and I want it yesterday.”
“Yeah, you Wolves are an impatient lot.” Rule sighed, though he was far enough away from him to evade any strike Stygian could make for the smart-assed remark. “Why don’t you take it up with Jonas?”
“He’s next.” Flipping the key to start the motor, Stygian was burning rubber a second later as he tore from the parking lot and headed back toward the hotel.
Jonas had better have some fucking answers.
CHAPTER 8
“He did what?” It was Ashley Truing’s shocked exclamation that drew Liza’s attention from the fighting stance Emma was trying to teach her.
Oh hell. Oh hell.
She should have never, never told Chelsea and Claire what had happened before the shooting earlier that afternoon, Liza thought as her attention was pulled from her opponent to the three women on the other side of the room.
She found herself flat on her ass and staring up at Emma Truing in surprise a second later.
“Keep your mind on the bastard trying to kill your ass, not the pretty girl with the bottled-sex voice as she tosses her hair.” Emma snorted.
Liza sat up and hung her head, breathing heavily as she felt the perspiration rolling down her back and the ache just beneath her skin at each point where Emma had touched her.
She rubbed at her arm irritably where the Breed female had gripped it to—oh so casually—steady the hold she had when she threw Liza off balance.
“You’re getting stronger,” Liza muttered as she glanced over at Ashley, Chelsea and Claire where they were whispering and giggling in amusement, while Shiloh and Chimera stared back at Liza in amusement. “Your hands feel like hammers tonight.”
Emma arched her brow. “Really? Ashley swears I baby everyone.”
“She babies me.” Ashley threw her sister a hard look. “Every Coyote in town has been babying me too. It’s damned humiliating.”
Ashley was delicate, impossibly pretty and as spoiled as any debutante, and every time she bitched about getting kicked out of a fight, Liza wanted to laugh. She didn’t look capable of swatting a fly, let alone committing some of the bloody mayhem she’d heard of the other woman doing.
“And they’ll keep babying you or answer to my knife at their throat one night,” Emma stated, the cold hard tone an indication of her complete dedication to the threat.
“Stop interrupting the conversation over here if you two don’t mind.” Ashley displayed her incisors aggressively at her attempt to ignore her sister’s threats. “Em, did you hear about Liza and Stygian’s little ride out to the lake earlier today?”
“You mean the one where Stygian had her pinned against that post beneath the shelter a second before that shooter tried to rearrange her head?” Emma grinned. “Hell yeah, the Breeds on protective detail were ribbing Stygian over that one before we left the
hotel tonight.”
Liza glanced at the girls gathered at the side of the room. “Just what I need, a bunch of Breeds gossiping about me when they should have been watching for the bastards using me as target practice.”
“Honey, you should have expected that the minute you hopped on that Harley with him,” the Jaguar Breed Shiloh Gage spoke up with effortless sarcasm. “Breeds are nosier than any woman created. They’re bigger gossips too. The fact that you managed to evade a professional assassin’s bullet is just fodder for the rumor mill. What I can’t believe is that he actually comes home instead of rushing you straight to his bed.”
Emma and Ashley snickered at the declaration.
“I still can’t believe he didn’t just kiss you.” Ashley giggled, her gray eyes twinkling in a merriment they hadn’t seen since she’d been shot by Holden Mayhew.
And though Liza was damned happy that the other girl seemed to be recovering so well, she still wasn’t pleased that Chelsea had placed her head on the chopping block to amuse Ashley.
At least Chelsea and Claire hadn’t told the other girls how he refused to deny mating heat existed. That part, they had sworn to never tell. She should have made them swear on the rest of it as well. At least, until they knew for certain about the whole punishment-by-death thing.
Yet there they were, all watching her after her friend had been so kind as to inform them of what may have transpired before the shooting.
“How much did you tell them, anyway?” Liza questioned her with suspicion.
She should have told them not to mention that almost kiss. She’d remember next time not to.
Chelsea gave a light shrug and a smirk. “Probably more than you would be comfortable with, but come on, Liza, it was so interesting.”
Liza felt heat wash through her face as she remembered the sensuality that had tightened Stygian’s expression.
“Great,” she muttered, resting her face against her up-raised her knees.
“Hell, I just can’t believe Stygian got so fresh,” Shiloh drawled. “He doesn’t even get sexy-nasty with the Breed females he takes to his bed. He hasn’t even been known to flirt.”
Oh, he knew how to flirt—just as he knew how to make a woman insane with anger.
“Why don’t you guys find something else to talk about?” Liza demanded.
“Because, this is just so interesting,” Shiloh assured her with practiced mockery. “Come on, Liza, it’s simply uncalled for to hear of Stygian actually going on a date.”
“Well, you can at least take a break and let us finish here,” Emma declared as she moved back to the center of the mat where Liza sat, finally breathing regularly. “Come on, bad girl, get off your lazy ass and see if you can’t find a way to at least tip me here.” Turning her palm, she gave Liza a backward wave. “Up and at ’em.”
Liza rolled her eyes as she came to her feet and gave her arms a loose shake to relax her stiffening muscles.
“Take it easy with those paws of yours,” she ordered the other girl. “Hell, my arms still ache.”
“Sissy. Stop wussing out on me.”
Wussing out on her?
Liza glared back at her.
She had yet to wuss out on anything.
Watching Emma carefully, she was able to dodge the first set of jabs as well as Emma’s attempt to trip her.
Liza focused her memory on the fight she’d managed to glimpse between Diane Broen and one of her former mercenaries. She concentrated on coordinating her movements to match the practiced symmetry the Bureau enforcer had used.
Why hadn’t she tried that before? she wondered distantly.
She’d watched enough Breeds sparring over the years that she should have already been incorporating what she’d watched them do.
She blocked Emma’s next attempt to grab and throw her to the mat. As though she had slipped into someone else’s skin, she began moving automatically. Blocking, jabbing, moving offensively instead of defensively until she had Emma actually breaking a sweat.
She had watched the Breeds—Cullen, Reever, and Klah—sparring for most of her life, and had resisted the urge to attempt to use the maneuvers she’d seen. Her body always felt ready, prepared to execute the moves, but her confidence in putting into practice what she had seen without training, had held her back.
Until tonight.
Until the urge to do so overcame her lack of confidence and she learned she had a talent she’d never recognized before. It was a talent she realized she’d had since her and Claire’s accident. The fiery car crash had nearly taken both of their lives, and had left each with subtle talents that for some reason they were terrified to reveal. Talents they had only shared the secrets of with each other.
“Geez,” Emma muttered as Liza blocked another move and came back at her quickly with an offensive jab to her jaw, then followed with one to the midriff.
Emma barely had time to block before awareness of another move slid into Liza’s consciousness and went straight to the instinctive impulses snapping through her brain then to