“Jonas,” he finally said as he lifted his gaze once again. “I went to Jonas. He convinced me that if you kidnapped her then, as I knew you would, it could be too dangerous. He had suspected himself, I think. He knew your fascination for her. He also knew how deep the hatred for Cyrus Tallant ran in our family.”
“He thought I’d hurt her?” That surprised him. He had always controlled the animal inside him, had never killed rashly.
“I don’t know, Tanner.” Cabal shook his head roughly. “Jonas was determined that we wait. I accepted that decision, because it felt right.”
“Betraying me felt right?” Tanner asked him curiously, his expression twisting with his inner rage. “Do you know what her father did to her, Cabal? Did you have any idea the hell she was going through?”
Cabal’s eyes narrowed, the green gaze flickering. “She was his daughter,” he said slowly. “His right hand. But what she said earlier…”
Tanner leaned forward. “He buried her alive, Cabal, more than once, and unless my senses are wrong, after he killed her baby, he had her sterilized.”
Cabal paled. “He buried her?”
“The power shut off to the lights the other day when I was checking the cabin. When I returned, she was nearly insane with hysteria and the fear of being buried alive. She hasn’t mentioned the sterilization, but my sense of smell doesn’t lie. She wouldn’t have done that to herself.”
He couldn’t explain how he knew she wouldn’t, but he knew for a certainty.
“God.” Cabal tossed back his own liquor before refilling his glass and downing it as well. “Jonas couldn’t have known.” He shook his head jerkily. “He couldn’t have suspected. He would have done something.”
“Would he?” Tanner leaned forward slowly. “He advanced to director of the Bureau because of the spy he managed to acquire inside Tallant’s organization. What if his spy was Scheme?”
It made sense. Instinct gathered inside him, laying the final pieces together in the puzzle that was Scheme.
“She was Tallant’s assistant,” he continued. “Closer to him than anyone else, able to access any file she needed. She knew the rumors in the Tallant ranks as well as the truths and the plans the bastard was creating to strike against the Breeds using the various racist groups.”
“And Tallant suspected,” Cabal whispered. “He would have tortured her, tried to make her admit it; it’s his favorite game.”
Exactly. Tallant always wanted proof if possible.
“He sent the assassin after her why?” Tanner asked then. “Why did he stop torturing her and decide to kill her instead?”
“Either he’s figured out he can’t break her, or she has something he can’t risk going further. Something he didn’t anticipate her finding out,” Cabal mused. “But what?”
Tanner refilled his own glass, sipping this time rather than downing the liquor. It was harder to think; the mating heat was building inside him, the glands at his tongue becoming sensitive again. It wouldn’t be long before he had to have her again, before the heat became so blinding that nothing mattered but fucking her.
“How did Jonas react to her disappearance?” The answer was there somewhere; he could feel it.
“Every available Breed Enforcer as well as recruits are searching for her,” Cabal said softly. “He’s pulled Breeds off imperative missions and sent them looking for this woman instead.”
“How did he know she was here?” Tanner narrowed his eyes on his brother.
Cabal grunted mockingly. “With Jonas, who the hell knows? I followed the second half of Alpha Team out here as fast as I could. It just took me a while to shake a few shadows I had before coming here.”
Tanner stared back at him questioningly.
“Callan refuses to tell Jonas where you’re at. I think he suspects where you are, but he’s possessive of the knowledge of these caves.”
Callan would be. It was their last sanctuary if things went from sugar to shit for the Breeds and the children born of matings needed to be concealed. The information was so closely guarded that besides Cabal and a Wolf Breed—Dash Sinclair—no one outside Callan’s original pride knew of it.
“Have you talked to Callan?” Tanner asked.
“Let’s say Callan talked to me,” Cabal snorted. “He’s worried, Tanner. Her death is being placed at the door of the Breeds. You can’t keep her here forever and you know it.”
“I will protect her,” Tanner snapped with a primal rasp. “Nothing can happen to her.” The animal rose to the surface, beating at his brain with the imperative demand.
“Do you have a plan?” Cabal asked.
Tanner’s sharp laugh was mocking. “Plan? Since I pulled her out of D.C. I haven’t been able to figure out anything except how many different ways I need to fuck her.”
He swiped his fingers through his hair again in frustration.
“If we take her to Sanctuary, then the spy Tallant has there will stop at nothing to kill her,” Tanner said. “I can’t keep her locked up forever.”
“It could be the only way to flush Tallant’s spy out,” Cabal pointed out.Tanner growled. For once, the animal didn’t have to push to the surface; the man was there and he wasn’t pleased with that suggestion.
“You said you can’t keep her locked up forever, Tanner,” Cabal bit out. “What other choice do we have here? The only way to ensure her safety is to get her to Sanctuary and flush that bastard out.”
“We have no idea the direction he would take in attacking her,” Tanner snapped. “Every Breed on the place is armed to the teeth. I won’t take that chance. Even if she had something we could use to take Tallant out, it wouldn’t be enough. His spy wouldn’t stop until Scheme was dead.”
“We need that spy, Tanner,” Cabal growled.
Tanner’s hand flashed out, wrapping around his brother’s throat, tightening as Cabal stilled.
“You will not risk my mate,” he snarled, leaning closer for emphasis. “Not now. Not ever.”
Cabal never broke his gaze. “Do you think I would risk your mate unduly?” he retorted. “No more than you would mine. But keeping her here forever won’t work. You know that as well as I do. Use your head here instead of your heart.”
Tanner jerked his hand back before rising abruptly and pacing the room. He couldn’t do it. If he took her to Sanctuary, he couldn’t protect her. There was no way to protect her.
“Tanner, there’s no other choice.” Cabal rose, facing him. “If we don’t show proof that she’s alive, everyone will suspect the Breeds of having killed her. Bringing her to Sanctuary and holding a press conference we can control, assuring the world of her safety and her protection against the monster that tortured her, will only aid our cause. Striking against your wife will afford Tallant the same consequences as striking against you.”
The world loved Tanner Reynolds. It was set in stone. He was the face of the Breeds, the laughing, easygoing playboy. Would it protect his mate, to the world, his wife?
They knew orders had gone through the Council as well as Tallant’s organization that due to public sentiment for him, no strikes were to be made against him. It was amusing sometimes, watching the Council agents that often trailed him, the hatred on their faces, their need for blood restrained.
“It wouldn’t stop them,” he said softly. “They would kill her. She knows too much.”
“Do you have a choice?” Cabal asked.
“I’ll find my own choices, dammit,” he snarled, his fists clenching as pain raged through him. “I won’t let them take her from me. Not now. Not knowing what that bastard has done to her over the years.”
It tormented him, tortured him. The thought of being buried alive, her slender fingers clawing at a narrow casket, it sent rage pulsing through him, ripping at his control and sending a growl rumbling from his throat.
“Tanner. I would stand in front of her,” Cabal told him imperatively. “As God is my witness, I will protect your mate as though she were my own. It’s the only choice we have.”
“And you think I would trade my brother’s life for my mate’s?” Tanner snapped, burningly aware of his limited choices. “Do you think I would ask that of you, Cabal?”
Cabal’s lips quirked in bitter knowledge. “You wouldn’t have to ask it of me. You saved my sanity after you rescued me. You made me live as a man instead of an animal, Tanner. Do you think I wouldn’t die for you or your mate?”
Tanner stilled, staring back at Cabal as he inhaled roughly. It was there, the scent of Cabal’s determination and something more. A hint of emotion, sadness, resignation, regret. They had always assumed they would mate the same woman. From the day Tanner had pulled him from that pit, the need to share the finer things in life with his brother has risen to the fore.
Food, wine, song and women. Playful teasing, a child’s laughter. Tanner had shared it all with him, and now they had found something Tanner couldn’t bear to share. And he couldn’t regret it. Nature had given him something that belonged to him alone, something he had marked, something he would give his soul for.
“I don’t want you to die for me or my mate,” Tanner said simply. “I want you to live to help protect my children.”
Cabal frowned. “She was sterilized.”
“So was Sherra,” Tanner pointed out, speaking of his pride sister.
Sherra had had herself sterilized after the loss of her first child, but once she had been reunited with her mate, somehow nature had repaired the separation of her fallopian tubes and her pregnancy had resulted.
“You believe the hormones are forcing her body to repair it as they did Sherra’s?” Cabal asked.
“Something is going on,” Tanner sighed. “There’s a difference to her scent; there has been for days, as though something were changing inside her. I could smell this on Sherra when she was fighting the heat with her mate, Kane. The scent is the same, Cabal.”
“The healing process took much longer than a few weeks.” Cabal frowned heavily. “Dr. Jacobs guessed it had been in progress for more than a year, from the moment Kane reappeared in Sherra’s life. It won’t happen overnight.”
The mating heat and hormonal effects on the body were still unknown for the most part. There were too many anomalies for the Breed doctors and scientists to keep up with. It was one of the reasons they were so desperate to find the first Leo. Reports were that he existed, in his prime, still a strong, amazingly healthy male at nearly a century in age. And his mate was said to appear as young.
“What the hell am I going to do?” He sat down heavily in the couch, covering his face with his hands wearily. “How am I going to protect her?”
“We will protect her.” Cabal’s voice was cold, hard.
Lifting his head, Tanner stared back at his brother in surprise.
“Listen to me, Tanner,” he growled, his incisors flashing dangerously. “We know those who are most loyal to us. This damned spy is good, I’ll give you that, but we can protect her and flush him out at the same time. You don’t have a choice. And neither does she.”
“How?” The heat was messing with his mind now. All he could think about, all he could feel, was Scheme.
“We take her back to Sanctuary. We’ll place our enforcers around her, keep her under house protection and see who gets curious. Whatever she knows, once she knows she’s truly safe, she’ll reveal it. It will flush out Tallant’s spy.”
He would have to risk her to save her.
Tanner shook his head. “I don’t know if I can do it, Cabal.”