Malachi was pissed now.
Isabelle collapsed on the step as Holden paused. “I told you,” she breathed out weakly. “He’s not going to let you leave this hotel with me. Let me go, it will give you a head start. It’s the only chance you have.”
“Move your ass.” He jerked at her wrists again, his hold tightening as he tried to move faster down the stairs while Isabelle fought to slow him down.
It seemed to go on forever, but she knew with every step and every level, she knew they were getting closer to the ground floor.
“How did you know?” she whispered painfully as the weight came down too heavy on her ankle and she nearly fell again. “How did anyone know that I was his mate?”
He rounded on her, pushing her back into the wall, his hand wrapped around her throat as he glared down at her. “I would have worshipped you,” he sneered in her face. “I would have given you anything you wanted, but you fucked that Breed instead. Fucked him and let him knot you like a fucking animal.”
“How did you know?” she asked again, fighting to center her thoughts. There was no way she was going to get out of this if she didn’t find a way to fight past the mind-numbing pain that rolled through her in debilitating waves.
“Stupid,” he muttered, his voice lowering to disgust again. “Mating heat has a scent. They still have some Breeds who know their place and they’re always searching for that scent. Malachi Morgan just so happened to have gotten careless with his mate. And now, she’s gone bye bye,” he laughed as he dragged her back to her feet.
“I don’t think so.”
Isabelle looked over Holden’s shoulder as he froze.
The voice was unfamiliar, lazy, almost amused.
Holden jerked around, his hand going to his belt for the weapon Isabelle had managed to knock out of his hand as he shot Ashley. He hadn’t been able to retrieve it.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
Laughter echoed through the stairwell as Isabelle stared down at the strange sight in bemusement.
He had to be a Breed. A tiger Breed of some sort if the two stripes extending parallel across his face were any indication.
“Did you lose your gun, little man?” the stranger drawled as he reach behind his back and drew his own out. “That’s okay, I have mine.”
Holden’s jaw clenched. His fingers wrapped in her hair and as he began to turn to throw Isabelle down the stairs, a shot rang out.
Blood splattered.
Isabelle stood carefully still, her hands now free and pressed flat against the wall as she let her gaze travel to where Holden was sprawled out on the steps at her feet.
His blue eyes were sightless, lifeless as he stared up in blank horror. The side of his head looked as though it had been peeled back, exposing raw meat and the bare white covering of his skull.
He had never been handsome, Isabelle thought, but he looked better dead than alive.
“You okay?”
Her head jerked around.
Somehow, she must have slid down the wall because the stranger was hunkered in front of her as the sound of voices, loud and enraged could be heard above as the pounding of feet moved down the stairs.
Her eyes dropped to the weapon that dangled casually from his fingers as he rested his wrist on his bent knee.
“Are you going to kill me?” She lifted her gaze again and met the emerald brilliance of his. There was an almost feverish glow to them, as though he were ill and in pain.
“No, I’m not going to kill you,” he said gently, the look in his gaze filled with sadness.
The voices were getting closer. She swore she could hear her name being screamed from above.
“Malachi’s coming,” she told him, though she wasn’t certain if it were a warning.
“Yes, he’s coming.” He nodded, his gaze somber. “When he’s come down from the adrenaline rush, tell him I said our debt is clear now. He saved my life, I saved his mate.”
“You tell him.”
“Isabelle!” Malachi was screaming her name.
As the stranger jumped back, Malachi vaulted over the side of the upper steps as Emma, Rule and Stygian raced down the steps.
He came to a crouch, a vicious snarl tearing past his throat as he faced the other man, his body braced protectively in front of her.
“Easy there, old boy,” the stranger murmured as Malachi growled low in his throat. “Let’s not go feral, hmm?”
“What the hell are you doing here, Gideon?” Malachi snarled furiously.
Gideon. Dark blond hair striped with the prettiest golden brown streaks. It wasn’t colored, it was natural. Emerald green eyes glittered with pain and sadness, but his stance was relaxed, his weapon held down.
Malachi’s gaze dropped to Holden’s body then, sprawled to the side, half his head blown away.
Gideon chuckled. “He thought he was going to sell her to a team of Council soldiers that guessed she was your mate.” Gideon shrugged. “They caught the scent of her last night as they passed your room. You should start using candles when in public, it hides your scent.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Malachi snapped as he tried to figure out whose team Gideon was on. When he had disappeared just after leaving the group Malachi had been a part of, rumor had been that he was pure Council. But, he hadn’t been seen again and until now, Malachi hadn’t known if he was alive or dead.
“You do that,” Gideon nodded. “Until then, pass a message along for me, would you?”
“What message?” Gideon always had a reason for everything he did and an agenda that only he understood.
“Tell Lawe Justice this one was for you alone, not Breeds as a whole or because I’m getting soft or weak. I owe you, even more than this could repay.” He nodded to Isabelle.
Malachi had never felt that Gideon owed him shit, but he was more than willing to accept the debt now.
“What does Lawe have to do with this?” Malachi snapped.
“Because, Gideon’s the Breed we’re searching for, Malachi,” Rule answered for him. “We didn’t want you dragged in the middle, so we didn’t inform you of that fact.”
Gideon’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t know they were searching for me?”
“I didn’t know,” Malachi agreed. “But it doesn’t change anything, Gideon. I took a vow to the Bureau. I won’t break it.”
“And I don’t expect you to.” Gideon nodded. “But after this, Malachi, take your woman from this place. Take her and leave, otherwise, both of you will get drawn in the middle of this battle. And it’s a battle I intend to win.”
“Gideon.” Malachi tried to stop him from running.
Before Malachi could do more than say his name, the other Breed was gone. Just that fast he vaulted over the side of the stairs, made the jump to six landings below, a feat even Malachi wouldn’t have wanted to try, and he was gone.
That didn’t mean Rule wasn’t trying like hell to catch him.
He and Stygian were down the stairs and running hard and fast, but if Malachi knew the other Breed, and he did, then he wouldn’t be caught. Not this time. Not until Gideon was ready.
With the danger to his mate disappearing Malachi twisted around quickly and caught her against his chest. He may have been confronting Gideon, but every sense he possessed had been locked on his mate.
There had been no scent of internal bleeding. She was in pain, but not the kind of pain that indicated broken bones. She had been mauled, frightened and hurt, but she was safe.
“Never again,” he whispered at her ear as he held her as close to his chest as he dared. “Never again, Isabelle.”
“Damned right. Next time, I’ll have my own gun.” Then she pushed back enough to stare up at him, her lips trembling as tears welled in her eyes and flowed to her cheeks. “Ashley?” she whispered.
Malachi reach up and touched her cheek. “We don’t know yet. The helijet was lifting off from outside town as we headed out of the room.” He nodded to Emma as she sat on the step
silently, her expression hard and distant. “We’ll know something soon though.”
“He came in on us.” She shook her head in confusion. “I don’t know how he got the room key. Ashley and Emma were talking about the spa. We are laughing at Em because she won’t get her hair highlighted, then he was just there. He had the door unlocked and he shot Ashley as she jumped for him.”
She bit her lip, the memory of it obviously so painful that her tears were falling faster now.
“Come on.” Lifting her in his arms he cradled her against his chest as Emma stood more slowly, her shoulders slumped, her expression tight with grief.
“She always said she would die young,” Emma whispered roughly, the tears she couldn’t shed rasping in her throat. “The little bitch. Now, she’s going to make the coya cry and Del-Rey is going to get all arrogant and protective, and I . . .” She broke off as a sob escaped. “I won’t know how to survive without Ashley,” she whispered before turning to run back up the stairs.
Malachi followed more slowly.
Emma was young, and many of the things she had scented or sensed she had no idea what they meant. Malachi did. Ashley was alive, and she was fighting to stay that way, that was all they could ask for.
His arms tightened around his mate as she settled her head on his chest and wrapped her arms tight around his neck.
“Who is Gideon?” she asked, refusing to let herself believe that anything could possibly happen to take Ashley out of their world. She was too vital, too much a part of the lives of those she loved, and those who loved her.
“A part of the past,” he answered her softly, and Isabelle had a feeling the past was where Gideon probably should have stayed.
“Then why is he here now?”
To that, Malachi grimaced. “To open old wounds,” he said with an edge of regret. “That’s the only reason he’s here, Isabelle. That’s the only reason any of us came here. To open old wounds.”
She laid her head back on his chest as Emma opened the stairwell door to the floor their rooms were on.
“We’ll stay in your room,” he told her as the other girl headed for the door of the room Isabelle had stayed in her first night.
Carrying her in, he didn’t lay her on the bed, he didn’t sit her in a chair alone. As Emma closed the door behind them rather than joining them, Malachi sank into one of the chairs, holding her close, his face buried against her neck.
“I would have died without you,” he suddenly whispered, the muscles of his arms contracting as he fought not to hold her too close. As he fought to not pull her into his skin, to drag her straight down to the depths of his soul.
“Don’t say that.” Holding on to him, Isabelle knew it was true, just as she knew she would give her life for him, she knew without him, her life would lose hope.
It had only been days since her eyes had met his across that bar. Less than forty-eight hours, yet just as her grandfather had once warned her, when she found her true love she would know it in an instant, and she would face death to hold on to it.
She was holding on tight.
“Don’t leave me,” she needed him. She needed his touch, his kiss, but more than anything, she needed the knowledge that nothing, no one could reach out to nearly separate them again.
Rising to his feet and stepping to the bed Malachi laid her down gently before stretching out beside her and taking her in his arms in again.
Simply to hold her.
“Our doctors were already flying in for our tests, so they’re likely already with Ashley,” he told her as she lay as close to him as clothes would allow. “The mating heat was different with us than with others, and our scientists have been working desperately to figure out what causes it and how to ease it.”
Isabelle shook her head. “I don’t want to know.” And she didn’t. Staring up at him, feeling the warmth of him, allowing herself to believe that she was really here with him, that she was really in his arms rather than facing the fate Holden would have sent her to. “I don’t want to know, Malachi. I waited for you. All these years I watched and I waited, knowing, somehow, that what we would have would be different. That it would be worth the lonely nights and the fears that I had missed you somewhere.” She gave a brief shake of her head. “I don’t want to lose that.”
What had drawn them together, the mating heat, as they called it. Was it really so different, so unique from what it was with those who didn’t have Breed genetics? Or was it merely an amplified form that took out the process of waiting, denying, or turning away out of fear as many people did? As technology seemed to advance, so did the fears and the roadblocks that stood against love.
“I don’t want to lose a second of what we are, Malachi,” she told him as his head lowered, as his lips touched hers. “Not even a second.”
Epilogue
So many times I only dreamed you were there.
Then the dream came true . . .
The coyote pack alpha, Del-Rey Delgado, and his coya Anya stood still and silent in the hospital waiting room. Joining them were more than thirty coyote Breeds as they ensured a heavy, protective barrier was kept between the couple and the toddler the alpha carried. A blond-haired, brown-eyed version of him in miniature form.
The coya had finally dried her tears, but her face was pale, her eyes red-rimmed. Every Breed in the waiting room pulsed with rage and helpless fury. There was no one to strike out at. No one to kill for their coya’s pain and for the unpardonable sin of daring to silence Ashley Truing’s laughter, her quick smile, or the hope she represented for every coyote Breed living who dared to oppose the Council. She was their best and their brightest, in many ways. She always walked where angels feared to tread, swearing that she wanted to live life rather than fight it.
Del-Rey looked around the room to take stock of the number that had joined them so far. They were still arriving, flying in from all over the world to be there just in case they were needed.
Surprisingly, his second-in-command, Brim, was there as well. Standing alone and silent in the corner of the room, his arms crossed over his chest, a scowl settled in deep on his expression. He felt responsible, Del-Rey guessed. Brim always took more upon himself than he should, especially where the girls were concerned.
“When Ashley was two, she developed a fever the doctors couldn’t seem to bring down,” Anya whispered as she stood beside him. Sitting on the couch next to her, Emma stared at the floor. “Do you remember that fever, Emma?”
Emma nodded.
“She came out of it, didn’t she? When everyone said she wouldn’t. She’s a fighter. Ashley wants to live, she wants to shop and do her nails and her hair. She loves it.”
Emma’s head jerked up. “No, she enjoys it,” her voice rasped. “She loves you, and the alpha, and me and Sharone and Marcy and Kate. But she’s convinced she’ll die young and the world won’t miss one insignificant Coyote Breed.” Emma’s shoulders shook with silent sobs once more as Anya turned to Del-Rey, a free arm wrapping around her to drag her against him.
The air of grief that hung over the waiting room was a silent testament to the love they all had for the too tiny, too fragile young woman who acted as though she were made of titanium rather than flesh and bone.
Looking over Anya’s head to his brother, his second-in-command once again, Del-Rey watched as Brim lifted his head to stare at the ceiling, blinking quickly before lowering it to stare at the floor once again.
Ashley was everyone’s kid sister, and Brim took that responsibility seriously. He teased, chided and often shook his head over the girl’s antics, but it was invariably Brim that convinced Del-Rey to give Ashley her spa days when she was being punished for endangering herself, or to ease up on her and let her have a new pair of shoes when she forgot to complete some chore in the Citadel, the lone tower of a mountain overlooking Haven that the coyote Breeds controlled.
And now, it was Brim bearing the brunt of the guilt for allowing her to travel to Window Rock when she ple
aded so prettily to visit friends there.
It wasn’t as though she would be the lone Breed there. Felines and Wolf Breeds had established minor bases there at the invitation of the Navajo Nation once their genetic ties were revealed. It wasn’t as safe as The Citadel, Haven or Sanctuary, but it was safer than other locations she could have requested to go to.
Brim had approved the trip, and now Ashley lay fighting for her life because of her friendship and attempts to protect the niece of the Navajo chief.
Shifting the weight of his son on his shoulder, Del-Rey handed him over to his guardian, Sharone, as a newcomer entered.
“Del-Rey.” Dane Vanderale, heir to the Vanderale Legacy and the first known naturally conceived Breed hybrid stepped to him.
“Dane.” They didn’t shake hands, rather as the two men reach out, they gripped each others’ forearms in camaraderie.
“Is there anything we can do?” The Johannesburg accent was thicker than normal, a clear sign that Dane was furious.
Del-Rey shook his head heavily. “The man that did this is dead. I can think of nothing else that could be done unless you’re a miracle worker and you can wave your hand over that wound and fix it.”
Dane gripped his shoulder. “How about a far lesser gift. My men tracked down the two soldiers who were there to take Malachi’s mate. They hadn’t reported the mating yet, and they’ll be endangering no other mate.”
The savage gleam that flashed in his green eyes assured Del-Rey that those soldiers weren’t wasting valuable oxygen any longer either.
“Did you identify them?” Del-Rey asked.
Dane grimaced at the question, his voice lowering. “They were coyote, Del. Council held. They had never been a part of Citadel.”
That was a small comfort at best.
Wiping his hands over his face he turned to his mate.
Anya was there, her arms going around his waist as he pulled her to his side.
In that moment, Doctors Katya Sobolov and Nikki Armani stepped into the waiting area. More than thirty Breeds turned to them, automatically shifting and parting to allow their alpha and his coya to meet them.
“Doctors.” Del-Rey nodded grimly.
“She’s still alive,” Katya stated, her expression drawn and exhausted after the hours spent in surgery.
“But?” Del-Rey injected. He swore he could feel it coming.
Katya looked away from a moment, obviously battling her emotions as the scent of grief touched his senses and clenched his chest.
“But, the next twenty-four hours will be the most difficult for her,” she said somberly. “For all her bravado and strength, Ashley is too delicate for such a severe wound. She lost a lot of blood, Del-Rey.” Her voice became an emotional rasp. “The bullet was difficult to extract, and it did a lot of damage going in.” Her breathing hitched.
“Katya, your emotions,” Nikki reminded her coolly before turning to the wolf Breed alpha that had flown in with them. “Wolfe, Katya needs something hot and sweet to drink. She’s tired.”
Wolfe, with his mate, Hope, moved to the young doctor, leading her from the waiting room gently as Nikki turned to the coyotes.
“I’ve seen many of you survive worse wounds,” she stated, her voice resonating with strength and hope. “I’ve seen much, much weaker women survive worse. Right now, her survival depends upon her and her will to live. And I know Ashley, trust me, she does not want her sisters spending the slush fund her alpha set aside for their nails and clothes.”
There was a general round of husky chuckles until Brim pushed through the crowd and left the waiting area. The mood turned grim once again.
“I don’t want to risk transferring her to Haven or the Citadel until tomorrow morning. At that time, I’ll need a medi-jet loaded with this equipment and waiting on the hospital’s flight pad.” She handed Del-Rey her list. “Contact Haven and your people at the Citadel. There are some supplies that only the Citadel has that we’ll need for transport.”
Ashley wasn’t just going to shake this off, that was the message the doctor was giving them.
Del-Rey took the list before handing it to the coyote administrator next to him. “Take care of it.”
The Breed nodded briskly before moving off.
“Katya’s emotions break after surgery,” Nikki sighed. “She’s pure hell in that operating room. As cool and precise as any surgeon I’ve ever laid my eyes on. But she breaks while she’s cleaning up. I’ve never seen her break like this though.”
“She grew up with Ashley,” Del-Rey sighed. “Sometimes, it’s hard to believe they’re so close in age.”
Nikki nodded in agreement. “I believe she’s going to make it, Del-Rey,” she told him softly. “She’s a fighter and she’s stubborn as hell. That’s all she needs.”
It was the only hope she could offer them.
Del-Rey turned to the coyotes gathered behind him. “We take her home in the morning,” he announced. “Until then, any Breed that lashes out, becomes involved in a physical or verbal altercation with any human or other Breed, or in any way detracts from Ashley’s protection or our ability to protect her, will answer to me. Is that clear?”
Coyote Breeds could often be more hotheaded than the other species who were taught patience and logic over physical recklessness.
“It’s clear, Del.” One of the team alphas nodded firmly. “And if anyone needs reminding, then team alphas will take care of it.”
Pride surged through Del-Rey. This was a vast improvement on months past when he’d been forced to have several enforcers cool their heels in a human jail cell for starting a bar fight. The coyotes were growing, adapting, they were maturing, and the proof of it was in the face of every coyote Breed there.
“You have a hell of a pack, Del-Rey,” Dane’s voice echoed with the respect Del-Rey and his men had fought to attain. “If you need anything, anything at all.” Dane’s look became more intent, somber. “The Vanderales are here for you. Welcome to the family.”
This time, it was a handshake, and one Del-Rey hadn’t been expecting. Not that he showed it. Inclining his head with calm acceptance, his handshake was firm, confident.