Saban shook his head. “Would you ever forgive her?”
The other man blinked back tears and looked down, shaking his head.
“You nearly died here today, Claxton.” Saban stared at the Council soldiers who had lost their lives instead. “But what would have happened to Natalie is beyond your worst nightmares. They would have cut her, studied her, and dissected her…while she lived. The horror she would have endured would have been more agony than you could ever imagine.”
He shook his head desperately. “They have a cure. You did something to her. She can’t even bear my touch.”
“Nothing is wrong with her,” Saban snarled, flashing his canines. “She was my woman, my lover. Why would she want the touch of one who had betrayed her? One who had f**ked her assistant in her own bed? Why would she wish for your touch?”
Claxton flinched at each question, hunching his shoulders against the truth Saban laid at his feet.
“You didn’t just break the law today in your attempt to aid in her kidnapping, but you broke Breed law, Claxton.” He gave that a second to sink in, and as Mike’s face paled, he went on. “Attempting to kidnap the woman of a Breed is punishable by death. Your trial would be a Breed tribunal, not a jury of your peers. You don’t even have to be there.” He leaned forward. “Justice would be horrifying. Death by the most excruciating pain we could devise. The Council taught us how to cause pain, my friend. Pain like you cannot even imagine.”
Claxton’s face was white now.
“I wanted to save her.”
“You wanted to f**king own her,” Saban snarled. “Now, here is what you are going to do. You are going to your hotel, you will pack, and you will leave before night falls. If at any time you are found to be in Buffalo Gap or if you attempt to contact Natalie without her permission, then Breed law will come down on you.”
Surprise reflected on Claxton’s face. “You’re going to let me go?”
“I have never killed over a woman, Claxton.” Saban let a growl enter his voice for effect. “But over Natalie, I will rip your guts from your navel and strangle you with them. Do you understand me?”
Claxton nodded slowly. Saban held his gaze, staring back at him, letting him see the savagery, the need for blood rising inside him.
“Why are you letting me go?” Claxton asked timidly, almost hopefully.
“You heaped enough guilt on her head during your marriage.” Saban rose to his feet and stared down at him coldly. “I won’t let you guilt her with your death.”
The hope left his eyes. Claxton nodded again then dragged himself to his feet and stared at the dead soldiers now being bagged, the disabled van that would have taken Natalie away.
“I was trying to help her,” he finally said roughly. “I thought…I thought she was in danger.”
“As long as I live she will be safe,” Saban snapped. “Can we say the same for you?” Saban looked at the bloody scene again and then back to Mike.
Mike didn’t say another word. He limped across the street to his car and dragged himself slowly inside it. The bloody battle, the knowledge that his death had been so close, and that Saban would do more than kill him, did what nothing else could have. Right now, in shock, Claxton had taken in the truth of what had happened. He had nearly destroyed Natalie rather than saving her, and whether he had known it before or not, right now, he knew this was his last chance to live.
“We weren’t trained to have mercy, Brother.”
Saban turned to meet eyes identical to his own in a face so delicate, so sweetly curved that at times he couldn’t believe she was one of the highly trained, merciless Breed Enforcers the Bureau of Breed Affairs prized so highly.
Long, black hair was braided into a thick plait and fell to the middle of her back, while her slender, doelike body radiated confidence and strength.
“We weren’t trained to have it, yet we do.” He shrugged carelessly.
“I’ll keep an eye on him for a while. Make sure he gets home safe. We’d hate for him to have an accident between here and there.” Her smile was cold, hard, her eyes like chips of green ice.
“I gave him his life; take it at your own risk, Chimera,” he warned her.
“You’re going to spoil her,” she stated.
Saban shrugged again.
No, he wasn’t spoiling her, he was letting her go. She would keep the job; that had nothing to do with him. Whether she stayed, left, or allowed Claxton back into her life was her choice.
“Tell Jonas to have Natalie escorted home and assign her a new bodyguard,” he told his sister as he fought the pain building in his chest. “I’ll follow up with the scientist we captured and see to his transport to Sanctuary.”
He had to force the words past his lips.