Calculation and manipulation, cunning and foresight. Those traits were part of the Breed makeup overall, but Coyotes had them in abundance. As well as a healthy dose of near laziness, but no species could be perfect, he told himself. The laziness didn’t extend to the job, just to general life, and he was accepting of that in his men as well as himself. They might slouch on their own time, but they got the job done to his exacting specifications.
Now there was a much more important mission facing him. That of acquiring his mate back from the Breed Ruling Cabinet. Rules needed to be established, he told himself. Anya needed her pound of flesh or he would never have his chance to hold her again.
He understood pride. He didn’t understand a woman’s emotions, but the female Coyotes he’d rescued had informed him rather quickly that he best be learning those emotions fast. They had sworn loyalty to him and the packs seeking the alliance with the Breed society. That loyalty ran deep. They wouldn’t break their word. But if he took her freedom of choice from this point forward, then resentment would brew. Both in the woman as well as in the packs he led.
It bit his pride though. It bit at his anger. For three weeks now he had been separated from his mate, knowing she was in the underground Breed research facilities undergoing tests on the mating heat. Knowing inside him that those tests were hurting her. He could feel it, knew it in a part of his soul he hadn’t known existed. And he had been unable to force his way into her.
The five female Coyotes stayed with her. They were his insurance that if she asked for him, he would know. If she wanted free of the tests, then they would come for him. They reported to him daily, and each day he was told she didn’t want him there. She didn’t want to leave. But he saw in the women’s eyes the proof that she suffered. His mate suffered and he was helpless to stop it.
Now he sat in the meeting room that had been set up for a Breed tribunal, something he was told had never been held in the eleven-year history of the Breeds’ establishment.
A table of twelve men and women chosen from within all species to hear his mate’s petition for separation from him.
He knew how it would end. He knew, and the ache that filled him at the thought was surprising. Accepting the truth and the direction each battle must take had never been a hard matter for him. But this time, seeing the path stretching before him and knowing what must be done, tore at him. It tempted the animal genetics that were never far from the surface, and riled the man with burning fury. The same fury he saw glowing in his mate’s beautiful sapphire eyes. He ached and he raged, and he watched his life change before his eyes.
A petition for separation from a mate had never occurred, not once in the eleven years that the Breeds had known of mating heat and suffered through it. Not until Anya Kobrin had submitted to three weeks of tests to complete the research the doctors needed to created a base hormonal therapy that would control the symptoms of the heat.
She had been warned it wasn’t a cure, merely an aid. She had been told she would never be free of the man they called her mate, but she would have the time she needed to figure out what the hell had happened to her life and how it had managed to go to hell so fast.
She stared at the Breed tribunal from the table she sat at in front of them. Nine men and three women drawn from every species of the Breeds. Wolf, Feline, Coyote. Del-Rey and Sharone were there to stand for the Coyotes. Her mate and one of her dearest friends.
Her mate, she wanted to scoff at the title as she glared at him. She was furious. Enraged. Scorned. In three weeks she hadn’t forgotten a single complaint she had against him.
Her attention was drawn from the man to the young woman at her side. Cassandra Sinclair, daughter of a tribunal member, Dash Sinclair. At eighteen, Cassandra was slender, with long black hair and light, almost pale blue eyes. She had the genetic perfection of features that all Breeds had, though she was what they called a hybrid, a child born of Breed sperm that had fertilized a human egg that hadn’t been changed by the genetics needed to create the Breeds. Her mother had then been artificially inseminated and carried Cassandra to term.
She was still Breed though. There was no mistaking the looks or the longer canines at the side of her mouth.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the tribunal,” Cassandra announced. “You have before you a petition of separation between the Breed Del-Rey Delgado and his biological mate, Anya Kobrin. I’m acting on behalf of Miss Kobrin and officially request an order of separation be issued and constraints be placed on the Coyote Breed Alpha Del-Rey Delgado and that she be given sanctuary within Haven as long as Alpha Delgado is in residence at the base the Coyote Breeds have established. We further request that Alpha Delgado be refused his counterorder, in effect his petition to have access to his mate, over her wishes. At this time, Miss Kobrin is willing to take questions from the tribunal and has sworn on the tenets of Breed Law that her answers will be truthful and without prejudice to Alpha Delgado.”
There was a shuffling along the table as each member except Del-Rey and Sharone took another look at the papers.
Cassandra resumed her seat, her expression composed as the tribunal stared back at the two of them.
“We have only a few questions, Ms. Kobrin. Merely clarifications to your statement.” Jonas Wyatt, the director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs, began the process. Eerie silver eyes stared back at Anya surrounded by lush black lashes. His expression was cool and imposing, and perhaps about his lips there was a faint hint of cruel arrogance.
“To start with, I’d like you to clarify for the tribunal that you did indeed work with a man that you knew first as the Coyote Ghost, and finally by his true identity, Del-Rey, for a period of six years, to weed out the spies within the Coyote pack at the facility where you headed administration and inner facility security affairs.”
Anya breathed in slowly. She swore she could smell Del-Rey. A subtle hint of spicy male warmth and sexual intensity. Too bad he hadn’t been willing to share any of that warmth with her.
“That’s true,” she answered.
“Did you research the man you contacted before sending that first message?” Jonas asked her.
“I did.” She nodded.
“And were you aware of the Coyote Ghost’s habit of killing the head of security forces within the facilities he attacked over the years? Facilities that held Wolf, Feline and Coyote Breeds that he deemed acceptable risks to rescue.”
“I was aware of this,” she stated.
“And what made you believe no harm would come to your family then?” he questioned her, his voice growing colder. “Your father commanded parameter security and training. He was aware of what the facility was and the international laws against those facilities. What made you believe the Coyote Ghost would not kill your father?”
Because she had believed in his word. She had trusted him. And over the six years they had worked together, she had believed there was more binding them than a job.
“He swore before we met that my family wouldn’t suffer,” she told him. “He swore for six years as I did what he told me, risking myself and my family if I were caught, that they would not be punished or harmed unless there was no other recourse but to wound them to protect their own. We had an agreement.”
“You have the secured emails that have been retrieved, Director Wyatt, that back up Ms. Kobrin’s statement,” Cassandra interjected.
Jonas looked back at her with faint surprise. “I didn’t need proof of her statement, Ms. Sinclair,” he told her. “I merely needed to clarify that she was aware of the risks in contacting Alpha Delgado before she did so.”