“You promised the tribunal a year,” Brim reminded him quietly.
“I know what I said,” he growled. “We’ll go f**k off at the beach for a few weeks here and there. Hell, take the girls to f**king Disneyland or some shit. I’ve had it, Brim. This is bullshit. My mate runs my f**king base better than I do, and on top of it”—he turned to his second-in-command and bodyguard—“did you read that f**king report Sharone finally got around to sending to us? This is a disaster waiting to happen.”
He was going to start sweating again. Hell, when he’d read the original report, he swore his hands had shook. His mate was too damned brave, courageous and daring, and those female bodyguards he had allowed her were just as damned bad.
He ran his hand over his face and shook his head. Eight months. A man could do a lot of thinking, conniving and planning in eight months. When it came right down to it though, he knew when he’d reached his limit. Del-Rey’s limit had been reached.
“Should be easy enough to put another team on Engalls and Brandenmore with our information,” Brim stated. “All we need is the proof now.”
“Proof better come soon,” Del-Rey snarled.
Brandenmore and Engalls, CEOs of the two companies they were investigating, had nearly been the cause of several Breeds’ deaths as well as a librarian in Virginia who had overhead their plot. Being forced to release them to gain information had left a bad taste in Del-Rey’s mouth. Information had come in. Information that would save a young woman’s life, and enough medical knowledge to prepare a fail-safe in case another Breed was infected with the drug. But damn if he hadn’t wanted to kill the bastards still walking the streets. Smug, superior, Phillip Brandenmore and Horace Engalls were the worst that humanity could produce. And they called Breeds animals, he snorted silently.
The black heli-jet came in, full stealth, and settled on the landing pad above the two-story welcome entrance at the gates of the Wolf Breed compound, Haven. The doors slid open silently, and figures, tall, dark and silent, stepped from the craft and moved with lethal precision to the steps that led down to the side of the building and the entrance door.
Del-Rey and his team didn’t make a sound as they entered the secured building, moved through the security protocols, then entered the enclosed Wolf Breed compound through a lower door.
“Alpha Leader Delgado, we have a vehicle awaiting you and your men.” A Wolf Breed escort stepped forward in the low light that surrounded the outside of the structure. “Alpha Leader Gunnar and the Wolf Breed Cabinet have assembled as per your request.”
Del-Rey gave a sharp nod. He motioned two of his men with him, the other two he gave a silent signal to return to their own base within the cliffs that rose high above the peaceful valley.
With him was Brimstone and another member of his team who was also part of his security as alpha: Cavalier, the Breed Anya had helped him to rescue before the main facility rescue.
She had never understood why he took only a few at a time. It had been imperative to weed out the spies, to show her that often those she trusted would betray her. And when it came to his packs, he wanted the assurance of loyalty. Cavalier had information he needed and a view into the facility that even Anya and Sharone wouldn’t have known to make note of.
The drive to the pack headquarters in the center of the compound wasn’t a long one. The valley was nearly two hundred acres of pristine grassland and rising, centuries-old cotton-woods, pines and oak. They sheltered the cabins and buildings within, and deep beneath the base of the mountains that rose above them was a command center rivaled only by the Felines or the American government itself.
It took time, though, to clear Security in the main building of the headquarters. An elevator ride took them down to the bowels of the base, and then they had another drive through steel and cement to the once abandoned military base that the Wolf Breeds had been given access to.
Over the past seven years since Haven had been established, the majority of work had gone into this defense and operational base. Above them, the serene valley reflected a love of nature, privacy and established camaraderie, if one overlooked the armed guards hidden in the mountains and the sheltering branches of the trees.
Below was the heart and soul of Haven’s security, and it ran like a well-oiled machine.
“The cabinet is waiting in meeting room three on the third level,” the Wolf Breed guard said and nodded to them as they entered an elevator. “Dash Sinclair and his family arrived just ahead of you.”
Dash Sinclair had risen up the ranks of Breed hierarchy quickly since his revelation of Breed status. A Breed with recessed genetics, he had escaped his labs at ten. He had gone into the American foster care system, been educated and was in the military until a little girl’s letter drew him back to America and awoke the animal that had stayed suppressed within him.
His daughter, Cassandra, was still a sore point with Del-Rey, but he knew she had been wounded several months before during an operation that she should have never been in the middle of.
“How is Ms. Sinclair’s recovery?” he asked. He hated the woman’s logic, her ability to argue for everything he had rejected with every part of his soul, but he had seen the tender, compassionate woman she was in her concerned gaze the day she had argued for his mate’s freedom.
“She’s doing much better.” The guard nodded. “She’s here at Haven at present under the care of Dr. Armani. We still haven’t learned who broke into her hospital room that night.”
Cassandra Sinclair had had a visitor as she lay in a near coma state, surrounded by Wolf and Feline Breed guards. Someone had managed to cut a hole into a window more than twelve stories above the ground, slip into her room and send her into screams of hysteria.
The last Del-Rey had heard, she had no idea who or what had been there with her.
Del-Rey clenched his jaw as the Wolf Breed looked back at him expectantly then. Each time he had arrived at Haven, always secretly, always under the cover of night, the Wolf Breeds watched him with the same expression. As though waiting for him to ask the question he had no intention of asking: How was his mate?
“Here we are.” The elevator shuddered to a stop depositing them in another steel-and-cement corridor. Water, electrical and various other pipes ran along the walls. Monitors displayed general orders and Breeds—Wolf, Feline and Coyote—moved with an array of humans that had aligned with them.
Some with clipboards, some chatting with companions—they were all heavily armed and prepared.
Del-Rey, Brimstone and Cavalier followed behind their escort until they came to a door, the same gunmetal gray color as the rest of the operational base.
Stepping inside the entrance alone as it slid open, Del-Rey motioned for the other two to wait for him as he faced the Wolf Breed Cabinet that had come together.
There were six of them. Just as there were six in the Coyote Breed Cabinet, six to the Feline Breed Cabinet. Dash Sinclair; the Wolf Breed Alpha Wolfe Gunnar; Aiden, a class one enforcer; Jacob, Haven’s head of security; Faith, Jacob’s wife and liaison to the other packs; Hope Gunnar, Wolfe’s wife; and the lupina, second-in-command of Haven.