“Sorry, Coya,” Ryan said miserably. “He didn’t say come back; we don’t go back. We could mess him up being in the field and him not expecting it.”
Anya locked her teeth together as they ran now. Dammit, Ryan was supposed to obey her, not Del-Rey. But it made sense. Okay, that made sense. Del-Rey would know this territory well enough. He had staked it out long before they had arrived here.
She couldn’t help but worry. She knew better than to worry; a few trespassing bastards looking for the Coyote coya, their alpha female, didn’t have a chance against Del-Rey. She knew that. But something inside her insisted on worrying. Aching. And fearing. Because she had seen his eyes. When he made it back to Base, there was going to be hell to pay.
CHAPTER 5
Anya paced Command through the night. She ignored Brim’s firm suggestions that she should retire to bed, glaring at him each time he suggested it, even though she had sent her bodyguards to their rooms hours before.
She chewed at her thumbnail; she growled at the techs when they told her time and again there was no way to pinpoint their alpha’s position without comm going back online, and she wasn’t willing to risk that either.
She ached from head to toe; exhaustion was a bitch she fought tooth and nail, and she railed at herself for not having the same stamina and endurance the Coyote Breeds had. She was supposed to be their coya, their female alpha, and yet she couldn’t manage two days without sleep? They could go for days; she had seen Sharone go for more than a week with barely more than a twenty-minute nap here and there, while Anya had collapsed more than once and slept like the dead.
Daylight was peeking over the mountains as she stood by the silent communications techs and waited. All communications was shut down. Soldiers had been sent to Haven to inform them of status and to secure their own communications. Safeguards would go into effect once Del-Rey and his men returned, but as she had told the communications techs months ago, Del-Rey should have already placed safeguards for just this eventuality.
As they had told her, he was never on base long enough and those safeguards required not just his permission, but also his help.
It hadn’t been stated, but she had seen the look in their eyes. It was because of her that he was never there long enough to fulfill his own duties.
So now she was staring at a silent comm board with no way of knowing if the Breeds in the field were alive or dead. No way of knowing if Del-Rey was safe or wounded. She couldn’t consider anything else.
The two missing soldiers had been brought in an hour after her return, slightly dazed and bleeding from several wounds. Med tech had been forced to send them to Haven as they didn’t have the supplies or the experience to treat them.
They needed their own damned doctors. What if Del-Rey was seriously wounded? Dr. Armani didn’t know enough about Coyote genetics to do more than stitch them up. And sometimes, with the Wolf Breeds, severe wounds caused unexplained infections, fevers, almost rabid behaviors in some cases, if the wounds were bad enough.
If that happened to a Coyote Breed, then they could die. Del-Rey could die.
It had been nearly eight hours since she had returned, she estimated; looking at the clock again, perhaps closer to ten. They had left the caverns late to go on the training exercise, later than usual. Otherwise, those hunters would have managed to slip right up on them. They were usually much farther toward the base of the mountain.
Someone had been watching them. They had known about the exercises. Somehow, security had been penetrated enough that the enemy had nearly blindsided them.
“Pacing the floor and glaring at the comm board isn’t going to make time pass any faster,” Brim told her as he stepped back into the command room carrying coffee. Two cups. God bless his heart. She took one of them.
“That cup was for your communications tech,” he pointed out.
“Comm is down; he can go get his own,” she muttered as she sipped at the caffeine-laced brew. It was rare that she could sneak the real thing past her bodyguards. And they always managed to make her spill it or find a way to steal it.
Several times Ashley had found a way to just spit in it before she smiled back at Anya impishly, knowing damned good and well she wouldn’t be drinking it then.
She caught the smile the communications tech threw Brim before he pushed back his chair and headed into the lounge.
“You can get hyper as hell for all I care.” Brim shrugged. “It’s not going to change anything. He’s going to come in here tearing ass over this one, and it won’t be my ass he’s tearing this time.”
She narrowed her eyes at him over her coffee cup. His thick black hair was cut short, short enough that sometimes it would spike on his head. Light blue eyes regarded her coolly. He always watched her coolly, ever since the first time she had seen him. Nothing seemed to touch Brim. He never worried, he never got in a hurry, he never got excited. He just wisecracked and glided through life.
“He has no reason to tear anyone’s ass here,” she finally retorted. “It’s not our fault those bastards found a way to access our comm codes.”
“You think that’s why he’s going to be pissed?” He let his lips quirk as though in amusement. None of that amusement showed in his eyes though. “Coya, you were out there with comm links deactivated, and without apprising Command you were outside the caverns. He’s going to tear the asses of every soldier that saw you slip out and didn’t report it. Then he’s going to strip your bodyguards to the bone. Ashley’s going to cry those pretty alligator tears for him and probably get off easiest. Emma and Sharone are going to take it like the soldiers they were trained to be, and that’s just going to piss him off more because he hates it when they go all stoic soldier on him. Then by the time he works his way to you . . .” Amusement might have touched his eyes at this point. “Well, let’s just say, he’ll probably have his most fun where you’re concerned. He’s been rather upset over that separation order, you know. Maybe you should start planning that official acceptance ceremony. You’ll need it once the two of you come up for air.”
He was laughing at her. As though a wedding ceremony would do anything more than assure the Breeds of all species that Del-Rey had accepted her as his mate and their female alpha. She could refuse him, as Hope had explained, but if he refused her, then she could become fair game when it came to the more savage qualities that were a part of the Breeds’ genetics. Respect came in many forms. An alpha leader earned it. A human female could only marry into it in Breed society.
“The poor baby,” she expressed mockingly. “Really, Brim, why don’t you just go ahead and have a laugh over it? I’m sure we’d all love to join in. Later maybe.”
He chuckled then. “Ashley’s rubbing off on you. Or are you the one that taught her all that girly crap?”
Her nostrils flared as she turned away from him and sipped at the coffee. Neither Ashley, Sharone nor Emma was here to steal this cup from her; she was going to enjoy it.
Where the hell was Del-Rey anyway?