Each time she flinched, gripped her stomach and cried out from the pain, he swore he lost a part of his control. He was enraged, fury roaring through his veins and, yes, fear tearing through his mind. Nothing could happen to her. God, nothing could happen to her, because Del-Rey knew, if anything did, he would lose himself.
Anya had never felt anything like the agony undulating in her lower stomach. She swore it felt as though something were being ripped out of her body in pulsing waves. Ice lashed at her, then heat. She was sweating and she was freezing everywhere except where Del-Rey was touching her.
What the hell had happened? She remembered the anger coursing through her, tasting it in her mouth, wanting to claw his eyes out. Then she remembered the wave of heat that swamped her an instant before the pain began clawing through her system, and the ride down the mountain at breakneck speed before Del-Rey rushed her into Armani’s examining room.
She was breathing through another wave of pain when the doctor’s gloved hands touched her arm. Excruciating, unbelievable pain ripped through her, causing her to cry out as she fought to get away.
She heard a snarl filled with fury. That was Ashley. She opened her eyes to see the three women in front of the bed, bodies braced as the sound echoed around her of a door crashing in on the room.
Del-Rey had seen it through the window on the other side of the exam room as Wolfe and Jonas waited with him. Anything that happened to one mate where the mating heat was concerned had the potential to affect the other.
He watched Dr. Armani steady Anya’s arm, a syringe poised to draw blood, when Anya cried out and jerked away. Instantly, three enraged female Coyotes were blocking her, throwing the doctor back, death echoing in their feral growls as Del-Rey crashed into the exam room.
Anya was curled into herself, crying again, her neck arched and thrown back as she gripped her stomach through spasms of pain.
“I need blood, Del-Rey.” Armani was frantic, her dark gaze filled with worry as she faced off with the three women poised to protect their coya. “Get those feral little monsters out of my exam room!” she ordered.
Ashley turned on him. “I won’t leave her. Take my allowance for life. You let that bitch hurt her again and I’ll rip her apart.”
Sharone was growling; Emma had drawn a blade and watched the doctor silently. She was the most dangerous at the moment.
“Emma, sheathe that blade,” he snapped.
“I regret, Alpha, that I must deny your request.” Her voice was barely human. “She won’t hurt Anya like this again.” She turned enraged eyes on him. “You let them do this to her the first time. I swore then it wouldn’t happen again.”
Del-Rey moved to the bed, his hand brushing against Anya’s flesh as she suddenly turned to him, shaking, shivering as though freezing.
He eased onto the mattress, letting her crawl into him, easing her into his arms as she panted for air.
“What’s she talking about?” He looked from the doctor to the bodyguards standing so fiercely over her.
“She ordered us to stand down the first time they had her screaming in agony. Those three weeks they tested her to create that f**king drug they pump into her every week. They won’t hurt her again.”
Del-Rey looked down at Anya before lifting his head and staring back at Armani where she now stood at the foot of the bed with Wolfe and Jonas. “What are they talking about?”
“No.” Anya gripped his shirt, her voice laden with pain. “I ordered them not to tell you. It was my fault,” she sobbed. “Don’t punish them. It was my fault.”
Wolfe’s gray gaze was dark with regret; Jonas’s was as cool as ever.
“The three weeks she submitted, to testing,” Jonas told him. “It’s extremely painful. Though I don’t remember it being as painful as this for her. The scent of her agony is thicker now.”
Del-Rey stared at Wolfe coldly. “You allowed them to harm my mate?” he asked carefully.
Wolfe sighed heavily. “We monitored every second of it, Del-Rey. Hope, Faith and her bodyguards begged her not to complete it when it was at its worse. She refused.”
She had hurt like this? In this agony and they hadn’t told him?
“Sharone?” She was Anya’s lead bodyguard; the others followed her, no matter what.
Sharone glared back at him. “I didn’t know you. You had hurt her. The hurt you dealt her went so deep I would have sliced you alive before letting you near her then. I followed my coya’s orders until I gave you my loyalty. I still follow my coya against anyone who would dare hurt her again.” There was a warning in her voice.
These three women weren’t the ones that had faced him earlier. Submitting to his position of leadership, accepting his terms of punishment. They would fight even him to protect her.
“No one’s hurting her again,” he promised quietly, maintaining his control, realizing how close the girls were to losing their own at the sound of Anya’s strangled screams. “Emma, do you trust me to protect your coya?”
She stared back at him furiously. “You didn’t before.”
“Did I know?” he asked her softly.