There was only one threat really facing her.
Dog, Mutt, Mongrel and Loki weren’t mercenary Coyotes only recently separated from the Council, as Malcolm believed. They weren’t the bloodthirsty, rabid animals willing to help him turn his commander over to the Genetics Council.
They were Jonas’s double agents. His eyes and ears into the Council so to speak. They were still soldiers, or so the Council believed, just in a different capacity now than they had been before.
Still, even knowing the danger was minimized, he had to forcibly hold himself back, to throttle the snarls and roars of rage that rose inside him.
Her sense of confusion and disillusionment was driving a spike of bitter rage through his brain and straight into his soul.
“You won’t back her,” Thor growled, and for a moment, just for the briefest second, it was almost an animal’s rasp. “You refuse to allow her to be who she is, what she is. She’s a f**king warrior, Lawe. You don’t bury that, you encourage it. You train it, sharpen it, you f**king hone it until she fits your hand like the finest steel and slices twice as deep. She’s your f**king mate. She’s your partner. She’s the finest f**king weapon God ever created and gifted to a man. She stands by your side, Lawe. You stand by her side, or you lose the very things you love about her.”
His head flipped around as he glared at the mercenary, the anger churning inside him with boiling pain. “Shut the f**k up!”
He moved to rise, only to feel the second hand that clamped on his arm.
His head swung to the other side to see his brother, his grip lighter than Thor’s, his expression, though sympathetic, firm.
“I could mate her,” Rule said softly, his gaze dark, and for the first time Lawe felt the pain his brother kept locked so deep inside. “We’re brothers. I would take the mate who longs to fight and allow her to be the warrior she is as I stand by her side. I’ll give you my mate,” he whispered. “Gentle. Soft. A woman who doesn’t even know how to make a fist, let alone how to hold a gun. Protect mine, Lawe, and I’ll protect yours. We’ll have what we need without involving our souls as our mother did.”
His brother’s mate? He stared at Rule in complete disbelief. When had his brother mated and where was the delicate, subtle scent of the woman his animal genetics had claimed?
It was a question he would deal with later. One he would attempt to make sense of once he’d made sense of his own confusion and conflicting needs.
The need to possess the warrior while setting her free. The need to hold the woman, to protect her and shelter her as only her mate could shelter her.
Lawe gave a hard jerk of his head before turning back to the scene before him.
“Let me go.” The growl was harsh; the animal was free and it wouldn’t be held back any longer. “Now.”
Slowly, reluctantly, Thor and Rule released him.
“Rule, on my six,” Lawe ordered him. “Take my mate’s back. Braden, Megan, you have Liza.”
“If she doesn’t fight him, Lawe—”
“She’ll fight him,” the animal swore. “It’s her battle unless someone makes the mistake of interfering. Then they die. Malachi, Josiah, move in behind Dog’s team. I trust no one, not even Jonas’s favorite pets where my mate is concerned. Now move out.”
Moving through the shadows, sliding with animal grace and stealth, he made his way with his brother covering his back, to where his mate ached, where she wept inside for the man, for the mate she believed could never see her as a partner. The mate who would never see the spirit and the fierce, finely honed weapon Thor knew her to be.
It wasn’t the man’s decision this time. For the second time the animal rose inside him and took control. And what the man learned in that second filled him with disbelief.
The first time, it had been to mark the woman it had feared would dare to walk away forever. The woman the animal had sensed was so very close to denying the man.
This time, the animal had had enough of the man’s struggle, of his need to protect versus his need for a partner.
What the hell would he do with a woman who baked cookies, sewed costumes for the neighborhood children? A woman whose idea of danger was a drive through the city?
That wasn’t the woman he needed.
Assistant director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs wasn’t the job he needed.
He was a warrior, just as his mate was a warrior. The warrior would be damned if it would allow anyone, anything to take that from her, especially the man who loved her with all his soul. With all the dreams, all the passion, and all the fear that resided inside him.
As he approached the group silently, his brother moving in close, sharing his strength and his senses with him, Lawe found himself reaching out to her.
There were gifts he shared with his twin. The Breed born less than a minute after he had been. This was why Rule would make the perfect assistant director. The same reason Jonas had felt Lawe would. Rule’s ability to focus with his twin, to share the range of his senses, a range that went off the charts. Lawe was suddenly faster, stronger, his hearing more acute, his eyesight sharper, his sense of smell so brilliantly sharp he could detect individuals from miles away.
He knew the Coyote teams were slipping through the desert, silent, moving with stealthy precision to take from Dog’s team the prize they sought.