“I give you credit for far more than that, but whoever’s betraying you is damned effective at it. And having him out there makes this situation much too explosive, especially considering the mating heat. We’re going to be too distracted by its symptoms to be effective in either the search or the protection of whoever we find there. If we find anyone. We can’t continue this.” He sighed, knowing he was wasting his time.
She would never return to Sanctuary with him until this was finished and he knew that accepting anything less could mean her death. He knew it, and the knowledge burned in his gut like acid. That was an option he couldn’t face.
“Once the mating heat eases,” he began, forcing the words past his clenched teeth, hating the fact that he was lying to her now. “Once we can think again, we can revisit the option of returning here and finding them.”
Her lips lifted slowly, the shallow curve of a smile filled with pain as she watched him too closely.
“By then they’ll be f**king dead or locked in research cells,” Thor muttered as Lawe flashed him a quelling look.
That won’t happen, Lawe promised silently. He would send a team after them, a team he knew would ensure any of the three still living survived and arrived at Sanctuary safely.
“I won’t let that happen,” Lawe growled.
Thor’s brow arched in mock amazement.
The bastard had no intention of standing down, and he wasn’t a Breed. There was no way Lawe could enforce any order he gave.
“Do you think I’m stupid, Lawe?” Diane asked him softly. “You’ll send someone after them and then they’ll run the second your team enters the reservation and they get suspicious.”
“And they won’t run when you arrive?” he scoffed. “They’ll run just as fast, Diane, if not faster.”
“She knows what she’s doing, Breed,” Thor broke in as though she needed a protector. She has a f**king protector, Lawe thought furiously. “And she knows how to find people without making them feel like prey. If she didn’t, the team would be broke.”
“Dammit, Thorsson, you’re talking like a man who wants to see his commander dead rather than showing your loyalty and seeing to her best interests,” he snapped at the other man.
Thor smiled, his expression icy and cutting. “It’s a good thing for you that my commander would go crazy without you, Breed. Otherwise, we’d discuss those words. Violently. I’ve always had her back, and I always will.”
“It’s your place to protect her, not endanger her further by encouraging her to continue this search under the present circumstances,” Lawe snapped again.
Thor laughed as Diane frowned and crossed her arms over her br**sts as she watched them.
“You mean, while she’s in mating heat?” Thor asked with an amused snort. “When she was sixteen she broke two of my fingers to win a fight she had to win in order to travel to Nicaragua with the team to oversee communications. Brick still carries a scar on his wrist where she sliced it open to participate in a hostage rescue in California, and her uncle’s former second-in-command found himself bouncing on his ass at least weekly whenever he made the mistake of suggesting she stay out of a mission. She’s won all the battles she needs to win in my eyes. She’s my commander. I follow her orders and I watch her back as she watches mine. You mating her won’t change that.”
When Thor said she had won all the battles she needed to, Lawe knew he was referring to the battles to secure his loyalty.
There was no scent of a lie coming from the other man, but then again, like Diane, Thor had probably learned from the two Breeds who had been a part of the team how to control certain scents. A lie being the most important.
Diane had proven herself in battle to her men, there was no doubt of it, or they would have killed her themselves for trying to take command. She had proven she could protect her men and herself. She had proven her ability to plot, plan and guide them through any number of situations where her ability to lead exceeded theirs. She still had a traitor in her group, though. A traitor who meant to harm her. The question was, was that traitor Thor?
“Then I’ll tie her up and gag her before I throw her on a heli-jet,” Lawe snarled rashly as he ignored Diane’s snort of mockery.
Hell, he was never rash. He never, ever made empty threats until he had come against Diane’s stubborn will. Any other woman and he would have had a team of Enforcers abduct her and transport her to a secure location until the situation was resolved.
But Diane wasn’t any other woman. She was his mate. Besides, she would probably shoot his kneecaps off at first opportunity for the insult.
“And you’ll make her hate you as well as make an enemy of her,” Thor warned as his gaze snapped with fury. “Because you’ll have to kill me, Breed, to pull that one off. And trust me, I’m her favorite.”
Her favorite? Lawe’s eyes narrowed on the mercenary as he began assessing any other threat Thor may represent. At the look, Thor flashed a confident, taunting smile.
Lowering his head, Lawe was only distantly aware of his lips curving back at one side to display the canines there as a growl sounded in his throat.
The danger, the threat that the other man might represent, had the primal animal that lurked inside him rising dangerously.
Diane stepped forward at Thor’s smile and the answering, savage sound vibrating in Lawe’s throat. She could hear the anger in Thor’s voice. That anger was something he rarely showed, and the fact that it was bleeding from him was an indication that the confrontation needed to stop now. Because he was intent on pushing the one button he knew would only piss Lawe off.
Even more dangerous, though, was that totally feline, completely enraged sound Lawe was making. She had never heard that from any Breed, and she’d fought with two of them for several years before Jonas and Lawe had made it impossible to keep them on the team.
“Leave, Thor,” she ordered him, making certain her tone brimmed with authority. She had to separate the two before she had more trouble on her hands than she could deal with.