It wasn’t her they wanted.
Navarro glanced down at her. Her pale face, the soft green of her eyes, the dark blond hair splayed around her, disheveled and falling around her like thousands of tiny ribbons, straight and tempting with their silken sheen.
As beautiful as she was, as intelligent, it wasn’t necessarily Mica they wanted. It was Phillip Brandenmore. Somehow, the bastard had managed to escape Sanctuary’s secured cells, and for over twelve hours he had been free. Long enough to contact the men he had been working with, long enough to tell them he wasn’t dead and where he had been. Long enough that before he was recaptured, he’d managed to create a mess Jonas still hadn’t been able to clean up.
That was why they wanted Mica. She was the only weak link within the main hierarchy of the Breed societies. She wasn’t a Breed, but she was Cassie Sinclair’s best friend and Dash Sinclair’s goddaughter.
If they had Mica, then they would try to use her to secure Brandenmore’s release, as well as the research he was demanding from the Breeds. Research they didn’t have.
In Brandenmore’s crazed state, he refused to believe that research didn’t exist.
“No answer?” The edge of fear in her voice, the scent of her still-simmering arousal mixed with that fear, had his fingers clenching on the hilt of the weapon he held at the side of his leg.
“It’s not a question I can answer,” he corrected her. “Jonas doesn’t share the details with his enforcers, Mica. Sometimes, he just gives the orders.”
That wasn’t necessarily the truth. Jonas hadn’t told him why, but he hadn’t needed to. Navarro had known Mica would be at risk. That was the reason he’d made certain his comm link was tuned to Wyatt’s. If it happened, he wanted to know.
“Sometimes he just f**ks lives up too,” she retorted, anger flashing across her expression now and filling her scent.
God knew he preferred her anger over her fear. For some reason the scent of her fear seemed an affront that threatened to send him into a rage.
He, who had been created and trained to have no emotions period. And for the better part of his life, he’d assumed his creation and his training had been successful.
Until he had laid eyes on her, ten years before, no more than a child herself, facing off against irate young Breed males with nothing more than bravado and fury.
He heard the heavy sigh she tried to hide, and fought to keep from comforting her. Hell, he wanted to pull her into his arms, warm her, ease her, and it simply wasn’t possible.
He couldn’t risk her being seen. He could risk no suspicion whatsoever that she was in the vehicle, heading for Sanctuary.
“I should have stayed at Haven,” she finally said softly.
“Why didn’t you?” She would have been safe there. There would have been no way in hell the group searching for her could have reached her inside the main compound protected by the majority of the Wolf Breeds in existence.
Looking down at her, he saw the flash of vulnerability in her gaze, the aching need, the feminine awareness of an attraction she couldn’t fight.
“You were there,” she said softly.
Navarro turned his head forward, his jaw clenching. He understood what she wasn’t saying. It was the same reason he rarely stayed long in Haven when he knew she was there. Because the temptation was simply too great.
The communication link at his ear beeped, signaling an incoming communiqué from Jonas. Lifting his hand, he pretended to adjust the earpiece as he pressed twice, indicating he was listening but would only answer if necessary. Mica hadn’t donned the link, and if he could keep her from being more frightened, then he would do just that.
“I take it Mica’s in the dark?” Jonas drawled, waited and then continued. “Stygian and Rule are in the vehicle ahead of you, Lawe, myself, Mordecai and Cavalier are coming in behind you. There are reports all roads to Sanctuary are being watched. Enforcers are mobilizing along the way and will be pulling in with us. This is a well-organized, determined group and they’re pulling out the stops.”
Navarro clenched his teeth and fought back a curse.
“Do we know how many?” he asked. There was no hiding this from her.
Beside him, she was pulling on the earpiece, and the sound of activation clicked across the line.
“Ms. Toler,” Jonas said, greeting her presence. “How are you?”
“Cold, hungry and pissed off,” she retorted sweetly.
Jonas chuckled. “And none of us can blame you for that. I’ll see what I can do to fix the first two; the last, I’m sorry to say, I can do nothing to fix at the moment.”
“Unless you’re at fault, then it’s not your place to fix it,” she responded. “It’s not your fault, is it, Mr.
Wyatt?”