“That’s not even the worst of it,” Rule muttered, unable to meet his brother’s gaze now. “I told her I would take her home after I showered.”
Why had he done something so insane?
“Shower?” Lawe sounded confused.
“Cold shower,” Rule muttered.
“A cold shower?”
“Are you a f**king parrot all of a sudden?” he snapped out, his anger surging at Lawe’s response.
“Parrot? No.” Lawe shook his head, one hand bracing on the butt of his automatic laser weapon where it rested against his own thigh. “But Rule, I have to say, tonight I’m beginning to wonder if we’re truly brothers.”
Rule snorted at the comment. “I’ve been questioning it from the day we were told. Never made sense to me either.”
Though for far different reasons than his brother’s, he was sure.
“She’s going to kick your ass,” Lawe chuckled then, turning from him to stare around the darkness and the Breed shadows hidden within it as they awaited their orders.
Two-man teams had been sent to all the bars the Breeds knew of. Those that were public, private and underground. Still, two hours after she had stepped into her apartment, she hadn’t been seen.
“She’s welcome to kick my ass,” Rule breathed out roughly, turning and staring into the darkness, desperate to see her walking through it. “As long as she’s safe.”
As long as the soldiers and Breeds still operating on orders from the Genetics Council didn’t get their hands on her. As long as the scientists still living, intent on deciphering the secrets of the animals they had created, didn’t cut into her.
“Stop, Rule. Let those memories be. No good can come of remembering them.”
Swinging around, he released an animalistic snarl from his chest as he bared his teeth at the Breed who had stood by him, behind him or in front of him for as long as he could remember.
“She’s alone. Any Breed in the vicinity will scent the Heat. They could take her.” The thought of it had his teeth snapping together as he fought to bite off the growl of renewed rage.
“And losing control of yourself will do nothing but endanger her further,” Lawe rebuked him firmly.
He hadn’t lost control of himself since the labs. Since his mother’s youngest cubs had been sent away and he’d been informed they were too weak to be allowed to live.
Rage burned inside him when he’d learned the little Cougar Breed female had been lost. It was one of the reasons he’d been so secretively protective of the main Pride’s Cougar sister, Dawn Daniels, until her mating.
Now, fighting back that demonic fury was harder than it had ever been. The animal inside him was demanding freedom. Demanding that it be allowed to protect its mate no matter the consequences or the blood that flowed. It demanded that the man step back, and Rule couldn’t allow himself to step back. He knew the rampage of fury the animal could create.
Still, his guts tightened as another growl tore from his chest, that inner fury he kept locked so deep inside himself rising closer to the fore as each second passed and Gypsy wasn’t found.
CHAPTER 18
There was too much energy.
It surged inside her. It laid waste to any concept of controlling the need to move, to undulate in sensual abandon. Her body was a mass of electrical stimulation with no place to discharge.
And it was driving her insane.
The underground club, Caine’s, was a country-pop-rock free-for-all where dirty dancing was almost required and the things that happened in the corners of the rooms weren’t dared to be mentioned in polite society. It was a club she rarely came to. But tonight, a Coyote group was headed there. A group that promised to hold the key to some much-needed information.
A year before she’d overheard a Coyote soldier discussing a lab in the western United States and hinted that it was still in operation, carefully hidden, fully funded and still experimenting on both Breeds and humans. The soldiers heading to the club now were rumored to be coming off duty rotation there before heading to another assignment.
This was the information her contact had been trying to get to her the week before when he’d been forced to abort the exchange of information. She could have had advance notice. She could have eliminated the mistake she’d made by going to Rule’s bed, and already had plans in place and questions prepared that would draw out the information she needed.
Now, she was working without plans, without backup and without the careful control she’d always depended upon to ensure that the suspicious, scent-sensitive Coyotes never picked up on the fact that each question, each smile, each flirtatious comment was no more than a careful deception.
Until her much-sought-after Coyote team arrived, though, she was going to dance.