“No,” Lawe snarled, trying to break his mate’s grip to rush to his brother, to try to knock the sense back into him that Mating Heat seemed to have knocked out of him. “Goddammit, Rule, I won’t accept—”
“There’s no one else I can trust to look after her, Lawe,” he stated heavily, knowing the burden his brother would carry with the request he was making. “No one else I could ever make see what I see in Gypsy, but you.”
“I won’t do it,” Lawe snarled, enraged. “There’s not a chance in hell.”
Sorrow surged through Rule as he opened a small part of himself to the emanations of the bond swirling around him. He gave his brother but a few small seconds to glimpse what had lived inside him since the moment he’d met Gypsy’s eyes across that crowded bar.
The aching sorrow for the pain he sensed inside her, but also the depth of the pain he sensed that gouged at her tender soul. The nightmares the animal inside him sought to ease for his mate, and the love he’d felt for her since the night his animal instincts had bonded with her, nine years before.
The sound that broke from Lawe’s throat was a roar of pure rage, shocking everyone but Rule. There was a reason he hadn’t allowed his brother in for the past two months. A reason he’d kept that shield firmly in place. Because his mate’s pain, her nightmares and her inability to accept that she deserved every ounce of the pure, steel-core devotion he felt for her was gouging those same wounds into his spirit as well.
Gypsy didn’t love him, not as he loved her. The potential for it was there, he believed. Given a bit more time, he could have helped her heal enough of her inner self that she would have accepted his love for her, and accepted that she could love in return. But now, the chances of that time ever coming were diminishing by the second.
Jonas didn’t speak for long seconds. Then he strode stiffly to the monitors on the wall and activated the link.
“Yes, Director?” Thor stepped to the video console immediately.
“Bring them out,” Jonas snapped.
What the hell was he up to?
Less than a minute later, Hansel and Greta McQuade stepped from the blacked-out room into the videoconferencing module.
Greta had been weeping, while Hansel stood resolutely beside her.
“You admitted to knowingly bringing a stealth device into a secured Breed location, is this true?” Jonas snapped.
“We did,” Hansel answered for both of them.
CHAPTER 25
“My patience is at a f**king end, Flint,” she informed the Breed furiously. “Those are my parents in there and I’ll be damned if I’m going to allow Jonas Wyatt or Rule Breaker to browbeat them into admitting to something they may not have had a choice in.”
A frown marred Flint’s brow as his surprise gleamed in his eyes for the barest second. “Is that what they do, Gypsy? Strange, I’ve always known both Jonas, as well as Rule, to be highly unlikely to browbeat anyone, especially where a mate is concerned. Jonas has bent over backward to accommodate every Breed Enforcer on his teams and their mates. And Rule is one of his most trusted commanders; I can’t see him doing anything less with his own mate. Or her parents.”
Shame threatened to suck the fury from her, but nothing could penetrate the cold hard core of fear tearing her guts to shreds.
“If they’re in trouble . . .” Her breathing hitched. “Please, Flint, let me see them. Let me help them,” she whispered, aware of Loki and Kandy coming in behind her. “They’re my parents.”
“Are they?” he asked, gently, perhaps too gently. “I’ve seen very little proof of that, Gypsy. But if you’ll give me two minutes I’ll contact Assistant Director Brannigan and see if he can’t get in to talk to Jonas. Because this suite is on total lockdown. The only way to get through any of us is to kill us. Can you do that?”
She hadn’t cried in nine years. The agony trapped inside her hadn’t had a release in so long that Gypsy had forgotten what the moisture in her eyes should feel like.
Until she had to blink it back.
She looked over his shoulder to the door, knowing she wasn’t getting in there, even if she did manage to kill every Breed blocking it. “You don’t understand.”
“I’ve known you a long time, Gypsy,” he stated, that soft, compassionate tone tearing at her, reminding her of how many times Rule had spoken to her with the same gentleness, that same understanding, that she had made herself ignore. “And you know what? I’ve seen Kandy’s parents rush to her side many times. I’ve yet to see them rush to your side once. Even when I know for a fact that you needed them.”
That didn’t matter. Kandy had needed them, she had deserved them. What had Gypsy deserved after leading Mark to his death? Besides, she had never asked her parents to come to her, had she?
“Just get me in there, Flint,” she demanded, her voice so hoarse, so filled with dread that she barely recognized it.
“What is he talking about, Gypsy? Gypsy, what’s going on?” Kandy whispered behind her, fear trembling in her tone. “What’s happened to Mom and Dad?”
Gypsy’s fist clenched at her sides. She didn’t need Flint or Rule to tell her what had happened. She knew her parents. Or rather, she knew her mother. Greta McQuade had gotten away with slipping the device in before, she believed. She would have been convinced she could do so again.
God, why hadn’t she gone last night when Rule had refused to allow her to leave alone? If she had confronted him, if she had demanded it, he would have taken her, she realized. She knew Rule, almost as well as she knew many of the other Breeds. But she had slept with Rule, and she knew things about him that a woman only knew about the man she chose as her lover.