They all turned to him then.
“When?” It was Lawe who asked the question roughly. “You were never in the cavern other than those first moments.”
“The hell I wasn’t,” Rule snarled back. “I was there long enough that the scent of her pain was like an insult to my senses. It was my weapon that fired, along with Jonas’s, and killed Grody. I saw what they were going to do to her. Do you think I stayed out of the cavern? That I’m not intelligent enough to know how to direct cleanup and keep my eye on what the hell is going on as well?”
He’d shot before he’d even processed what was going on.
That huge f**king Coyote had been between a child’s thighs as she screamed for her brother. Those jagged, wrenching screams of rage and pain had been more than the animal inside him could allow. Two others held her down while two more waited behind their leader to have their turn with her.
Rule barely remembered those moments. Seeing the horror of it, the scent of her pain and fear, the agonizing scent of her self-blame and terror that had wrapped around her like a living blanket, had enraged him.
He’d taken out two of the Coyotes before the other shots had been fired.
“Hell, I didn’t even realize—” Jonas shook his head, staring at Rule as though seeing him for the first time. “When I first realized she’d been claimed, even I was unaware it was you for a while.”
“I didn’t f**king claim her,” he snapped. “She was a child.”
What did they take him for anyway?
Rule scratched at the irritating little itch beneath his tongue by rubbing it against his teeth again.
Fuck this.
He’d had enough.
He turned, stalking off into the parking lot and heading for the secured parking area where he’d left the Dragoon he’d driven in the night before.
“Where the f**k are you going?” It was Lawe, moving in beside him, who dared to ask that question.
Rule paused long enough to snarl out, “To get my f**king mate.”
His mate?
To ensure that the cackling South African bastard with a death wish didn’t make the mistake of touching what wasn’t his to touch. Because Dane’s death could cause Jonas more problems than he caused the director breathing.
“It may be too late, Rule.” His brother caught at his shoulder, forcing him to a stop despite the animal snarling inside him. “Listen to me, dammit, I don’t know what you did to her, what you said to her, but the woman who left here tonight was not the woman who went up with you. Whatever happened, she was . . .” Lawe breathed out roughly. “It was like you broke something.”
Rule’s jaw tightened. “She’s still the same woman. I didn’t break anything, dammit. She’s pissed.”
“She’s not pissed,” Lawe denied in confusion. “You changed her, Rule. You took something from her, and I don’t know if you can fix it.”
Jerking from his brother’s grip, he threw a disgruntled snarl his way before turning and moving more quickly than before for the Dragoon. Lawe was wrong, he had to be wrong. Gypsy would forgive him, she wouldn’t have a choice.
She was his mate.
CHAPTER 16
The Unknown had trained her once they’d realized they couldn’t control her. As Gypsy stepped to the window that looked out on her parents’ home, she had only a second to wonder at the instinct they’d used to prepare her for any eventuality. Because Breeds were slipping around her apartment like shadowed wraiths.
Quickly pulling the satellite phone she’d safely stored in a hidden pocket of her dress, she dialed her contact’s number.
“Whisper?” he answered before the first ring had completed.
“Extraction needed from primary residence,” she requested softly. “Importance classified as immediate.”
“Negative. Extraction denied.”
Denied?