Hunger's Mate (38 page)

Eli had immediately called Ezra. His brother needed to know that the guard who had trained them, who Ezra had been personally assigned to, needed him here like yesterday. His twin hadn't been happy at all to hear the news of Shya's kidnapping and had immediately requested the jet pick him up so he could return to Havenway as soon as possible.

Eventually, Rome had been able to get Nick into the conference room, where the top shifters were now gathered. Kalina had wanted to take Ary to her room, to have her try to get some rest, but Ary wasn't having that.

“If there's to be a rescue planned for my daughter, I want to know about it,” the
curandera
had argued.

And when her mate had taken her by the elbow escorting her to the conference room himself, nobody had dared question them, not even Rome.

Leo and Aidan were almost as angry as Nick that they had been set up and ambushed. Both of them bore scars of battle, but nothing serious and they now stood just behind Ary, their way of apologizing for the incident and showing support. The remaining two Sanchez brothers stood grim-faced as they looked to Rome for instruction. As for Eli, he stood near the Assembly Leader, ready to do whatever was asked of him to bring Shya home.

“Tell me again how this happened.” Nick spoke through clenched teeth, his chest heaving, fists curling at his sides as he tried to calm down. That wasn't an easy feat since Nick had long been known as the most volatile of the three head shifters in the East Zone. His joining with Ary and the birth of little Shya had done wonders to calm him down, but everyone around Havenway knew that he was a ticking time bomb. Today, those kidnappers had managed to set off the wrong one.

“We had her surrounded,” Leo began, but Ary interrupted him.

“It's not their fault,” she said, sniffling and sitting up straight in the chair. In one hand she clutched a tissue, in the other the blanket that had been draped over her daughter. “I should have waited for you to reply,” she told her mate. “I should have rethought everything Frank was saying and I should have known to trust my instincts.

“I felt it,” she continued. “The moment we stepped off that elevator it was magnified, that foreboding feeling, like you knew something was about to happen but couldn't validate it, at least not until it was too late.”

Tears streamed down her face, causing Nick to frown even more.

“I tried to hold onto her, tried to fight him off and not shift and protect our daughter. I tried, Nick, I really did and then—” Her words trailed off as the hand that held the tissue went to her neck, to the bruises dark and angry looking and on bold display for everyone else to see.

“I should have been here,” Nick added, going to kneel beside his wife. “I shouldn't have put work first. I should have known. Goddammit! Why didn't I know!” he yelled, unable to hold onto that calm any longer.

“For the record, I don't think Papplin's to blame either,” Aidan added. This shifter had a long cut down the side of his face and neck where he'd told Eli one of the rogues had used a shard of glass to ward off the ass kicking he was getting.

“There's no deceit there,” Aidan continued. “It's his connection at the hospital that orchestrated today's events.”

“Then that makes it Papplin's fault!” Nick yelled, coming to his feet and getting in Aidan's face. “He had no business talking to anyone outside of this faction about what was going on with my daughter!”

“Nick, he's been trying to help Shya since she was born,” Kalina added softly. “I agree with Aidan, I don't think this is Papplin's doing.”

“He didn't protect my child,” Nick rebutted. “He was supposed to save her life, not give her over to who the hell even knows!”

“I think I know,” Eli spoke up finally. He'd been watching from the sidelines, attempting to wait for either Rome to say it, or for his twin to appear with even more of the information he'd given Eli. But Nick looked close to his breaking point. At any moment now he was liable to shift, his jaguar taking off and going out to hunt for its child on its own. Since that was not going to help in any way, Eli figured he'd better say something now.

“It all circles back to that lab out in Sedona, the one Ezra went to investigate,” Eli said.

Rome looked to his personal guard and nodded, to show that he wasn't angry in the least that Eli had jumped ahead of him to tell what was going on. But Eli had sensed lately that the issues with Shya had begun to weigh heavily on Rome and Kalina, that both the Leader and the First Female were more concerned with what was going on with their friends than the growing war around them. It was understandable and Rome was still doing a commendable job of juggling both, but Eli felt like now, he could offer a helping hand.

After he explained to everyone in the room the theory of the Genesis Project and had their undivided attention, he lowered the boom and hated how shocked and distressed Ary and Nick looked afterward.

“Ezra thinks they need Shya's DNA to complete their supersoldier program. He's seen one of their prototypes, killed it actually. It's very close to matching us but there was something off. The DNA glitch must be big because Ezra said it was possibly the only reason he was able to kill it,” Eli finished.

Ary shook her head. “You're telling me that they need my daughter to create some evil hybrid shifter?”

Rome nodded, clearing his throat. “The IT guy from Bas's faction has already e-mailed everything he had to X. We've been analyzing the data, trying to be sure this was all accurate.”

“You knew?” Nick asked slowly, turning all his attention to Rome. “You knew and you didn't tell me my child was in danger?”

Nick was in Rome's face in seconds. Eli moved in quickly, getting up close to Rome to prevent any physical altercation between the two. Behind him Brayden and Caleb had filed in, offering their defense on behalf of the Assembly Leader as well. X, who had been longtime friends with both Rome and Nick, came up close to Nick, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Stand down, man, you know if Rome kept it from you it was for a good reason,” X told Nick sternly.

But Nick was having none of that. He jerked away from X's hold, which was not easy since X was built like a battering ram.

“Bullshit! He should have told me!” Nick yelled, getting in Rome's face again. “You had no right to keep this from me!”

“I had every right,” Rome retaliated, bumping his chest against his friend's. “It's my job, Nick! I'm the Leader of all these goddamned shifters, not you!”

“I don't give a rat's ass about anyone in this room! I only care about my family!” Nick yelled back.

“I know that and that's why I didn't burden you with scenarios that we weren't sure of,” Rome told him, his voice still loud, but more restrained than Nick's. “Ezra told us about this only six hours ago. By the time we received all the data and began looking at it Ary had already left Havenway. Leo had just radioed in their location when X verified the match in DNA strands through another shifter analyst that works down in Miami. The moment we heard that Shya was away from Havenway we went into action. I sent Caleb and Brayden into town to bring you back here ASAP. So don't stand there and toss your accusations at me. I did everything I could with the information I had!”

“He's right, Nick,” Ary said, standing to go to her mate's side, putting her hand on his arm and effectively stilling the next string of curses that were bound to fall from his mouth. “Like I said, I should have trusted my instincts. I shouldn't have left without talking to you first.”

“It's not your fault either, Ary,” Kalina told her. “You wanted your child to be cured. That's enough to distort any gut or animalistic instinct. That's what being a mother is all about.”

“I want my daughter back,” Nick said, his voice strained, his fists clenched so tight his knuckles were white.

Ary laid her head against her mate's arm. “So do I.”

“So do we all,” Rome added. “And we'll get her back. I promise you that.”

“Only with my help,” a female voice from the far corner of the room sounded and Eli almost caught a case of whiplash as he turned so quickly in the direction it had come from.

There were about six other guards inside the conference room, ones he'd brought in with him just in case they were going to get orders to go out and search. Outside the conference room were another six. They were now on high security alert, all throughout Havenway and the surrounding areas. There would be guards everywhere, ready and waiting for whatever popped off next.

The new recruit, Rayna, was the one who had spoken.

“Who are you and what are you doing in here?” Rome asked.

“She's Rayna Corpeta, a new
Lormenian
recruit,” Eli offered quickly. “She's part of the team I assigned to keep close to Kalina, Nick, and Ary.”

“And I'm the one who knows who has your daughter and where they're keeping her,” Rayna announced with a tilt of her head in Ary's direction, her long hair swinging behind her as she moved.

There was a low grumble that Eli figured he was the only one to hear. As he gazed across the room he saw Nivea Cannon, a much more experienced guard who had been assigned to work with Eli, staring pointedly at Rayna.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Nick asked, one arm wrapping around his mate now. “How would you know this?”

Rayna walked closer, until she stood directly at the table, hands meeting behind her back. It was a subservient pose, one that Eli didn't buy for one hot second. He kept his gaze on her, just as Nivea did, watching and waiting.

“Before I came here I heard some talk on the streets about your baby and how nobody had ever seen it, but someone high up was looking for her. I never knew why. I didn't know about today's plan, had no idea anybody would ever actually make an attempt to kidnap her. When all the commotion started earlier I figured it out and now I have a good idea who has her. I can go get her, but I must go alone.”

Every shifter in the room stared at Rayna with death in their eyes. They all wanted to know how she knew what she knew and if she could be trusted. The mere mention of going to get Shya on her own sent up warning flags and rang bells that all but blared in the room. But Nick, the most explosive of them all, had been the one to speak first, and with a finality that nobody dared to argue.

He stepped away from his mate, walking slowly until he stopped directly beside Rayna. Grabbing the younger shifter by her shoulders and turning her to face him, he leaned down so that his brow was aligned directly with hers and said, “If there's something you can do to bring my daughter back here safe and sound, I order you to do it. Right. Fucking. Now.”

*   *   *

They were following her. Rayna was absolutely sure without looking in her rearview mirror or even bothering to scent them. Eli and that jealous bitch Nivea were in the Jeep two cars behind her. The others were spread out, but they were there and they would be ready to pounce the moment she had that baby in her hands. For a split second she thought about calling to warn Darel. Then she decided not to. Things would turn out as she'd planned regardless of who was there to watch her.

She'd parked her car right out in front of the Washington Plaza Hotel, knowing there would be someone at the front desk watching to see how long she stayed there. She didn't plan to be long, but the constant watch would undoubtedly keep three to four Jeeps from pulling up and taking a break behind her.

Crossing the art deco–styled front foyer she headed straight toward the elevators and up to the room Darel was in. Arriving at the door, she wrinkled her nose at the obvious stench as she slipped on black leather gloves, swiped her card in the slot, and pushed her way inside. Luckily for her, she hadn't spent much time around the rogues and had yet to perform any real task that would cement her alliance with them, to carry their foul smell. That had worked tremendously to her advantage in gaining entrance into Havenway in the first place.

“Took you long enough,” Darel spat the second she was inside. “This kid's been staring at me and crying off and on like she expects me to do something for the last couple of hours.”

He walked back and forth around the bed where he had laid the baby in the center. He looked like a nervous father-to-be and Rayna resisted the urge to chuckle.

From what little she knew of Darel Charles, she didn't figure he would find this funny. He appeared to be a strong and forceful rogue, having linked up with Sabar Tavares before his untimely demise. Even though Rayna had been miles and miles away at the time, she'd done her homework before that first instant message had been sent. She liked to know exactly who she was getting into bed with—or so she supposed the saying went.

“It's just a baby, Darel. All you had to do was pick her up,” she said, moving to the bed and doing exactly that.

The little girl smelled heavenly but Rayna resisted the urge to nuzzle up against her, to sniff her and absorb what might have been. Instead she simply rocked her a bit, back and forth until the fussiness subsided and bright, keen eyes looked up to assess her.

“He doesn't have a clue, does he, Shya? Your parents are beside themselves with worry about you, little one,” she said, her voice lifting with a light lilt as she continued to walk with the baby.

“So now you'll take her back, and in a couple of days you'll get me into Havenway so I can kill those bastards once and for all,” Darel stated gruffly, interrupting her thoughts.

It was just as well, they were thoughts she probably shouldn't have been having anyway.

“Patience, Darel. We can't blow this operation that quickly. Besides, you're gonna need to lay low for a good long while because Boden's going to be incensed at your betrayal. His instructions to bring him the child were perfectly clear,” she reminded him, knowing that Boden Estevez would be beyond enraged. He would be out for blood, Darel's blood.