Lawe's Justice (33 page)

This was the pain, the aching loneliness and the certainty that no matter how she loved, no matter how miserable she was, Lawe would prefer that to ever seeing her fulfill the other hunger that drove her. The hunger for justice.

“Here she comes, boss.”

There she was.

Dressed in gray form-fitting jogging pants and a matching exercise bra. A gray headband wrapped around her forehead, while her long, wavy blond hair was pulled up into a ponytail that trailed past her shoulders. When free, her hair trailed to just above her hips in thick, silken locks.

Bound high at the back of her head now, the ponytail bounced, the waves of would-be curls dancing and gyrating like ribbons gone wild.

“Are we clear?”

“Clear,” Thor answered.

Holding the crouch, Diane sprinted from the shadow of the monument and moved in behind the other woman at a healthy jog to match. Thor, she knew, would stay hidden in the shadows, watching out for her, protecting her back.

Lawe should have been protecting her back.

As she came up behind Liza Johnson, she wasn’t in the least surprised when the other woman suddenly jumped to the side, twisted lithely and faced her at a crouch.

Diane came to a stop, her brow arching in mock surprise at the obvious training that had gone into the move.

“What do you want?” Gray eyes narrowed, her toned body tense and prepared, she stared back at Diane suspiciously.

“A nice jog?” Diane queried with a small smile as she crossed her arms over her breasts and watched the young woman curiously.

She was damned delicate. For all the grace used to make that move, there was little muscle tone and even less strength in her small frame.

“You’re lying.” Clipped and clearly distrusting, Liza remained on guard as Diane faced her. “Now what do you want and why are you following me?”

“Who trained you?” she asked rather than answering the girl’s question.

“No one you know, I’m certain,” Liza sneered back. “Now what the hell do you want?”

Diane tilted her head, curious at the stance and the obvious fear of attack she could sense coming from Liza.

“I’m no threat to you.” She gave a small laugh as the other woman straightened slowly, her gaze quickly assessing her surroundings as she searched for hidden threats.

The look was unmistakable. Diane had seen it countless times; she’d had the look herself more than once.

“Then you’ll kindly leave the way you came,” Liza told her.

Diane grinned ruefully. “Sorry, Liza, but we really need to talk. Just for a bit, you understand. We could return to the hotel for the discussion if you like?” She glanced toward the direction of the Navajo Suites. “I promise it won’t take long.”

Liza’s gaze jerked over her shoulder, her eyes widening as her face slowly paled.

She’d never known Thor to have such an effect at first glance, though she wished he would have remained hidden for a while longer.

“He’s harmless,” she murmured.

Liza swallowed tightly. “We have to get out of here.”

“Thor’s not going to hurt you.”

“Honey, I’ve seen that hot-assed Thor of yours, and he makes one. Not four.”

Diane swung around, her hand whipping to her back and the weapon holstered there.

Four.

Her heart raged in her chest.

Adrenaline flowed like a racing river through her bloodstream as she faced the four Breeds. And they weren’t the good guys.

Unfortunately, severely unfortunately, she watched as the single human male stepped from the shadows of a heavy oak to face her with a triumphant smile.

“Malcolm,” she whispered painfully.

For the second time in her life, her heart was breaking. It was shattering inside her, locking her throat tight with the horrifying realization that she shouldn’t be surprised. That she shouldn’t hurt with such pain or ache with such a feeling of overwhelming betrayal.

“I thought it was Brick,” she whispered, the pain searing her rasping in her voice now.

Malcolm chuckled, a cruel, vicious sound. “Good ole Gideon would have gotten me if I hadn’t managed to find a way to trip that dumb bastard Brick and throw him in the way. Son of a bitch never figured it out either.”

“Where’s Thor?” All she could see were the four Coyote Breeds, their lips pulled back to display the curved canines, their eyes filled with malevolent pleasure.

“He’s a bit under the weather, boss,” he mocked her. “It might have something to do with the knife I shoved in his chest. I do believe I even managed to pierce that bastard’s icy little heart.”

Pointing the laser pistol at his heart, Diane activated it.

“Liza, run,” she said heavily.

She was going to kill him. If she didn’t manage to do anything else, she would kill him.

“Where?” Liza’s voice was filled with disbelief. “Have you noticed there are four Coyotes here, lady? Does it look like I have a chance?”

One of the Coyotes grinned. A tilt of his lips that covered the curved canines.

“The first one who moves will die,” she snapped back at her. “Now get the hell out of here.”

“If she runs, one of us will chase,” a Coyote murmured. “We can’t resist. It’s like a dog with a ball. We just have to fetch.” He wagged his brows playfully.

As though he were flirting?

“Malcolm, where did you find your Coyotes?” she asked in disgust. “They’re fucking crazy.”

“They’re fucking effective,” he snapped back. “They caught your ass, didn’t they?”

Well, he had her there, didn’t he?

“Where is your mate, little warrior?” another murmured silkily as his dark gray eyes danced in amusement. “I can smell his mark on you and it’s fresh. You know, he gets his hands on you, and he’s gonna show you exactly how a Breed punishes disobedient little mates.”

“Go to hell!” she snapped.

He grimaced back at her. “Aw, come on, it’s just hot as hell there and my AC doesn’t even make a dent. Let’s try for something cooler.”

She took a moment to stare at him in complete disbelief.

“Great, a comedian,” Liza murmured behind her.

“Yeah, all before breakfast.” Diane sighed. “I think I might be nauseous anyway.”

“I warned you not to bring him, Malcolm,” another Coyote spoke up. “He’s going to start playing his incessant games again.”

“Loki, stop playing the fucking horndog,” Malcolm snapped at the flirting creature. “We’re here to kidnap a Breed mate, not see if we can seduce her.”

“I’m still maturing.” The Coyote shrugged with a cold, far too experienced, far too cruel expression of displeasure.

“He has about as much common sense as his brother Farce had,” another drawled. “Remember what happened to him, Loki? The wrong end of a feline weapon I believe.”

Diane followed them with her eyes, keeping her position, shielding Liza with her own body. As ignorant as they acted, as playful as they pretended to be, she knew they were now at their most dangerous.

“Liza, go!” she hissed.

“We’ll just chase her.” The taller, broader Coyote reached into his pocket and pulled a cigar free.

With lazy amusement, he holstered his weapon before lighting the tip, sending the scent of tobacco to fill the early morning air.

She was screwed. She would get one shot off, that was it at the current setting.

She turned back to Malcolm. “I’ll kill you first.” With a flip of her thumb she placed the weapon on its highest setting.

Malcolm smiled complacently. “No, Diane, you won’t,” he assured her. “Because if you do, then we’re going to take your little friend behind you as well. And I think you know what will happen to her then. You have only one shot. That’ll leave three Coyotes for her to deal with. Do you think she’ll survive?”

Liza wouldn’t survive. What Council Coyotes had been known to do to innocent bystanders was horrifying.

And they were alone with no backup and possibly no hope of backup arriving in time.

The heaviness that settled in her chest was like a crushing weight.

“I’d rather fight,” Liza whispered behind her.

Diane nodded slowly. “Do you have a weapon?”

“A knife, that’s all I have.” Regret filled the other girl’s voice.

Diane drew in a hard, deep breath. “Don’t let them take you. It would be far better to use that knife on yourself than to be captured by them. Once they come for me, run for the hotel. Breeds will be looking for me. They’ll take care of you.”

“I’m surprised, Ms. Broen,” the sandy-haired mocking Coyote drawled then. “I’ve heard of your mate. I’m shocked he’s not at your side facing us with that prick-assed attitude of his. Or did he do as he always swore he would and run the other way the minute he realized he was mated?”

“He was only delayed a bit,” she assured him.

“More like expecting her to be the good girl and stay in their bed rather than heading out to save this little bitch.” Malcolm waved his gun in Liza’s direction. “How did you know we were coming for her, Diane?”

She hadn’t.

Diane stepped back, bringing herself closer to the other girl in an effort to protect her; she took a deep breath and prepared herself.

They didn’t have a chance. Malcolm had taken out Thor and that left no one to watch her back. She had one shot, and not enough time to power the weapon again for another kill shot.

She didn’t have to kill.

With an imperceptible movement of her thumb against the mechanism Diane lowered the power from kill to wound and from wound to disable.

She could get off eight shots, and if she aimed at their kneecaps, she might have a chance.

And so would Liza.

“Poor Malcolm,” she drawled with an edge of laughter as she looked back at him, the only plan she could come up with flashing through her memory.

He scowled as the Coyote with the cigar chuckled wickedly. “Sounds like a challenge to me, little man.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Malcolm snapped. “No one asked you.”

Lawe would have missed her by now surely. It had been over an hour. He knew her and he knew her well. Just as she knew him. She had been pushing him, challenging him, now all she had to do was stay alive long enough—

“No one had to ask me.” The Coyote gave another low, amused laugh. “She’s cute as hell, Malcolm.”

“And she can kick Malcolm’s ass to hell and back,” Diane assured them all. Glancing at the Coyote, clearly the dominant alpha, she shot him a mocking sneer. “He knew he would have to face me.” She nodded at Malcolm. “He didn’t come for the girl, he came for me.”

The Coyote turned his head to Malcolm. “That true, Malcolm?”

Malcolm’s lips thinned angrily. “Two birds with one stone, right? She got her uncle, his second-in-command, killed so she and that bastard Thor could take over the team. I told you I wanted blood.”

“That wasn’t the mission,” he was reminded.

Diane chuckled. “Four coyotes.” She sighed. “For little ole me? That scared of me, Malcolm?”

His jaw bunched, his hands clenching the weapon.

“If you want me, come fight me,” she suggested with a laugh. “I dare you.”

Every Coyote there perked up.

“A thousand on the girl,” the leader murmured.

“Shut the fuck up, Dog,” Malcolm raged furiously.

“I got your thousand on the prick there. He has muscle where she doesn’t.” Loki took the bet before turning to the other two. “Mutt, Mongrel? You two in?”

“Thousand on the girl.” Gray Eyes took him up on it.

“Thousand on the prick.” The last one accepted the bet.

Malcolm was shaking with fury.

Diane smiled in anticipation.

“Knives or fists?” she asked, knowing his strengths as well as his weaknesses.

“You fucking whore,” he snarled.

“Take the challenge or walk away,” Dog snapped. “We won’t take her without the fight.”

God love a Coyote’s heart and his love of a challenge or a good bet.

“I win, we walk away,” she demanded as she kept her eyes on Malcolm.

Dog’s smile was clearly anticipatory, but he nodded easily. “Whip his ass and you walk. He whips yours—you run. How’s that?”

Diane gave a sharp, firm nod as she smiled at Malcolm. “It’s a bet.”

•CHAPTER 17•

He was dying!

Lawe could feel the fury burning inside him like a plague wasting away at his body cell by cell as he watched and listened to the Coyotes flirting with his mate.

The only thing saving him, saving them, was the fact that there was no scent of lust swirling from them. Still, his fists were clenched, his lips curled back from the sharp canines at the sides of his mouth, and the growl that would have rumbled in his chest was only barely held back. It was all he could do to hold back a roar of pure feline rage.

“Hey, Lion-o, would you mind letting up the pressure just a little bit here?”

The hoarse, pain-filled request had him lifting his hand completely from Thor’s chest and flicking his fingers to the Breed Enforcer behind them, indicated he should apply pressure to the knife wound Thor had taken.

Lawe moved to rise. He had every intention of rushing to his mate’s side, to protect her flank. To share in the triumph he knew she would experience once Malcolm was taken care of.

Then, Lawe decided, he’d make certain the bastard died.

“What did I tell you?” Thor’s fingers were suddenly clamped around Lawe’s forearm, restraining him before he could surge from their shadowed shelter of heavy pine and rush to the conflict unfolding too far away for him to help his mate if she needed him.

God, how could he survive?

He drew in a deep, hard breath.

“She’s hurting,” he growled. “I can feel it all the way over here.”

Turning, he took a moment to glare at the mercenary before turning back to watch Diane with a surge of pride, and pure terror.”

“Of course she’s hurting, you dumb fucker,” Thor rasped, his voice low and filled with pain of a far different sort. “She’s out there alone. She’s been hurting since the minute she left the hotel in D.C. without her mate backing her. She’s a warrior, Justice, not some pansy-assed wannabe. You’re not just her fucking mate—be her partner and you won’t smell her soul shredding in half.”

Lawe’s head jerked around, his teeth snapping dangerously at the Swede before turning to watch his mate once again.

She was incredible.

Standing straight and tall, one hand propped on a cocked hip, her fingers tapping against it lazily as she held that damned laser weapon on the man she had fought with since the day her uncle had brought her into the group.

This was the mercenary Commander Diane—not the Diane her friends and family knew—as the Breeds closest to Jonas, his mate, and Lawe knew her. This was the Huntress. The woman known for her skill at tracking down those she was hired to find, rescuing them and bringing them back safe and sound.

And she had been doing so for more than seven years.

She had only taken official command of the group five years before, but in the two years before her uncle’s death, she had been commanding her own missions and making the group more money than they had ever imagined possible.

Confident, self-assured and in her element but for the emotional pain raging through her like flames whipping through her soul.

She needed him.

It wasn’t a sexual hunger. It wasn’t the mating heat and it wasn’t the need to quench the flames of mating heat. It was his mate’s need for a partner. For her partner.

He’d promised to stand by her, to give her the space she needed to conduct her mission. Jonas and Callan had given her one week to accomplish her goal. Yet, he’d still hovered near her, going over her plans with a fine-tooth comb. And, he knew, making her feel that he had no faith in her abilities.

What had ever made him believe his mate—the incredibly vital fighting spirit she possessed—would ever accept such management after the years she had put into learning how to do what she was so damned good at doing?

He’d failed her again.

He dropped his head for a moment, pulling in hard, desperate breaths as the animal paced, raged, his genetics clawing at his senses as he fought the need to protect her. The need to stand before her, to snarl in warning at the bastards she believed were a threat.

There was only one threat really facing her.

Dog, Mutt, Mongrel and Loki weren’t mercenary Coyotes only recently separated from the Council, as Malcolm believed. They weren’t the bloodthirsty, rabid animals willing to help him turn his commander over to the Genetics Council.

They were Jonas’s double agents. His eyes and ears into the Council so to speak. They were still soldiers, or so the Council believed, just in a different capacity now than they had been before.

Still, even knowing the danger was minimized, he had to forcibly hold himself back, to throttle the snarls and roars of rage that rose inside him.

Her sense of confusion and disillusionment was driving a spike of bitter rage through his brain and straight into his soul.

“You won’t back her,” Thor growled, and for a moment, just for the briefest second, it was almost an animal’s rasp. “You refuse to allow her to be who she is, what she is. She’s a fucking warrior, Lawe. You don’t bury that, you encourage it. You train it, sharpen it, you fucking hone it until she fits your hand like the finest steel and slices twice as deep. She’s your fucking mate. She’s your partner. She’s the finest fucking weapon God ever created and gifted to a man. She stands by your side, Lawe. You stand by her side, or you lose the very things you love about her.”

His head flipped around as he glared at the mercenary, the anger churning inside him with boiling pain. “Shut the fuck up!”

He moved to rise, only to feel the second hand that clamped on his arm.

His head swung to the other side to see his brother, his grip lighter than Thor’s, his expression, though sympathetic, firm.

“I could mate her,” Rule said softly, his gaze dark, and for the first time Lawe felt the pain his brother kept locked so deep inside. “We’re brothers. I would take the mate who longs to fight and allow her to be the warrior she is as I stand by her side. I’ll give you my mate,” he whispered. “Gentle. Soft. A woman who doesn’t even know how to make a fist, let alone how to hold a gun. Protect mine, Lawe, and I’ll protect yours. We’ll have what we need without involving our souls as our mother did.”

His brother’s mate? He stared at Rule in complete disbelief. When had his brother mated and where was the delicate, subtle scent of the woman his animal genetics had claimed?

It was a question he would deal with later. One he would attempt to make sense of once he’d made sense of his own confusion and conflicting needs.

The need to possess the warrior while setting her free. The need to hold the woman, to protect her and shelter her as only her mate could shelter her.

Lawe gave a hard jerk of his head before turning back to the scene before him.

“Let me go.” The growl was harsh; the animal was free and it wouldn’t be held back any longer. “Now.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Thor and Rule released him.

“Rule, on my six,” Lawe ordered him. “Take my mate’s back. Braden, Megan, you have Liza.”

“If she doesn’t fight him, Lawe—”

“She’ll fight him,” the animal swore. “It’s her battle unless someone makes the mistake of interfering. Then they die. Malachi, Josiah, move in behind Dog’s team. I trust no one, not even Jonas’s favorite pets where my mate is concerned. Now move out.”

Moving through the shadows, sliding with animal grace and stealth, he made his way with his brother covering his back, to where his mate ached, where she wept inside for the man, for the mate she believed could never see her as a partner. The mate who would never see the spirit and the fierce, finely honed weapon Thor knew her to be.

It wasn’t the man’s decision this time. For the second time the animal rose inside him and took control. And what the man learned in that second filled him with disbelief.

The first time, it had been to mark the woman it had feared would dare to walk away forever. The woman the animal had sensed was so very close to denying the man.

This time, the animal had had enough of the man’s struggle, of his need to protect versus his need for a partner.

What the hell would he do with a woman who baked cookies, sewed costumes for the neighborhood children? A woman whose idea of danger was a drive through the city?

That wasn’t the woman he needed.

Assistant director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs wasn’t the job he needed.

He was a warrior, just as his mate was a warrior. The warrior would be damned if it would allow anyone, anything to take that from her, especially the man who loved her with all his soul. With all the dreams, all the passion, and all the fear that resided inside him.

As he approached the group silently, his brother moving in close, sharing his strength and his senses with him, Lawe found himself reaching out to her.

There were gifts he shared with his twin. The Breed born less than a minute after he had been. This was why Rule would make the perfect assistant director. The same reason Jonas had felt Lawe would. Rule’s ability to focus with his twin, to share the range of his senses, a range that went off the charts. Lawe was suddenly faster, stronger, his hearing more acute, his eyesight sharper, his sense of smell so brilliantly sharp he could detect individuals from miles away.

He knew the Coyote teams were slipping through the desert, silent, moving with stealthy precision to take from Dog’s team the prize they sought.

Lawe Justice’s mate. Perhaps only one of two mates capable of conceiving twins.

He sensed that. Felt it.

That complete focus identified, marked and memorized each scent that filled a ten-mile radius around him; it detected every sound from the scurry of a mouse to a whisper of passion from countless couples to the soft disturbance of air from the Coyote commander in the desert directing his men to move faster. Every picture his eyes touched, every taste that came in with each breath was suddenly amplified.

The danger was real now. There were two dozen enemy Coyotes and human soldiers determined to take his mate. To take the woman who would one day bear a child, or perhaps twins, to a Breed that shared a psychic bond with his own twin.

“Stay at her back.” The order was no more than a breath of sound, but it was one he knew his brother clearly heard. “If she conceives—”

“She conceives a tool that could be used against all of us, just as my mate will,” he confirmed.

He knew why they were created. The scientists had been amazingly explicit in detail just hours before they were each given their first woman.

They were the beginning of a unique experiment, one that the scientists believed had failed.

In the equation of mating, they hadn’t taken into account mating heat, which they had believed to be feral fever, and the fact that conception could never be forced where Breeds and their mates were concerned. They had believed Breeds couldn’t reproduce, and that even crossbreeding with humans would fail.

Until the first signs of mating heat had begun showing up and the vivisections had revealed the changes both Breed and mate experienced. Internally, both mates experienced a wide range of anomalies.

A heart that beat faster. Adrenaline laced with an unknown hormone capable of throwing their females into ovulation. And in certain cases, by Breeds who were part of a twin set, the animal genetics determined if that ovulation would produce one hybrid, or if the first stage twins would be created.

Moving to the shadows of the edge of the pines, Lawe stepped into the clearing, ignoring Malcolm’s shock and wrapping around him his mate’s sudden surge of adrenaline-fused excitement, which speared through her.

He and Rule moved to her as Braden and Megan stepped from the opposite direction and surrounded Liza before pulling her back.

“Well, look who’s joining the party, boys,” Dog drawled. “Looks like the bet’s off.”

“The hell it is.” Lawe moved in, just slightly behind his mate’s right shoulder. “You have my thousand. My mate will kick his ass.” He laid his palm on the butt of his weapon, a laser-guided, laser-powered bullet-loaded Breed weapon. “And we’re going to do it without weapons, aren’t we, Malcolm?” He nodded to Dog.

The Coyote stepped forward with a triumphant grin and collected various weapons from a stunned Malcolm.

“Mate,” Lawe murmured, the animal still dominant but now merging with the man fully to create the Breed he was always meant to be for his mate.

He was aware of Rule flinching, of his animal suddenly surging free of its restraints and doing the same. He hadn’t anticipated that, but perhaps, like him, his brother needed that push to claim everything that was meant to belong to him.

“Lawe,” Diane whispered, her gaze slicing to him.

“We have a dozen Coyotes and humans moving in. They’re perhaps twenty minutes away and fully armed,” he told her. “You have seventeen minutes to take care of this little matter.” Turning his gaze down to her he let a grin tilt his lips. “Show me what you’ve got, Mate.”

Diane felt her lips tremble for the slightest second as hope rose inside her. Her heart was racing, excitement and pure anticipation infusing the strength and training she put a lifetime into.

“What do I get in return?” she murmured as she released the utility belt, never taking her eyes from Malcolm.