Rule Breaker: A Novel of the Breeds (20 page)

CHAPTER 12

The next days were a whirlwind of activity as Gypsy’s mother pulled her into the preparations for the upcoming Navajo “Welcome to the Breed Community” Ball.

The dress was ready, but hair, nails and accessories had to be taken care of. There were meetings with the reporters they worked with, and long hours of discussions over what would appear in the Nation’s press releases as well as the articles that would go out nationally and internationally.

Nothing the Breeds did remained local, in any way.

It was a relief when the day of the ball actually arrived. A week and she hadn’t seen Rule, hadn’t even glimpsed him, though she’d been told many times how he watched the doors of the bars he and his enforcers moved in, as though looking for her.

And how no matter the woman who attempted to gain his interest, none of them succeeded. They were gently rebuffed or distracted by Dane or one of the other enforcers.

There was also the knowledge that she might well be addicted to his touch too. Because each night her skin actually seemed to ache, to chill, and she missed feeling his warmth against her. She ached for his kiss, and no matter how many of those damned chocolate and peppermint hard candies she ate, she couldn’t erase the need for his kiss.

Or the need for so much more.

As she dressed for the ball, a band seemed to tighten around her chest, a feeling of such loss overwhelming her as she realized she wouldn’t be able to stay out of his bed if he offered again. And she knew he would offer.

The need riding her was too great, and Gypsy knew she wasn’t strong enough to hold out against another erotic onslaught from the Breed who was becoming far too important to her in too many ways.

“I’m sorry, Mark,” she whispered as she stood in her bedroom, dressed, her hair perfectly arranged, knowing that once again she’d betrayed him. “I don’t know how to stay away from him.”

Would her brother have been angry?

She closed her eyes, remembering his smile, his laughter—

“It’s not in you not to love, Gypsy. I raised you better than that.”
The memory of the conversation that had come on the heels of yet another forgotten birthday by her parents surprised her.

“I don’t need their stupid old presents or their happy birthdays.” She shrugged, her arms crossed tight over her aching chest. “They don’t matter to me. No one matters but you.” She looked into his somber eyes. “You never forget my birthdays, do you, Mark?”

His smile was incredibly gentle. “And I’ll never forget one of them,” he promised. “How could I forget the day my favorite girl started screaming like someone was killing her when she heard my voice?”

He’d told her that story so many times.

“But I shut up when you held me.” She finished it for him with a smile.

The hug he gave her had eased the hurt, as had the cake and the surprise pizza party in town with several of her friends from school.

But her parents hadn’t been there. Her sister hadn’t been there. They’d been in California on another business trip. Mark had refused to go, but Gypsy hadn’t been invited.

He wouldn’t have blamed her, she thought. But he wouldn’t have blamed her for his death either.

“What do I do?” she whispered into the silence of the bedroom. “What do I do with my life now, Mark?”

Because she knew, once she let Rule take her to his bed, Mark would really be gone in ways he hadn’t been in the past nine years. And despite the aching regret, the pain, she knew it was inevitable.

Rule Breaker. The name said it all. Because he was making her break the rules she had lived by. Forcing her to realize she was more than just Mark’s sister.

And that was something she had never wanted to do.

...

Listening to the lost, pain-filled voice through the audio device Jonas had placed in her room, Rule lowered his head and rubbed at the bridge of his nose in frustration.

Dammit, he should be there with her. Holding her.

Behind him, Jonas was quiet as well, and Rule swore he could feel the emanations of the director’s regret.

“We’ve had that fucking bug in her room for a week now, Jonas,” he growled, still furious that it had been placed there without his knowledge. “If she were meeting with anyone there, we would know it.”

The director was becoming more calculating, he thought. The device had been in place for two days before he’d gotten around to telling Rule about it. Not that Jonas told him everything, but this he would have expected to know about.

“I still remember that night,” Jonas sighed behind him. “She didn’t cry. I don’t think she’s ever cried, because each time she’s in my presence I swear I can feel those tears ripping her apart.”

No, she hadn’t. And Rule felt it himself, just as he’d felt the pressure inside her increasing later.

“Then stop this fucking investigation,” he snarled, pushing the desk chair back with heavy force as he came to his feet. “Leave her the fuck alone.”

He faced the other Breed as he rounded on him, watching the silver mercury in Jonas’s eyes swirl like storm clouds boiling on the horizon.

“I don’t smell Mating Heat,” Jonas stated casually.

“What, one of your schemes not working so well this time, Mate Matcher?” he accused furiously.

“My schemes always work, Rule, one way or the other. You should know that by now. The question here is, am I scheming?” Jonas pointed out without so much as a hint of arrogance. He was pure confidence instead. That was what pissed off his enforcers the most.

“You’re always scheming,” he growled, pacing to the bar for a drink, all too aware of the silent presence of his brother Lawe and Lawe’s mate, Diane.

“That’s enough, Jonas,” Lawe spoke up.

Rule flicked his brother a look of false amusement as anger pounded at his temples. “Still trying to protect me, big brother?”

“No more than you still try to protect me, little brother,” Lawe answered quietly.

Rule tossed back the drink before setting the glass carefully on the bar and staring back at Jonas with narrowed eyes.

The director stood in front of the windows again. He liked to dare the bastards if they got a chance to actually take a shot, he’d once claimed. That hadn’t changed with his mating, only his security protocols had changed.

They’d heightened.

Dressed in black slacks, a white long-sleeved shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, his feet encased in specially made black dress shoes that would probably outkick any combat boot, he was the epitome of sophisticated style.

Hell, he’d come out of the labs he was created in with that same bearing, that same look in his eyes.

“Have it removed,” Rule told him quietly. “Or I’ll remove it for you.”

A black brow arched imperiously. “Really?”

Rule didn’t change his stance. He didn’t tense; by God, he’d known what he was going to do the minute he’d heard the pain trembling in Gypsy’s voice.

“I took the position of division director,” he reminded Jonas. “We signed the agreement and the bylaws, and you don’t have the power to continue anything that I decide has no merit.”

Jonas’s gaze flickered. “You’d sacrifice Amber for a woman who’s not even your mate?”

“Goddammit, Jonas, she doesn’t have what you want,” Rule snarled, enraged.

It was the pain in her voice. That ragged self-loathing and bitter regret was killing him.

“She’s the contact we’re looking for and you know it.” Still, the director’s tone was quiet, without heat, without anger. As though he were simply pointing out a particular piece of information.

“Not anymore, she isn’t. If she ever was,” Rule growled.

He’d taken her out of it when he’d left her apartment the week before. He’d called her fucking contact and made his wishes clear. Gypsy was out, starting now. Hell, he should never have agreed to allow her in it to begin with.

Jonas nodded slowly. “Probably for the best.” He surprised Rule with the comment. “She wasn’t cut out for it.”

“And what makes you think that?” This time, his arms went over his chest powerfully, aggression surging through him.

She was the best damned contact the Unknown had. The only one that no one had been able to identify.

“She refuses to use her friends,” Jonas revealed with a shrug. “Both Rachel and I, as well as Ashley and Emma, have dropped several pieces of particularly useful information in an attempt to ascertain if she was indeed the contact. That information was never acted upon. Good spies understand the fact that friends are their best contacts.”

Not Gypsy, Rule thought wearily as he dropped his arms. Her friends, the few she claimed, were sacred to her. After all, she hadn’t had family since the night she had stood in the dark: cold, hurt, aching to be held only to have her parents turn to the child they had lost instead.

They’d never understood that they may have lost a son, but Gypsy had, at the very essence of her soul, lost her father.

“Let her go, Jonas,” he repeated, though the demand lacked the anger of moments before. “You know her as well as I do. If she had what you needed, you would have had it long before now. Hell, you wouldn’t have had to come here to get it. She would have contacted you.”

Silver mercury. Jonas’s eyes seemed to swirl, to storm within as he stared back at Rule.

“We’ll see,” he finally murmured. “We’ll see.”

...

The limo Gypsy rode in to the Breed ball with her parents was one of the most opulent she had ever seen. The leather was so fine, each stitch detailed, the scent of it luxurious.

It was almost, just almost enough to make up for the fact that she’d had very little time to prepare for this ball. At least she had a gown, even if it was meant for another event.

Layers of soft, delicate blue and green chiffon brought to mind emeralds and a sun-kissed sea as they shifted across each other. Each layer of the material was sewn together to blend and shift the colors as she moved, bringing attention to not just the delicacy of her figure, but also the dress itself.

Strapless, the delicate, hand-embroidered chiffon and lace cupped her breasts perfectly within the V-shaped bodice and revealed a tantalizing amount of cleavage.

Layers upon layers of chiffon fell from beneath the bodice like a waterfall of exquisite material as the slit that ran the length of her leg to her thigh teased with hints of soft flesh and emerald-threaded silk stockings, while a sixteen-inch train followed behind her. The front hem was the perfect length to cover the tips of her pale green heels, yet not long enough to trip her should she forget and let the toe of her shoe trap it.

She wore her mother’s emerald, sapphire and diamond necklace, the tiny jewels gleaming against her sun-kissed skin like tiny brilliant stars. Sapphire and diamond posts glittered at her earlobes, while the emerald tennis bracelet emphasized and drew attention to the sapphire and diamond ring she wore on her right hand.

The jewelry emphasized rather than overwhelmed the gown, while her lightly tanned skin glowed from the colors laid against it. Her green eyes appeared darker, the addition of shadowed, muted colors of her makeup about them giving her a sultry, mysterious look while the glossy light bronze lipstick drew the eye to the soft pout of her lips.

Her long dark hair was pulled back from her face, the sides held at the top of her head with a diamond-studded comb while tiny individual sapphire, emerald and diamond clips, barely larger than half the size of the head of an eraser, were secured in the waves.

Greta McQuade wore far different colors than her daughter. The bronze A-line chiffon and tulle gown had rich amber embroidered lace shoulders and bodice that covered her from her breasts to her still-trim hips. Bronze and amber chiffon fell to her matching bronze heels in the front while a short train trailed behind her. Amber teardrops dripped at her ears, while a matching amber gem fell to point just between the tops of her breasts and amber pins secured the shoulder-length waves of her hair into a neat twist atop her head.

Her father’s black tuxedo was the perfect foil for both his wife and daughter, he’d proclaimed before leaving the house, still despairing over the fact that Gypsy hadn’t invited a guest to accompany her.

She’d almost thought that perhaps Rule would invite her to attend with him. When she hadn’t heard from him after asking him to leave that night, a week before, she’d felt strangely disappointed and more than a little hurt.

The limo drew up to the crowded hotel entrance, waiting as the chauffeur opened the door and several couples exited. She recognized the tall, darkly handsome Dash Sinclair and his wife, Elizabeth, Cassie’s parents. Reaching in after helping his wife from the limo, Dash then drew his ethereally beautiful daughter from the car.

Cameras flashed with an explosion of light as the Sinclairs moved to the hotel entrance and journalists called out for pictures.

There was a brief pause as the small family allowed a few shots before moving inside the hotel. Behind them, the Wolf Breed alpha, Wolfe Gunnar, and his wife, Hope, exited the same limo. The couple paused several times for pictures; the tall, muscular Wolf Breed held his petite wife to his side, unsmiling but not unfriendly.

Mingling along the entrance, Breed Enforcers in their dress uniforms stood alongside many of the more popular faces from the Breed society.

Tanner Reynolds and his wife, Scheme. They were the PR team that had used their charm and natural ability to draw support to pressure several nations into paying handsomely for the fact that many of their government leaders were found to be participating further with the Genetics Council.

Pulling the car to a stop, their chauffeur moved quickly from the front of the car and within seconds was opening the door for her father.

Hansel McQuade reached in and helped his wife from the car, and Gypsy was incredibly pleased to see Jonas Wyatt stepping to them, shaking hands with her father as cameras flashed in a kaleidoscope of light.

Then a hand reached inside to help her exit onto the red carpet.

It wasn’t her father.

She knew that hand.