CHAPTER 1

Jonas Wyatt stared at the files spread over the desk, photos, medical diagnosis and research reports glaring back at him in black and white as he wiped his hands over his face wearily.

The files that had finally been decoded from the information gathered over the past months were horrifying. Storme Montague, daughter of one of the lead scientists in the secluded Andes Omega lab for Breed genetic research had finally relinquished the information she’d carried for far too many years.

The death of Phillip Brandenmore, as well as the files his niece had uncovered, had given them information on the continuation of the projects that had begun in Omega lab.

Continuations that had the power to horrify even him. And he had believed that neither the Genetics Council nor Phillip Brandenmore and his research scientists could horrify him any further.

So many experiments on innocent men and women, both human and Breed, mated and unmated, some tested gently, others tortured endlessly, were more than he could take in at once.

The truth of the cruelty man could impose weighed heavily on his soul. The truth of the deceased Phillip Brandenmore’s pure evil had a band of horror tightening around his chest.

He’d thought he’d seen the worst man could do to his fellow man, beast or the Breeds that existed in between. And perhaps he had, but what he saw in the files before him were just as horrific—perhaps in ways more so, because they weren’t done in the name of research or in the name of creating or improving the perfect species the Genetics Council had envisioned.

The files here represented their evil in its worst form. Scientists who had done the worst they could do in the name of science, curiosity and then in the name of immortality.

Lowering his hands he stared at the files again before choosing one from the bottom of the pile.

Brandenmore had been detailed on this one regarding the sound of the victims’ screams, inhuman and agonized. The sound of horror from a Breed medically paralyzed from a customized paralytic created by the Genetics Council that left only the ability to scream. For some reason, the scientists had rarely disabled their victims’ ability to sound their horror, their pleas or their agony. And for this victim, it had been almost never ending.

A male Bengal whose animal DNA was strong enough that he was labeled “primal”—a Prime. For at least two years he had been given not just the serum Brandenmore had created to repress aging and cure the cancer he had tried to eliminate from his own body but also the mind-control drug he had created. A drug that had already been proven disastrous on another Breed, Dr. Elyiana Morrey, when it had been used to convince her that one of their Enforcers and code breakers, Mercury Warrant, was a danger to the Breeds.

“He was drugged with the paralytic the Council created and was vivisected to the point of death three times.” Lawe Justice spoke from the chair across from him, his expression, his voice unemotional, icy in its complete lack of feeling.

The emotions were swirling beneath the surface, though; Jonas could sense them, like a volcano ready to explode.

“He escaped when the scientists and soldiers were preparing the lab, him and two other subjects for termination. He was recaptured again, ten years later. That was when the vivisections began. He escaped the last time just after Phillip Brandenmore’s death,” Jonas stated as he opened the file and stared into the face of the Breed that had endured two years of vicious, horrific testing.

Pale green eyes stared back from a hard, bronzed face bisected with a stripe. From his left eye, across his nose and right cheek, the flesh was a vibrant dark gold in the form of a Bengal’s stripe.

His teeth were clenched, his lips pulled back in an enraged snarl. Sharp canines dropped from the sides of his teeth, glistening white and savagely sharp.

The picture beneath showed large, broad hands chained to a gurney as a soldier held one of the powerful fingers. The nail was slightly rounded and from the soldier’s pressure against the pad of the finger the “claw” had been forced from the nail bed. Though it was filed to be less lethal, it was still harder than a normal human nail, its construction and almost bonelike hardness making it a formidable weapon.

“They named this one.” Lawe remarked on the Council scientists’ habit of giving the Breeds numbers rather than names.

“They’ve learned the power of a name.” Jonas sighed. “But they gave this one the wrong name I believe. If they intended to reinforce his submission, then they should have chosen a far less powerful name than Gideon.”

He watched as Lawe turned his attention back to the identical folder he held. Jonas could guess the thoughts, the torments going through his mind.

The memories.

Memories of the woman he had called mother and of forcing himself to remain still, with all apparent unconcern, as she died beneath a scalpel during a vivisection.

“Three times,” Lawe stated. “They cut him open three times.” His head shook briefly as he lifted the file once again. “And we’re going to punish him for doing the same to the bastards he’s hunting down?”

There was a vein of anger in Lawe’s voice, disapproval that Jonas might agree with silently but didn’t have the power to allow to continue.

“And once the news agencies catch wind that it’s a Breed committing these crimes rather than a serial killer?” Jonas questioned Lawe’s disapproval. “We’ve managed to cover this so far, Lawe, but we won’t be able to much longer. Once the truth is out there, we’ll be forced to terminate him or turn him over to the courts for their brand of justice versus ours. I’d much prefer to capture him, see if the damage to his mind can be reversed and save him. It seems no less than he deserves.”

“And once again Breeds are forced to bow down to their makers,” Lawe accused condemningly.

Despite the sneer in his tone, Jonas knew the intent behind it. It was the same intent he felt when he made similar comments. The injustice of being forced to turn the other cheek so many times was slowly building an aversion for the reality of their situation. And for humans in general.

Breeds had no choice but to garner the goodwill of society and of those untainted by the animal genetics Breeds carried. There were so many more of them, and so few Breeds, that if public opinion turned against them then they were screwed.

“Gideon’s search for the Roberts girl is intensifying,” Lawe said as he read further. “Three of the scientists involved in the testing she was a part of twenty years ago as well as two of the soldiers are dead. The single survivor, a female lab tech, reported that a man slipped into her bedroom, restrained her and questioned her extensively on the escape of the young male Bengal and the second human female as well as any friendship that may have developed between them and the Roberts girl while she was there.” His gaze lifted once again. “She was terrified but left alive. She was the only one he left alive.”

“And strangely enough, she didn’t call the police or her employers,” Jonas mused. “She contacted me instead.”

“Did she say why?” Lawe’s gaze narrowed as it lifted to Jonas’s.

“Public knowledge that she was part of the experiments and tortures against not just Breeds but also humans could potentially lead to charges being filed against her and a conviction that could send her to prison for up to six to ten years.” Jonas shrugged. “She was hoping I would be more lenient in exchange for the information concerning Gideon and what he’s searching for.

She’d had an insurance policy of sorts and Jonas had been in the mood to bargain, as she’d guessed he would be. After all, the injection Phillip Brandenmore had given his daughter was now public knowledge thanks to files Brandenmore had hidden before Jonas had managed to kidnap him. Some of those files, the authorities had found before Jonas could get to them.

“Did she remember anything more than she stated in her initial report about his visit?” Lawe asked as he glanced to the next page and slowly stiffened.

Jonas nodded, his gaze knowing as he ignored the commander’s reaction to what he had read while bringing it out into the open instead. “Diane Broen and her team are due back tonight with their report. They’ve questioned the female tech and completed an investigation into the Roberts girl’s disappearance twelve years ago—just after the other two escaped termination. There’s no doubt she ran away from her parents’ home. We’re simply uncertain why, where she would have gone, or how she disappeared so easily. From Brandenmore’s files, and based on their friendship in the labs, Gideon suspects that the three were together somewhere. He simply doesn’t know where. Diane’s been investigating her possible whereabouts for the past three months. I believe she knows where the three are located and that she’s withheld the information for some reason until she arrives here.”

Lawe’s head lifted slowly at Jonas’s admission that he had sent Diane Broen and her team into the line of fire. For years, the Breeds and her enemies had only known the female mercenary as Diana. The huntress. It was a cover even her sister had perpetuated when needed. Commanding four human males and, one at a time, two Breeds, she had hunted rogue Coyote Breeds as well as Council soldiers, trainers, scientists and backers.

In truth, her name was Diane Broen, Lawe’s mate. The woman Jonas had sent out in search of what was becoming one of the most dangerous rogue Breeds and the three research victims that could bring the full fury of the remaining Council down on Diane’s head.

Jonas had expected a reaction from Lawe, but the sight of the anger flaming in those normally icy, almost violet, blue eyes was surprising.

It was extremely rare to see Lawe pissed off. It was even rarer to see him pissed off over a woman.

Lawe was completely ignoring the fact that Jonas believed Diane may have the information they needed, of course. Nothing mattered at this moment; no one mattered but his mate. Whether he had completed that mating or not.

“Sending her was the wrong choice,” Lawe stated, his voice rumbling with savage undercurrents.

The underlying challenge in that tone had Jonas’s brows arching and he tensed at the deliberate questioning of his decision.

He refused to allow himself to react, at least for the moment. For Lawe. He forced himself to exercise restraint rather than immediate retaliation as he would have with any other Breed.

Lawe was being groomed to take the assistant director’s chair, which allowed him to voice more of an opinion than most would have. It allowed him privileges Jonas would have never given another Enforcer or alpha leader, Breed or human.

Jonas had no need for a “yes” man, but he was damned if he’d be challenged much further over this particular decision. Or any decision regarding the search for the three research victims. Victims who could help find answers to the changes his tiny daughter was experiencing. Changes that made no sense and that so far couldn’t be reversed or explained.

Especially considering the fact he was being challenged over the woman who had undertaken that search. The woman Lawe refused to claim. The mate he refused to mark, or to take. The mate he was attempting to cage and restrain as one would a pet. A decision Jonas highly disagreed with and one he would block at every chance.

“And why is that?” Jonas asked as he closed the file, restraining the need to flex his claws in warning.

Lawe didn’t hesitate to answer him either.

“The mission was too dangerous. Dealing with the various forces also searching for the girl has turned it into a bloodbath waiting to happen. I don’t want her in the middle of it and neither should you, considering she’s your mate’s sister.”

“Mate her, make it official, and get it over with, then you can deal with the situation yourself,” Jonas growled as he felt the prick of the “claws” threatening to stretch free. “Otherwise, as long as she’s making her men available to cover for the Enforcers we currently have out on assignments, I intend to use them.”

And Lawe couldn’t enforce any wish he had where Diane was concerned until he had fully mated her, marked her and ensured the mating bond between them.

More to the point, until she officially accepted the mating, Lawe had no rights where she or her safety was concerned. It was an amendment to Breed Law that had been unanimously voted in after a female mate had denied the Breed who marked her, because of her perception of his lack of honesty and his treatment of her.

Lawe stared back at Jonas for long moments, the animal genetics he carried burning inside him in the need to challenge the Bureau director.

There was also the damning knowledge that he had no right to that challenge.

He should have known Jonas was aware that mating heat was brewing between himself and Diane. The blood tests would have revealed the potential for it the moment they were conducted. But even more, Jonas would have detected that she carried Lawe’s scent the moment Jonas met her.

A scent her body had refused to relinquish since the night he had aided in her rescue from a Syrian jail cell sixteen months before.

He had refused to take the final step that would initiate mating heat past the preliminary stage it was currently at. Any further and they would be burning for each other. At the moment, it was simply an irritant and a knowledge of what he was denying himself.

Enough of an irritation that he had been running in the opposite direction from the girl for far too long.

The glands beneath his tongue were only slightly swollen; the hormone within them hadn’t yet begun seeping into his system. The hard-on that the need caused came and went with frustrating regularity, but the need for her wasn’t yet a vicious bite in his balls.

He was simply uncomfortable.

It wasn’t yet a biological imperative, but it would take very little to create an overwhelming hunger that would erode the restraint he had so far managed to keep in place.

Allowing his hunger to have its way was a step he had yet to take.

To kiss her or to touch her in any way would send the mating heat spiraling out of control. It was something he refused to do.

To lose a lover to the viciousness of the forces attempting to destroy the Breeds was one thing. To lose a mate, the one woman who would soothe his soul and heal the bitter, ragged wounds a Breed carried inside himself, was something else entirely.

For a second, the memory of his mother, so delicate and fragile beneath the scalpel that cut her open, flashed across his mind. He heard her screams, her pleas, the moment her voice broke and the scent of her horrifying death.

The chances of such a thing happening to a Breed and his mate were much higher than any Breed wanted to face, especially those who had mated.

Mates were protected, kept behind the walls of Sanctuary, the secured Wolf Breed compound of Haven or the newly named Coyote base overlooking Haven, aptly code-named the Citadel. Every unmated Breed made a pledge to protect the mated females and any children of a mating, with his very life. They were too important. They were vital to the survival of the Breed they were mated with and to the future survival of Breeds as a whole. No chance could be taken that they would be harmed.

There were those with mates who allowed their women to travel with them, to fight beside them, but they were few. And though those Breed males were forced to allow their women that freedom for the sake of their female’s happiness, it was still a risk Lawe couldn’t image allowing.

“You’ll lose her,” Jonas spoke softly into the silence, as though he were aware of the thoughts tormenting him. “Just as Dawn nearly lost Seth when she separated herself from him. Continue to ignore it, Lawe, and the mark of your scent will dissipate and leave you vulnerable to losing her.”

Lawe stared back at him as a savage fury threatened to burn through his control.

“I never had her.”

The director’s lips quirked with an edge of knowing mockery as he sat back in his chair, relaxed and at ease despite the fact that Lawe couldn’t control his tension and the need to confront the director over Diane’s position within the Bureau.

She was an Enforcer, one of the well-trained, armed, often covert operatives who fought to eradicate any threat to the survival of the Breeds.

“She’s supposed to text her arrival when her plane lands tonight,” Jonas stated, ignoring the challenge Lawe was silently directing toward him. “Have Rule meet her at the hotel we use and get the information she’s acquired. I know she found something, but she seemed hesitant to discuss anything either electronically or via the sat-cell she was using. Rachel says something has her sister spooked, and I’m assuming that’s the reason for withholding the information.”

Lawe stared back at Jonas thoughtfully, his gaze narrowing, nostrils flaring in sudden realization. He knew Diane. If she was spooked, then she felt she was being tracked or somehow watched.

Diane wasn’t a paranoid individual. And she was too well trained to make such a vital mistake.

Lawe’s fists clenched as he forced himself to ignore that sudden unnamed threat the animal inside him was raging to confront.

“And Gideon?” Lawe asked. “How close do you think he is to finding the Roberts girl or the others?”

Jonas sighed at the question, one brow lifted in a slow, mocking arch at Lawe’s restraint. “He’s closer than we are, I believe. I won’t know for certain until Diane arrives and completes her report. Hopefully she has the information we need and she’s willing to turn it over.”

“And if he finds them before we do?” Lawe asked.

To that, Jonas’s mouth thinned. “If he becomes a threat and we can’t capture him, then we neutralize him. Call in Dog, Loki, Mutt and Mongrel, and have them ready to roll out in case Gideon’s found. I don’t want to take any chances.”

Lawe stared back at him in surprise at the four names. Those Breeds were the most highly trained trackers and assassins to come out of the Genetics Council creations. To pull all of them in was a testament to the threat Jonas feared Gideon could become.

And to reveal the fact that they were Bureau operatives was a move Lawe hadn’t expected Jonas to make. Especially Dog, whose cover was still that of a Council-controlled Coyote, though he was known to freelance on occasion where the Council’s interests were concerned.

“Have Rule report back to me tonight after he meets with Diane as well,” Jonas ordered.

Jonas was pushing for that confrontation. Lawe ground his back teeth together, hesitant to confront this issue, or Jonas, much further. The animal inside him was raging to settle the issue of any threat to this mating.

The human side, the icy logic that ruled him, realized the mistake that would be. Whether Jonas or the animal genetics wanted to admit it, Jonas would never deliberately endanger Diane. She was his mate’s sister, he would protect her as much as possible. Still, the fact that she was facing any danger, period, had Lawe’s guts tightening in reflex.

Lawe rose to his feet. “I’ll meet with her.” He couldn’t help the growl in his response or the command in his voice.

He’d be damned if he would allow his brother, a Breed with genetics so similar to his own, around Diane at the moment. The silent fear that Rule could perhaps end up mating her was too great a risk. The fear could just be the possessiveness lashing out rather than any true risk of it. Still, it was a threat he couldn’t ignore.

Should it happen, Lawe knew he’d never control the vicious fury that would erupt inside him against his brother. A brother who had risked his life countless times to save him.

Lawe moved for the door, the tension in his body nearly impossible to control or to hide as he left Jonas’s office and headed for his own.

The rogue Breed cutting a swath of blood through research scientists involved in Breed development was a problem. The young woman the Breed was searching for, and the danger he represented to her and the two research victims she was hiding with, was nothing short of horrifying.

But it wasn’t his mate’s place to handle it or to find either of the missing parties. It was her place to stay safe. He may not have mated her yet, but she was still his mate.

It would still destroy him if she were harmed, or perhaps even killed.

God help whoever so much as scratched her because he would lose his mind, as well as his perspective, and shed a swath of blood that may well destroy the Breeds forever.

She was as essential to him as the very air he breathed.

But as long as he didn’t have her, as long as he maintained his distance, his control, then perhaps, just perhaps he would have a chance—

A chance of surviving, of maintaining control and his sanity if the worst did happen.

It was the only chance he had of holding back the pure, burning rage he could feel ready to ignite inside him. The rage of too many Breed lives lost, too many mates tortured, and far too many nightmares haunting him—

The knowledge that he now understood how a Coyote like Elder, a creature born to mercilessness and blood thirst, had given his life for one tiny, fragile, helpless breeder, sank inside his soul.

He would give his life—he would give his soul—for Diane.