by Lora Leigh
Still, she intrigued him.
She’d surprised him with the answer she’d left him in reply to his warning in Argentina.
Come out and prove my enemy is near. Stalking me is only pissing me off. I much prefer to talk rather than continue looking over my shoulder. If what I suspect is true, we’re working toward the same goal. Combining our efforts would be far more effective.
And now, she was giving him the perfect opportunity to discuss whatever he pleased with her. She had given him similar opportunities after running from the Breed who was determined to claim her.
Too bad he wanted only to use her, just as the traitor within her group did. He had no intention of identifying himself to her. He would only follow her to the prize for which she searched, and he would ensure he possessed it before she could take possession of it.
None of that changed the fact that Diane Broen confused the hell out of him though.
She was an enigma to Gideon, but she wasn’t a fascination. It wasn’t this woman who hardened his dick when he thought of her. The Breed whose dick she did harden would be here soon, though.
Gideon knew he was only perhaps hours ahead of the Breed following her. And that Breed was pissed. Lawe Justice had roared his rage the second he’d left the Bureau of Breed Affairs and stomped to the black SUV awaiting him outside the Bureau.
Gideon had watched him from the shadows across the street, and his gaze narrowed, wondering if he should chance a grin as the Breed stopped and stared toward the area where Gideon had hidden himself.
As though Commander Justice knew he was watched. Knew, and knew the direction from which it came. Like the woman, he would make a fine adversary, but a much more dangerous one if Gideon dared to attempt to harm her.
Unfortunately, they just may become enemies if she threatened to step between him and his quarry, rather than leading him to her. Gideon couldn’t allow that. And he had a feeling the Breed wouldn’t be able to keep her from doing it.
It was regrettable that Gideon needed her to draw Judd, Fawn, and Honor from their chosen identities.
Unfortunately for the Enforcer, though, he’d been delayed in his quest for a while. A flat on the SUV before he cleared the block. That was a stroke of genius and luck, Gideon thought. The nail that had pierced the tire had been put in place the moment the call came down to the garage for the SUV.
Gideon had taken the call, prepared the vehicle, then slipped out to prepare the area for the small projectile.
He’d found it incredibly amusing that he’d been able to slip into the garage of the Bureau so easily. He’d not been able to get any farther, into the bureau’s offices, nor had he been able to sneak a weapon inside. The sensors were too sensitive and impervious to sabotage.
But he had gotten close enough to determine the vehicle Lawe Justice had called down for. Close enough that the garage attendant had tossed him the keys, believing him to be a fill-in for the Breed who’d called in ill.
Duplicating the security badge had been a bitch. It had taken more than twelve hours straight to prepare one that would fool the sensors as well as the guards and the garage attendant.
Luck.
Luck had been on his side for a minute.
The young woman centered in the scope arched her brow curiously as though questioning his inattention to her. His delay in pulling the trigger.
Daring him.
When she dared her mate in the same way, she would learn the consequences of such impulsive foolishness, he thought with an edge of regret. A shame, really, that she had already been marked by the Breed’s scent.
If times were different, if he were the Breed he had been at nineteen, or hell, even twenty-seven when he had been recaptured by the soldiers from the Brandenmore labs. Even then, he’d had hope; he’d remembered what it was like to laugh, to lust, to dream of freedom.
If he were still that Breed, then he would see if a mate could be charmed from her mate.
Once, he could have accomplished that goal, he thought. Or he would have at least had a chance. He would have given it a hell of a try, and had a considerable amount of fun in the attempt.
The woman in the view yawned as though bored and tired of waiting. She gave a little shake of her head and a chiding smile, as though she were berating him for merely watching her rather than confronting her.
What made her believe he would ever confront her?
What made her imagine he would pull the trigger?
He caressed it. His finger stroking over it as he would a lovers flesh as her lips quirked just a bit at the corner as though in a grin.
“Live by the sword and you’ll die by the sword, my uncle always said,” she had commented with a laugh as she had walked with her men days before from the airport in D.C. The Swede who walked with her had shaken his head at her response to his advice that she should proceed with care once they met with Director Wyatt.
She hadn’t heeded his advice. Instead, she had sworn to him that she would find the three they had been sent to collect and she would regret her actions later. This job, she had claimed, was too important. Her niece was too important for her to fail.
She would find all of them once she found Ms. Roberts. They would be with her, Gideon knew, and this woman would attempt to take them back to the Breeds to perform more tests. More brutal treatments.
A knife slicing through flesh just to see what hurt the most.
Gideon knew what they would see, though. He wouldn’t allow it. He hated the woman he was after more than he hated any scientists he had encountered. But even for her crimes, admittedly, a crime a child had committed. As terrible as it had been though, he wouldn’t allow that brutality to happen to her.
Ms. Broen was moving into the area where his prey was suspected to be located. Moving in to take from him the vengeance he’d lived and breathed for far too many years.
He couldn’t allow it.
He wouldn’t allow it.
He’d waited too long, fought for too long. And he wouldn’t be cheated of it now that the end was so near.
His sanity depended on keeping the vow he had made to himself so long ago.
He knew the general area where they were, and he’d given this woman the location. She would get there before he did, but, he would be close, and he would be watching. And once she found the prey, he would be there to steal it from her. If he remembered Judd, and he did, then he knew that the girls would be very well hidden. Very well protected.
Perhaps even sharing his bed.
He had to force back a roar of rage as he focused on the woman once again. Focused on what he knew rather than what he suspected.
He knew once Commander Justice arrived, Justice would be distracted by the past that would haunt him there in the form of the family his birth mother had been taken from.
The same family that had aided Judd and Fawn after Gideon had disappeared into the darkness on the night of their escape.
Terran Martinez had arrived, just as Judd had said he would. An arrangement Scott Connelly appeared to have been a part of. Because Fawn was his daughter.
His teeth clenched as a growl escaped before he could bite it back. He wouldn’t accept that. He couldn’t accept it.
He frowned and glared through the scope as the woman arched her brow imperiously.
Oh yes, she knew he was there. Watching. Waiting. She wasn’t daring him to pull the trigger, she was daring him to take what they were both after.
“Good night.” Did she speak the words or simply allow her lips to form the shape of them?
Regardless, she rose from the chair and strode to the curtains, which she pulled closed with a jerk, shutting out his view of her and leaving nothing to chance. She tucked the bottom edges of the curtains into the window frame, ensured there were no cracks an assassin could use to target her, then turned off the lights to the room.
Gideon sighed at the loss. There were times in the past three days as he followed her, that he hadn’t felt so alon
e in this quest. He had felt that someone, who might even understand his desperation, was there with him. Her battle to save her niece was a noble one. And one he understood. Unfortunately, it was also one she could possibly lose.
She was unique, even to him, and learning more about her would be imperative before he struck to take the prize she would find for him. He didn’t kill innocents.
Even the medical assistants in the Brandenmore labs had been spared. He hadn’t held them responsible for the horrors suffered there. They had fought on many occasions to ease the agony or delay the tests, to allow him a chance to recover before they were repeated.
Several had conspired to aid his escape more than once, only to fail. One had died in the attempt. Another had died when they were caught attempting to ease Judd’s pain. It was their lives or the orders they were given. Gideon never held it against them when they reluctantly followed those orders.
Diane Broen, like those assistants, was innocent of the crimes he found punishable. There was no cruelty in her. Unlike many, though, there was a fierce, burning need to survive and to protect those she loved. Though there were very few she loved. Her sister, her niece. Of the four men she fought with, he saw loyalty from her; he didn’t see love.
With the Swede, though, he saw friendship, respect. Yet, he knew she would die to protect any of them. They were her responsibility, and therefore, under her protection.
Sighing briefly, he lowered the weapon and waited, carefully gauging the darkness and the shadows before moving. There had been other eyes watching her until he’d put a stop to it. The Coyote Breeds employed by the research scientists still attempting to carry on the Brandenmore legacy had tracked her as far as Tennessee before he’d had enough and cut their throats.
They had sent a two-man team to follow her. Their orders were, when and if she found the Bengal who had escaped nearly twelve years before or the two girls, they were to take them before the Bureau of Breed Affairs could move in to protect them.
Gideon had taken care of them instead. This woman he would allow to live, but those Coyotes had deserved only death.
He would allow no other adversary to track or to attempt to harm his prey or the warrior woman tracking them. That was his prerogative alone.
His teeth bared at the thought of it.
The memory of copper-rich blood flowing over his hands sharpened his senses and had a growl threatening to rumble in his throat.
Not yet, he told himself as he broke the weapon down to its individual parts and stored it in the case next to him. Then he donned the hat he had worn earlier. A beaten, stained cowboy hat that shadowed the mark on his face and went with the scuffed-up boots he’d stolen along with it. The scent on the clothing would keep any Breeds from accidentally figuring out that the individual they might pass had no scent of his own.
It was becoming a hassle, that lack of scent. It was an immediate alarm to any Breed who detected it. It required Gideon steal used, worn clothing rather than the nice, new clothing he would have preferred.
His prey would pay for that as well, he promised himself as he picked up the case and began moving quickly to the path that led down from the rise across from the hotel and back to the parking lot.
He was moving past the pickup he had bought days before when he almost stiffened, almost gave himself away. The vehicle pulling in and crossing his path was far too familiar for him to be comfortable.
Keeping his pace, he moved across the blacktop to the metal stairs that led to the third floor and the room he’d taken two doors down from Ms. Broen’s. He’d actually taken two rooms: the one he entered and the one that sat between him and his quarry.
The rooms, connecting as they were by two inner doors, had made it possible for him to slip into her room and position the three electronic listening devices he’d put together leaving D.C. He wasn’t seen entering her room from the cameras outside, nor by anyone who may have slipped by his notice to watch her.
Two of those devices, she had found immediately. He had to give her credit for it because he had actually attempted to keep that from happening this time. The third, he believed, would remain hidden, undetectable by either the Breed detectors or the ones John Thorsson, the man the woman called Thor, tinkered with to pick up the homemade or “silent” listening devices, which could record in deactivated mode for short periods of time.
Gideon was counting on that listening device to give him the current identity of the young woman he was searching for as well as the Breed protecting her. He would have to work past the Bengal Breed he had only known as Judd to gain his revenge.
They were the same age, he and Judd. They had, for a short time, shared the same cells, the same tests, the same hell.
Then, the termination order had come through on them all. They had escaped during transport to the termination facility. Somehow, Judd had managed to free himself before Gideon had and overpowered the guard in the back of the van. Gideon had gone after the driver, but the bastard had managed to flip the van, causing the incisions from an exploratory entrance into Gideon’s side to reopen and begin spilling blood.
He could have died then. He’d prayed for death often enough that he hadn’t cared if he died. Hell, he would have welcomed it with open arms.
She had cared though.
Gritting his teeth, Gideon fought back the memory. She had cared to see him living, to see him tortured further. To see his hell extended in ways none of them could have envisioned.
He found it strange that Judd hadn’t told him who had aided them by slipping the other Breed the keys to his chains. Gideon had always wondered how Judd had managed to gain his freedom, but his injuries and the result of Judd and the girl’s attempts to save him hadn’t allowed for a question-and-answer session.
Gideon’s fists clenched as he moved to the window, standing to the side to gaze through the narrow crack at the side of the curtain. There he watched as the doors swung open on the black SUV and Lawe Justice and his brother, Rule Breaker, stepped from the interior to gaze up at the room Ms. Broen had taken.
Two other vehicles pulled in on each side, both similar to the one Justice and his brother were in. There were three Enforcers in each of those vehicles, a total of six to complete the eight-man team commanded by Justice and his brother.
Ms. Broen’s Breed was taking no chances with her safety. Seeing them, though, recognizing the threat they represented forced a growl from his throat. He’d known they would arrive soon, but the complication and the animal that threatened to overtake him sent a punch of adrenaline and feral fury surging through him.
They dared to attempt to get in his way? To attempt to steal the only solace he had, the only hope he had of finding the girl and gaining his vengeance? He wouldn’t allow it.
He would kill them all before he would allow them to steal all he had worked for or the only chance he would ever have at finding peace.
Lawe moved up the steps while Rule held back, staying close to the SUV. Gideon stepped to the table where the small receiver and headphones were set up.
The commander, Lawe Justice, was known to be the right hand of the director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs. If the director knew something, then Commander Justice knew it. He was curious as to what information could be gleaned in this meeting. Or if the woman inside the room would kick the Breed out as quickly as he had entered.