by Lora Leigh
but on a much more different level than before. The only time his sleep had been disturbed had been if a presence had paused too close to the door for the animal’s comfort. And that had only happened a few times.
Now, awake, he watched the sun rise outside the narrow slit of the windows and hesitated to leave the warm weight of his mate.
But, he had a meeting. Getting out of it wasn’t an option.
He wanted to know who had called Isabelle’s father and who had attempted to force her family to convince her to leave his embrace. To use something as traumatic as the loss of her aunt and the tragic event of her death against Isabelle’s father.
The only way to learn the answer to that question was the meeting Rule had arranged with her family. Terran, Ray and Orin Martinez had come to his room, intent on saving Isabelle from the monster who had supposedly allowed her aunt to suffer a horrendous death.
Did Morningstar’s family even know how she had died? That, like many of the mates of the captive Breeds, she had been mercilessly dissected while still living? No anesthesia, nothing to dull the inhuman cruelty of the lethally sharp scalpel, she had been laid open and each of the internal changes mating forced on her carefully notated.
There were few who had survived that particular research practice. And never had a female mate survived it, human or otherwise.
Placing a gentle kiss to the top of Isabelle’s head, Malachi pushed himself from the warmth of her body and left the bed, his lips quirking at the discontent in her drowsy little moan.
She didn’t like losing his warmth any more than he liked being forced to attend this meeting rather than remaining with her. But, the means the unknown messenger had used to hurt his mate was unacceptable. He needed to know who to punish for the pain that had resulted in his Isabelle fighting back tears.
“Where are you sneaking off to?” Drowsy amusement filled her voice as he glanced back at her.
Rolling to her back, Isabelle watched him with cobalt blue eyes and a decidedly appreciative gleam in her eyes.
“I have a meeting,” he told her, finding it excessively hard to turn away from her and continue to the shower. “It shouldn’t take long though.”
“Oh yeah? How long?” She stretched invitingly beneath the sheet as he turned to her from the bathroom doorway.
The sight of lush feminine curves barely shrouded by the expensive sheets and pouty, kiss-swollen lips were a temptation no mortal man should be forced to ignore.
His cock was steel-hard and throbbing, his balls tight and desperate for release.
He may just have to choke the answers he needed out of her father to ensure he returned to her quickly.
If only it were that easy.
Tightening his jaw against the sensual demand that he return to her, Malachi forced himself through the bathroom doorway instead.
But, he caught that smile that tugged at her lips. The adorable, sensual little curve that assured him she had very fond memories of the night they had just spent in each other’s arms.
And, not all of it had been sexual.
She had told him of her aunt’s disappearance, before her birth, and the guilt her father had always felt that he hadn’t been with her.
He’d not gone to school that day because he had wanted to go tracking. He and several of his friends had slipped off to track a lone wolf that had been plaguing several of the ranches. His sister had known he wasn’t at school, she had thought he didn’t feel well. But, he had always felt that if he had been with her, perhaps she wouldn’t have been taken.
Terran could have assured him that nothing could have kept her from being taken. Once the Council chose a breeder, they were known to go to impossibly insane lengths to acquire her.
The genetic research that had gone into each Breed had been exacting. The research that went into both the DNA required from the female, as well as the genetic information from the animal breed, was exhaustive.
The Council’s requirements for each were high, but for the breeder, they preferred those women born with what they called the earth based gifts.
Native American, Romanian, Irish and Scots, and any bloodline suspected to carry psychic gifts. For some reason, those genetics, when combined with the predators chosen, had created the strongest, most powerful Breeds.
Rule Breaker and Lawe Justice were two such examples. Though no one was entirely certain what the brothers’ greatest strengths were. One thing was for sure though—there was no doubt that the genetics that went into each Breed hadn’t just made them better fighters, but better manipulators and leaders as well.
As a commander, Rule excelled where he had been restless and therefore rather testy as an enforcer.
His brother on the other hand was a strategist unlike any Malachi had come up against, other than Jonas Wyatt.
Dressed and ready to face the family she was unaware had returned to the hotel, Malachi stepped back to the bedroom and watched her as she lay dozing in the bed.
She had cried when she had told him of her mother’s death on her seventh birthday. Holding her had been all he could do to ease the pain she had felt that long ago summer.
She had related some of her adventures. Her trips to England and to Rome, to Greece and to Japan. He knew about her first puppy, the kitty that had run away when Isabelle was ten, the changes in her brother, Linclon, after he had returned from the army wounded several years ago and the trials and tribulations of her younger sister, Chelsea.
He knew Liza was her dearest friend, and he knew when she mentioned the fact that they lived together, there had been a hint of carefully hidden pain and fear.
Though Isabelle didn’t want to return to the house, not once had she asked him to protect her nor had she revealed the reason for that fear.
If Terran Martinez and his family didn’t have the answers he needed today, then he would confront both Chelsea and Liza. They were already wary of him, though clearly not frightened. He had a feeling both girls would be willing to talk, especially once he explained the hazards to every living human involved in the cover-up should someone strike out at his mate.
Dressing in a gray silk suit, white fine cotton shirt and blue and gray striped tie, Malachi slipped his feet into expensive leather shoes and returned to the bedroom.
Isabelle was still dozing. Her eyes were closed, her senses relaxed. Sleep almost had her again.
Moving to the bed, he kissed the top of her head gently before straightening and leaving the room.
The sooner he completed the meeting, the sooner he could return to his mate and learn more of the details of her life, the little quirks that made her unique and enjoy the sense of humor that never failed to draw a smile from his lips.
Leaving the room he checked the door quickly before stepping across the hall to the room that had once been Isabelle’s and was now Ashley and Emma Truing’s.
On each side, Isabelle’s sister Chelsea and her friend Liza were still registered. The two girls had come to the room the night before after Isabelle had called them. They had been as outraged over the lies that had been told to Isabelle’s father as Isabelle was.
Turning up the hall he moved quickly to the small meeting room the hotel had set up for the Breed visit. Rule had sent a text earlier that the Martinez family was on their way for the meeting. However, the chief had warned him that Terran had no intentions of revealing the identity of the individual who had called.
Perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps he wouldn’t. But Malachi would make damned certain he knew the risks to his daughter and the consequences should Isabelle be hurt because of his refusal to speak.
Sliding the key card into the lock, Malachi stepped into the room, then came to a slow, wary stop. The Martinez men weren’t the only ones who were awaiting him.
Rule stood to the side of the room watching silently as Isabelle’s friend Liza dried her tears and Chelsea hung her head, staring at the floor somberly.
There was more going on here than whatever
information Terran was hiding.
“Mr. Morgan.” Terran rose to his feet, his expression more heavily lined than it had been the evening before, his dark eyes filled with sorrow. “I hope you will pardon my transgressions yesterday. I beg your forgiveness as I will be pleading with my daughter for hers after this meeting.”
Malachi lifted a brow curiously as he glanced over at Rule. The other Breed shrugged with a discomforted shift of his shoulders. The formal politeness of the apology and the pain that flowed from Terran was thick enough to cause Malachi’s hackles to rise.
“Chelsea?” He looked over at the younger girl. “Is everything okay, little sister?”
Her shoulders jerked, her breathing hitched as a sob nearly escaped. Placing her hand over her lips as she lifted the other in a gesture to stop, she turned her back on him.
Malachi could smell the tears.
The evening before, he’d noticed both girls had acted oddly after Isabelle had told them what her family had done. Her father’s anger seemed to have especially upset both girls.
“Everything’s obviously not okay,” Liza spoke up at that point, her red-rimmed eyes full of not just pain, but anger as she turned back to Malachi. “Isabelle is like a sister to me, Malachi. She’s the best friend I have in this world. And when she told us last night what happened, I had a feeling I knew exactly who had done it, and I was right.”
His gaze flicked to Terran. The other man looked grief- stricken, and filled with rage. He turned back to Liza.
“Are you going to tell me who it was?” he asked, his eyes narrowing on her.
Her lips trembled for a brief second before she steadied them, lifted her chin and said, “The man who attacked her in her own home and nearly raped her. If Chelsea and I hadn’t come home when we did, he would have raped her in her own living room.”
Tears spilled from the girl’s eyes again, but she continued bravely. “My dad had given me a gun. I pulled it from the closet and hit him in the back of the head with it. It gave her time to get away from him. When she jerked it from me, Chelsea and I kept her from filling his ass with buckshot. We should have let her do it. But all I could imagine was him suing the three of us and getting away with it.”
It had been known to happen. Which was neither here nor there. It didn’t matter in the end. Once he had the identity of the man, the three women wouldn’t have to worry about being sued, they would only have to worry about what color to wear to his funeral. Black for grief, though he doubted they would choose such a respectable, somber color for the event. Perhaps red, he thought, for the blood the son of a bitch was going to shed.
“Liza, I want that name.”
“You’ll kill him,” Chelsea cried out as she swung around to face him. “Then Isabelle will be pissed with us. And God forbid you be arrested for it, because she would kill us. You don’t know what she’s like when she’s pissed, Malachi.”
“Obviously, courageous and daring,” he stated with no small amount of pride. “But, I prefer she not have to be courageous and daring again with this particular individual, and there’s no doubt he won’t attempt it again.” He glanced to Terran. “It’s the same man that called you?”
“She’s my daughter,” Terran rasped. “I’ll take vengeance.”
“God save me from all this familial guilt and self- punishment,” he snapped, growing more furious by the moment. “I’ll have his name and I’ll have it now. If I don’t, I promise the two of you I’ll take Isabelle as far as possible from this place and you’ll be lucky if she can convince me to visit once every five years.” He turned to her father. “And if that’s the case, then you can forget knowing any grandchildren she’ll have because my faith in your ability to tell us anything that could endanger that child would be nil. Now one of you had better fucking open your mouths.” His voice rose with the last words, his anger beginning to slip past the calm he always forced upon himself.
Chelsea and Liza stared back at him in shock.
“Holden Mayhew.” Terran gave him the name he wanted. “He’s the manager . . .”
“Of the Tri-Bar Ranch bordering yours.” Malachi nodded as his fists clenched, his body tightening with rage.
The man had fists like anvils. Not that he was any match for a Breed, but for a woman as delicate and fragile as Isabelle, it would have been like being mauled by a grizzly.
“I’ll take care of it . . .” A piercing phone alarm began emanating from both Rule and Malachi’s phones.
Malachi’s eyes widened as he jerked it from his belt activated the display.
“He has her, Mal.” Emma’s face was already swelling while blood oozed from her nose and split lips. “Ashley’s down . . . Ash . . .” The phone fell.
Malachi was racing for the door the second the words made sense and running the short distance down the hall. He was aware of Rule behind him, shouting orders and pulling in the team being kept on a lower floor. The Martinez family was running behind, the father on the phone now, shouting orders as well as they all raced to Malachi’s room.
Stygian was slamming from the door further up the hall as Malachi made the turn down the wing where his, Ashley and Emma’s rooms were and skidded to a halt at the opened door of his room.
Ashley was down. Valiant, primpy, girly Ashley with her artificially colored locks, her fake nails and girlish innocence. The pride of the coyote packs, and everyone’s little sister.
Emma was beside her, weak, but still valiantly trying to stem the blood pouring from her sister’s chest wound as she sobbed with heartbroken fear.
“Ash . . . Ash please . . . Please don’t leave me, Ash . . .” she was crying, her voice weak, dazed and in shock as Malachi and Rule slid to their knees beside her.
“She won’t wake up, Mal,” Emma whispered, turning her face to him as Rule quickly began assessing the wound and Stygian raced to them with a med-kit.
What the phone display hadn’t shown was the other side of Emma’s head. Her hair was coated with blood, dripping with it as she stared back at him with eyes nearly black with shock.
“We have her, Emma.” Gripping the coyote female’s shoulders he quickly ran his gaze over her as the room began to fill with Breeds. “Where is Isabelle, Emma? Did you see where he took her?” He was screaming at her. Panic and terror were clawing at his guts with razor-sharp talons.
Emma shook her head, obviously trying to fight off the dizzying weakness of her wounds. “He smells like motor oil,” she whispered haltingly. “Isa cried for Ashley, but he hit her because she knocked the gun out of his hand. It’s under the bed. He hit me first, took out Ashley then grabbed Isabelle. Isa took your shirt.” She lifted her gaze to him again. “She’s only wearing your shirt.”
“Let’s move.” Malachi was on his feet, his gaze slicing to the tracker Rule had brought with them.
Braden Arness was one of the best they had, and the woman at his side, his mate, a Navajo empath that could find a fucking needle in a haystack.
Braden grabbed Malachi’s shoulders, but he was expecting it. He stood still, the animal inside him snarling for action as the Breed inhaled the scent just beneath his ear and again at his lower neck.
It was there that the mating scent was strongest during the first stages of the mating heat. It was from there that Braden would have the scent of Malachi’s mate, as well as the scent the shirt would carry.
Releasing him, Braden turned but his mate, Megan, was already hurrying for the door. “I told you something wasn’t right,” she reminded her mate furiously as they headed from the door. “I knew the pain I felt was tied to this. God, Braden, I should have looked further.”
“We’ll find her,” Braden promised. “It’s okay, honey, we’ll find her.”
And Malachi could only pray the tracker was right, because God help him if he lost his mate. Still, the howl that tore from his throat and echoed through the corridors of the hotel was haunting, filled with rage and grief. A coyote’s mate was in danger. God help the bastar
d responsible because now death was his only option.
Chapter Ten
You held my heart in your hands.
I felt its warmth, its power, and its promise.
“Holden, don’t do this, please.” Fear crawled up Isabelle’s back as she fought the sickening pain caused by the grip he had on her wrists as he dragged her down the stairs with him.
She couldn’t believe this was happening. She couldn’t believe he would have lost his mind to the point that he thought he could shoot one of the few coyote Breed females, and kidnap her and get away with it.
“You’re hurting me, Holden,” she cried as the dagger-like sensations stabbed at her wrists at every point that his flesh touched hers.
“Do you really think I give a fuck, you stupid little whore?” he screamed furiously as he dragged her down another flight of stairs. “You and those fucking bitches up there have just about ruined everything. All you had to do was be your usual stuck-up bitch self and stayed there alone after that Breed left. That was all you had to do.”
He gave another hard jerk at her wrists as though in retaliation for the perceived slight.
The harsh tug as she made that first, stumbling step to a landing caused Isabelle to lose her balance and twist her ankle. She went down hard, fighting to catch herself to lessen the chances of serious injury.
Holden refused to release her wrists as she went down. The lack of support and her inability to hold herself up had her falling down the next step, her hip colliding against the edge painfully.
“Fuck! Keep it up bitch and I’ll leave you to bleed out like I did that whore Breed.”
Isabelle screamed out in pain as he yanked at her wrists at the same time his fingers buried in her hair and used the thick length to jerk her up.
“He’ll kill you!” she screamed out at him, the pain and the humiliation enraging her. “Malachi will kill you, Holden. You know he will. You stupid bastard, you just possibly killed one of the most loved Breed females in the world. There’s no way they’ll let you live.”
She kicked at him, sobbing at the pain as he threw her against the wall before tossing her behind him once again.
“Fuck you, bitch,” he sneered. “He’s not going to kill anyone. He’ll be too busy chasing after you and the rest of them will follow suit. And I’ll be far far away.”
“You can’t run far enough.” She resisted, pulling her weight back and fighting his hold every inch of the way. “You can’t find a hole deep enough to hide in,” she spat in his face. “You’re a dead man walking.”
Ashley wasn’t dead. She had seen the other girl moving, watched her eyes open as Holden dragged her from Malachi’s room to the stairwell in the next wing.
Emma would have contacted Malachi immediately. She wouldn’t have waited. God, she had to be conscious enough to have contacted Malachi.
Where was he?
She stared behind her, looked up, fighting to catch a glimpse of him, to catch a glimpse of anyone that could report the abduction.
“You’re going to make me a hell of a lot of money, bitch.” He laughed at her attempt to break free, the pain shooting through her wrists making her weak.
Dazed from the confusing effect of his touch on her wrists, and the earlier blow to her head that he had used to keep her from escaping the room as Emma and Ashley rushed in, Isabelle found it more difficult to focus by the second.
“You won’t get to spend a penny of it.” She stumbled on the next landing again, crying out brokenly as her knee connected with the unyielding metal beneath her.
“Son of a bitch, what’s your fucking problem!”
The blow to the side of her head was humiliating. Not really hard enough to be disabling, just enough to rattle her senses and draw another hoarse cry from her lips.
Holden laughed, though the sound was filled with mockery and fury.
“If you had just been smart enough not to fight me that night,” he snapped. “All you had to do was lie there and take it like a good little girl and everything would have been fine, Isabelle. I’d have married your stupid little ass, given you a kid or two and life would have been good. I’d have you, your daddy’s ranch, and the respect I deserve. But you had to go fuck a Breed, didn’t you?”
“I would have died before I would have done anything but killed you,” she screamed furiously as the pain became excruciating. “I should have killed you while I had the chance.”
“But you didn’t, did you Isabelle? You let that puke-faced little sister of yours stop you. That was your second mistake.” He was up in her face, nose to nose, his rough features twisted into a monstrous mask of anger. “The first was denying me.”
A heavy, merciless hand gripped her jaw, pushing her head against the wall as he seemed to be trying to push it through the cement.
“Why are you doing this?” Isabelle cried out as he released her jaw.
The next second an openhanded slap knocked her to the side. The grip he still maintained on her wrists was the only thing that kept her from tumbling down the steps as she lost her balance.
She was weak, the pain rushing through her was worse than it should have been. Far worse. But he wouldn’t let go of her. He kept touching her, and for some reason just his touch was like a thousand blades cutting into her flesh.
“Hurts doesn’t it?” he rasped as he began dragging her down the steps again. “They were right about that. It hurts bad enough you can’t even fight me.”
They, who the hell was “they”?
Isabelle shook her head as she fought to make sense of what he was saying.
“What did you do to me?” She could barely breathe, the pain was building so much.
“I didn’t do it, stupid,” he bit out in disgust. “You did it to yourself when you let that dirty coyote knot you. If I’d known you like fucking dogs, slut, I would have brought mine over for a visit.”
Isabelle shook her head, let herself fall against the wall and dragged back on his hold again as she tried trip them both.
He laughed at her efforts.
“Maybe if you’re a good girl the men waiting for you outside will let me fuck you before they start experimenting on you. Like I didn’t know who the hell they were,” he snorted. “Only Council scientists pay that kind of money for a Breed’s fuck, and they only pay that much for a special kind of fuck.” He threw a tight, cold smile over his shoulder. “A mate. Are you his mate, sugar?”
Malachi would kill him.
Holden wouldn’t make it out of the hotel . . .
The thought was heralded by a howl that seemed to echo through the stairwell, sharp and piercing, filled with rage and the promise of retribution.