e to tell her that a confidential contact informed you of the possibility, then there would be no backlash to her, or to you, if it were discovered who your contact was. Your medical designation separates you from many of the laws that hinder me here.”
One of those laws? Going against direct orders from a person’s alpha leader. A mate could face serious charges if her alpha decided to go that far.
Would Del-Rey do that? She had to say at times, she simply didn’t know. Trust was an issue between them. She couldn’t be certain which way he would go in this. She hoped he would accept it, see the value of it and eventually trust that she was doing what was best for them, and any child they conceived.
“Why are you risking this?” Nikki asked her then.
Anya placed her hand against her stomach, feeling the twinges she knew to expect. “I’m still ovulating,” she whispered. “If I conceive now, or in the future, then I want my child safe, Nikki. I don’t want to risk losing Del-Rey’s child on the off chance that the genetics decide to go haywire or something unforeseen comes up. He’s an adult, an alpha. He can risk his life if that’s his choice. I’m not nearly as accepting of that risk to any children we’ll have together.”
“I can understand that.” Nikki nodded as a hard, sharp knock came to the examination room door.
Their heads jerked to it.
“Your alpha,” Nikki said. “I’ll talk to the lupina and contact you within the next twenty-four hours.”
Anya lowered her head, closing her eyes briefly as Nikki strode to the door and unlocked it before pulling it open.
He was standing there, wild, irritated, alpha. It was like a slam of lust surging inside her without the physical pain. Or was the emotional wound just too deep right now to allow her to feel the physical?
She stared back at him, seeing the disarray in his long hair. He must have raked his fingers through it more than once. He did that when he was frustrated or becoming angry. His dark eyes were narrowed, thick blond lashes framing the wicked black.
“What’s wrong?” He strode into the room. “Why have you decided you need the additional hormone shots?”
“I changed my mind.” She gave him a bright smile as she jumped off the examination table. “I guess I just needed someone to talk to.”
He stopped in the middle of the room, his gaze focused, intense on her now. “You have me and your bodyguards to talk to,” he growled. “Why do you need someone else?”
“The restrictions placed on me don’t bar me from talking, Alpha. Just from acting.”
He frowned. “I have a name, Anya.”
She paused and stared back at him silently for long moments. “And I have a brain, Alpha Delgado, regardless of what you think. Are you ready to go?”
She swept past him, moving from the examination room and rejoining the security detail waiting in the hall outside.
He turned to Nikki, staring back at her as though he could will her to give him the truth.
She shook her head, her somber expression giving him more to worry about than to find comfort in.
“You’re making a mistake,” she sighed. “But, with Breed males, I’ve learned, all you can do is let them beat their head against a wall. When it hurts enough or the blood gets thick enough, they stop.” She shrugged.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means you’re just as hardheaded as the rest of them.” She glanced to the door then. “She’s not as easy to manipulate as you think she is. And manipulating her is only going to hurt you worse. There.” She threw him a bright smile. “The advice was free. Do you need anything while you’re here? A shot of common sense perhaps?”
He clenched his teeth before turning on his heel, stalking from the examination room and moving to catch up with his coya.
She strode, shoulders straight, head high, pride draping her like an exquisite cloak as she moved through the underground steel-and-reinforced-concrete corridors to the ground level.
There was no dust here as there was at Base. It was brightly lit, functional, yet still there were areas of greenery built into the walls with growth lights. A small, miniature orange tree grew in one hallway; the controlled atmospheric settings around it kept it healthy and in its natural growth cycle.
Vines grew along one wall. There were glassed-in sunrooms with a complicated system of mirrors that opened along a wide tunnel to allow the sun’s rays inside. Unlike the mountain facility that housed the communications that the labs were networked into, Dr. Armani’s medical facility was warm, friendly. He could understand why Anya would want to visit. There were many things here that Base lacked.
But this wasn’t a military facility, he told himself. Coyotes didn’t care about a little dust and dirt, a few inconveniences. They had the bar, the kitchen, the television. Del-Rey had his mate.
His mate was human.
He nearly paused. When other Coyotes mated, their mates would in all probability be human as well. He pushed through the exit doors just behind Anya and her security detail, his frown darkening.
Dammit, he didn’t trust humans. He trusted Anya and Armani and that was pretty much the extent of it. He was wary even with the lupina, Hope, and the Felines’ prima, Merinus.
He didn’t like humans and he didn’t want them in his base. Except his coya.
Yeah, that was going to go over well.
Fuck!
He could feel it working through him now, the way that woman messed with his mind, made him think, made him want to give her anything and everything she desired.
He’d cross the bridge of the human mate problem when he had to, he decided. Until then, he was faced with another, very intriguing problem: figuring out exactly what his mate was up to. Because he had no doubt she was up to something.
Anya moved into the bedroom ahead of Del-Rey as he opened the door and stood back for her to enter. Sharone, Emma and Ashley had been completely silent during the heli-jet ride back to Base. They had sat across from Anya and Del-Rey, and stared over his shoulder like good little military-trained Coyote soldiers.
Del-Rey hadn’t been happy about it; she could tell. If she hadn’t been so upset, she would have been amused.
She heard the door close behind her as she pulled the jacket he had forced on her off her shoulders and laid it over the chair at the side of the room, before turning to face him. She rubbed at the chill in her arms and fought to ignore the need for his touch.
She didn’t want the chaos that came from his touch right now; she needed to think, to plan. So much was happening, and so many things she had envisioned happening weren’t going to happen. And it hurt.
“What was so important that you had to talk to Armani as a snowstorm was brewing?” he finally growled as he pulled the comm link in his ear free and tossed it to the table at the side of the large bed.
“Evidently, something important.” She shrugged. “Girl stuff.”
She forced her arms down, forced herself to stop trying to rub the warmth into them once again. She’d been cold before; she was certain she would be again before it was all said and done.
“Would you like to tell me what you were doing in Armani’s office?” he asked her. “Or should I begin questioning your bodyguards?”
Her brows lifted as she forced a smile to her lips. “I asked them to schedule an appointment for me, Del-Rey. I’m certain they’ll be more than happy to tell you this themselves.”
There was no lie there. A careful manipulation of the facts, nothing more.
He crossed his arms over his wrinkled shirt. He looked good scruffy, she had to admit. And he did look fine in that tux the night of the party. Del-Rey was a man that could pull off any look he wanted to, even the harried, irritated male.
He finally breathed out roughly as he stared at her, his gaze caressing her from head to toe. “I can smell your hurt,” he said softly. “I can feel it. I’m sorry, Anya.”
She waited, but nothing more came.
“Bu
t not sorry enough to change your mind,” she said painfully.
His expression was heavy; his black eyes raged with emotions that she didn’t know how to interpret.
“Fine.” She shrugged. “What about our marriage ceremony? Or mating ceremony? We need to schedule that.”
She was going to crawl into a hole and strangle on the pain. She watched his expression shift, become closed. She believed it was the worst rejection she had ever faced.
“You’re not officially making me your coya,” she stated hoarsely.
Sofia’s words haunted her now. That it wasn’t official. That Anya was living in a dreamworld, and somehow the other woman had known it.
“Anya, the ceremony doesn’t matter.” He pushed his fingers through his hair as he glared at her. “You’re my mate. That makes you my coya. Period. It can’t get any more official than the mating.”
She stared back at him, forcing herself not to cry, not to scream in rage and agony.
Finally she nodded slowly. “Thank you for sparing me the preparations for the celebration that comes later. I’ll answer Lupina Gunnar and Prima Lyons’s inquiries into that in the morning and let them know that they needn’t prepare for it.”
Humiliation sang through her bloodstream. She wasn’t going to cry, she promised herself. She was too tired to cry, too hurt to want to do anything but curl into a miserable ball of shame.
Hope and Merinus were already making plans. A spring ceremony, the white gown Anya had always dreamed of. A real wedding, just as their mates had given them. A ring. Every woman’s dream, but in the world she now lived within, it would have been even more. It would have been an affirmation, and it came with a certain security where other mates, where the hierarchy of the Breed society, was concerned.
“Anya, dammit,” he growled, his eyes flashing with an edge of anger. “What’s happened to you? You’re more logical than the pain I can sense coming from you. You’re killing me with it.”
She lifted her chin slowly and swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Sorry. Hormones probably,” she finally whispered. “If you’ll excuse me, Del-Rey, I think I’m not feeling very well. I’m going to go to my office for a while. Good night.”
“The hell you are.” His fingers looped around her arm—not hard, his grip wasn’t tight, yet still, she flinched. It was almost painful, that touch, even through her clothing.
He released her just as quickly, staring at her as though confused.
“I hurt you.” He frowned, perplexed, watching her carefully. “What’s wrong? Is this why you went to Dr. Armani? Is my touch suddenly painful to you?”
Anya shook her head. It hadn’t been pain. It hadn’t hurt, not physically. Emotionally. The warmth she needed, the feel of him that she ached for physically, couldn’t overshadow the pain she felt inside.
“I’m fine,” she said again. “Please excuse me, Del-Rey. I just need to shower. Maybe eat.” She gave him a false smile and edged to the door of her office. “Good night.”
She opened the door, slipped inside the little room and nearly sank to the floor as her upper body spasmed with the need to sob. She was his mate, not his coya. Without the ceremony, she would never truly be his coya, his other half. She was just the woman he fucked and nothing more.
Exhaustion filled her, and for the first time since Del-Rey had returned, the mating heat didn’t torment her. She lay down on the couch, pillowed her head on her arm and stared into the darkness until she slept.
She wasn’t aware of Del-Rey stepping into the room or of him crouching beside her. She didn’t know he reached out, touched the tear on her cheek and felt like sobbing himself.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he whispered. “This way is best. For both of us.”
He touched her cheek with the back of his fingers, feeling the silky, cool flesh as he felt a shiver work through her. She was cold, but she wasn’t aroused. He could smell the hurt radiating off her in waves, even in sleep.
Sighing at the brutality of what he’d done to her, aching with it to a depth of his being that he didn’t know existed, Del-Rey picked his fragile mate up in his arms and carried her to their bed.
Undressing her took a while. He moved slowly, carefully, unwilling to wake her from the exhausted slumber she seemed to have slipped into.
When he had left her that morning, she had been laughing, happy, teasing him. She had been making plans and he had known it. He had known it and hadn’t wanted to lose the warmth of her laughter until he had no other choice.
Now he had lost it, and it felt as though he had lost a part of himself.
He stripped and eased into the bed beside her, curled around her cold body and fought to bring back the warmth in her. He was cold himself. Cold to the marrow of his bones, and he couldn’t explain why. The chill had begun when she had walked from his office earlier. It had grown after she had left their bedroom for her office.
He had to protect her. Hope and Merinus lived with the threat of greater danger than Faith or the other Breed mates. More attempts were made on their lives than on the others’. Without the ceremony, the world would never know for certain if she was lover or true coya. Coyotes weren’t Wolves, he told himself again. They didn’t need a ceremony to make something like this official. And she would see in time that it would give her a greater security, and that was what mattered.
She was hurting now, but later, later she would understand, he promised himself. He would find the words to explain it. He’d find a way to make her understand. She had to understand, because her safety was more important to him than a misunderstanding.
He had seen with the first attempt on her life in the mountains that he was going to have to put his foot down. He had to be responsible for keeping her by his side, keeping her safe and well. Nothing else mattered.
Del-Rey awoke the next morning as Anya eased out of his arms and left the bed. He waited, listened, inhaled her scent and still detected no arousal, no need for his touch.
He restrained his concern. Coyotes were different, he told himself again. It could simply be a cycle of rest that the hormones were allowing her, nothing more.
He lifted his lashes enough to watch her pick up the dirty clothes he had left on the floor the night before. Her expression was calm, composed. Okay, she should be all right. The vivid scent of pain wasn’t overpowering his senses. Perhaps it had simply been hormones.
He waited, listened as she took the dirty clothes to the bathroom. Perhaps he’d join her in the shower.
Dresser drawers opened as she collected clean clothes, then he heard the door to her office open, close. Lock. She was using the shower in the other room and had ensured he wouldn’t be following her without her knowledge.
Hell. He didn’t like this. This distance that suddenly seemed to separate them, this feeling that made him cold and irritable, made him wonder what the hell he was doing where his mate was concerned.
Son of a bitch, he’d rather he use in a fistfight than face her this morning, because God only knew what he would do if he saw that pain in her eyes again. He just might end up crying for her.
Hope Bainesmith Gunnar stared at the message in her inbox. The email was surprising, saddening.
Lupina Gunnar. Prima Lyons. It has been decided that there is no need for the official ceremony of status. Anya Kobrin, mate to Alpha Delgado.
So much in such a simple email. So much pain and such a loss of dreams. Hope knew this ceremony was one Anya had looked forward to since accepting her place at Del-Rey’s side, but this decision was perhaps not surprising after the discussion she’d had with Dr. Armani first thing that morning.
Hope wasn’t surprised either when the satellite phone she had laid on her desk rang. Caller ID showed Merinus’s number.
“You got the email,” Hope sighed as she answered.
“Tell me it’s a joke,” Merinus said quietly. “Even Callan was hopeful that this ceremony would take place soon and cement Anya’s position. Without it, her standing
among Del-Rey’s people will be weakened. Their respect for her will erode.”
Hope shook her head. “I’m afraid it’s not a joke.”
“Have Wolfe talk to him,” Merinus urged. “This ceremony is too important, Hope.”
Hope thought about that, she considered it. She sighed. “This is something he’ll have to see for himself, and it’s a fight Anya has to face alone. We can support her if she needs us, Merinus, but there’s little else we can do.”
“Damned stubborn Coyote,” Merinus cursed. “Pain in the ass.”
“For both of us,” Hope said quietly. “Hopefully I can get to the base and talk to her soon. I’ll let you know what I learn.”
Merinus sighed. “I’ll call her soon. That email broke my heart. She needs time I think before talking to me.”
Hope nodded. “I’ll give her a day or so. Until then, we’ll pray.”
“And pray,” Merinus stated. “Poor Anya.”
Poor Anya.
Poor Del-Rey.
Because Hope knew this was going to cause more trouble for the alpha than he could have considered. The mating for an alpha was one thing; acceptance by the men who followed him was another, as she and Wolfe had both learned. For some reason the wedding ceremony that meant so much in the human world meant just as much in Breed society, perhaps more so, especially for an alpha.
If an alpha didn’t accept his mate, then his men wouldn’t accept her either. The past eight months, the order of separation and Anya’s refusal to accept her alpha hadn’t seemed to faze the Coyote soldiers. They had accepted her despite that. Because they had believed the decision was out of Del-Rey’s hands. Once this was learned, Anya’s position at Base would erode, and the problems she faced wouldn’t be easy.
Not for Anya. And most definitely not for Del-Rey.
Hope emailed the only other person she could think of that could help with this particular problem. The one man that might have enough sway to convince his alpha of the error of his ways.
His brother.
Brim.
Brim stared at the email, at the forwarded text plus the lupina’s message, and felt a curl of anger unfold within him. Son of a bitch. Maybe this time they would fight after all.
CHAPTER 20
Del-Rey checked on Anya after she left their rooms. A frown pulled at his brows when he learned she was in the kitchen area. Striding through the base, he moved past the community room and into the kitchen.
With only the sound of movement and four women working in silence, the damned place was eerie. There was an air of heaviness, tension, a subtle scent of pain and anger and an underlying chill that he couldn’t put his finger on.
Anya lifted her head from the bowls and ingredients she was working on. Her eyes were dark, and perhaps there were shadows under them.
“There are cold cuts in the fridge if you need a sandwich,” she told him. “I’ll have egg and assorted meat biscuits in an hour if you’d like to wait.”
“You don’t have kitchen duty.” He hardened his voice.
“No one has kitchen duty.” She shrugged. “Cleanup is a far cry from making certain there’s actually food on base and certain items ready to eat when your teams get hungry, Del-Rey. There are well over sixty soldiers here at last count with several dozen more coming. Someone has to make certain supplies are kept up with.”
“Add it to the duties with rotation,” he ordered her.
He watched her pour milk into a huge bowl of flour and begin working it in. Her head was lowered, her expression calm and composed, when he knew she was anything but.
“Doesn’t work that way.” She shook her head.
“Then make it work,” he bit out. “We have things to discuss that require both our attention, not you standing elbows deep in a bowl of flour.”
She looked up at the clock on the wall. “You can table your discussions for two hours,” she decided. “Pencil me into your schedule after that and let me know what time to meet you where.”
“So we’re scheduling in fucking now?” he snarled, ignoring the other women.
Her head jerked up, a flicker of pain crossing her face. “If that’s the discussion, then I guess that’s what we’re doing.”
He felt almost helpless. He remembered that feeling clearly from his youth. So clearly it punched into his brain and left a growl rumbling in his throat. With a steel cage surrounding him, he had watched, so many times, as his brothers and sisters were murdered before his eyes. Coyote Breeds that were considered flawed, because they had mercy, because they reached out to one another. Children no more than babies that cried for attention or for food when there was none left. Cut down before his eyes. And if he tried to fight, if he tried to save them, then others died as well. They hadn’t been kind enough to go ahead and kill him and put him out of his misery.
They beat him. Lashed him with a whip. Hooked electrodes to him after chaining him to the wall, and tortured him with the electricity they flayed his body with.
He was an example to the others the same as the killings were. They meant to break him, to destroy that mercy he had inside him and prove that a Breed had no soul, honor or principles.
They had failed. But in some ways, they had won as well.
“Excuse me, Alpha.” Ashley moved around him as she stepped from the small closet that held countless cooking implements.
He glanced down at her, saw her shorter nails and frowned.
“Didn’t I just send you to the damned salon?” he growled.
Her eyes widened. “I had dishes last night. A few popped off.”
“What do you mean you