Lora Leigh - Coyote's Mate

“You’re too softhearted,” he scoffed. “Death happens every day. “This man,” he tapped Cavalier’s picture, “watch him closely.”

“Is he an enemy?” She stared up at him, feeling her heart clench. She liked Cavalier. She never talked to him, she wasn’t allowed around the male Coyotes, but there was something haunted and sad in his eyes.

“Enemy or friend, I haven’t decided yet. Have Sharone watch him closely. She interacts with the male Breeds more than you’re allowed. Correct?”

“Correct,” she said heavily. “You’re not coming for them yet, are you?”

“Not yet,” he told her. “We’re going to weed out the chaff before we come in for the harvest.

There’s no other way to do this, Anya. Not and maintain your safety as well as the female Breeds you’re trying so hard to protect.”

Sharone had warned her that to do this right, it would take him years. She hadn’t believed it. She did now.

“Graco is certainly a spy,” he warned her then. “We have proof of it. Have him transferred if you can do so without suspicion.”

She nodded. “Father and the scientists make that decision. They normally follow Father’s recommendations though.”

Her father was head of security and training, and he listened to her opinion, he valued it. The fact that she was betraying him haunted her often. The fear that he could pay with his life for her actions was a constant.

“You won’t kill my father?” she asked him again. She asked him each time they met, to be certain. “You won’t hurt him?”

“Your father won’t die,” he promised her. “I promised you I wouldn’t harm your family, Anya.”

She inhaled heavily. “I’ll make certain Graco is transferred. I’ll get word to you when it’s arranged.”

“Be brave, Anya.” He surprised her with the words, with the deepening of his voice. “Nothing worth having comes quickly.”

She nodded bleakly. “Freedom is worth fighting for,” she whispered. “It’s worth dying for.”

Her friends weren’t animals. The Coyotes created in the labs she worked and lived within were created to follow orders, to be cold, to be hard, but Anya had seen so much more in them over the years. She prayed she would soon see them free.

FOUR YEARS LATER

Del-Rey stared at the young woman standing on the other side of the table as he and his lieutenants studied the diagrams she had brought with her. Electrical lines, water pipes, tunnel access beneath the labs, security weaknesses—she had brought everything they would need. But one crucial key was missing, and he dared not tell her that.

An ace.

Every great mission needed an ace. That one card that he knew would trump all opposition—that trump was Anya herself. Her father was head of security and training. Two cousins were team leaders in security. Various relatives worked within the labs. She was the baby of the family, cherished by father and cousins, and by the Coyotes that remained in the labs, she was seen as their greatest treasure.

They would die for her, die with her or die trying to save her. It wouldn’t matter to them. If she said, Walk through hell for me , then those men and five women within that damned lab would head to the bowels of the earth with a smile.

There were twenty left. When they came out, they would join the forty men he had already amassed over the years. All Coyote males, hardened and cold as death. They had only their honor, which they had been taught had been bred out of them, and the principles that brought them together.

His men outnumbered those inside, but he was betting when he took the ace, the Breeds in those labs would cheer. There wasn’t a one that was comfortable with leaving her behind.

But he knew the cost to the young woman that had become an integral part of his life over the past six years. She had weeded out the chaff, made certain nothing but loyal Breeds remained.

She had done her part. He had agreed to her terms, and he was going to break the deal before it even began and she wouldn’t even know it before it was too late.

“Father and my cousins Ivan and Donan will have their teams here.” She pointed out the general areas that the security teams believed were weak. “They aren’t aware of the tunnels that lead from the labs to this cave.” She pointed out the cave. “I asked Father if the scientists didn’t have secure access underground and he said no. There is no other access. But I found the tunnel myself and followed it.”

And she was damned proud of herself. Hell, he was proud of her, even though his guts cramped at the thought of what could have happened if she had been caught.

“We have to do this soon,” she told him. “Enough of your excuses, we have only months and the Council will be moving me to St. Petersburg for admin training there in the offices of the Federation Secret Forces. If that happens, then all these years have been wasted.”

“And when it happens, what then?” he asked her. “What happens to the humans who worked within your labs?”

“Father will take care of me,” she told him confidently. “He’s already attempting to have the decision reversed, along with the scientists there. If the Breeds there escape, then the security forces will be reassigned. They will find the fault that will be programmed into their new security system and believe that my trainer overlooked my obvious incompetence to make himself appear brighter for having a protégée. I’ve seen what they do when this happens. They drop both trainer and protégée, who are then lucky to work in the factories.”

“A factory suits you then?” he asked her curiously.

Her smile, impish and teasing, curled at her lips. “I will talk Father into going to America then.

It’s much warmer than Siberia.”

This was true enough, and she would indeed be taken to America. Though her father would not be traveling along with her. Del-Rey would be though. He had plans. Plans he had already set into motion, and Anya figured into many of them. Once this rescue was carried off, they would go to Colorado, petition the Wolf Breeds for an alliance and join the Breed society.

It wouldn’t be easy to convince the Wolves to allow an alliance, but he had proof of their work over the past years. Ten years living in the shadows, being no more than ghosts, free yet chained by the bonds of being forced to hide who and what they were from everyone.

“I’ll contact you soon,” he said.

He was lying to her, and not for the first time. For six long years, he had lied to this beautiful woman-child. He had watched her grow from a gangly teenager filled with fire and a thirst for her friends’ freedom. He had watched her plot, plan and implement his orders from a distance.

She was a fucking genius in administration and personnel. Intuitive, she could take a look at a group and damned near size them up instantly. She’d already done it with his men, and he had to grit his teeth when she informed him several of his men were too damned lazy. Hell, they were Coyotes, they needed a few faults or they’d be fucking Wolves.

There was something about her though, something he could never put his finger on, that drew him. Even when she was too young to be amused by or drawn to him, still, she had drawn him.

“I don’t want to be contacted soon, Del-Rey,” she informed him fiercely. “I’m only months from my birthday. This can’t be put off any longer.”

“I will contact you before you’re transferred,” he told her firmly. “The rescue will take place before then, I promise you this. It’s time for you to trust me, Anya.”

She glared back at him in confusion. “But I do trust you. I’ve always trusted you and you’ve always dragged your heels. I’m starting to worry now.”