Lora Leigh - Rule Breaker

For his mate, for his Gypsy, he waited and listened. Feeling her hand on his shoulder, her silent support at his side, he did as he’d promised and listened with an open mind.

Orrin Martinez was one of the few whose scent was untainted by more deceit than truth, and Rule was damned if he knew how the old man did it.

He listened silently, his gaze drawn to the DNA results Orrin had demanded and now held in his gnarled hand. That hand shook, trembling so hard the chief finally laid it as well as the papers on the desk. Propping his elbow on the arm of the chair he sat in, Orrin bent his arm and covered his lips with his hand to hide the slight, supposedly uncontrollable tremor there.

He was lying, Rule knew he was lying, but he was damned if he could smell the scent of it. That shouldn’t be possible.

He and Lawe both had risked not just their lives, but the lives of their younger brother and sister to send the proof of Morningstar’s existence, her location and the fate she would soon face were she not rescued quickly.

And no one had come for her.

She and her Coyote mate, Elder, had died in an agony worse than any Rule could envision.

He stared at Orrin now, the long, thick gray braids that fell over the front of his shoulders, a traditional style that the Navajo males rarely used now. The appearance of tradition would have been comforting if Rule didn’t know the man he was facing. If he wasn’t well aware how the Martinez family had turned their backs on his and Lawe’s mother while pretending to search so desperately for her.

It sickened him.

“This report states there were four children.” Orrin’s head lifted then, his gaze moving to Rule rather than Lawe, the older twin by several minutes.

Rule was slouched back in his chair, one booted foot propped on his knee, his black uniform pants still smeared with dirt along one side. Unlike Lawe, who had changed into fresh jeans and a white shirt that his mate, Diane, had waiting for him when they came in from yet another search in the desert for the Coyote teams amassing there.

Diane stood with Lawe, as Gypsy stood with Rule. The women stood between them, silent, listening, a steady strength for their mates.

Lawe sighed as though weary when Rule refused to answer the question concerning that younger brother and sister.

“There were four children.” Lawe finally spoke. “Before fertilization, the DNA of the sperm and ova used were mutated with the Lion DNA. Using the same patriarchal samples, years later, the scientists mutated those with Cheetah and Coyote DNA. The Coyote DNA was that of the one called Elder, the head of their security forces who died with her. Our brother and sister were taken from the labs and moved only days after Morningstar’s and Elder’s deaths.”

“Why were they moved?” Orrin asked, his gaze going once again in Rule’s direction.

Not once did anyone ask why a Coyote was murdered with Morningstar. And Rule had no intention of answering any of the questions directed at him.

“They wouldn’t stop crying.” Lawe finally answered that one as well.

Rule remembered far too well those hours and days after Morningstar’s screams had been silenced. The quiet, inconsolable sobs of the two youths refused to be silenced.

“What do you mean? They wouldn’t stop crying?” Orrin tuned to Lawe, obviously tiring of his game and his attempt to force Rule to answer his questions.

At that point, Rule was damned sick of the charade, though. He leaned forward, dropping his foot to the floor, his gaze locked on the old man.

“Rule,” Lawe muttered warningly.

Beside him, Gypsy tensed, her fingers caressing his shoulder where they lay.

“Have you watched the documentaries?” he asked the chief coolly.

“Rule.” Malachi, the Coyote Breed that Terran Martinez’s daughter Isabelle had mated, moved as though to step forward, or to protest.

Orrin’s hand jerked up in a gesture of silence.

“Let him speak,” he bit out, anger heating his expression as Rule’s gaze locked with his.

“When we cried, when we showed emotion we were taught from birth not to show, then at that age, there were three options.” He held up three fingers as Lawe growled his name once more. “They use that Breed as ‘prey’ in a hunt for the older Breeds, usually Breeds at their home lab. Those raised with them, to test the older littermates’ savagery and lack of loyalty to their own.” He lowered his little finger, leaving his ring and middle fingers raised.

“Dammit, Rule,” Lawe bit out, his warning strengthened with an underlying growl.

Rule smiled, cold, hard, and continued. “They can transfer the Breed to another lab for research, or if they’re considered worth rehabilitating, then they’re retrained.” His ring finger went down, leaving only the insult of the middle finger lifted in unconcern. “Or they’re just taken out and shot like a rabid animal of no worth.” He took his good old easy time lowering his middle finger.

For a moment, a surge of agony filled the room. Male and female pain alike whipped around them. But in that second of uncontrollable emotion, there was also the briefest sense of smug satisfaction.

Someone here knew the truth, knew Morningstar’s fate and the horror of how she had died.

“You are a disrespectful little bastard,” Orrin snapped out painfully.

“And you’re a coldhearted son of a bitch to sit here before your family and pretend you knew nothing of your daughter’s fate or the children she left behind when you were the one who ignored the plea we sent to you! ” He stabbed his finger in the old man’s direction. “To ignore the knowledge that she would die were she not rescued.” Rule came furiously to his feet with a snarl as his mate’s concern reached out to him, wrapped around him. “You received the file, the maps, the pictures, all of it, nearly two weeks before the scientists dissected the living bodies of both your daughter and the Breed who gave his life to try to save her . And yes, old man,” he sneered. “Her youngest cried. Sobs that would not be silenced, and for that, they were in all likelihood killed as well.”

He was furious, enraged. Slapping his hands down on the desk as he leaned forward, nearly staggering beneath the shock rippling through the room, he snarled into Orrin’s pale face. “Now, what else would you like to fucking know?”

“Rule, this isn’t helping,” Gypsy whispered, and he could smell her tears, feel them along the link he shared with her. A pain she felt for his suffering, for the fears that still haunted him.

Moving to the opposite side, Gypsy pressed her forehead against his back, letting him know she was there and the strength of her love open to him if he needed it.

“Rule, enough!” Lawe surged to his feet, his hand landing firmly on Rule’s shoulder, but rather than pulling him back, his fingers gripped it for a long second in shared pain, and in warning. “Enough, brother.” He leaned closer. “Sense what I sense.”

Rule pulled back. His senses merged with his brother’s, something that rarely happened now that they both had their mates.

The shock was horrifying. It rolled and built, pulled from the hearts and souls of those who had loved Morningstar.

All but one, and that one wasn’t Orrin.

Rule focused on each, finally following Lawe’s gaze to the son standing still and silent behind his father, between the wife and daughter there to support him.

“How horrible,” Ray whispered, as though they expected a reaction from him.

A Coyote growl rumbled through the room, followed by a Wolf’s, as both Malachi and Stygian began sensing what Rule and Lawe had already tracked.

“You stink of a lie, President Martinez.” Malachi turned slowly to face the other man with icy suspicion.