An Inconvenient Mate (4 page)

“Yeah, I have to head to bed too.” Chelsea sighed as she looked around the room. “But I’m staying right here unless tall, blond and Breedy shows up.”

Stubborn determination tightened Chelsea’s normally pouty lips as she stared back at her sister, silently daring her to try to make her leave.

Isabelle turned back to both women. “What would I do without the two of you?” Tears flooded her eyes though she forced them back rather than letting them fall.

Liza had been their best friend for years. Though Chelsea was younger, Isabelle had never denied her sister the chance to tag along with them, and because of that, she had become part of the bonds of friendship that tied them together. Their friendship was set in stone, and their concern for each other was always there.

“You would be miserable, lonely and probably living by yourself with a house full of cats instead of two crazy women,” Liza grunted as she headed for the connecting door. “Now, get some sleep. I’ll leave the door open. If you need me, just scream.”

She moved to the connecting room as Isabelle turned to her sister. “You could just do the same.” She all but laughed at her sister’s mutinous expression. “You’re not tall, blond and Breedy, so I’m not sharing my bed with you.”

“And you’d share it with him?” Her sister rolled her eyes. “You might have been all hot and bothered with him, but you forget, Isabelle, I’m your sister. You’re not going to give it up to him any more than you’ve given yourself to any other man. But you’re right. I can just leave the door open.” She moved to the connecting door on the opposite side of the room. “Get some sleep, sis. I’ll see you in the morning.”

In the morning.

Isabelle turned back to the window and stared out at the desert landscape once again. Lifting her hand, she laid it against the window and pressed her forehead into the glass.

How many times over the years had she done just this? Stared into the night and wondered why she was so restless, wondered what she was searching for? Whom she was searching for?

Moving her arms to cross them over her breasts, she rubbed at her upper arms and tried to chase the chill from her flesh.

She felt hot and cold, nervous and yet so weary she couldn’t seem to hold her eyes open. But closing her eyes just brought to mind the sensual threat Malachi had made. That he would fuck her all night long. All day long. Possibly all week long.

Her vagina clenched at the memory of his voice, his gaze, the way his body seemed to wrap protectively around her. The thought of having him wrap himself around her like that after fucking her into exhaustion had her body aching for the sensation of it.

Yes, she wanted him in her bed. She wanted him between her thighs. But strangely, God, she didn’t even know him, but she wanted him in her life. She wanted to share that part of herself that she had never shared before.

Her heart.

While she had stood within his embrace, she had felt warm, protected and secure. She had felt as though nothing or no one could touch her, could harm her. And that was a very dangerous feeling for her to have.

Because she knew better now.

She knew better, and the monster that haunted those fears refused to let her go.

* * *

“Her name is Isabelle Martinez. She’s my cousin, you mangy, fucking Coyote,” Rule growled as he stared at the information on the e-pad he held. “Twenty-five years old, the daughter of Terran Martinez and Ellen Johnson Martinez. Her mother, Ellen, is deceased. She’s the personal assistant to the chief of the Navajo Nation, Ray Martinez, and she’ll be present at the meeting in the morning.”

Malachi heard the edge of concern and anger in Rule Breaker’s voice. Didn’t it just figure. His mate was this bastard’s first cousin. Just his luck. He rubbed at the back of his neck, irritation tightening his muscles as he fought back the need to find her.

Now.

Son of a bitch.

“She’s your cousin, yet, to my knowledge, you and Lawe have never declared your genetic ties with the Navajo Nation,” Malachi pointed out. “If you had, then it would have popped up on the cross-reference I did on my way out here. What makes you think you can claim the tie whenever it suits you to do so, while keeping it a secret at any other time?”

He watched the commander coolly, wondering at the difficulty the other Breed intended to give him where Isabelle was concerned. Where his mate was concerned.

His entire body tightened at the thought, his eyes narrowing back at the commander. “She’s mine,” he stated, attempting to keep the confrontation out of his tone. “Don’t get between us, Rule.”

“I’m not the one you have to worry about and we don’t have time for this anyway.” Rule speared him with a hard look. “My point is that you’re integral to this negotiation, Malachi. I can’t afford to have your attention divided.”

Malachi arched his brows. “Sorry to inconvenience you, commander. I’ll be sure to delay it just for you.”

Rule grunted at the sarcasm. “Inconvenience is exactly what it is. Can’t you just stay the hell away from her for a while? Surely it’s not painful yet? Hell, you didn’t even kiss her yet. It can’t be that bad.”

Malachi stared back at him in disbelief, just as Stygian and Ashley were doing.

“Wow, that’s raw, Rule,” Ashley murmured as she lounged back in the chair she had plopped into earlier. “Do you think maybe we should schedule mating, like you schedule training sessions and stuff? That way, it wouldn’t disturb your schedule near so much.”

“I can only wish it were so easy,” Rule grunted as though unaware she had just sliced at his attitude with the sharp edge of her tongue.

“Her room number,” Malachi stated rather than objecting or challenging the other Breed.

Rule glared back at him. “If you go to her tonight, you know what’s going to happen. Give me a break here, Coyote. At least wait until we’ve found the bastard slicing Council and research scientists to shreds. Just if you don’t mind.”

Malachi lifted his brow. “Evidently I do mind. Do I have to call downstairs and give my security clearance to get her room number? I will if you don’t turn it over in the next three seconds.”

He wasn’t going to argue, growl or challenge. He didn’t need the commander to get what he wanted. It would have simply been easier.

Rule watched him, his blue eyes icy, no doubt looking for a sign of weakness. Rule might be the commander on this mission, but he had no authority over any Breed when it came to mating heat.

The commander had changed over the past month too, Malachi thought. A change that had begun even before his twin had begun carrying the mating scent and drawing back from active status. Even though Lawe hadn’t claimed his mate, he had still shown his awareness of her by taking himself out of active mission status.

Rule Breaker and Lawe Justice had always fought together, even in the labs they had been created and trained in. They had covered each other’s backs, taken bullets for each other and made certain each was protected while ensuring each mission went off in synchronized perfection.

Had the commander changed because his other biological half was no longer there to cover him? It seemed rather hard to believe, especially considering the fact that at times they had fought separately over the past few years and performed with the same stone cold precision as they did together. Anything was possible, but Malachi didn’t consider this one probable.

“Five forty-two,” Rule growled. “She’s just across the fucking hall from you. Now, will you at least consider my request that you wait twenty-four hours? Mating heat and negotiations with your mate’s uncle doesn’t go hand in hand, Malachi.”

“The candle room.” Ashley’s tone echoed with interest now as she sat up in her chair, ignoring the rest of Rule’s statement.

“Damn,” Stygian growled. “I don’t know what scent she was using when we came up the hall, but it was so damned sexy I think even I was aroused.”

“The one she used later was just as good. I don’t know where she got those candles, but the coya would seriously love the person who made them. They smelled like heaven last night. I swear, the scent of lavender had me sleeping like a baby,” Ashley sighed.

And that was nothing less than the truth. The scent of those candles had taken out the stale, acrid scent of too many strangers tracking after one another in the hotel. It was a hotel scent, one all hotels carried and all Breeds found unpleasant. But the candles’ scent later in the night had been relaxing, a soothing blend that had eased Malachi as well, just as the earlier one had been so evocative of sex and seduction that it had intensified his arousal. He should have known the scent was coming from his mate’s room. He should have realized she hadn’t run far.

“Hey Mal-baby, make sure you find out where she got them,” Ashley pleaded prettily. “So I can get some for the coya.”

Ashley’s coya, who was Malachi’s as well, was the much loved, in some cases revered, female alpha of the Coyote packs.

“We need all our senses alert for this meeting.” Rule sighed, casting Malachi another hard glare. “Lawe will be arriving within days, and when he does, our mission here will begin in earnest. Mating her now will only endanger her.”

Malachi felt something shift inside him. A dark edge of primal denial raising its head with a shift in the calm he normally kept himself centered with.

“She’s already in danger.” He knew it. Had sensed it. But it had only been after her friend had whispered something to her and her gaze suddenly raked the room with a flash of terror in the cobalt blue depths.

“You don’t know that, Malachi.” Despite his denial, Rule tensed further, his tone becoming darker.

“Something frightened her, sent a particular scent of fear rising from her,” Malachi stated as he straightened from the wall he had been leaning against, angry tension making him restless. “A fear I’ve only scented after our women were raped in the labs.”

The three Breeds he faced came to instant attention then.

A low growl rumbled in Stygian’s throat. Ashley’s gray eyes narrowed, her hand dropping to the knife sheathed to her thigh as she rose slowly to her feet, but it was Rule’s reaction that, despite the genetic tie to Isabelle, still surprised him.

His lips flattened, nostrils flaring as he flexed his fingers against the arms of the fine leather chair he sat in. Rage flashed in his ice blue eyes, burning like a cold flame before Rule managed to quickly bank the emotion.

The battle for control was short, but obviously difficult. Turning his head slowly, the commander flashed Ashley a look as the corner of his lip lifted, flashing a wicked sharp canine as a rumbled snarl vibrated in his chest.

“I have the room two doors down from her,” Ashley stated, her gaze savage as she gave Rule a sharp nod. “Emma is two doors the other way. Trust me, no one will harm her while she’s in her room.”

Malachi and Stygian were both across from her.

And Rule expected him to stay away from her?

His mate?

His mate who carried the scent of fear and of a woman’s soul scarred in one of the worst ways possible?

Did he have the strength? Malachi knew there was no way he could stay away from her for more than a few hours. The hunger for her was throbbing, not just in his cock, but in his chest. The protective fury that had begun building the second he had seen that terror on her face was hardening inside him.

She belonged to him. Her life was now tied to his and vice versa. Her health, her happiness, her pleasure, was now his responsibility. And if Malachi knew one thing, it was how to fulfill his responsibilities.

“Her sister, Chelsea, is in the room connecting to hers, and her friend, Liza, in the one on the other side of her.” Rule returned to the e-pad, pulling up information as he spoke before lifting his gaze to Ashley once more. “I want a report on her and her friends by morning, and I want to know by God what it is she fears.”

“And the other information you wanted me to gather?” Ashley asked.

The information on four young women, two of which could possibly be the two women the Breeds had been searching so desperately for.

“It can wait,” Rule decided. “It’s waited for twelve years now, it can wait another day to begin the search. Lawe should be here within the next two nights and we expect our suspect to arrive tonight, if he’s not already here. At the latest, he’ll arrive either just ahead or behind Lawe and Diane. I rather doubt we’re going to have time to complete our mission as well as his before he arrives.”

Their mission was to receive acceptance by the Navajo Council chief and it’s head advisor to conduct the search for a Breed that had been systematically killing scientists and researchers attached to the Genetics Council and to a pharmaceutical research company tied to Breed testing and research.

Ashley nodded firmly. “It shouldn’t take more than a few hours to get the information on them. They’re well known enough they shouldn’t be able to hide much of their lives.”

But Malachi was already ahead of her. He didn’t play one-up by informing Rule he had this covered. Let the commander play first cousin, he would turn down no help in protecting his mate.

But neither would he ever depend upon others to protect her either.

“The meetings should end about noon tomorrow.” Rule lifted his gaze to Malachi now. “Just in time for Lawe and Diane’s arrival two days from now. Protect her, learn what danger stalks her. But mating her before Lawe arrives is out of the question, Malachi.” The order in his tone was clear. “After that, I can ensure both your protection and have another team in to cover your duties. Until then, for all our sakes, for your mate’s sake, we need to make the mission priority.”

Malachi nodded sharply. He didn’t argue. He wasn’t one to stand and debate or rage, and he sure as hell wasn’t above lying if the situation called for it. He was, after all, a Coyote Breed. They took the path of least resistance whenever possible. Fighting and raging when they could achieve their objectives in a more efficient manner didn’t seem logical. And Malachi in particular had always felt it best to move around an obstacle rather than punching his way through it.