Jacob's Faith (27 page)

He had known Marshal would come. As Jacob’s trainer, only he had the knowledge to track him. But Jacob hadn’t expected him this soon. And he had never imagined he could pass all the alarms so effectively.

Marshal sneered in response. “A few perimeter alarms? Really, Jacob. I had heard your security measures were much better than I found. I had come myself after you took out the force I sent last night. I didn’t expect so few men, or alarms.”

Which hopefully meant that Stygian was aware they were within the house. Jacob hadn’t expected another force to move in quite so soon, but the information they needed had dictated the lack in security, which would allow them to breach the house. Always be prepared for the unexpected, he thought with a sigh. His lust had endangered Faith, his need for her had put her in the line of fire.

“My men are there.” Jacob shrugged, containing his own smile of amusement.

Confidence in the face of the enemy. Never let them see you sweat. The old rules were the hardest to forget, and now he used them to his advantage. Never show weakness.

A flash of worry crossed Marshal’s expression.

“Check again,” he spoke into his own comm. link.

How many men were with him? Had Marshal taken any of the Enforcers out, he would be gloating over it by now. He was filled with his own self-importance, his utter confidence in his own abilities. It had been his downfall more than once.

Jacob stood firmly in front of Faith as she moved closer to his back, allowing him to shelter her for now. It would be best if the men who watched her were unaware that she was more than capable of protecting herself. Her delicate build, her air of frailty would only work in her favor. And in Jacob’s.

“What are you doing here, Marshal?” Jacob asked him curiously, keeping his anger, his hatred of the man carefully controlled. “I thought the Council had given up on recapturing us. You should be more than aware of the trouble this will cause for your superiors.”

Marshal frowned. “This has nothing to do with the Council,” he grunted.

His gaze went to what little of Faith he could see, sheltered as she was behind Jacob’s body.

“We just need your woman for a while.” He smiled in lustful anticipation. The look had Jacob tensing with rage. “We promise to return her, perhaps the worse for wear, but alive, in a few days.”

Jacob crossed his arms over his chest, wondering where the hell Stygian and his men were. Now would be a good time to drop in.

“You must take me for a fool, Marshal.” Jacob fought to keep his voice mild, to keep his rage under control. “This is my mate you’re speaking of. I think you know well I won’t let her go.”

A brief frown crossed Marshal’s face. Jacob had been the Breed least likely to buck his orders at the Lab. Jacob had played the game well, biding his time until they could escape, careful to keep all hints of aggression contained. The perfect lapdog, Marshal had once called him. Jacob swore he would rip the man’s throat out first chance he got.

“I can kill you, then take her.” Marshal shrugged. “What good will you be to her dead?”

Jacob felt Faith tense behind him. He also felt her arm moving, sliding around her side. Damn, he bet that gun was still tucked into her back pocket. Keeping his actions protective, he reached back with one arm to secure her to his back. At the same time, she slid the Colt revolver into his hand. It was little enough, but it might be all that would protect them until help arrived.

“What good will she be to me if you take her?” he countered softly, his tone deadly. It was time the master learned that the pupil no longer followed his lead. “You know I won’t release my mate, Marshal. So evidently you came to kill me anyway.”

Marshal smiled. A baring of teeth, a cold display of cruelty.

“Emotional attachment, Jacob? Didn’t we teach you better than that during training?”

And they had. Years of punishments or brutality he still remembered only in his dreams, they had taught him to never care, to never let another become important to him.

“It has little to do with emotion.” Jacob shrugged, though in that moment, in that single instant, he knew better. He knew it had everything to do with a heart he thought was missing, and was only now realizing had survived, scarred, but intact. A heart that belonged only to Faith.

“No emotion?” Marshal asked him, his expression condescending. “Then you have no problem releasing her.”

“She belongs to me.” Jacob gripped the gun, his stomach tightening in warning as he watched the three men who faced him. “I marked her, I mated her. She’s mine.”

“She will never conceive.” Cold calculation lit the other man’s eyes. “Give her to us, Jacob. We will return her, I promise this, capable of conceiving.”

What had they done to the two women they had attacked? Terror struck Jacob’s heart. Had they somehow forced unmated Breed women to conceive? With what? The question sent ice spreading through his body.

“Conception isn’t my concern, Marshal. Unlike the Council, I leave such things up to a higher power. I will not release my mate to you.”

“You make it sound as though you have a choice, my friend,” Marshal laughed in quiet amusement. A cold, hard sound that underscored the evil in his heart. “I didn’t ask you to release her. I ordered you to, Jacob.”

Jacob slid his finger over the trigger of the gun as he noticed the slight shadow that edged by a window behind him. He watched the wavering image from the corner of his eye in the mirrored shelves beside Marshal. So far, the soldiers with him were more concerned with Faith than any of the Enforcers that may have defeated their men outside. Help was here. The only problem left was to figure out exactly what was going on.

“I no longer follow your orders, Marshal,” Jacob reminded him, now watching the men more closely for any signs of aggression. “And neither does my mate. You will not take her.”

Marshal sighed heavily. “We will return her,” he argued as though it would make a difference.

“After how many of your men have raped her?” Jacob asked tightly, remembering the reports of the two Breed women who had been attacked. “This woman carries my mark, my scent. She belongs to me. I will allow no other man to touch her, you know this.”

“Those women were unmated.” Evidently Marshal had no concept of the horrors he had brought on those women. “We merely played for a while with them. We will guard your woman with more care.”

Marshal’s hand moved, clasping the weapon at his side as the two soldiers brought their automatic rifles up a few inches higher, aiming them straight at Jacob’s heart.

“Release her to me, Jacob,” Marshal ordered again. “Or I may have to get testy. You know how unpredictable I am when I get testy.”

“Unpredictable?” Jacob questioned the word. “Rabid, you mean? You are like a diseased dog, Marshal, that needs to be put down. I would never trust you with my woman.”

“You are not looking at the bigger picture, you fool!” Marshal finally spat out. “She is trying to conceive. We cannot allow untested conception, Jacob. You know what it could mean to the future of civilization. The world is not ready for your kind. We must fix this problem. Only a Breed fully human can be allowed to survive.”

Shock ripped through his system. Insanity glowed in Marshal’s eyes. A fanatical gleam that hinted at a greater evil.

“Fully human? How could this be possible? What insane experiments are you bastards involved in now? We are not fully human, Marshal,” Jacob reminded him.

“You are abominations. That must be fixed if you are going to force your seed on the world,” Marshal spat out. “The Felines were bad enough. We will not allow it with your Packs as well.”

Insanity. Only the insane could have conceived the plan to create the Breeds. Only the demented, true monsters could carry out their plans.

“Then perhaps your Council should not have created us,” Jacob shot back. “We were to be your dogs of war, your trained pets to carry out your perverted plans. They forgot, Marshal, only humans are naturally deceptive. Naturally cruel. The breeds they chose were the most honorable, as well as the most savage. We were not meant to be your mindless puppets.”

Marshal’s face flushed as fury engulfed him.

“Puppets be damned. You are all animals who now think you have the right to live and multiply. The Council created you, and they will now destroy you.”

Two things happened simultaneously. Jacob pushed Faith to the floor behind the dubious protection of the chair as he brought the gun to bear on the three men already pulling the triggers on their own weapons.

The glass in the windows behind him shattered as he fell to the floor, covering Faith’s body, firing at the enemy that would destroy all he had ever dreamed or prayed for.

But it wasn’t Stygian or the Enforcers that came through the windows, guns blazing, a war cry sounding on their lips. Jacob’s attention splintered from Marshal and his men as shock tore through his body. It couldn’t be possible. Even the Council in all their perversions and cruelties couldn’t have actually managed to create a Breed such as this.

But they had, the proof of it rolled across the floor. Three large males in their prime, weapons blazing, rage reflecting in their cries as they focused their fury on Marshal and his men.

“Don’t kill them all, dammit!” Jacob screamed as he saw a soldier fall. “Marshal, we need Marshal.”

He had no idea if his words were heard above the commotion. He kept Faith covered, his heart pounding in fear as weapons blazed and bullets ricocheted around the room.

“Dammit, Jacob, get off me,” Faith cursed beneath him as he held her securely to the floor, protecting her with his own body. “I’m going to kick your ass when I get up.”

She jerked beneath him, her voice raised furiously.

As the last shot fired, Jacob was on his feet.

“Find out who the hell they are,” he yelled as he pointed imperiously at the three winged men slowly coming back to their feet. “Dammit, we don’t need any more fucking Breeds running around the world. Kill the fucking Council members I say…”

He rushed into the hall, shouting orders as he went, cursing the blood and the damage done to the house.

“Does this look like my house?” he yelled out as he passed through the doorway. “Goddammit it, Caleb is gonna kill all of us.”

* * * * *

“Not if I kill you first,” Faith muttered as she turned to face the three men watching her, their aristocratic expressions immediately setting her hackles up.

“Let me guess,” she said roughly. “Alphas of course. Where the hell are all the betas, don’t any of them survive genetic selection? Betas are good things.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Marshal didn’t make it to questioning. Neither did any of the others. Faith listened to Jacob curse loudly, violently.

“One. All I ask for is one. Just don’t kill one of them, so we can question them,” he growled as he faced Stygian furiously. “What happened?”

“They had bigger guns, boss.” Stygian shrugged. “Shoot first, worry about questions later. This ain’t no place for serious wounds.”

Faith watched Jacob as he wiped his hand over his face in a gesture of extreme frustration. She stood back patiently as she shared an amused look with Cian, the second in command of the Winged Breeds.

Jacob turned to Faith. “You find something amusing here, mate?” He scowled.

Faith shrugged. “Maybe.”

Jacob’s eyes narrowed. She could feel his lust, his aggravation, his fury, all combining in a way that made her blood pressure soar.

“Such as?” he bit out.

“Such as the fact that our new Breeds have some interesting information.” She shrugged. “While you were taking care of Alpha business, I was being the good little Liaison and gathering facts.”

“Like?” A thread of suspicion entered his tone.

“Like the fact that the Council has developed an intriguing little serum. One that they believe will force conception, but in doing so, will ensure that all Breed DNA is reversed in the child.”

Shocked disbelief lined the expressions turned toward her.

“They believe they can fuck with nature a second time, within the same genetic code?” He growled. “Have they lost their minds?”

“Did they ever have any?” Cian asked him then as he leaned casually against the wall in the kitchen where they were gathered. “They have two human women, who they have forced into heat, similar to what the Breed females suffer. By studying these women and their physical and hormonal changes, they think this can be done.”

“What else have they done to them?” Jacob asked darkly.

Cian shook his head. “There is one at our Labs, where our commander and two of the youngest of our clan is being held. Her screams…”

He went no further.

“Which one? The Dunmore woman or Roberts’ get?” Stygian bit out, his voice cold, hard.

“Charity Dunmore. She was brought in several months ago. She was still there when we escaped. We do not believe she will live much longer. Whatever they have done has…affected…her.

“Call Wolfe.” He turned to Faith. “I want Aiden and his men here.”

“Taken care of.” Faith nodded firmly. “I’ve also put out a call to any Packs close enough to aid us.”

“Have they moved the Lab?” He turned back to Cian.

“They will not move it. It is very heavily defended though. Part of the mountain itself. It will not be easy to breach.”

“None of them are,” Jacob assured him. “We’ll begin planning when Wolfe and Aiden arrive. Until then, we prepare. Faith.” He turned to her slowly again. “Get ready, you’ll be returning to the Pack compound to stay with Hope. I’ll need you there to coordinate the Packs, and to protect the home base.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Hours later, after a hot meal and a steamy bath, Faith awaited Jacob in their bedroom. She sat in one of the chairs, facing the door. Some of Jacob’s plans and preparations would of course have to be revised. His latest bombshell in regards to her would be shelved, or she was going to shoot him herself.