Lawe's Justice

*CHAPTER 12*

“How do you know Thor isn’t the traitor in your ranks?” Lawe asked as she lay sprawled against his naked chest, exhausted, limp and drowsy as the sun rose bright and warm the next morning.

“Because I know.” She yawned, wondering if she had time for a nap.

They’d had breakfast earlier, then they’d had each other for a bit of early dessert. She was at least two days behind schedule and rather than rushing to pack and leave, she was instead considering a late morning nap. If only Lawe had been kind and had not begun questioning her.

“How did he find you, baby?” he asked. “You didn’t tell him you were leaving. You didn’t tell anyone.”

“He followed Gideon, remember?” She wished he would just drop it. Defending Thor wasn’t on her agenda. She needed a nap, then possibly dinner before she hit the road with two grouchy, territorial, overprotective men.

“That’s not an answer.” And it was obvious he wasn’t going to drop it.

“He offers to carry my gear.”

Well, that shut him up. Maybe she should have tried that explanation sooner.

As the silence continued she allowed herself to settle closer into sleep.

“He does what?”

Well, it shut him up for a minute anyway.

Exhaling in resignation Diane forced herself to sit up and stare down at him as she pulled the sheet over her breasts. “I said, Thor offers to carry my gear.”

“And that proves his innocence how?” he asked as though the answer couldn’t possibly make sense.

Pulling her knees up and wrapping her arms around them, she stared back at him directly. “A man doesn’t offer to carry a woman’s gear if he sees her as a soldier.” She was aware of the disgust that lay heavy in her tone. “Thor follows me because I can strategize and cover the bases while he and the others do the grunt work. He gets to do the accounting he loves, watch his bank account grow and take a vacation once a year. He’s not going to risk that.”

“Diane, you may have to explain this a bit further.” He cleared his throat carefully as Diane hid a smile. “Someone on your team is betraying you. They’ve put your ass on the chopping block and they all enjoy the same benefits.”

“But not all of them will take a bullet for a woman they don’t know or risk their lives to slip into an enemy village to leave food on a widow’s doorstep. The last of his rations, I might add.” She shook her head at the thought of it. “And no one but Thor deliberately ensures he’s literally covering my back on every mission we take. He sets himself up to take a bullet for me, just as he did with the teenager we rescued last year, that bloated old CEO we extracted when he was stuck in a country he shouldn’t have been in, or the teenage boy kidnapped the year before last while on vacation with his parents in Jordan. The others have never done that, but Thor does.”

“You put too much faith in him.” He shook his head at her explanation. “Just like that damned Gideon. What made you think you could pull him in?”

Lawe watched her lips quirk in amusement. “Gideon took out all but Thor. He shot Brick, Aaron and Malcolm. He was taking the players he suspected off the field. He obviously didn’t suspect Thor. Or you.” She ticked the reasons off with her fingers. “He left not just a warning of the traitor in my group, but also the location where he suspected Honor Roberts, Judd and Fawn Corrigan to be. He also led me in the direction of several contacts in Argentina that were able to verify the information as well as add to it, possibly giving me a few clues once I get there, where to start looking for her.”

He grunted at that, but the explanation made more sense than he wanted to admit.

“What makes you think he wants to talk?”

“He didn’t shoot me.” She shrugged. “And he’s been following me since I was in Argentina. That’s the reason it’s taken me so long to make it to Window Rock. I wanted to know what he wanted.”

“So you just laid yourself out like a fucking piece of raw meat to an animal?” he charged, his expression incredulous. Diane doubted anyone had seen incredulity in Lawe’s expression in his life.

“If he wanted me dead, then he would have killed me in Argentina,” she assured him caustically. “Give me a little credit, Lawe. I’m not exactly stupid. If I were, you would have already had to help me.”

So even he had to agree she wasn’t an idiot, because she was obviously still alive.

“Diane.” He wiped his hand over his face.

Diane laughed aloud at the reaction. It would have been endearing if not for the fact that it showed a complete lack of faith in her abilities to do her job and to protect herself.

“Diane, he’s a male Breed suspected to have been forced into feral fever,” he growled. “If even half of what I know is true, then we are well aware of the fact that he’s not completely sane, at the very least. Whatever his agenda is, he has no intention of helping anyone except himself to whatever goal he has in mind.”

“And, of course, I couldn’t possibly be intelligent enough to use him as well,” she pointed out reasonably.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” he snapped back at her. “Gideon is a master strategist, Diane. You’ll think you’re pulling him in until he has his bullet buried in your brain or his scalpel peeling your flesh from your body. It’s a little late to consider the error of your beliefs then.”

It was enough to make a woman want to gnash her teeth in irritation. Hell, she was grinding hers. His arrogance just pissed her off.

“Whatever you want to believe.” It hurt more than words could ever describe that he hadn’t extended the same faith to her that he would have extended to any other Breed who may have given him the same explanation. Or any other man period. Gideon thought he was playing her, she was aware of that. She had her own plan as well.

He hadn’t given her the possible location of Brandenmore’s former victims for nothing. He knew where they were, or where they might be, what he wouldn’t know, despite the time he had spent in the labs with them, is what they looked like now. Twelve years was a lot of time. The girls would be twenty-four or twenty-five. Judd would be in his thirties. Maturity could have, and most likely had, drastically changed their looks.

“This isn’t personal, Diane.” Lawe’s expression was tormented as he watched her, and he probably did sense how much his lack of faith hurt.

“Fine, Lawe.” She was too tired to argue with him, too disillusioned to attempt to justify or explain her own intentions. “I need to pack . . .”

“I’d prefer to wait to leave, Diane.”

She turned back to him slowly, suspicion rising inside her. “Why?

His lips thinned. “I sent Rule and Malachi to Window Rock to request permission from the Navajo Council to conduct the search for a rogue Breed in their territory,” he revealed. “That doesn’t happen overnight.”

How stupid did he believe she was?

“Bullshit, Lawe,” she said wearily. “You sent a team to Window Rock to find Gideon or to lay a trap, didn’t you?”

“No, I did not.” Anger tightened his expression as he came out of the bed, his blue eyes icy as he pushed himself from the bed. “I did exactly as I said I did. I sent a team into Window Rock when I realized where you were headed and what you were doing.”

“When I told you where I was headed you sent a team ahead of us to capture Gideon,” she accused him knowingly. Hell, she wasn’t even surprised. “Is that what this is going to be, Lawe? A series of games you play to keep me one step behind you and always under your thumb?”

She should be angry. She should be raging. But, surprisingly, she was more amused. Too amused to really be hurt, though she was certain that would come soon. The very fact that he thought he had to notify the Navajo Nation Council astounded her.

“Had I thought I wouldn’t irreparably damage the mating relationship I want to build with you, then that’s exactly what I would have done,” he snapped back at her. “Instead, I’m trying to clear the way for you. It wasn’t that hard to trace the calls on your sat phone to the reservation. Especially after you made your reservations with the Navajo Suites just before I arrived here. You didn’t have to tell me where you were going, I knew. How you had tracked the Roberts girl to this area was what I was unaware of.”

“And that was all you did—you just tracked my phone?” She was highly suspicious.

“That’s all I did.” There went the hand over the face again.

“And you thought you would achieve what by waylaying me here?” Pulling her jeans and shirt from the floor, Diane dressed quickly, aware of the feeling of being at a distinct disadvantage with him by standing before him naked. “How did delaying me benefit you, Lawe?”

It was hard to attempt to make him see that she was more than able to complete her mission, hell, to get him to even give her the chance to prove she could complete it, without the feeling of vulnerability that being naked gave her. Besides, he was still hard, his cock still very interested in a little mating sex.

It was impossible to deny her own renewed interest in the sexual pleasure found in his arms as well. Fortunately, the interest was tempered, the mating heat sated for now, leaving only the natural desire they shared between them, which was strong enough without adding a hormonal, pheromonal, biological and whatever else it was reaction to each other.

“I wasn’t trying to achieve anything, Diane.” He sighed as he pulled his pants over his hips and zipped them casually. “I was trying to give us a bit of time together as Rule cleared the way for our investigation in the area. The Breeds count the Navajo as one of our greatest proponents and supporters. We can’t do anything to jeopardize that. Conducting a secret investigation in their territory could only piss them off and I’m not enough of an optimist to think we can do it and get away with it.”

“And I don’t need your damned help,” she told him. “I already had permission to be in the territory from the Bureau’s base office in the Nation. That’s all I needed.”

The base office was manned by three Breeds and a member of the Navajo Nation Law Enforcement. “As long as I had permission from base, I was fine.”

“Base can’t give you permission to investigate Breeds or Genetics,” he gritted out.

“No, they can give me permission to investigate other areas though. Areas such as the peaceful resolution of the casino conflict outside Window Rock. For God’s sake, Lawe, didn’t you even consider the fact that I had laid my own fucking ground work? Once I was here, I could have used that to explain to anyone and everyone I spoke to. And then I could fall back on it to explain how I may have stumbled upon the identities of the girls. I’m good like that.” Frustration roughened and colored her voice as complete disbelief flooded her senses. “You took the confrontational route, I took the effective one. One of the differences between me and you.”

Here they went again, arguing over whether or not she knew how to do her job. She had known eventually he would go behind her back and when he did, she had known it would be in a way that would completely drive her crazy.

At this point, there wasn’t even any sense in getting angry. Pulling her own hair out was an option though. Or his.

She wasn’t arguing over it any longer. She was tired of pointing it out, tired of begging him to give her a chance to prove it. She didn’t have to prove a damned thing, she had already proven it with five years of command and the fact that she had survived this world since before she had graduated high school.

“I’m heading to Window Rock,” she informed him as she tucked her shirt into the band of her jeans before sitting down to pull on her socks. “You can stay or you can go, I really don’t give a damn which.”

She could feel his gaze narrowing on her as she pushed the last few items into her bag and zipped it with a furious jerk of her wrist.

“Diane, we’re a government agency of sorts,” he stated with obvious forced patience. “We don’t just waltz in on their land and begin conducting an investigation, especially against a Breed that could possibly carry the genetics of one of their own. Even Jonas doesn’t fuck with the Navajo Nation, for good reason.”

“And it could have nothing to do with the fact that you’re desperate to make certain I’m wrapped in cotton batting and protected from a fresh breeze,” she retorted.

“You make it sound as though the bastard hadn’t just finished taking potshots at you and your men last week,” Lawe bit out angrily. “I was there, I know what was going on¸ Diane, and that bastard could have killed you as easily as he wounded your men. There’s more on his agenda than giving you a helping hand.”

Duh. No kidding. This wasn’t her moron week, no matter what he wanted to think.

She shrugged again as she continued to gather her things together. There was no point in staying any longer, just as there was no point in attempting to convince him that she was trained well enough, that she was intelligent enough to do what had to be done.

“Would you listen to me.” He grabbed her arm as she turned to move her bags to the door. “You don’t have to do this.”

Diane stared back at him, seeing the worry in his gaze but also seeing the fact that her future would be as bleak as hell if she gave him what he wanted, if she left with him and returned to the safety of Sanctuary.

“I do have to do this, Lawe,” she stated softly, the growing anger dropping away in the face of his concern and the conflicting emotions she could see darkening his gaze. “I don’t have to do it for you or even for myself. It’s for Honor Roberts. It’s for Fawn and for Judd and the other Breeds that were tortured in those labs. I’m doing this, Lawe, because no one else cared enough or knew enough to protect them when they needed it. I do this for my niece.” Tears filled her eyes at the thought of Amber. “For the consequences she may pay for Breed research after that bastard injected her. I do it for what they did to you, to the others and for what they’ll continue to do. God, Lawe, I do this because it’s who I am.”

Lawe stared into her eyes, saw the conviction there, saw the woman she knew herself to be as well as the woman he knew she could be. “You only see the warrior you are, Diane.” He sighed, feeling as weary as she had sounded moments ago. “You don’t see the rest of you, but I sense her. I hope you find her, before you destroy both of us.”

Mating heat was so much more than a sexual hunger that brought a couple together. Lawe knew it for the emotional abyss it could be as well as the thriving, beautiful relationship it could become.

Staring into her eyes, he tried, God knew he tried with everything inside him, to still the dominance that was so much a part of him. To tell her what he felt and know it wouldn’t give her the encouragement he was certain she would get from it.

He’d felt her hurt, knew what he’d done to hurt her and he hated himself for it.

Without a thought he’d attempted to wound her self-confidence just as he’d attempted to weaken her belief in herself.

He’d done it without thinking, without a moment’s hesitation, and she’d seen right through him. He’d seen it in her eyes, in her expression. She’d known even before he had what he was up to. And she deserved so much more.

She deserved much more from him.

“Before I destroy both of us.” She sighed as she turned away from him. “There is no ‘us,’ Lawe. There’s still just you and what you want.”

She looked alone, bereft. Staring at her, Lawe couldn’t believe the gift standing before him or the incredible strength and will she possessed. She was as strong as the woman who had given him birth. And he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she would die for him the same as Morningstar had died for her mate, Elder.

“After my escape from the labs I avoided every woman who I felt, even remotely, could have been my mate.” The surprise on her face was nothing compared to his own as he heard himself speaking.

Reaching out Lawe touched the side of her face with the backs of his fingers, brushing her hair back as he did so. “Not because I didn’t want you.” He cupped the back of her neck as that remembered ache of hunger shot through him. “Because I did, Diane. With everything I am, everything I was, I wanted my mate. I wanted to hold you, to have you hold me. I wanted to laugh and feel the contentment I knew other Breeds felt with their mates. I wanted to sleep with that sense of peace others spoke of. But even more, even more than that, I wanted to ensure that the evil I knew existed in this world never touched you. Because I knew the dangers, I knew the pain and horrors that I could bring to you. And I wanted nothing more than to vanquish all your dragons. And here I was, the greatest of all those dragons.”

She turned her head away, blinking. Damn, she was blinking back tears?

“Tears,” he whispered, amazed. “I never wanted you to have reason to shed tears or to feel the helplessness that rages through me when you do.” To know she hurt enough to cry made him crazy. It made all the animal genetics that raged inside him threaten to overtake him once again.

“You can’t hold back life, Lawe,” she stated, the frustration eating at her, and raking at the control Lawe was fighting to hold on to as he sensed it.

“I know I can’t hold back life,” he agreed as he pulled his hand back rather than tightening his hold on her. “I don’t want to hold back your life. I want to fucking share it. Damn it, Diane, I just want to ensure that nothing takes us from the other. We’re mates. If you die, then I may as well die with you. And if I die . . .” He shook his head, the other side of mating suddenly clearer to him than it had ever been. “If I’m gone, then you’ll be always alone. Always, Diane. Always suffering that loss because you’ll be unable to bear to have another man touch you. You would be completely vulnerable. You and any children we may have unless you’re in Sanctuary. Unless you’re protected and you understand that need for protection.”

Watching her face, watching the pain that flashed in her eyes, and the fear, he suddenly wondered if those Breeds who were still unaware of the true depth of it, would allow it to begin if they knew the truth. He knew that fear. The fear of being enclosed, of being imprisoned. She was terrified he would find a way to cage her, and Lawe couldn’t swear to her that the day wouldn’t come when it would have to be done.

Lowering his head he pressed his forehead against her temple, inhaling the scent of her. The mating heat, a spicy, fruity scent, a combination of him and her, a merging of who they were.

That was the mating scent. It was what mating did. It merged two beings, it merged their scents, and sometimes, when needed, it merged their dreams along with their hearts and souls.

“You are more than a soldier,” he promised her as he let his lips brush against her hair, as he inhaled the scent of both of them merging. “You are more than a mate, more than just a woman, a sister or an aunt. You can’t fight this fight alone, Diane, and that’s what you’re trying to do. Nor can you fight against rogue Breeds who can smell you coming a mile away. Or Council Coyotes who can smell your scent and know it for what it is. And if you’re taken because of it, if you’re taken, you become the same as the other mates the Council has captured. You become a science experiment.” Screams echoed in his head now. “Vivisected, screaming, begging and dying as they compare your organs, compare the changes to them, against those they’ve murdered in the same way before you.”

Pulling back, he stared into her tormented gaze and wanted to roar out his rage and his pain at what he saw there.

A woman fighting not just her hunger but all the dreams and all the needs she had never had to deny herself before. Dreams and needs he was asking—no, demanding—she give up. She was more than just a soldier, she was his mate. She was the woman he’d always dreamed of having and the one whose sheer bravery terrified him.

“Lawe.” She touched him. Her palm against his jaw, her fingers against his cheek. “Sanctuary is attacked at least once a year. I know of two attempts against the community during the social events Callan and Merinus are forced to throw throughout the year. Snipers have been caught twice attempting to get into position and Callan was nearly killed at an event thrown by a Breed supporter. Sanctuary isn’t safe either. And each time it was attacked, each time a Breed, a mate or any member of the community was harmed I’d die inside. I’d always feel I could have helped. I’ll always feel responsible.”

He tried to protest, only to have her fingers press against his lips to hold the words back.

Her hands weren’t silk and satin, but neither were they calloused and rough. They were a true woman’s hands. She used them. She worked with them. She touched him and he swore she breathed life into his soul the night he rescued her.

“I can’t be more than a soldier, Lawe. Even for you. It’s all I’ve dreamed of being. And, until you, it’s all I’ve dreamed of having. I don’t want a protector or a jailer. I want a partner. And that’s what I’ll have or I’ll have nothing or no one at all. Even you.” She stepped slowly back from him even though he could feel, sense, her need to crawl into his body and stay there.

And that was where he wanted her. Buried so deep inside him that he knew every breath she took. That he felt it. That he could reach out at any given time and assure himself of her safety, of her happiness.

As he watched her, she slung the strap of the duffel bag over one shoulder, the strap of the backpack over the other, then hefted the black duffel bag that contained her weapons. Lawe almost shook his head in bemusement. The gear looked far too heavy for her to manage on her own.

Yet she did manage it. It weighed heavily on her slender shoulders, pulled at her arm, yet she went out the door and slammed it behind her.

His eyes narrowed.

Turning back to the room, Lawe took his time and finished dressing. There was no gear to pack or collect. It was all stored in the back of the SUV Rule had left in the parking lot before heading out to Window Rock with all but one of the team members who had driven out with them.

He pulled on the sleeveless black shirt that matched the same-color mission pants, then the long-sleeved light shirt that buttoned over it. He laced his protective black ankle boots snugly and clipped the holster that held the laser-powered handgun. Finally, he tucked the sheathed knife he carried at the small of his back.

He moved unhurriedly to the door, opened it and left the room. Stepping out onto the covered walkway and glancing down at the parking lot where the SUV and the feline Breed Enforcer waited.

With his mate and her second-in-command.

Diane leaned against the front of the vehicle, and even across the distance he could smell the complete fury raging through her and spilling out to scent the air with the smell of sweetened heat and flaming ambrosia.

Damn, his dick was steel hard.

He’d gone from semi-hard to a full, engorged erection in about a quarter of a second. The glands beneath his tongue began filling with the mating hormone, the spice and sweet taste flooding his senses as he gave a resigned sigh.

She was pissed as hell and the knowledge of it sent adrenaline rushing through him as she stared back at him in challenge.

And it was definitely a challenge.

The soldier was facing him. The hardened expression, the flattened line of her lips, the stance as she saw him. She straightened, her hip cocking, one hand resting against it, her fingers outspread.

She wasn’t tapping her foot. She wasn’t tapping anything. She was standing still, her gaze locked on him, her eyes burning into him.

The expression was all soldier, but that gaze, that was the woman’s gaze. It was filled with anger, with unrealized dreams, with a woman’s emotions. A mate’s battle for independence.

Mating and life with a Breed was hell on an independent woman. It was hell too on Breed women who were independence, strength and reliance personified.

Diane could have been a Breed female. She had trained from an early age, but rather than being abused or treated cruelly, her uncle had instead fought to teach her to protect herself and her sister. To react with instinct as well as years of training. To strategize and foresee all possible angles and problems that could arise.

She had killed to keep from being killed. She had fought in the darkest, deepest hellholes and in the concrete jungles where civilization should have ruled. She had moved in to take command of four of the meanest bastards in the independent military communities and she’d ensured all their bank accounts were well-padded and drawing excellent interest.

She wasn’t just a soldier and a commander either. She was a hell of an investor.

Breaking his gaze from hers, he turned and moved along the third-story walk to the metal stairwell in the middle of the long building.

He could feel the hairs at the back of his neck tingling. He almost paused to search out the cause, but it wasn’t a feeling of imminent danger as much as it was of being watched, studied.

If he paused to search out the cause, then he would be allowing his unknown enemy to know he was aware of him. Far better to surprise Gideon should he decide to attempt to catch Lawe off guard.

For now, he had his mate to deal with, along with a trip to Window Rock.

As he stepped to the concrete walk the sat phone at his side vibrated demandingly. His senses alert, his gaze still on his mate, Lawe pulled it free and brought it to his ear.

“Enforcer Justice,” he answered.

“We have a problem.” Rule’s voice was strained. That in and of itself was unusual.

Lawe picked up his pace to the SUV.

“Report,” Lawe ordered, his tone declaring his full attention to his brother.

“We had a situation here,” Rule stated. “Malachi mated a Martinez. Our little cousin, Isabelle, and her mate had a stalker. The stalker shot our favorite little Coyote, Lawe, Ashley Truing. They don’t know if she’s going to make it.”

Ashley Truing. She had colored, highlighted and streaked blond hair; perfectly manicured, painted and decorated nails—nails as false as the color of her hair. She had so many pairs of shoes it was said her entire room was lined with shelves to hold them. Not that he believed it. She gave the impression of self-interest, conceit and laziness, but she was one of the most dangerous female Breeds ever created.

Lawe’s gaze went to Diane’s as he moved faster. Instantly, she straightened and moved for the side of the SUV where she threw open the passenger door as Thor moved just as quickly to slide onto the passenger seat behind her.

The Enforcer Josiah was in the back rather than taking the driver’s seat as he often did, his Breed senses picking up the sudden sense of haste Lawe could feel surging through him.

“We’re heading in,” Lawe assured him as he grabbed the driver’s door that Diane had thrown open for him. “I’ll call you when we’re near.”

“Be sure to,” Rule stated harshly. “Gideon took out the stalker. We should have told Malachi who we were looking for, Lawe. He knows him. Hell, he knows a lot about him. Ashley’s in surgery, Dr. Armani and Dr. Sobolov are with her. I’ll contact you again when there’s more.”

The line disconnected.

The call was long enough to fully apprise Lawe of the situation but not long enough for an enemy to lock onto or to track.

Diane had taken the electronic starter from Josiah and had the motor running and ready as Lawe slid into the driver’s seat. Throwing the vehicle into gear, Lawe pulled out of the parking space.

“Ashley’s been shot,” he informed them. “Gideon’s already in Window Rock. He took out the shooter and then disappeared.” Glancing at Diane, he couldn’t help but fear that one day she could be in Ashley’s place. “It looks like we’re going to get that permission to investigate after all. Let’s see how quickly we can get this taken care of and get Gideon contained.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. “Notify Sanctuary we’re heading in and I want my regular team out here ASAP. It’s time to go hunting.”

A Breed hunting a Breed. Lawe had never imagined he would be in this position unless one of the Council’s malevolent Breeds were concerned, or that he would need to hunt a Breed who had known the most vicious of hells during his confinement.

Quickly, he explained the information Rule had reported, brief though it was.

Gideon was in protective mode, a far different role than he had been playing in past months. He had saved Malachi’s mate, Lawe’s first cousin, and he was known by Malachi. Rule was right; Lawe should have told the team the full identity of the Breed they were chasing rather than giving the minute details he had passed along. He should never have assumed Gideon was unknown by the team traveling with him.

They had searched for months for a Breed who had known the assassin. One who could give them some sense of the Breed they were searching for.

He wouldn’t have expected Malachi.

He wouldn’t have expected Gideon to protect a human, especially another Breed’s mate.

But he sure as hell hadn’t expected the vivacious, energetic and completely efficient Ashley to ever have been targeted or caught off guard by a stalker.

God help him if he ever had to face the day Diane became such a victim, because Lawe knew that if it happened, the animal would control him. And the animal was by far more savage than the man could ever be.