Lawe's Justice

*CHAPTER 5*

Lawe had been watching her all along.

She hadn’t been protecting herself and her men as she had assumed. Her careful preparations and alternate plans could only lend confidence to her men if no one interfered.

Lawe had interfered.

That knowledge swept over her once she had her men taken care of and returned to their rooms with medics.

The old-fashioned bullet wound was cleaned and the bullet dug out of hard male muscle and flesh and bandaged within the hour. The Breed heli-jet was on its way from Sanctuary and it would fly her men home before returning to fly her and Rachel back to Sanctuary.

Or so Lawe and Jonas thought.

She sat back in the wing-backed chair in the living area of the lower-floor penthouse suite Jonas and Rachel had taken at the hotel, after the attack on Diane and her men. She knew other high-level Breeds were now in residence as well. It was becoming a damned Breed military stronghold. With one boot-shod foot propped on the coffee table, her elbow propped on the arm while her chin rested in her palm, Diane watched silently as Jonas and Lawe talked on the other side of the room.

Her sister stood next to her mate, and unlike Jonas and Lawe, watched Diane worriedly. Her sister knew her. Diane’s lips quirked at the thought. Rachel would know damned good and well that Diane wouldn’t be going anywhere near Sanctuary.

But Rachel hadn’t come over to her since they had arrived in the room either. She stood next to her mate, silently aligning with him, and for the first time, Diane realized that her sister no longer turned to her first.

Lawe had a team of highly trained covert Breeds trailing her for—she didn’t know how long, she thought as she watched them.

Oh yes, she did know. Because she knew how long it had been since she had so much as scratched herself during a mission. She hadn’t been wounded on a mission since the night Lawe and a very small team of men had rescued her from the Middle East dungeon she had been held in. Bar fights, though, were another story. Diane had been recovering from a bar fight in Asia when Thor had told her about Brandenmore’s nearly successful abduction of her niece.

Come to think of it, she had taken a few brawling injuries since her abduction and what she suspected was Lawe’s decision to place a team on her for protection. Those injuries had involved bar fights—usually begun by Malcolm the hothead.

Diane had immediately pulled out of the current job, returned the client’s advance and walked out on his screaming insistence that she make the scheduled pickup Thor had arranged. She had flown straight to the States and immediately begun shadowing her sister.

It had been weeks of hell afterward as she attempted to follow Rachel and provide backup for the Breeds attempting to protect her.

Thor had replaced the stitches in her leg more than once, cursed her for her stubbornness and railed at her when she had collapsed in exhaustion.

And when Lawe had found out, he’d nearly gone ballistic.

She clearly remembered walking away from him as he growled in rage at the two Breeds who had been part of her team at that time.

Those Breeds had since left and joined Sanctuary. She’d been smart enough to confront them and demand their loyalty when she’d learned Lawe expected them to tattle on every move she made. That demand had been one they had been unable to meet. Their first loyalty, they had informed her, was to their people. Diane suspected they had already assumed she was Lawe’s mate. That meant their highest priority was her protection.

Diane had already begun to suspect there was something drawing them together that wasn’t entirely normal.

Mating heat.

And she’d made it a point, just as it seemed he had, to steer clear of any chance of it flaring to full, burning life.

How long had it been since he had taken her out of that hellhole? Sixteen months? There were times she still felt as though she were recovering from the weeks she had been held and questioned about her deceased uncle and his activities before his death.

And since that rescue, she hadn’t been wounded once conducting a mission.

It was no damned wonder the Bureau of Breed Affairs was coming up short on Enforcers to spread around on the missions they were contracted for. They were sending their Enforcers on too many damned personal missions, she thought caustically.

And she hadn’t put two and two together and come up with four by herself in all these months. She felt the sting of self-disgust at that thought.

She had seen the looks in her men’s eyes earlier and she knew they too had sized up the situation correctly.

Lawe had had a team covering her without their knowledge too. Which meant they were more than damned good.

They were damned fucking good.

The number of “accidents” had increased though. The knife wound during a bar fight, a fall from a cliff when her equipment had mysteriously failed.

The first time Rachel had needed her, just after she had learned she was pregnant while in Switzerland, Diane had been in Syria having the shit beat out of her.

The second time, when Amber had been taken by Brandenmore that evening, Diane had been recovering from a knife wound inflicted during a bar fight.

The third time, when that deadbeat bastard who fathered Amber was attempting to legally take Amber from her mother, Diane had been recovering from injuries sustained when her equipment had failed during a mountain climb.

Strangely her so-called accidents coincided with events that had involved her sister or her niece at a time when they had needed her most.

And she was piecing this together finally why?

Because only this past week, after the Executioner—which was what they called Gideon Cross—left that message for her in Argentina had she begun to suspect that one of her men could be attempting to ensure she was no longer a part of her sister’s life, or her protection.

She simply couldn’t make herself consider Thor, for the simple fact that he had been the one to pull her ass out every time. But, neither could she make herself completely trust him either.

“Did you know they were on my ass?” she asked Thor as he stood silently behind her, his arms crossed over his chest as he too watched the small group.

“Nope. Didn’t,” he said shortly.

He was pissed, but he wasn’t the only one. The rest of her men were as well.

Aaron, Brick and Malcolm were in the other room. Aaron had taken a bullet to the thigh, Malcolm had taken one to the back of his leg. Brick had taken one across his outer thigh, a flesh wound that required advanced skin patches along with two stitches. He had stated he was just too damned disgusted to put up with Breeds tonight. Thor had insisted on staying with her. As though she needed someone to protect her.

Had her command already begun breaking down, or was Thor more concerned with any information that he may miss?

He was the one she trusted the most. He helped plan every mission, knew every move she made and was the one most insistent that she never went anywhere, or did anything, alone.

And she had a spy close to her.

“I didn’t even suspect they were there until they started pouring out of the woodwork like cockroaches today,” she muttered resentfully.

“That’s not the only problem we have,” Thor said softly. “I don’t like surprises. I checked our rooms while they were treating the others. We were bugged, and they weren’t Breed devices.”

So that was why he had slipped away from the rest of the group.

“Why?” she asked. “What made you suspect we were bugged?”

“Because whoever the fuck was out there trying to put a hole in your head knew exactly what time to be waiting on you.” Low and rumbling with fury, his voice rasped above her. “We never leave at the same time, we never take the same exits twice. There’s no fucking way to predict your movements, boss. That’s why we follow you rather than lead, because only you know which way we’re going.”

That had been her uncle’s way as well.

“Were you able to identify the device?” she asked.

“Not yet, but I’m working on it,” he told her.

She nodded slowly as Lawe’s head suddenly jerked around, his blue eyes narrowing on her and Thor.

“You’re not going back to Sanctuary,” Thor stated, the suspicion in his tone assuring her that he didn’t entirely believe the plan she had given him.

“Yes, until more information comes in.”

She hated lying to him. Thor was the one she knew the best. He was the one who had arrived with her uncle when her parents were killed, the one who had helped her uncle slip them out of the States and into Africa when her and Rachel’s safety had been at risk.

She frowned at that.

Her uncle, Colt Broen, had taken her and Rachel to the only place he’d been certain they would be safe while he investigated their parents’ death.

“I’m meeting with my contact at midnight. He called. There’s a report you have a shadow on your tail,” Thor told her. “He heard about the shooting and informed me someone is trying to separate you from your team but we haven’t sussed out the reason why. Something’s not right here, Di, you know that.”

“Let me know before you leave and I want your report the minute that meeting is over,” she ordered. “Keep working on why someone wants to separate me from my men.”

“I’m all that’s left to cover your back, Di,” he stated worriedly. “Don’t do something stupid and run off on your own.”

If she knew Thor, then he knew her just as well. That could become a problem when she made her own move and headed west.

“Don’t worry, Thor,” she murmured, covering her lips with her fingers as her sister looked back to her once again. “I’m trying really hard not to do stupid things this month.”

He grunted in disbelief at the comment.

Lawe moved from Jonas and Rachel before she could say anything more, striding to where she sat and stopping only inches from her as he stared back at Thor with icy intensity.

“I guess he wants me to leave, boss,” Thor drawled, his tone thick with sarcasm.

Diane let her lips curve into a cold smile.

“We’ll finalize the arrangements later, Thor.” She covered their conversation, her voice low as she remained locked with Lawe’s gaze. “Make certain you have the accounts in order and let the accountant know we’ll have to change our appointment to tomorrow evening.”

They didn’t really have an appointment yet, but it was the best she could do on such notice. “Got it, boss.” Thor nodded sharply, gave Lawe a hard glare then turned and walked quickly to the door.

One of the two Breeds guarding the inside of the room opened the doors for him, then closed and locked them as he left.

Looking past Lawe, Diane met her sister’s worried gaze across the room, and understood completely why Rachel hadn’t, and most likely wouldn’t, say much to her for the time being. Not until she knew exactly what Diane was planning. Or more to the point, not until Jonas and Lawe figured it out.

It hurt. She felt as though her baby sister had deserted her. As though the one person she had always depended upon was suddenly more loyal to others instead.

She didn’t bother to hide her feelings as Rachel met her gaze. Diane let the hurt, as well as the disbelief, fill her eyes before deliberately turning her head.

To meet Lawe’s gaze. She almost sighed. That look was brooding and intense as though if he looked hard enough, deep enough, then he could read her plans in her eyes.

There was no way she would allow that.

Breed senses were much too primal. The least hint of a lie or subterfuge and Diane would have so many Breed guards on her ass that it would be impossible to peel them off. The only way to hide it was with anger. She had a damned good reason for being angry too. One of her men was betraying her to the point that she suspected her past accidents had not been accidents at all. Someone was trying to put a highly fatal hole in her head—and her sister was deserting her.

“Ignoring your sister isn’t a move guaranteed to please Jonas,” Lawe told her as she stared back at him silently.

Diane shrugged. “Did she know you had Breeds on my ass?”

No doubt she did. Diane knew her sister, and she knew how Rachel worried. She wouldn’t blame her, but she could definitely use it to her advantage. Just as Rachel would expect her to.

“The team was my decision,” he growled as his gaze flashed with something akin to regret. “You were nearly killed in Syria, Diane.”

“Oh, no doubt,” she said, mockery filling her voice. “I rather doubt either Rachel or Jonas sicced them on me, Lawe. For some reason, both of them seem to believe I’m perfectly capable of leading my team on my own and saving my own ass whenever needed.”

“Neither of them saw you the way I did in that Middle Eastern dungeon either,” he snapped.

Diane came out of the chair, anger pushing her to her feet at the chastising tone of his voice.

“You are not my fucking keeper,” she informed him furiously as one finger poked firmly into his chest before her hands went to her hips. “Get that in your head, Lawe Justice. I haven’t had a keeper since I was twenty-one years old, and I refuse to accept one now. Especially one as high-handed, arrogant and completely superior as you appear to be.”

His gaze narrowed. “We’re definitely going to have this fight,” he informed her. “But Jonas wants your report first.”

“There is no report.” Crossing her arms over her breasts, she was confident that the scent he was searching for when his nostrils flared wasn’t there.

There really was no report. She wasn’t about to tell them a damned thing. Not in this lifetime. Not as long as she risked losing control of the mission she considered still active. The one she considered her personal responsibility.

“You told Jonas you weren’t comfortable sending information electronically,” he reminded her, his tone become cold, hard. “If there was nothing to report, why bother?”

She sneered back in his face. “Because I was being watched. For some reason, dumb little ole me thought it was an enemy or one of those pesky little groups that thought they could get to the prize before I did. Do you think I wanted them to know I couldn’t find a damned thing? I do have a reputation to consider, Lawe. And I’m also sick of the confidence displayed by the Council when it comes to finding subjects they don’t want us to find.”

She’d learned while the two Breeds were with her team exactly how to lie to a Breed. Hell, they had even helped her learn how to do it.

A fierce frown furrowed Lawe’s brow as a snarl lifted the sides of his lips. “That’s why the rogue they call the Executioner was shooting at you. Because he thought you knew something, Diane.” He bit out his words, the ice in his tone barely covering the anger. “Why the hell are you risking yourself and your men that way?”

“Let him keep thinking it then.” A toss of her head and a wave of her hand should be enough to convince him she really didn’t give a damn. “I hope the bastard has nightmares about me getting there first. Wherever the hell ‘there’ is.”

He raked his fingers through his hair as he turned from her, took two steps then turned back suspiciously. “You were gone three months,” he reminded her. “You found nothing?”

“Oh, I found plenty,” she informed him. “The files are in my bag.” She flicked her fingers to the leather bag she’d carried downstairs earlier. “Brandenmore and his scientists were some coldhearted monsters, but you already knew that. They were determined to make the Genetics Council’s scientists look like cuddly teddy bears. But none of them knew where the Roberts girl or the other two earlier subjects were. As far as they knew, the Bengal and the remaining girl had been terminated. If they knew any differently, they weren’t telling.”

She hadn’t expected them to know differently. She’d hoped one of the techs who had befriended the girl, or perhaps one of the scientists’ assistants, would have come forward, but none had.

“Son of a bitch,” he growled, the exclamation an animalistic rasp pushed between his teeth.

“None of the information I found applies to her,” she informed him. “And you know what, Lawe, I’m tired of looking. Especially considering the fact you’ve had a team just waiting to push me out and take over.”

The look on his face assured her he would have done just that.

“I didn’t know you were on that mission,” he finally told her, his voice harsh. “I had the team covering you, nothing more, in case your uncle’s enemies found you again. They hadn’t even notified me that Jonas had sent you out. As far as I knew, you were still on that security detail in California.”

The expression of self-disgust on his face had her suspecting he just might be telling the truth, but it didn’t really matter. Once he had learned what she was doing, he would have still pulled her out of it.

She snorted at the excuse. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, asshole. And that security detail? I’m not a friggin’ moron. I knew it for what it was while I was there. A damned pat on the head and a safe little corner to stand the weak little female in.” She flipped her hand carelessly as she stared back at him in disgust. “Now, I have reports in triplicate to write for your boss and a few vacations to arrange for my men. I have paychecks to write and bills to pay. Deposit my damned fee in my account so I can get that done.” Her voice rose in anger. “And leave me the hell alone.”

While he was speechless, or at least not speaking, she pushed past him and stomped across the room to the door. She threw a very human, more than furious snarl at the guard standing inside.

There were two more outside and two more at each end of the hall. The mated wife of the director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs was in attendance, so the security required was no less impressive than that of the alpha’s mated wives on the next level.

That didn’t mean there was a single damned Breed in the place that she wanted anything to do with at the moment.

Jerking her key card from the back of her jeans Diane swiped it through the electronic lock and pushed her way into the room.

As she knew they would be, her men were waiting, still and silent, their gazes narrowed as she came inside.

“Boss, I don’t like these fucking Breeds tellin’ us what to do,” Brick bitched immediately as she closed the door behind her, his dark face creased in a scowl. “This ain’t no fun for me at all. And I sure as hell don’t enjoy getting my leg trashed by some bastard out to keep secrets from them. I say we ditch this hellhole and go back to our real jobs.”

Their real jobs. Military and private engagements that of course paid much better, but despite the sniper earlier that day, was still a hell of a lot more dangerous. And those jobs were guaranteed to keep her away from her sister and her niece if they ever needed her again.

Malcolm and Aaron mumbled in agreement as Thor stepped forward and laid several electronic listening devices on the long narrow table beside her.

Diane stared down at them.

“Hell,” she said, sighing. “When did you find these?”

“When we came back in,” he said softly. “Someone slipped in here while we were out, boss.”

“You’re not safe here,” Aaron said with quiet anger. “And these damned Breeds ain’t doin’ a damned thing to protect you.”

She turned and glanced at the door. “There are Breed guards up the hall,” she stated. “How could someone have slipped in?”

“If they were dressed as hotel staff even a Breed could have gotten in here,” Thor pointed out. “The Enforcers are far enough up the hall that no scent would have reached them.”

“What about the ones at the elevator?” She shook her head in confusion. “They’re not Breed devices.”

She knew every design they used, even the covert ones. Jonas had made certain she didn’t risk removing one the Breeds had placed while she was tracking Brandenmore’s scientists.

“Hotel staff,” Malcolm said once again. “All they had to do was look, act and smell the part.”

“Unless they didn’t show you all their listening devices,” Aaron pointed out. “Just in case they decided to watch you closer.” He was glaring at her. Aaron and Thor were the two strongest personalities in the unit and were usually the ones to argue with her or approach her with any disagreements the other two had.

Diane bent closer and stared at the one Thor had taken apart. Taking the magnifying glass Thor offered her, she surveyed the internal components silently.

The electronics didn’t look Breed, but anything was possible when it came to the men and women created to be more cunning, more vicious than any other species on earth.

Diane started to shake her head again, only to have a firm knock on her door interrupt her. She dropped her chin instead and blew out an irritated breath.

She should have known better than to think they would just let her escape.

She knew who it was. Sure as her name was what it was, she knew who it was.

Rather than speaking, she turned, leaned back against the table and waited until Thor reached the door and threw it open.

Lawe and Jonas. She hadn’t expected Jonas.

Thor glared down at Lawe.

Not that he had far to glare. At six-two, Lawe wasn’t much shorter than Thor. At six-five, Jonas was exactly the same height.

“Thor, we’ll talk later,” Diane told him warningly before glancing to the other men. “The four of you get some sleep. Your checks will be ready by morning and we’ll all head home.”

Thor grunted in disapproval as the others rose from their seats. Aaron pushed himself up, grabbed the crutches Thor had somehow managed to find and with the other two limped to the door.

“Later, boss.”

“See ya, boss.”

“Damned busybodies,” Thor muttered before pushing the other half of the double door open and moving through it.

Brick slammed it closed as he and a limping Aaron left the room last, leaving her alone with Jonas and Lawe.

At least they hadn’t suggested they stay and protect her, she thought angrily. No thanks to Lawe. He’d ensured her men had every reason to question her orders as well as her competence.

Bracing herself against the end of the table and crossing one ankle over the other, Diane waited.

The doors closed as both Jonas and Lawe entered the room, stopping at the seating several feet from her.

“I can smell the irritation.” Jonas’s lips curled in amusement as he watched her from those eerie silver eyes.

“I imagine you can see it fairly easy as well,” she drawled, her gaze flicking to Lawe before returning to Jonas. “I’d really prefer not to fight with the two of you at the moment. So leave.”

Jonas’s head inclined in mocking agreement but didn’t comment as he and Lawe watched her silently for several long moments.

“Rachel’s concerned,” Jonas finally admitted. “I’m here to see if I can fix the situation.”

Diane’s lips thinned. She shot Lawe a furious glare before turning to the director.

“So tell me, Jonas, why would the Bureau feel the need to spy on me and my men? When did you decide we couldn’t be trusted?”

“You weren’t being shadowed because you couldn’t be trusted,” Jonas responded sharply, his own irritation creasing his expression. “You should know that.”

“I’m not talking about your Breed goons,” she snapped. “And you should know it.”

If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn he had no idea what she was talking about. He and Lawe glanced at each other before she sensed the tension that suddenly filled the room and stretched between them.

“What’s happened, Diane?” It was Lawe that rasped out the question, not Jonas.

Her brow lifted.

His brows lowered into a brooding frown. “Keep giving me that look, sweetheart, and I promise you’ll have reason to suspect a hell of a lot of things, but my motives won’t be one of them.”

“What about the bugs we just found in the room? Placed here while I was conveniently busy in Jonas’s suite? Tell me, Lawe, do you think, compounded by your Breeds following me, that may have aided my suspicions where your motives are concerned?”

Lawe’s head jerked to the side, his gaze cutting as it sliced to Jonas, almost in accusation.

“Not me.” Jonas lifted his hands in denial as he faced Lawe’s wrath. “Hell, Lawe, you’re the one I give the order to if we bug someone. Did I give you an order?”

Lawe’s lips thinned. “Where are they?”

Silently, she pointed her thumb over her shoulder and watched as each man moved around her to the tiny devices that had been left on the table.

Neither man touched them. They bent close, their gazes trained on the devices as she watched silently. Her eyes locked on Lawe’s bent back and she swore she could feel her mouth watering for him.

Her timing was incredibly bad, to say the least. The very fact that her libido was kicking in now, when she was furious with him, was enough to flat piss her off.

She didn’t need this. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want anything to do with it.

At least right now.

She and Lawe Justice were like oil and water.

She was independent and he wanted a lap kitty for a mate, wife or lover. She wanted a man who trusted her abilities and the lifetime she had spent training, adapting and learning to protect not just herself and her men but those she was hired to protect and/or rescue.

She wanted a partner for a lover, and Lawe would never be a partner to his mate any more than he had been one with his lovers. Even the Breed lovers he’d had were forced to either stay behind the walls of Sanctuary or do without that perfect, hard, incredibly sexy body.

She bet he even growled when he fucked.

The thought of hearing that dangerous rasp in his throat as he came over her, inside her, was enough to send a shiver of anticipation surging through her.

And if he were her mate? There would be the barb, that extension her sister had told her about that emerged from beneath the wide crest of a feline Breed male’s cock when he found his release inside his mate.

The flush that mounted her sister’s cheeks and the gleam of remembered ecstasy in her eyes had been enough to immediately bring Lawe to Diane’s mind.

She turned away from him quickly.

She had to do a hard reverse where such thoughts were concerned or—

“Too late, he can already smell your arousal.” Jonas’s voice had her swinging around with a frown to glare back at him.

Both he and Lawe were watching her closely.

“Do you expect me to blush?” she asked as she crossed her arms over her breasts, more to hide her hardening nipples than out of confrontation. “Sorry, boys, I stopped blushing in my teens. I would like to know where those bugs came from, though.” She indicated the devices, then flashed Lawe a tight smile. “Any scent I may have, I can’t smell, so I can ignore.”

Lawe’s brow arched. “As long as you don’t expect me to ignore it.”

“I may not be able to ignore the fact that the mating heat is there, but I can sure as hell ignore any scent of need that I, myself, can’t detect,” she informed him firmly. “And you can ignore it too, Lawe, because it’s not going to happen. Period. You’re arrogant, imperious, and your attitude where women are concerned just piss me the hell off. We’re not pets, and I’ll be damned if I’ll play your little lap kitty, for even a second. Now take your toys there and get the hell out of my room. I’d like to get some sleep before I have to decide how the hell I’m going to repair the damage you did to my team when you showed them you’ve had your little purr boys watching over me rather than respecting my ability to protect myself.”

“As you did in that little village in Syria last year when your uncle’s enemies got their hands on you? Where were your men then, Diane? Let me tell you where they were,” he informed her as he cast a hard and brutally iced look. “They were nice and safe and not risking their asses because Thor and the two Breeds with you at the time had the good sense to contact Sanctuary. Do you have a fucking clue the danger it would have represented if your captors had had a clue that they held the sister-in-law to the director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs?”

Lawe could feel it. That loss of control that signaled Diane’s determination to challenge him in both words and deed. He could smell her intent to push him, see it in her gaze and in her expression as she stood there glaring at him.

“What about those Coyotes that pierced your hide with their bullets last year?” she charged as her brow lifted mockingly, anger glimmering in her dark brown eyes. “Neither of us exactly lives a safe life. Stop trying to pretend you’re the only one who does.”

“And I’m supposed to stand aside when I have the ability to hedge your chances of surviving?” He could feel the growl threatening to edge into his voice.

Damn her, he could feel the animal inside wakening at her determination to place her life in danger. As though she were daring the enemy to strike. Daring him to make his move and challenge her.

“What you should have done was left my Breeds on my damned team instead of taking them away from me and giving me the choice to contact you when I needed them.” Her voice rose along with her anger as she glared back at both of them.

“The shooter today was Gideon,” Jonas informed her quietly as he broke in on the battle getting ready to flare to life. “He’s been following you for weeks, Diane. The team tracking you has had signs of the shadow on your ass but they couldn’t verify. All they had was a sense of it. Catching sight of him has been impossible despite their efforts, and you know my men are damned good.”

She knew Gideon, the Executioner, had no intention of killing her, despite appearances. Not once had she herself been struck by one of the precisely aimed bullets. But three of her men had been. Three she couldn’t be certain weren’t betraying her.

“And if your men hadn’t been between me and him, perhaps he would have taken the advice I left for him at my previous location and actually come out of the shadows and arranged a meet,” she suddenly yelled at him as she threw her hands up in fury.

In her room she’d left an answer to the message she’d received in Argentina. She’d done everything possible to draw the Executioner to a meeting after he had left her the warning that she was being betrayed.

“My God, Jonas, do you realize how many times your men, by his order probably, stood between me, my contacts and my damned missions?” She stabbed her finger in Lawe’s direction as a haze of disbelief filled her mind.

She was furious.

There was no scent quite as intoxicating as feminine fury, unless it was female lust. And the lust was definitely there, Lawe thought as he felt that instantaneous, burning hunger suddenly sear his mind.

She wanted to hide it. She wanted to deny it. She would have denied it to hell and back if he confronted her over it. She would cut her nose off to spite her face and they both knew it.

She was so determined to be alone, to push him away, that she ran in the opposite direction of him every chance she had.

“Both of you stand down,” Jonas ordered, his tone harsh with irritation.

Turning to him, Lawe realized the other man hadn’t taken his eyes off the devices lying so innocently on the pristine gleam of the table.

“Why don’t you take your handler and leave,” she ordered him, the command grating on the animal instincts threatening to take over. “Then the two of you can moon over the electronics together.”

“These aren’t just electronics,” Jonas said as he reached into his pocket to extract a handkerchief before carefully wrapping it around the three bugs and pocketing it before turning his gaze back to them.

“Really?” Her arms slid down to allow her hands to prop on her hips defiantly. “Are they aliens disguised as electronics? Didn’t I see that movie already?”

Jonas’s lips quirked. “Only if you managed to find a copy that I couldn’t. That movie is over forty years old and harder to find than Casablanca. But these little babies are like fingerprints. I’ve only seen them twice before, which means if Gideon put them in place, then I may have a way of tracking him.”

Diane focused her attention on him rather than the anger demanding action as it rose inside her.

“Such as?” Diane asked.

Not that she cared. Come daylight she would be after far different prey. “Such as the same signal that he used to pull information into these babies can be used to pull information out of them,” he told her. “I’ll explain it tomorrow when we meet with the Leo, Leo Vanderale. He’ll need to talk to you as well as Thor in regard to where you found them and how they were connected to their power source.”

Oh yeah, she was going to be at that meeting. Besides the fact that she had no intention of being in D.C. come morning, she also had no intention of facing the First Leo, the rumored first ever successful melding of human and animal DNA, more than a hundred years before.

“Speaking of that information, I’ll have it before I leave.”

Autocratic, demanding and arrogantly certain of himself. She would have expected Jonas to demand the information, not Lawe. Diane laughed at the pure Breed confidence he had in himself and his certainty she would be led so easily.

“You can get the information at the same time Leo and your alpha do,” she snorted. “I don’t explain things twice, Lawe.”

And he knew it.

It was a test. Had she told him, then he would have known she had no intention of making that meeting.

His eyes narrowed.

“The meeting’s at ten,” Jonas informed her as she and Lawe were locked in a silent battle fought only with their eyes.

“Fine. Now you can leave.” She had no intention of speaking to Leo Vanderale the next day. Once the first glimmer of light had made its debut, she intended to be on her way to Window Rock, Arizona.

Giving a brief, sharp nod, Jonas turned to Lawe. “I’ll contact Callan and Leo tonight. When you’re finished here . . .” He paused before his lips edged into a grin. “Or should I say instead, sometime tonight, you should contact Rule and let him know we’ll need every Breed in the vicinity on grounds when the heli-jet arrives in the morning.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Lawe promised, his nod sharp as Jonas headed for the door.

When the door snicked closed and locked behind the director, Diane turned back to Lawe.

“You need to leave with him,” Diane stated, her chest tight and aching as she battled tears that made no sense. She was stronger than this, she told herself. She was no ninny to cry over a man as though he were essential to her life. But for some reason, the betrayal she felt was tearing at her heart.

Lawe felt himself still. With his gaze locked with Diane’s, he had a feeling the battle of wills beginning was one that could end up destroying them both.

As she suggested, he should simply leave with Jonas. Staying here, accepting that challenge was the worse decision he could make, but that was exactly what he was doing.

“After last night, you really think it’s going to be that easy?” he asked with silky smoothness.

Diane’s gaze flickered with a glimmer of excitement and anticipation that he could feel her attempting to fight.

Attempting.

Lawe felt his own body preparing, his cock hardening, lengthening, the glands beneath his tongue swelling and the faintest hint of the unusual taste of spiced, candied pears.

He hadn’t expected that.

He’d heard the hormone tasted of cinnamon, spring rain, even summer heat. But he’d never heard of candied pears.

“I don’t want this.” The surprising statement had him fighting every instinct he possessed to ignore her.

Jonas had suggested he just mate her and get it over with. Mating her hadn’t been his preferred course of action until he’d seen those bullets slamming into the cement wall above her head.

Until he’d almost seen her die before his eyes.

His mate.

She was his, and other than those stolen moments the night before he hadn’t touched her. Even then, he hadn’t kissed her. He had felt her sweet heat, but he hadn’t tasted it. He was dying for it. He wanted to lick the heated flesh of her pussy, taste the slow glide of her juices as they met his tongue.

He wanted her with every cell of his body, with every breath he could drag into his lungs.

“Don’t look at me like that, Lawe.” There was an edge of breathlessness in her voice that had sweat popping out on his forehead and along his back as he fought the need to kiss her. To share the erotic taste filling his senses.

The head of his dick throbbed imperatively and the need that had it stiff and aching wasn’t something that was going to go away any time soon.

That order, though, that female arrogance as she demanded he deny himself even the pleasure of looking, had that dominant animal inside him rearing its head in furious denial.

“I can look at you however I want,” he growled, moving closer to her, aware that she wasn’t backing down; she wasn’t edging away from him.

A woman as wary as Diane should have been running to protect her virtue, because his intention was to steal every ounce of it.

And once he had her virtue, he would have her submission. His hands actually ached to grip the curves of her ass, spread them apart, show her an erotic hunger that would lead to the full, feminine acknowledgment that he was her mate, her protector.

Diane drew in a slow, deep breath and he could almost hear the thunder of her heart. He could definitely see it in the fierce throb of blood in the vein at her neck.

“You think you can intimidate me?” she asked.

“I’m not trying to intimidate you.” Intimidation had nothing to do with what he had in mind. Hell no. He wanted to fuck her until they both passed out in exhaustion, but he had no intention of intimidating her.

Unless he had no other choice.

And only after he sated the hunger tearing at his senses.

She stared up at him now, the nervousness that flowed through her senses based more in her need for him, a need she was fighting desperately to deny. And he could feel the fight, the desperation, and though he could understand why she fought it, even approved the fight, he refused to allow her to be any less helpless than he.

“Fighting it doesn’t work,” he murmured as he moved around her, his head lowering, his lips at her ear. “It only makes the body hotter, the need more intense. It only makes you hungrier, doesn’t it, Diane, especially after having some small, tempting taste of it.”

Her breathing accelerated.

He could smell her heat then, burning hotter and wilder than ever before. It was blooming inside her, overtaking her control and reaching out to him as he stopped behind her and allowed his hands to settle at her hips, his fingers curling over the fragile bones lightly.

“Right here,” he breathed over the fiercely throbbing vein in her neck. “I could take the gentlest of bites and it would begin. It would burn through both of us, making the hunger impossible to deny, impossible to walk away from.”

Her hands curled over the top of the chair in front of her then. A hard, desperate grip as he felt her fighting to hold on to the last of her control. The same as he was fighting to hold on to his.

“I won’t wait much longer,” he warned her, knowing he couldn’t deny that instinctive, desperate edge of need beginning to tear at his senses.

“And that’s supposed to make me step into line?” The denial, the defiance, was still there.

“I could only hope.” He couldn’t resist brushing his lips along her neck.

Just his lips.

He didn’t lick them first. He didn’t place a layer of the hormone between his lips and her flesh.

And the animal inside paced in fury because he hadn’t.

She jumped against him, suddenly moving to tear away from him, to escape his grip as she whirled around to face him.

“No.”

No.

His lips quirked. No was no. It was intrinsic, whether it was a game or not. It had the same meaning.

He would heed it. This time.

“We have a meeting with Jonas, Callan and Leo tomorrow,” he told her instead. “You’ll be there to give your report.”

She nodded sharply, the scent of her heat nearly drugging him with the nearly overpowering need to taste her as only her mate could do.

Turning, he stalked to the door and left without a good-bye, without a hint of the primal response to her that he was quickly losing control of.

One second more. So much as another breath scented with the flowering lust that wrapped around her and he would have forgotten she said no. He would have forgotten that edge of fear he’d sensed inside her.

He would have forgotten it all and he would have taken his mate.