Rule Breaker

CHAPTER 15

“Going somewhere, Breaker?”

Rule paused outside the hotel lobby, his gaze narrowing as a whiff of cigar smoke reached his nose and Dane Vanderale stepped from the shadows of the hotel.

Mockery filled the hybrid’s expression, but his eyes were cold, hard. Like frozen emeralds.

“I’m busy, Junior,” Rule sneered, almost hoping the bastard would give him the fight he was itching for since he’d stepped from the bathroom and realized Gypsy had run.

Dane leaned against the side of the hotel, holding the thin, aromatic little cigar loosely between his fingers.

“I’m almost tempted to give you what you’re looking for, cub. You’re a dumb little fucker, aren’t you? I didn’t expect that of you.” His gaze never wavered.

Rule gave a harsh snort of laughter. “Dumb little fucker, am I?” he asked the other Breed mockingly. “You’re really itching for a fight tonight, aren’t you? Too bad, I’m not in the mood to give you what you’re after.”

“No more than you were able to give your pretty little mate what she was after,” Dane tsked as Rule suddenly froze in disbelief.

“And you called me a dumb little fucker?” he growled, feeling, feeling, something wild and animalistic rising too close to the surface of his skin as fury began to boil in his blood. “She’s not . . .”

What the fuck?

The words he would have bitten out in fury were locked inside him, a snarl emerging instead as though a part of him refused to allow him to utter the words.

It wasn’t a part of him. Animal instincts—the animal that resided just beneath the skin was suddenly enraged. With him.

Dane laughed.

A low, savagely cruel sound that had the hair at Rule’s nape prickling in warning.

“Do you know, Rule, I’ve sensed your mark on that girl since she was no more than fifteen years old. As I stood at her brother’s casket, mere feet from her, the scent of the animal that paces inside you marked her, even then.”

“What kind of fucking game are you playing, Vanderale?” Rule was in the other Breed’s face before he’d realized he was moving.

Eye to eye, he glared at the man who could easily break the back of the entire Breed community if he had a mind to, and wanted nothing more than to plant his fist in his face.

“Game?” Dane drawled as though the only threat he was in danger of was boredom. “No game, Breaker. Even if you were too stupid to realize the animal that paced inside you was keeping you out of that cave the night Jonas and your brother’s teams rescued her, that didn’t mean others were near so stupid. Even your brother caught your scent that night and turned to find you nowhere near. But that animal inside you was. It was there, watching over its future mate.”

That night.

The night Gypsy’s brother had died and she had nearly been raped. Jonas and Lawe had been in that cavern with her. Each time Rule had attempted to join them, to be certain nothing more was needed, something had stopped him. Held him back.

He’d excused it, telling himself the girl was too traumatized for more males to be crowding around her. Yet he’d paced outside that fucking cavern—

He’d smelled her terror. The horror of what she’d seen, of what had happened or nearly happened to her. He had sensed the agony that had screamed from her, and he’d snarled at the knowledge that nothing could ease it.

“Ahh, you remember now, don’t you, whelp,” Dane sneered.

“I haven’t mated her,” he bit out.

“Because that animal inside you has held back, knowing you’re too buck fuck stupid for such a brave, courageous young woman.” Dane smiled as though finding pleasure in that thought. “Go ahead, cub, run.” He flicked his fingers to the road. “Go play elsewhere. Because I’d almost bet if you leave, then I just might have a chance of completing that bond with her myself. I could use a pretty little mate like her—”

As though suddenly a spectator to his own actions, Rule felt like a man watching in vicarious pleasure as the animal inside him erupted in a fury unlike anything he’d ever known. Before the Breed, one of the strongest Rule knew, could anticipate his action, Dane found himself flat on his ass, the razor-sharp claw-tipped fingers Rule hadn’t known he possessed before tonight pressing into vulnerable flesh, tasting Dane’s blood.

Rule could see the blood staining the claws. He could smell it, though he was reasonably certain the hardened tips pressing into the hybrid Breed’s throat weren’t causing fatal damage.

Not that Vanderale acted as though he gave a damn. He was still smiling in cold, brutal mockery, despite the smell of his blood in the air.

“Rule.” It was the sound of his brother’s voice, once the alpha who ruled the small pack Rule had been born into before the labs were overthrown, penetrating his senses.

They weren’t in those labs anymore.

And Lawe wasn’t his alpha.

In this matter, no fucking man, or Breed, commanded him.

The animal snarled.

The enraged, primal sound that tore from his throat, directed at Dane, would shock him later. For now, he could only let the animal reign.

Dane actually flinched at the sound.

That reaction, as small and involuntary as it was, was all he needed.

Bounding back, Rule fought the savagery mounting inside him until slowly he felt the claws retract once again, just as the lobby doors swooshed open and Jonas, along with six hard-eyed enforcers, stepped into the predawn night.

“Do we have a problem?” Jonas made no move to give a show of strength. He didn’t cross his arms over his broad chest, prop his hands on his hips or glare.

He voiced the question evenly while the silver in his eyes swirled like thunderclouds preparing to burst.

“Ah, little brother.” Dane was back on his feet, relighting that damned cigar. “Did you come to rescue me?”

Dane was seriously amused now. And that was dangerous. Even the animal inside Rule stepped back a safe distance until it could ascertain the hybrid’s next move.

Jonas grunted at the question. “Actually, Dane, I think whatever sliced your throat should have gone for your tongue.” He turned to Rule then. “What the fuck is your problem?”

“Goddamned nosy-assed Breeds,” Rule growled, refusing to back down. “Get the fuck out of my business.”

“He ran his little mate off,” Dane drawled, though he kept a wary eye on Rule now. “In tears. I scented them even as she rushed from the lobby earlier. Newly mated, hurting and frightened. Shamed.” He turned to Lawe. “Sorry, Justice, but that jacket of yours that you placed over her shoulders did nothing to dilute the scent of the Breed that marked her.”

“There’s no fucking mark,” Rule snarled.

Dane gave a mocking little sneer, but it was Lawe’s reaction that held Rule. His brother frowned back at him as though disappointed.

“I didn’t mark her.” Rule shook his head. “I would know if I bit her, dammit.”

“You did something,” Lawe assured him then, and Rule knew if there was one thing his brother wouldn’t do, he would never lie to him. “It was weak, Rule, but the mating scent was there. And the Breed who drove her home reported that the scent only grew stronger after she left. Whatever you did, she’s in Mating Heat.”

She would be in pain.

He hadn’t fully satisfied her. Not enough to still the fires that would begin burning in her.

He rubbed his tongue against his teeth to still that faint irritation—

And he froze.

The glands weren’t swollen, they weren’t really sensitive, yet it was there. A faint taste of sweet heat he couldn’t quite identify. An unfamiliar sensitivity.

He shook his head sharply.

What the fuck was going on?

“He doesn’t believe he marked his little mate when she was no more than a child,” Dane drawled then, directing the comment to Jonas.

Rule watched as Jonas’s gaze flicked to Dane before he shook his head warily, warning the hybrid from saying more. The truth was in the director’s eyes, though, as they met Rule’s once again.

“I didn’t touch her,” Rule snapped as he turned on Dane again. “What the fuck kind of monster do you take me for? To suggest I’d touch a child in such a way?”

Surprise flickered in the icy green eyes. “I don’t believe you mated her. I said you marked her. You found a way to have your scent placed on her, and it stuck. Just as nature intended it to.”

“The hell—”

“You gave the female enforcer present there your shirt to put on her as we pulled those Coyotes off her body. You collected her blanket and handed it to the enforcer who brought it in to her,” Jonas broke in. “He’s not lying, Rule. Even I sensed your claim on her that night.”

Rule shook his head in confusion. “I only saw her for a moment.”

They all turned to him then.

“When?” It was Lawe who asked the question roughly. “You were never in the cavern other than those first moments.”

“The hell I wasn’t,” Rule snarled back. “I was there long enough that the scent of her pain was like an insult to my senses. It was my weapon that fired, along with Jonas’s, and killed Grody. I saw what they were going to do to her. Do you think I stayed out of the cavern? That I’m not intelligent enough to know how to direct cleanup and keep my eye on what the hell is going on as well?”

He’d shot before he’d even processed what was going on.

That huge fucking Coyote had been between a child’s thighs as she screamed for her brother. Those jagged, wrenching screams of rage and pain had been more than the animal inside him could allow. Two others held her down while two more waited behind their leader to have their turn with her.

Rule barely remembered those moments. Seeing the horror of it, the scent of her pain and fear, the agonizing scent of her self-blame and terror that had wrapped around her like a living blanket, had enraged him.

He’d taken out two of the Coyotes before the other shots had been fired.

“Hell, I didn’t even realize—” Jonas shook his head, staring at Rule as though seeing him for the first time. “When I first realized she’d been claimed, even I was unaware it was you for a while.”

“I didn’t fucking claim her,” he snapped. “She was a child.”

What did they take him for anyway?

Rule scratched at the irritating little itch beneath his tongue by rubbing it against his teeth again.

Fuck this.

He’d had enough.

He turned, stalking off into the parking lot and heading for the secured parking area where he’d left the Dragoon he’d driven in the night before.

“Where the fuck are you going?” It was Lawe, moving in beside him, who dared to ask that question.

Rule paused long enough to snarl out, “To get my fucking mate.”

His mate?

To ensure that the cackling South African bastard with a death wish didn’t make the mistake of touching what wasn’t his to touch. Because Dane’s death could cause Jonas more problems than he caused the director breathing.

“It may be too late, Rule.” His brother caught at his shoulder, forcing him to a stop despite the animal snarling inside him. “Listen to me, dammit, I don’t know what you did to her, what you said to her, but the woman who left here tonight was not the woman who went up with you. Whatever happened, she was . . .” Lawe breathed out roughly. “It was like you broke something.”

Rule’s jaw tightened. “She’s still the same woman. I didn’t break anything, dammit. She’s pissed.”

“She’s not pissed,” Lawe denied in confusion. “You changed her, Rule. You took something from her, and I don’t know if you can fix it.”

Jerking from his brother’s grip, he threw a disgruntled snarl his way before turning and moving more quickly than before for the Dragoon. Lawe was wrong, he had to be wrong. Gypsy would forgive him, she wouldn’t have a choice.

She was his mate.