THREE

THREE WEEKS LATER

If there was one thing in Del-Rey’s life that he knew with all certainty, it was himself. He was a Coyote Breed, and as he informed the Breed Ruling Cabinet weeks later, he admitted to some of that Breed’s worst traits. Calculation, manipulation. The ability to look at a situation and instantly size up the roadblocks and dangers inherent in it and find a way over them. He wasn’t a charge-into-the-fray type of guy. He was a slice-their-throat-in-the-dark animal, and he fully admitted to it. 

For ten years he had connived to ensure that he and his people were part of the recognized Breed society. He was, after all, a man who liked to be on the winning side. Breed freedom was the winning side. But now, the stakes had been raised. Because of his mate. 

Hell, he’d never caught so much as a whiff of information about mating heat between Breeds and their lovers. Who could have imagined that the Breed genetics would turn against them in such a way and would torture their females as it did? 

Of course, how else did a Breed have a hope of holding his woman once she learned the animalistic nature that came out with mating heat? 

He considered it a trade-off. Rather like the flesh wounds he had ordered for Anya’s family in retaliation for the risks she had taken for six years. If he had walked away and left those men unwounded, then the Genetics Council would have had them killed. It was that simple when a man came right down to it. The Coyote Ghost wasn’t a man of mercy when it came to the enemy. 

If the Council had suspected he had shown mercy to anyone except the woman he had kidnapped, then they would have instantly suspected those men of having been involved in the plot to free the Breeds from that facility. 

Not that Anya had wanted to hear that explanation. She refused to speak to him. Once the Breed doctor Nikki Armani had taken her from the caves, he’d been denied any private contact with her, at her request. 

He better understood now why his fury had risen at the thought of the risks she had taken. Why he had put two men on watch at that facility at all times, ensuring that should the Council send soldiers to collect her, she could be rescued. 

He’d been too protective of her, and he had known it. His men had known it. They had tread a fine line around him where that girl was concerned for too many years. And the knowledge of the mating heat explained those impulses that Del-Rey would have never risked at any other time. It also explained his awareness, from the first time he had seen her, that in some way, he would betray her. 

Calculation and manipulation, cunning and foresight. Those traits were part of the Breed makeup overall, but Coyotes had them in abundance. As well as a healthy dose of near laziness, but no species could be perfect, he told himself. The laziness didn’t extend to the job, just to general life, and he was accepting of that in his men as well as himself. They might slouch on their own time, but they got the job done to his exacting specifications. 

Now there was a much more important mission facing him. That of acquiring his mate back from the Breed Ruling Cabinet. Rules needed to be established, he told himself. Anya needed her pound of flesh or he would never have his chance to hold her again. 

He understood pride. He didn’t understand a woman’s emotions, but the female Coyotes he’d rescued had informed him rather quickly that he best be learning those emotions fast. They had sworn loyalty to him and the packs seeking the alliance with the Breed society. That loyalty ran deep. They wouldn’t break their word. But if he took her freedom of choice from this point forward, then resentment would brew. Both in the woman as well as in the packs he led. 

It bit his pride though. It bit at his anger. For three weeks now he had been separated from his mate, knowing she was in the underground Breed research facilities undergoing tests on the mating heat. Knowing inside him that those tests were hurting her. He could feel it, knew it in a part of his soul he hadn’t known existed. And he had been unable to force his way into her. 

The five female Coyotes stayed with her. They were his insurance that if she asked for him, he would know. If she wanted free of the tests, then they would come for him. They reported to him daily, and each day he was told she didn’t want him there. She didn’t want to leave. But he saw in the women’s eyes the proof that she suffered. His mate suffered and he was helpless to stop it. 

Now he sat in the meeting room that had been set up for a Breed tribunal, something he was told had never been held in the eleven-year history of the Breeds’ establishment. 

A table of twelve men and women chosen from within all species to hear his mate’s petition for separation from him. 

He knew how it would end. He knew, and the ache that filled him at the thought was surprising. 

Accepting the truth and the direction each battle must take had never been a hard matter for him. 

But this time, seeing the path stretching before him and knowing what must be done, tore at him. 

It tempted the animal genetics that were never far from the surface, and riled the man with burning fury. The same fury he saw glowing in his mate’s beautiful sapphire eyes. He ached and he raged, and he watched his life change before his eyes. 

A petition for separation from a mate had never occurred, not once in the eleven years that the Breeds had known of mating heat and suffered through it. Not until Anya Kobrin had submitted to three weeks of tests to complete the research the doctors needed to created a base hormonal therapy that would control the symptoms of the heat. 

She had been warned it wasn’t a cure, merely an aid. She had been told she would never be free of the man they called her mate, but she would have the time she needed to figure out what the hell had happened to her life and how it had managed to go to hell so fast. 

She stared at the Breed tribunal from the table she sat at in front of them. Nine men and three women drawn from every species of the Breeds. Wolf, Feline, Coyote. Del-Rey and Sharone were there to stand for the Coyotes. Her mate and one of her dearest friends. 

Her mate, she wanted to scoff at the title as she glared at him. She was furious. Enraged. 

Scorned. In three weeks she hadn’t forgotten a single complaint she had against him. 

Her attention was drawn from the man to the young woman at her side. Cassandra Sinclair, daughter of a tribunal member, Dash Sinclair. At eighteen, Cassandra was slender, with long black hair and light, almost pale blue eyes. She had the genetic perfection of features that all Breeds had, though she was what they called a hybrid, a child born of Breed sperm that had fertilized a human egg that hadn’t been changed by the genetics needed to create the Breeds. Her mother had then been artificially inseminated and carried Cassandra to term. 

She was still Breed though. There was no mistaking the looks or the longer canines at the side of her mouth. 

“Ladies and gentlemen of the tribunal,” Cassandra announced. “You have before you a petition of separation between the Breed Del-Rey Delgado and his biological mate, Anya Kobrin. I’m acting on behalf of Miss Kobrin and officially request an order of separation be issued and constraints be placed on the Coyote Breed Alpha Del-Rey Delgado and that she be given sanctuary within Haven as long as Alpha Delgado is in residence at the base the Coyote Breeds have established. We further request that Alpha Delgado be refused his counterorder, in effect his petition to have access to his mate, over her wishes. At this time, Miss Kobrin is willing to take questions from the tribunal and has sworn on the tenets of Breed Law that her answers will be truthful and without prejudice to Alpha Delgado.” 

There was a shuffling along the table as each member except Del-Rey and Sharone took another look at the papers. 

Cassandra resumed her seat, her expression composed as the tribunal stared back at the two of them. 

“We have only a few questions, Ms. Kobrin. Merely clarifications to your statement.” Jonas Wyatt, the director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs, began the process. Eerie silver eyes stared back at Anya surrounded by lush black lashes. His expression was cool and imposing, and perhaps about his lips there was a faint hint of cruel arrogance. 

“To start with, I’d like you to clarify for the tribunal that you did indeed work with a man that you knew first as the Coyote Ghost, and finally by his true identity, Del-Rey, for a period of six years, to weed out the spies within the Coyote pack at the facility where you headed administration and inner facility security affairs.” 

Anya breathed in slowly. She swore she could smell Del-Rey. A subtle hint of spicy male warmth and sexual intensity. Too bad he hadn’t been willing to share any of that warmth with her. 

“That’s true,” she answered. 

“Did you research the man you contacted before sending that first message?” Jonas asked her. 

“I did.” She nodded. 

“And were you aware of the Coyote Ghost’s habit of killing the head of security forces within the facilities he attacked over the years? Facilities that held Wolf, Feline and Coyote Breeds that he deemed acceptable risks to rescue.” 

“I was aware of this,” she stated. 

“And what made you believe no harm would come to your family then?” he questioned her, his voice growing colder. “Your father commanded parameter security and training. He was aware of what the facility was and the international laws against those facilities. What made you believe the Coyote Ghost would not kill your father?” 

Because she had believed in his word. She had trusted him. And over the six years they had worked together, she had believed there was more binding them than a job. 

“He swore before we met that my family wouldn’t suffer,” she told him. “He swore for six years as I did what he told me, risking myself and my family if I were caught, that they would not be punished or harmed unless there was no other recourse but to wound them to protect their own. 

We had an agreement.” 

“You have the secured emails that have been retrieved, Director Wyatt, that back up Ms. 

Kobrin’s statement,” Cassandra interjected. 

Jonas looked back at her with faint surprise. “I didn’t need proof of her statement, Ms. Sinclair,” 

he told her. “I merely needed to clarify that she was aware of the risks in contacting Alpha Delgado before she did so.” 

“Ms. Kobrin.” Merinus Lyons, wife and mate to Alpha Lyons, the Feline prides’ leader, spoke up then. “Do you feel that you were, at any time, raped?” 

The question had a deadly tension beginning to fill the air. Anya hadn’t expected that question. 

“I never stated I was raped,” she answered. 

“No, you didn’t,” Merinus agreed. “You have instead petitioned this tribunal for separation from a man that we know for a fact is your biological and, we suspect, your emotional mate. No mate has ever done this, no matter the anger or misunderstandings. As a woman, as part of this tribunal, I’d like to understand why you’ve taken this stance.” 

“I wasn’t raped.” She shook her head. “Not by Del-Rey. I feel raped by the insanity of these laws I’m forced to abide by, and I feel raped by a hormonal phenomenon neither Alpha Delgado nor myself had control over. I had no choice but to accept him as a lover because of the loss of control this biological connection forced. I resent that this tribunal feels that I should subject myself to that feeling whenever Alpha Delgado is present. And I resent that the choice could be taken out of my hands. That, Prima Lyons, is the worst sort of rape.” 

Merinus stared back at her for long moments before inclining her head in agreement. “Thank you, Ms. Kobrin, for that clarification.” 

Silence filled the meeting room then, as though the men and women heading the tribunal hadn’t expected her answer. And she could feel Del-Rey staring at her; from the corner of her eye she could see the dark, brooding frown on his face. 

“Would you say, Ms. Kobrin, that perhaps you and Alpha Delgado have been forced into a position that neither of you wanted?” Alpha Lyons asked then. 

“I would say that,” she stated. 

The pride alpha stared back at her relentlessly. “Yet you’ve seen Alpha Delgado’s statement that his intent all along was to take you out of that facility and claim you as his lover. You were sixteen when he first met you. From that point on, he was aware there was no chance he would leave you there. No chance that he didn’t intend to convince you to stay with him.” 

She glared at Del-Rey then. “Then he should have been careful about the order he gave to have my family wounded,” she stated. “Once we arrived here, he should have never refused my request to contact my family.” 

“Even if that contact threatened your family?” Alpha Lyons asked her then. “Ms. Kobrin, by contacting your family, you put them in the position that the Genetics Council has proof that they can be used against you. Their prime objective at this point is to capture Breed mates. Could your father be used to draw you from Haven? Would you give your life for your family?” 

Her lips trembled. She stared at Cassandra. She hadn’t considered that. The Council rarely struck out at humans any longer, because the propaganda against them was so strong. 

Cassandra stared back at her in sympathy. 

“No,” she finally whispered. “I didn’t know this.” 

“Yet you were sent Alpha Delgado’s statement, explaining his reasons and his actions, which he gave this tribunal,” Callan further stated. “Did you read that statement?” 

She shook her head. She hadn’t read it. She didn’t want to read it or hear his reasons why. 

“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” she finally told them clearly. “He lied to me, countless times. He destroyed my trust in him, and he knew for six years that he would do it. I don’t trust him, Alpha Lyons. Don’t doubt that this petition of separation is sincere. I promise you. It is.” 

“Ms. Kobrin.” Wolfe Gunnar, alpha of the Wolf packs, spoke then. “Are you in love with him?” 

She jerked in surprise at the question. “My emotions shouldn’t come into this, Alpha Gunnar.” 

Did she love him? Until she ached with it. Was she going to allow him to control her body and her life because of it? Not in this lifetime. 

Wolfe stared back at her for long moments before nodding his head slowly. “Perhaps you’re right,” he finally agreed. 

“Perhaps that’s a question we should ask Alpha Delgado,” Cassandra suggested then, turning her head to Del-Rey as Anya held her breath in fear. She knew the answer. “Alpha Delgado, are you in love with Ms. Kobrin?” 

Del-Rey stared back at her broodingly. “I can’t say I’m in love with her,” he finally stated. “I’m a soldier, Ms. Sinclair, not a damned poet. I claimed her. As proven, she’s my mate. Nothing else should come into this.” 

Anya lowered her head and stared at her hands, hope dwindling inside her no more than seconds after it had burned through her soul. If he had said yes, would she have followed through with this petition? She knew she wouldn’t have. She couldn’t have denied him if he had sworn he loved her, even though she knew his word wasn’t worth the signature he had scrawled on his statements. 

“I see,” Cassandra said heavily, her head lifting to stare back at the women on the tribunal. “And we wonder at such a young woman’s need to be separated from the man who only claims her,” 

she sighed. 

“Ms. Sinclair, may I ask a question?” Del-Rey asked, his voice as lazy as his slouched position in his chair. 

“Of course, Alpha Delgado,” Cassandra said with a hint of surprise. 

“We have several mated males on this tribunal. Alpha Lyons, Alpha Gunnar, Enforcer Jacob Arlington, and Enforcer Aiden Chance. Tell me, gentlemen, were you in love with your mates when the mating heat claimed you?” 

Each man grimaced heavily. “Maybe we just weren’t aware it was love,” Alpha Lyons finally said with some amusement as he glanced at his wife beside him. “But have no doubt, Alpha Delgado, we learned quick enough.” 

“Who is to say that I couldn’t learn as well?” Del-Rey shrugged then. “Being a Coyote doesn’t make me stupid, merely less willing to recognize emotion, I believe. By separating herself from me, my mate is stealing that chance from both of us.” 

“He’s very clever with words,” Cassandra murmured under her breath. 

“He is at that,” Anya said sadly. “He’s very good at twisting words.” 

“I also noticed that Ms. Kobrin was decidedly less honest in her answer to that same question,” 

Del-Rey pointed out then. 

“Ms. Kobrin has the right to request that her emotions not be questioned,” Cassandra argued. 

“Mating heat and the proven psychological effects are clear bases that she not be questioned regarding emotions that she may not be clear on at this moment.” 

Del-Rey’s lips quirked mockingly, his black eyes gleamed in knowledge as Anya lifted her head and stared back at him. 

“If I hadn’t wounded her family and made it look like a clear attempt to harm them, then they’d be dead,” he stated then. “The Council would have killed them and I knew it. But, I will admit, even without that risk, they would have felt my wrath. They endangered her from childhood to the moment I kidnapped her. Their lack of concern for her well-being would have been punished. 

That was the decision behind my actions, right or wrong. If I knew then what I know now, would I have done it? I have to say yes,” he continued. “I claimed her and I claimed all right to exact vengeance in her name. Her tender emotions and lack of understanding of men of war clearly show that she had no idea how little her welfare was considered by those she loved.” With that, he leaned forward. “She wants a petition of separation. Very well. She has it. I’ll be damned if I’ll take a mate or a woman who claims that the bonds between us are no more than rape.” He turned to Jonas at his side. “Director Wyatt, I accept your offer as enforcer with the Bureau on the condition that while I’m risking my ass for her freedom, again, that she be required to stay at Base and oversee the Coyote Breeds that look to her for support. Those men and women we took out of there will need time to acclimate and she’s a guiding force they look to.” 

Jonas’s brows arched. “How long do you believe this acclimation is needed?” he asked. “I’m certain Ms. Kobrin would like a set timeline. She seems rather talented in the area of setting boundaries.” 

“One year,” Del-Rey stated. “She’ll receive advance notice of my returns to oversee the military and financial concerns of the packs between missions. You stated you needed more men for the swift strikes being made against facilities and enemy groups.” He grinned. “Looks like I’m your man.” 

“Those are dangerous assignments,” Jonas growled as Anya stared at him in shock. “Mates don’t take those missions.” 

Del-Rey gave a hard, cold laugh as he rose to his feet. “Looks like I’m no longer a mate, Director Wyatt. I’m just the poor bastard with the hard-on.” 

With that, he moved from the table, stalking past the table Anya sat at, his imposing features savage, tight with anger, as he stalked to the wide double doors, lifted his hands and slammed through them. 

The crash of metal against metal as the doors bounced into the walls had her flinching violently as she stared at his back. 

“He’s crazy,” she whispered. 

Cassandra snorted. “Yeah. That’s a Coyote for you. We’ve never accused them of being sane.” 

“Can he do this?” she asked. “He accepted mate status. This is supposed be against the rules or something, isn’t it?” 

Cassandra stared back at her archly. “Or something,” she sighed. “Oh well, look on the bright side, maybe he won’t be back very often.” 

She grabbed Cassandra’s arm, glaring at her furiously. “He could be killed.” 

“We could all be killed, Anya,” Cassandra told her, her voice cool now. “We’re Breeds. We weren’t meant to be free, remember? We’re all at risk. He’s just accepting a risk other mated males are forced to relinquish. The order of separation changes those rules. He can do whatever the hell he wants to now.” 

Even risk his life. Anya turned back and let her gaze find Sharone’s. Her friend was torn, she could tell. Torn between pack loyalty and friendship. Then, Sharone’s expression cleared and a little smile touched her lips as she stared back at Anya. One of triumph. One Anya understood even less than she understood Del-Rey’s decision to leave.