Rule’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t give me ultimatums, Jonas,” he growled. “You know that won’t work with me.”
“I’m not ordering you,” Jonas stated firmly. “I’m telling you. I won’t take any further risks with my daughter. Gypsy’s a friend, not just yours, but mine and Rachel’s, and even Amber’s as well, and because of that, you have until after the ball next week to find out what the hell is going on. Then I’ll find out myself.”
Turning, Jonas moved from the room and entered the private rooms he shared with his mate. Even Rule caught the scent of Amber’s pain and felt his chest tightening at the decisions Jonas was being forced to make to save her life. Decisions he knew kept the other Breed awake at night staring into the darkness as he searched for an answer.
“Rule.” Lawe sighed wearily, and Rule could feel his brother’s intent to try to dissuade him from the trust he felt for a woman he should have never trusted to begin with.
“Don’t even bother, Lawe,” Rule growled, determination hardening his jaw, tightening his body. “Everything inside me is screaming her innocence. I won’t turn on her without cause.”
With that, he left the suite, stalking down the hall and heading for his rooms. And, he hoped, a chance to figure out exactly what the hell was going on with the woman he hadn’t mated, yet the only woman he’d been unable to turn away from in his entire life.
CHAPTER 9
He was waiting on her that night.
Leaning against the bar, watching the doorway with a smug, self-satisfied smile—and didn’t he just look like the cat that ate the canary.
The man was positively sex served up with a side of luscious male muscles and sinful wicked looks. Something she preferred to admire from afar, if only her damned body and her Unknown boss would get with the program there.
Dane Vanderale stood with his back to her, and whatever he said to Rule had the Breed flashing him an irate look before his gaze turned back to her.
Was she supposed to be swooning? she wondered. Tearing her clothes off and spreading herself before him in thankfulness that he had persuaded the director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs to allow her parents to have that contract?
She didn’t think so.
The very fact that she was even there that evening had more to do with a call from friends asking her to show up than either her contact or Rule.
Kandy had left the shop before Gypsy could ask her to make the mousse cake for Amber. Gypsy had found herself in the Gingerbread House kitchen whipping up chocolate mousse as she watched the clock, certain she would be up most of the night with it.
Thankfully, Kandy had shown up as Gypsy set the mousse into the fridge to chill, and with an irate glare at the mess in the kitchen, her sister had urged her to go “do whatever it is you do every weekend and get the hell out of my kitchen.”
And Gypsy had done just that without argument.
She could bake, and she could bake well, but Gypsy was not all about the cleanup.
From the corner of her eye she watched as Rule narrowed his eyes on her where she lingered just inside the entrance. Her gaze moved over the crowd as though she weren’t debating stepping up to the bar and shooting him. She sure as hell wasn’t going to go panting after him like some bitch in heat.
The sight of a slender hand lifting into the air, waving enthusiastically, had her gaze turning to the owner, and a smile tugged at her lips. Hell, it had been too damned long since she had seen the Coyote Breed Ashley Truing and her sister, Emma, out having fun.
Two months before, Ashley had taken a bullet to her chest that the doctors had been certain she wouldn’t recover from. She was recovering, just as Emma had promised before the meeting with Jonas, but others had mentioned over the past weeks that Ashley was different in some way. That there was a part of Ashley that may not have returned when she’d died on the operating table after being shot.
Breed genetics ensured that Ashley had healed quickly, though. In less than six weeks the Breed female had been strong enough that she was moving around easily and training to regain the strength she had lost.
Moving across the bar, Gypsy ignored the feel of Rule’s eyes following her and the amusement she glimpsed curling on his lips as she made her way to the girls’ table.
They weren’t alone. The blonde with them, older by only a few years, was leaning back in a chair, watching the occupants of the bar broodingly as she nursed a bottle of beer that had been barely sipped from.
Sharone had been raised with Ashley and Emma, created first in the Russian labs, and often acted like the protective sibling she could very well be.
“Are the three of you having fun?” she grinned, her voice rising until she could be heard over the energetic tunes the band was pouring out to the crowd.
“Four,” Emma informed her, leaning close as Gypsy took a seat next to her. “We finally talked Jonas into letting Cassie come out and play with us.”
Gypsy looked around. “Where is she?”
Emma’s lips twisted in perplexed amusement. “She’s out there dancing with some guy. See all the Breeds congregated?” She pointed to what was indeed a mass congregation of Breeds next to the dance floor. “I bet her partner is pissing his pants.”
Oh hell.
Poor Cassie. She was surrounded by glowering Breed Enforcers whose unrelenting stares were trained on the hapless cowboy Cassie was dancing with.
Gypsy could see them now. The young man was positively miserable, and Cassie was glaring at the Breeds.
What hell her life must surely be. Always followed, never left alone, never able to truly have friends.
“She never makes it for long,” Emma revealed with a heavy sigh. “She talked Jonas into letting her go out while they were in Virginia last year. The Breeds he sent with her terrified anyone who even considered asking her to dance. She sat and got puke-faced drunk instead.”
“Yeah, then the Breeds who took her out got their asses kicked for letting her get drunk,” Ashley revealed with a slight smile. “I told her, she should have got hold of me before that bastard put a hole in my chest. Me and Em would have showed her a good time. We would have had to leave Sharone at home, though.” Ashley nodded to the blonde on the other side of Gypsy.
“I bet that would have just upset the hell out of you.” Gypsy laughed over at the disgusted look the other Breed female cast Ashley.
Sharone rarely got into trouble and was known to keep an eagle eye out for the other two girls. It often took both Sharone and Emma together to keep Ashley out of trouble, though.
“Why aren’t the three of you out there dancing too?” Gypsy nodded toward the dance floor.
“With all those Breed Enforcers in attendance?” Emma looked at her as though scandalized. “I really don’t want my alpha jerking me home and shortening my leash to the point that I strangle. None of us do.”
“Just for dancing?” Gypsy tugged at her ear in confusion as she frowned out at the dance floor and the smooth, sinuous flow of bodies that moved in beat to the music.
“Our alpha is convinced we’re pure and sweet with no sex drive and damned sure we know none of the moves we use while teasing those cowboys. If he even heard of us dancing as we do, he’d never let us out to play again.” Emma even looked properly horrified.
“Is your alpha here?” she asked, looking around suspiciously. She usually heard when there were any alphas in the area.
“No, not the alpha, just every Breed who would ever tell on us.” Emma grimaced. “Wherever Cassie goes, Jonas’s best enforcers go. That means our alpha would be told because one of those Breeds this month is one of the Citadel’s team commanders. He would tattle on us in a heartbeat.”