• CHAPTER 17 •

The spirit was silent, but she hadn’t left. The tall, broad form of her mate, Dog’s father, had joined her. They didn’t speak. They were hazy, barely there, and they weren’t speaking. They had no answers for her, they didn’t know where Dog was, but his father knew he was with Major.

His grandfather. The same man who’d had his son and his son’s mate hunted down like animals and killed. A grandfather with no male heirs now. Dog’s father was certain that somehow, Major had convinced Dog to come home, so to speak. The order that had gone out on the parents hadn’t been the same order that had gone out on the child. Major had demanded that the child he suspected had been born be delivered to him.

So, her mate had decided, in essence, that his grandfather was more important than his mate.

Wild fury filled her at the thought. It burned inside her, searing her soul with the knowledge. Well, he hadn’t married a female willing to allow him to ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after with his grandfather and his grandfather’s fortune.

Mercenary fucking Coyote. If he thought she wasn’t a vengeful mate, then he’d find out quickly how vengeful she could be. There was only one mate. Her soul was bound to his, even if his wasn’t bound to hers. And if she was going to carry the scars of this mating to the very depths of her, then he’d carry a few on the outside, courtesy of her.

Scouring the dark web for any hint of a rumor that a Coyote was stepping up to a fortune—or a grandfather—she could feel the wild, enraged instincts clawing inside her for action. Demanding she go searching.

Only a few searched with no idea what they were searching for. She wasn’t a fool. That icy logical core that had slowly grown over the hours assured her of this. She might be burning in rage, but that cold, hard center kept her anchored where once Dog had.

A dry sob shook her. She’d cried for hours, screaming with the crazed pain that had destroyed her. She’d had her mother crying; Ashley, her sister Emma and Graeme’s mate, Cat had sobbed with her. Their touches hadn’t bothered her. Her parents embraces merely made her numb.

As she scrolled through yet another Breed-sighting site, her head lifted, instinct racing through her as she sensed the Breed heading down the hall. He moved with purpose, with regret. And he was coming for her.

Standing up, she closed the case on the tablet, smoothed her hands over the black skirt she wore and made certain the black sleeveless blouse was neatly tucked in. The four-and-a-half-inch heels weren’t needed for confidence. Others expected her to dress a certain way, and she knew it might be best to give them what they expected.

The knock came at the door as she reached it. Opening it, she stared up at the Breed watching her with pain-filled eyes, his expression heavy with knowledge.

“Sweet Cassie,” he sighed, the Scots burr a gentle sound. “I’ll kill him for ya, I swear it.”

“I’m sure that’s not why you’re here.” He felt sorry for her, and as fondly felt as that pity was, it was so misplaced.

“Rule needs to see ya,” he said. “I’m sorry, lass.”

“Don’t feel sorry for me, Styx.” She stepped out and closed the door behind her. “Feel sorry for that Coyote. He’s going to need your pity far more.”

She didn’t wait to follow him as she would have otherwise. Breed instinct had once demanded she do just that. That instinct no longer existed.

She stepped into the elevator, checked the watch she wore on her wrist for the time and calculated the time to enter the next dark website she’d found earlier. She should have plenty of time. She doubted what she suspected was coming would take long.

It would kill the last of her soul, but it wouldn’t take long.

“Cass, ya need to talk, I’m here,” Styx said gently as the elevator stopped and they stepped out. “Ya know I’ll always be here for ya.”

“I know.” She strode ahead of him for Rule’s office, her head high, steeling herself for what was coming. “There’s nothing to discuss, though.”

Stepping into Rule’s office, aware of her parents behind her, she faced Rule, Jonas, Brannigan and the three leaders of the Breed community, Callan, Wolfe and Del Rey.

“I’m sorry, Cassie,” Rule sighed as she stopped in front of his desk, a grimace contorting his face as he shook his head heavily. “I’m so fucking sorry, sweetheart.”

She’d known him since she was a little girl. She’d teased him over his name, played practical jokes on him as a teenager, stood in awe of him as she matured. Now all she could do was stand before him and wait.

“Get it over with,” she demanded. “Just get it the hell over with.”

She pressed her lips tightly together as he lifted two paper forms from his desk and handed them to her.

She accepted them slowly, stared down at each and felt herself shattering. The agony racing through her wasn’t as sharp as it had been the day before, but she felt it shredding her soul.

No. No. She could hear the whisper of the spirit lingering behind her, a mother’s disbelief and pain. And all Cassie could do was stare at the end of her world as she knew it.

Petition for Separation and Notice of Disavowal. Disillusionment, the reason stated. Permanent separation and disavowal. No contact. Talk about reaping what you sow.

“How ironic,” she said softly, forcing herself not to tremble, but she couldn’t stop the tear that fell from one eye before she could blink it back. “I’m the reason this petition even exists.” She lifted her eyes to Coy Delgado and felt her breathing hitch at the compassion in his black eyes. “I’m so sorry, Del Rey.” Her voice was strangled, the pain carving furrows into the already jagged pieces of her soul. “I didn’t know …”

She didn’t know how bad it hurt. How bad the agony could resonate inside the very spirit.

“No, Cassie.” He shook his head, the rough sound of his voice filled with denial. “None of this is your fault, especially that.” He nodded to the petitions. “I brought it on myself in my treatment of my mate, but you did nothing to deserve it.”

But he’d been given a chance to win his mate back: His mate had agreed to one year’s separation. Her mate had filed for permanent separation. She had been disavowed. There was no hope of seeing him again.

Like hell!

She dropped the paper onto Rule’s desk. There wasn’t even an objection she could file. She was denied any information they might have on his whereabouts. They couldn’t even let her know if he was alive.

“Where is he?” she asked anyway.

She stared at Rule, wanting to beg and unable to. Instead, the creature Dog’s desertion has spawned rose inside her like some demon filled with demented rage.

“We don’t know.” Rule shook his head, but he was lying.

She could feel that lie. He was staring into her eyes and he was lying to her.

She held his blue gaze, staring into it, searching for the answer, demanding he give it to her. That was her mate, and he would tell her …

“Goddamn, Cassie.” His eyes rounded in shock as he came out of his chair, a snarl pulling at his lips as fury flashed across his expression as he prepared to launch himself across the desk. Her father pushed her behind him.

“What the hell?” Her father cursed, facing Rule now. “What the fuck, Rule?”

She didn’t wait for his reaction. They weren’t going to tell her anything. None of them would.

Turning on her heel, she stalked for the door.

“Cassie.” It was Jonas who stopped her.

There was no demand, no order, just a gentle sound that tore at her heart and had the creature clawing inside her pausing.

She tried to make herself keep going, but this was Jonas.

“What?” Tilting her head, she waited.

“Did you really think that would work with an alpha of Rule’s strength, honey?” he asked her gently.

“He knows,” she snapped, hearing the odd sound of her voice, a melodic, haunting tone she’d have to consider later. “If he can lie to me, then he deserves whatever I can throw at him.” She turned back to all of them, her head lifted, glaring back at them. “I do not accept that Separation nor do I acknowledge his disavowal,” she informed them, stabbing her finger in the direction of the incriminating paper still lying on the dark wood desk. “I will find my mate, with or without your help.”

She was aware of her father watching her with narrowed eyes, his gaze thoughtful, intent.

“I can’t tell you where he’s at, and you knew that before you asked,” Rule growled, trying to reassert the hold he would have had over her before she lost the anchor in her little world.

Her mate.

“I would have told you.” There was only that agonizing pain, a feral rage beating at her brain, and the betrayal. “I wouldn’t pull this bullshit on you, Rule, not after all these years. I would tell you.”

Respect begot respect. If he could disrespect her and lie to her, then she could call him on it. He might be stronger physically, but she wasn’t weaker, no matter what they wanted to believe.

“What are you going to do?” It was her father who asked the question, still thoughtful, watching her, gauging what he could sense inside her.

He was her father, and she loved him, but he wasn’t her alpha any longer. He was her father.

“I’m going to kill him,” she stated, aware of the surprise rippling through the room. “I’m going to find him, I’ll find out why he did this, and if I don’t like his excuses, then I’ll kill him.”

Jonas rubbed at the back of his neck; Del Rey’s head turned, his gaze going to Callan and Wolfe in surprised reaction. Callan could only shake his head as Wolfe watched her carefully.

Her father nodded slowly. “Want some help?”

“Dash, no,” her mother gasped. “She can’t.”

“She’ll do it with or without our help,” he stated, his gaze still locked with his daughter’s, sensing the emerging strength, the depth of instinct she finally allowed free. “Let me watch your back, Cassie.”

He could feel her searching for any hint of deception and let his lips quirk knowingly. “Have I ever lied to you? Deceived you?”

“No.” Those blue eyes were blazing, like iridescent gems glowing with the pain trapped inside her. But what had each man in that room entranced was the way the blue was beginning to spread through the whites of her eyes. “Do you know where he is?”

He shook his head. “But I might know someone who does.”

“Dash …” Elizabeth whispered his name, her hand tightening on his arm. “No …”

“It’s time, Elizabeth,” he whispered, dropping a quick kiss to her parted lips before following his daughter as she opened the door and left the room.

Dog had warned him months ago that his daughter was far more than he ever guessed, and Dash hadn’t believed him even though he’d sensed something trying to break free inside her for years. What he was sensing now, though, he couldn’t believe.

There had never been an alpha female but in title only. The mate of an alpha, though not physically or instinctively stronger than the males, commanded in her alpha’s stead. It was a hierarchy thing, a part of nature. But he’d never heard of anything like what he sensed radiating from his daughter. She wasn’t just alpha, she was what Jonas called Primal. A breed whose genetics went beyond human or animal. A creature spawned by determined strength, rage, and called free in only the most extreme circumstance. But once called free, forever a part of the Breed that carried it.

“Weapon up,” he told her as they moved down the hall. “I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

She swung around, her gaze piercing.

Dash grabbed her arm, snarled in her face, and grabbed her attention. He was still her father, and if this was the path she was going to walk, then she’d better learn fast how to stay on it.

“You’re strong, little girl,” he acknowledged caustically. “But you have a hell of a lot to learn and your mate’s not here to begin your education. Consider me a stand-in tutor. And you better believe I know a hell of a lot more about this game than you do. Accept it, and by God start learning now.”

She didn’t drop her gaze in submission but gave a quick nod in return, and he sensed the enraged creature inside her stepping back enough that his own instincts weren’t bristling with the unconscious challenge.

“Now, you weapon up. I’ll meet you in the lobby in half an hour,” he informed her again. “And be ready, Cassie. You challenge the Breed we’re going to meet, and he’ll rip you apart. And there won’t be a chance in hell I can stop it.”

He might be making a mistake. It was entirely possible he was making a mistake, but if there was one Breed who could tell them where Dog had gone, then it was this one.

“Half an hour,” she agreed, the change to her voice still a shock to him. It was smoother, a melodic sound that resonated with power and such a depth of pain, his heart broke all over again for her.

As he strode away from her, the memory of her screams as he rushed to the drive leading from the garage still filled him with horror. He’d never heard a scream like it. His instincts had never reacted to anything the way they’d reacted to those screams.

They’d echoed around her, resonated, and, he swore, pulled the animal he was to the surface with such instinctive demand he’d been shocked by it. The scream of an alpha demanding aid. Demanding they stop whatever agony was torturing her.

Pushing his fingers through his hair, he was aware of his wife catching up with him, moving silently by his side until they reached their room. She was scared for their daughter, uncertain of the decision they’d made when Dash had warned her of what he’d sensed in Cassie six years before. As that knowledge had strengthened over the years, they’d promised themselves they’d support her, no matter where it took her.

Her life, the dangers she’d faced, the choices she’d had to make, had been pushing her closer, and though he hadn’t expected this, he’d promised himself he’d be there for her, no matter the direction that strength took her in.

The knowledge that the “fairy” who had guided Cassie was Dog’s deceased mother might have surprised him, but he didn’t doubt her. Cassie had always known things she shouldn’t have known, made choices Dash knew were shaping her future, and there had been times, rare times, when he’d sensed something in Cassie that now made sense.

“This could be dangerous, Dash,” Elizabeth whispered as he changed into his mission clothes and strapped on his weapons. “She could be hurt. You could be hurt.”

Yeah, it was possible.

Sitting down on the side of the bed, he drew her to him, staring up at her with more love than he’d felt the day before, and the day before that. Over the years, he’d learned not to think that he couldn’t love her more, because it grew daily, and his heart’s capacity for it grew with it.

“It’s her destiny,” he told her softly. “Just as you were mine. She brought me to you, however she knew to do it. This is what she’s been racing toward, Elizabeth, and I don’t trust anyone else to watch her back as well as I trust myself. I don’t know what she’s facing, but I won’t let her face it alone.”

Tears filled her eyes, but they weren’t tears of pain.

“Are you ever going to tell her the truth? That you’re her father? ” she asked.

“I don’t have to tell her.” He shook his head. “Cassie knows. She’s always known.”

REEVER ESTATE
UNDERGROUND LABS OF GRAEME PARKER

Well now, wasn’t this interesting.

Graeme stood in the middle of his lab and stared at the young woman, his head tilted to the side.

The Primal had come forth the moment he caught her scent. Claws emerging, the markings spreading over his body, his gaze becoming sharper, clearing, picking up things a normal Breed had no hope of sensing.

And if he was watching her in interest, she was taking in nearly as much as he was. The blue of her eyes hadn’t completely taken over the whites yet, and he doubted there would be markings, but one wouldn’t know for some time yet.

“How fascinating,” he murmured as his mate, Cat, and his brother, Cullen, as well as Cullen’s mate, Chelsea, watched suspiciously from behind him. “Of course, so would your mate be. You’d never accept a mate weaker than yourself. How did I miss that?”

A frown snapped between those perfectly arched black brows and he could feel what was still trapped, fighting for freedom. This Primal was strong. What the body lacked in physical strength, the creature beneath her skin would make up for in other ways. Ways he may even find shocking.

“I wonder if it was the mating,” he questioned, speaking more to himself than to those standing in the cavern with him. “A hybrid thing, do you think?”

It was the first hybrid mating, he consoled himself. It could be something that emerged in hybrids. If so, the Breed community could well be screwed. There was also a chance it was merely an anomaly.

“Did you sense it?” He turned to her father as curiosity got the best of him. “Has it always been there?”

Dash’s sharp nod was all he needed.

“Hmm.” Retracting the claws was easy enough; the stripes remained.

Primal to Primal, she would respect nothing else.

“Are you Primal as well?” He turned his attention back to Dash and caught the Wolf Breed’s quick shake of his head.

“Not hereditary, then.” He sighed, smelling the strength of Dash’s paternal mark on her. “We’ll have to discuss this in depth, you know.”

“They’re not here to talk, Mr. Hyde,” his brother’s mate reminded him. “I warned you of that.”

Yes, that was true; she had reminded him of that.

“I need blood, saliva.” He let his gaze meet the young halfling’s. “Give me what I want; I give you what you want.”

Her eyes narrowed, the blue filled with latent power. He wanted to rub his hands together in glee. He’d been getting bored, he admitted. This would definitely liven things up.

“Graeme,” his mate’s voice held a warning.

“Cat,” he answered her, though his gaze never shifted from that neon blue. “It’s easy enough. She knows there’s no danger in giving it.” She merely stared back at him as he tilted his head and watched her.

“Can you speak?” he asked, amused.

“Quite well. Give me what I need, I’ll take the samples myself,” she stated.

That voice. Graeme could feel a chill moving up his spine at the haunting, hypnotic tone. It was beautiful. Crystal clear, pulling at the senses, at that inner part of a living being that made one need to give whatever the voice demanded.

“Can you work the pressure syringe yourself? I can lay out what you need,” he told her, thankful that he had no problem with it. Denying this young woman would not be easy when she let this part of her free.

“I can.” She nodded.

Graeme looked to her father quickly, seeing the clench of the Breed’s jaw.

That voice. God help Breeds and humans alike when the Primal inside her was fully mature. That voice would demand everyone sit up and listen.

Turning away, he laid out what she needed—the syringe, a sterile swab—and watched as she extracted her blood into the three vials he provided. Three swabs. He had quite a bit of work to do.

She did it quickly, efficiently, as he moved to his computer, typed in the proper address and watched information scroll through. He’d been alerted to certain events as Dash called, and had followed the information until they arrived.

When Cassie Sinclair stepped back from the tray she’d placed the samples on, he quickly wrote down the information and handed it to her.

“You shouldn’t go alone,” he told her.

“She’s not,” her father spoke up.

Yes, this one would watch her back, but who would watch his? His influence on the young Primal was strong enough, the bonds of father and child stronger than the girl knew. But they were just two against whatever force awaited them.

“Cullen, shall we join the party?” he asked, aware of the young woman stilling, preparing. “Just to watch the father’s back.” He smiled as she narrowed her eyes on him.

“Good idea,” Cat agreed quietly. “Chelsea and I will join you.”

He tilted his head and stared back at Cassie. “It’s your party. Are you agreeable?”

Her slow nod was a bit wary, but her agreement was all he needed.

“When I gut him, keep back.” It wasn’t an idle threat.

Dash grimaced, a look of concern flickering over his expression.

“You’re going to kill him fast?” Graeme frowned, shedding his lab coat as Cullen handed him his weapon. “My dear, we need to discuss the idea of true pain. You’ll rue the day if you show him mercy. Shall we discuss the merits of torture instead …”

The frightening part was the fact that she seemed all too willing to listen.