With Rayven plastered along his back, guilt hit him full force, a humbling feeling that nearly paralyzed him. But in this body, he at least got the opportunity to comfort his mate even if he couldn’t speak to her. Speaking hadn’t gone very well and they both needed a little time to get over what had happened.

Yes, they’d survived. At the cost of her possible concussion and aggravated injuries. While she was like a feather on top of him, her labored breathing came out in soft rasps.

His jump had been lucky. Precision planned and well executed, yet lucky nonetheless. However, if he didn’t get Rayven out of here, she’d succumb to her father’s plan and die in this hellhole.

After all the times she’d bested her old man, Breslin refused to let her give up now. Especially since he was to blame for her fight with him in the cave to begin with.

She had every right to be angry with him. A hard thing to admit. Years of hatred had honed his every instinct and hardened his heart, but Rayven didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of his anger against her father and neither did her people. Yet she had, and still, she tried to save him.

Gauthier wouldn’t have cared how many Karndottir clan families were misplaced or homeless. But the tragedy of each and every innocent in her clan tortured Rayven.

He’d been serious about her taking on the role of alpha. She was born to the role. Living in the shadow of a good alpha taught him to recognize Deacon’s qualities mirrored in Rayven’s actions. Not that she was ready to hear anyone’s argument to that effect.

Especially his.

For now, he and his beast focused on getting her safely across that territory line as he tried to block the last painful minutes from his mind. He’d heard her cries, felt her tears. Knew how desperately she wanted him to live. How much she needed him. He suspected she’d never voiced her needs before because he hadn’t either. She didn’t deserve to have people she cared for ripped from her life.

He’d forgotten family—until Deacon’s team. But he’d caught glimpses of love and harmony over the years. Hell, even Callum had stuck by him when it would have been easier to abandon him to his self-induced isolation. Others on the team gave him odd looks but always noticed when he was gone too long or refused to talk for days. A few persisted in engaging him.

But Rayven deserved family. She had friends, if Aubrey and Quinn were any indication. Friends she feared keeping too close in case they became targets.

It should have unsettled him the depths to which he was prepared to travel to provide for her well-being. Not just to keep her safe but to make her happy. A given, despite his orders to bring her to the tribunal.

He was tied to her happiness, and that scared the shit out of him. It also made him wonder how much Deacon knew about Rayven. Alphas had bizarre powers—Deacon proving as much for decades. But even an alpha couldn’t know Breslin had a mate, much less one who lived a shadowed existence as the daughter of his sworn enemy. Could he?

She stirred above him and he lifted his head and rubbed his crown again her hair. She dug her fingers below his ear and scratched.

“You asked why I don’t shift. Since you told me your story, I owe you mine.”

He grumbled, a bit half-heartedly. She didn’t owe him anything, but he wanted to hear this. More important, the soft uncertainty in her voice said she needed to tell her story. No doubt telling his cat was easier than speaking face-to-face with a person, and a man at that. He took a small measure of pride in her ease with his cougar, a beast twice the size of a normal one of its species. Most people were intimidated or downright terrified. Not his Rayven.

“You were right. The rules should apply to me as well.” She hesitated. “Do you plan any more attacks on my clan?”

He stopped, hung his head, and shook it back and forth.

“Promise?”

He released a garbled rumble and, after a few moments, started walking again.

“We should make another new deal,” she said. He tensed, yet kept his pace steady, careful to make sure she didn’t become distracted and slide off his back. “We start from here. In this place. Whatever we’ve said is past, and neither of us has to account for anything we’ve acknowledged once we leave this horrible place.”

He chuffed in agreement, yet deep down, his cat grumbled with menace. Nothing around them posed a threat, but like a storm in the distance, he felt something bitter and painful still coming. Rayven’s past held more horrors than he’d imagined. He only hoped the dark, endless miles of the cave truly purged the truths she seemed prepared to tell.

“One of Karndottir’s enforcers killed my mother when I was taken from her for the gauntlet run. As much as he despised being tied to my mother and made no secret of his rejection of me, Karndottir never intended her death. He made a messy example of the enforcer, and it bought me time.” Breslin growled. However, she continued. “But I no longer had a home and lived for two years at the outskirts of the clan sanctuary.”

Unable to stop the sense of impending threat, Breslin looked behind him. She wasn’t looking his way, but rested her cheek on his back and stared at the wall.

“But when I turned nineteen, my father hunted me down and dragged me back to his sanctuary. He tossed me into a pit with one of his up-and-coming enforcers. If they could get me to submit, then they could keep me. Not keep me as their mate—they could only claim me if I shifted. But if they could force the words of defeat from my mouth, then they got to take me as a reward. A lesson intended for me not to rise above my menial female status.”

His claws extended from his paws, making walking nearly impossible. He stopped, swaying slightly as bile rose in his throat and anger clenched his gut into a painful knot. The urge to shift back into his human form and hold her was overwhelming enough, he nearly gave in to the temptation. Yet, he controlled himself and his beast, though he and it raged. Both wanted to run and tear flesh from bones.

“It’s over, Breslin.” Her fingers curled into his fur, the tips massaging deep down into his soul, assuaging the snarls he hadn’t realized he’d issued. “I never gave in. Unconsciousness was better than letting them win. But my father used his own blood to make the lessons last.”

And to keep her from healing and scar her. Fucking bastard.

Scratching at the earth, Breslin forced himself to relive her choices, to accept her dilemma. As was her way, Rayven had survived with her sanity and self-esteem intact. No thanks to anyone in her clan.

The men supposedly in charge of defense and retribution for wrongs had perpetrated these crimes, with the full sanction of her father. Breslin had never considered a mate, much less children, but one thing was certain: he’d never let anyone, man or woman, harm his child.

He plodded on, resolved in his commitment. Since men had done their best to destroy the beautiful creature inside Rayven, he’d do whatever it took for her to purge her demons. He’d remain in his beast form as long as it took. Remain as the creature who offered her safety without jeopardizing her choices.

“You asked, and I’ve told,” she whispered as she shivered and her teeth chattered. “But we leave this here. I know that you’re not able to object right now. Still I’m holding you to that, fair or not.”

Fair. Too fair. That was what made her alpha material: determination, guts, and compassion—and picking the right topics on which to take a stand. If she didn’t want to speak about this ever again, he’d never pressure her. Fairness wasn’t really the point. Oddly enough, the sharing was. He paused and tilted his head back, rubbing it where it touched hers. She hugged her arms tighter around his neck and buried her face in the fur there. He scented her sadness, though thankfully no salty tears flowed this time. She’d dealt with her past. Which was okay, but he wasn’t quite there yet when it came to what her father had done to her.

He released a long snarl that dissipated into a hiss as he licked over his canines and imagined a Karndottir enforcer forcing a bond with her. Her refusal to submit to someone the likes of Sam would only drive an unhinged shifter to do more damage. With her bear in deep withdrawal to protect against an unwanted and likely fatal mating, she’d had no protection.

“They expected me to cower; instead, I learned how to handle myself. I got faster. I couldn’t connect with my beast, but she lent me strength. I took out one wolf’s eye. Took another one’s ball—he’s lucky I didn’t get all his junk.”

Not bothering to hold back, Breslin shook his head with a keening sound. She suddenly laughed in response. “Thought you’d like that. You have a way of looking at things that I appreciate.”

To encourage her, he came to a halt and scratched the rocks a few times.

“Really, you need more after that.” She sighed. “The alpha was always thinking of something new. He put three of them in there with me. It took them a while to pin me down, though I never submitted and not a word came out of my mouth, not even when there were more claws and teeth than I could count. That was his only rule. I had to say yes. Screaming didn’t count.”

Son of a bitch. Her refusal, again, to label her biological sperm donor with anything other than his formal name or title registered loud and clear. Another thing they agreed on. Father, like mother, was a term reserved for a higher being. The recipients of the gifted label didn’t have to be of-the-blood, but they had to love, nurture, and cherish. It amazed him she’d developed a giving heart given her history.

“That annoyed Karndottir more than anything. Once, he left me in the pit for two days for everyone to see my body after a struggle.” She motioned with her hand for him to take the right tunnel. “After watching you in that altercation back there with Sam’s team, I think you have a few moves you could teach me. I mean, if we ever get the chance.”

He gently licked again over what he could reach of her fingers, tasting her sweet scent and feeling her commitment not to give up until her last breath.

Yes. He’d teach her. At the same time, he’d find some way to make her beast whole.

They continued in silence for almost an hour, Breslin brooding in a state of fury and Rayven oddly quiet.

“You understand why I’m the perfect suspect for his murder. I get he committed worse atrocities against others, and he deserved to suffer. Deserved death.” She laughed again, though the sound held no happiness. “I don’t even know how he died. Never asked, and no one ever told me. Is it bad I don’t really care?”

He didn’t deserve this bit of sympathy from you. That no one told her made sense. Whoever framed her was too busy making certain she wouldn’t live to face the tribunal. However, he agreed with her. Gauthier deserved to die. Over and over and over again.

But was she safe in Black Haven? Deacon hadn’t said he’d exonerate Rayven. Hell, he hadn’t really stated an opinion of her guilt one way or the other when he’d dumped the task for her retrieval on Breslin’s head. To be fair, he hadn’t been paying much attention at the time, more consumed by the loss of his one reason for living—revenge.

Now he had a new concern. She might not be aware that she was his mate, especially if her bear refused to show up and claim him. Yet he grew more certain of their tie with each passing moment. The proof was the strong steady beat of her heart in synch with his, a shocking bond given his staunch dedication as a loner.

However, if the tribunal convicted Gauthier’s daughter of his murder, Breslin had no doubt of his own response.

He’d spent decades developing his reputation, with valid kills to support the claims.

No shifter in the fourteen territories wanted to challenge the Ghost.

A man fine-tuned and tempered for revenge against only one target, the man who’d killed his family when he was only four years old. But Breslin wasn’t four anymore.

Full-grown, with a man’s capacity for hatred and a mate’s even stronger protective instincts, he could harness much more power and exact heavy damage.

If the tribunal took her from him, his cougar would spill blood from one alpha board member to the next, until he took as many of them with him as he could before they found a way to end him.

For if the woman who rode on his back didn’t survive, both man and beast agreed a violent end suited them both fine.

* * *

Just shoot me now. Quinn trudged at the back of the sorry group of escapees as they headed into the Claws and Stripes Tavern.

Aubrey had managed to catch up with him and his charges fifty miles outside downtown Calgary.

Which suited him fine. They’d traveled for hours in silence, the Wilsons enduring his presence. But, hell, he didn’t need anybody’s acceptance. The thought of being dumped on protection detail for the family after he’d spent months trying to prove himself to Rayven was a bit humiliating. Granted, one he probably deserved. At least he took point on finding Nathan.

What blistered his ego more was the fact that the most notorious assassin in the western hemisphere was covering Rayven’s tail as if he was born with the right. Not that Quinn ever stood a chance with her.

But…a cougar?

A tiny bit of his conscience nagged at him. Rayven wasn’t any more his mate than he was hers. There wasn’t a spark of more than a sisterly vibe about her from his animal. Didn’t mean he hadn’t appreciated a woman with guts and a good heart. Begrudgingly, he admitted Taggart also had some impressive skills. Skills Quinn would give his left nut to possess.

Instead, he’d done purgatory duty for what seemed like hours in a car with two scared kids, their uptight parents, and—oh yes—later, a bristly half-breed female wolverine shifter. The entire crew frazzled his nerves.

Now standing in a posh sports bar, he’d give even odds that he was about to meet another secret member of Rayven’s network who’d question his loyalties. And decided he was shit.

Yet his gaze ranged over Aubrey’s fine ass as she escorted the Wilsons and their tiny tribe toward the back of the bar, and he wondered if perhaps—just once—he might consider a dip in that pool?

She glared at him over her shoulder as if she’d heard his thoughts.

Okay. No dips. Pool frigid. The long trip had fried his brain. Still, he could respect a fine ass even if he would never in a million years touch it.

Distracted enough by Aubrey’s silent rebuke, he almost face-planted into the chest of six…he lifted his head as he calculated…nope, seven feet of purebred grizzly shifter. Make that angry shifter, for it was hard not to notice the drawn caterpillar brows and fierce glare.

Could he not catch a break today?

“You have a reservation?” the giant growled.

Quinn shot a pleading look Aubrey’s way, but she only offered a smirk. Left to fend for himself, he straightened his shoulders. “Rayven sent me.”

“You don’t belong in here.” The man straightened and boxed Quinn back against the wall near the door, bending close. “Where is she?”

Head spinning, Quinn noticed two men turn toward them. Men who looked distinctly like cohorts of some of Jacob’s team. He grabbed hold of the shifter’s shirt collar and shoved back. “Don’t think Jacob would take kindly to you disrespecting one of his team. Or have I got that wrong…” He stared toward the bar and squinted at the liquor license hanging on the back wall. “Elijah…Brown.”

“Answer me, or you’re dead,” Elijah snapped. “And I don’t care if the enforcers take me with you.”

“One of Deacon Black’s enforcers came for Rayven,” he muttered under his breath. “He took her to the tribunal.”

Elijah’s eyes grew larger. “You have some balls coming here spouting shit like that.”

“No shit. I have business here for my group.” He jerked his head toward the hallway where Aubrey had disappeared. He snaked his wallet from his pants, thumbed out his credit card, and raised his voice. “Okay, I’ll pay my damn tab. But bring back the card.

“Sure thing.” Elijah glanced at the card. “Pretty boy, Quinn.” He lowered his voice. “But you better not be bringing grief down on those people.”

Quinn stifled a growl, and out of the corner of his eye noticed the men in question stand and disappear out the front door. “Those guys may blow our cover. Get the family somewhere safe and quickly.”

“Don’t see it’s any business of yours what I do.”

“They only wanted the Wilsons’ children before, but I’m sure now they’ll want to clean house.”

“I don’t take orders from you. And why would I trust one of Jacob’s own personal servants?”

Quinn held up a hand, resigned to begging. “It’s not like it looks. Rayven wouldn’t have sent me here if she didn’t trust me.”

Elijah stuffed the credit card back into Quinn’s hand. “I don’t even have to serve you, but one drink is all you’ll get here.” Without another word, he walked away.

One look around confirmed that Aubrey hadn’t come back. Quinn stalked to the bar and took a stool at the end. When Elijah slammed a beer down in front of him, he grasped the man’s wrist. “She sent me to find their son, Nathan, so help me or don’t. Either way, I’m doing what she asked.”

“She’s gone, and you really think I would trust my livelihood and my family to some stranger? Besides, you find this kid and then what happens? No doubt Jacob’s team has him under serious lockdown.”

“I’ll find him,” he responded stubbornly. But Elijah was right. Finding the kid was the easy part. Extraction would be a bitch. One of the main reasons he hadn’t gone after the boy himself until now. Unless— “I’ll get him out too.”

Elijah’s smile was colder than frost. “All by your tiny self.”

He hung his head, sorting quickly through ideas as the worst possible one popped into his mind. “I’ll get help from Deacon Black’s team.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Elijah slammed a wet towel on the bar and swirled his finger toward the people drinking and watching television several feet away. “Why would the alpha who took Rayven to trial help any of these people solve their problems?”

“Not the alpha himself,” Quinn forced out with smugness he couldn’t even make himself believe. “His assassin.”

“You’re out of you ever-loving mind.”

Yep. However, the more he considered his plan, the more he believed it would work. The man who’d thrown himself into the middle of mercenaries and enforcers to save his prisoner and then patched her up with the delicate attention of a pubescent schoolboy in love would most definitely come back for the one kid who could prove Rayven’s innocence. Quinn had been there the night both Rayven and the boy were taken. If rumors were true, the same night Karndottir supposedly died. No one would believe Quinn if he testified for Rayven. His tenuous connection working for her and his past with Jacob put his word at risk, but the tribunal would believe a boy who’d been through hell.

“Get Aubrey on board, and I’ll believe you,” Elijah said.

Quinn rolled his eyes. Really, not even one break?