Tanner's Scheme

And it wasn’t going to happen. No matter how much he wished it could. Which left only one last resort to save her. To give her to her true mate.



CHAPTER 18



Other than the color of his hair and eyes, Cabal St. Laurents was identical to Tanner. The difference in the hair was a matter of transposed colors. Tanner’s was black with burnished gold streaks. Cabal’s was a burnished gold with black streaks. Tanner’s eyes were deep, rich amber with flecks of brilliant green. Cabal’s were green with flecks of amber. Both men were exactly six feet and two inches tall. Both men were hard, muscular and had the looks of a fallen angel. Neither could, by any stretch of the imagination, be called angels though. They were equally dangerous.



Scheme’s father had once had extensive files on the two Bengal Breeds, their training and strengths, as well as their weaknesses. Scheme had nearly memorized those files. During his stay in the labs, Tanner had played the game perfectly. He had excelled at every obstacle he was pitted against, killed with proficiency and proved to the psychologists that he was a loyal Breed Killer, even at a young age.



He was considered one of the labs’ greatest failures now, and one of Callan Lyons’s greatest weapons in rescuing the Breeds from the New Mexico labs.



Cabal had been another story. His training had been filled with pitfalls. He refused to practice the maneuvers taught to him, and used his own. He refused to kill when ordered, but had no problem killing soldiers and trainers. He refused to talk to the psychologists and was labeled psychotic by the doctors working with him.



At the age of twenty-five he was declared a failure, without hope of training, and listed for cancellation along with nearly two dozen other Breeds. He had survived weeks in a pit designed to kill with torturous precision.



“I don’t think your friend trusts me, Tanner,” he commented hours after his arrival, as Scheme moved slowly from the bathroom into the main cavern.



Tanner stood by the counter, a beer in one hand, the other tucked into the pocket of his jeans while Cabal sat at the table, relaxed in his chair, his beer sitting in front of him.



“Is my trust required?” Scheme finally asked as she moved to the refrigerator and pulled free a bottle of water.



She had bathed and changed clothes and, for the first time since walking out of the caverns, felt warm again. Safe. God, she hadn’t realized the toll her life had taken on her over the years, until now.



And now she had to wait just a little while longer. Cabal would leave soon, and when he did, she could talk to Tanner. She could explain why she left, and why she needed so desperately to talk to Jonas.



“Perhaps not.” Cabal shrugged, his gaze boring into her. “At least not right now.”



She gave him a distrustful glare before moving past Tanner and heading to the seating arrangement located in front of the television.



“You know, your daddy was on the television last night,” Cabal announced. “His cheeks even got wet with tears as he begged for your return.”



She paused before turning to face him.



“Cabal, let it go,” Tanner ordered him softly.



Cabal’s green eyes flicked to Tanner before returning to Scheme with a gleam of predatory interest and satisfaction.



“Let what go?” she asked them both.



Her heart was heavy, sluggish, bordering on panicked. She hated that feeling, the premonition of danger, a sense of warning.



“Nothing,” he finally murmured, a mocking grin tugging at his lips as he glanced back at Tanner. “It can wait.”



Tanner shook his head as though in resignation, while Cabal’s grin deepened.



“Call me the impatient sort then,” she responded tightly.



“I already had that one pegged.” Cabal lifted his brows mockingly. “You know, I can smell your arousal as well.”



She didn’t flush or blush. Instead she sighed.



“It takes a lot more than that to humiliate me, Mr. St. Laurents,” she informed him. “Try again.”



“I think I could come in my jeans just watching his cock stretch your pussy,” he responded. “It would be enough to make a hungry man lick his lips in anticipation.”



She glanced at Tanner, watching the way his brows lowered and his stare toward his brother became dark.



What the hell was going on here? It was as though Cabal were deliberately trying to piss her and Tanner off.



“Those lips are the only thing you’re going to be licking where I’m concerned,” she told him sweetly. “If you and Tanner have an itch to play more of your games, then you can play them somewhere else.”



“It won’t be the first time you’ve let your lover share you, Scheme,” Cabal pointed out. “What made you trust that assassin more than you trust the Breed that saved your ass?”



She turned slowly, staring back at Cabal silently, furiously. Why bring this up? The fact that Chaz had shared her with another man shouldn’t be anything to Cabal. Had Tanner shown him the videos? They had shared women, she knew. Had they shared viewing the video feed Tanner had watched?



“He didn’t see the surveillance, Scheme.” Tanner’s voice held a note of resignation. “It was in my report.”



“You reported on what you saw?” she asked past the tightness in her chest.



“When needed.” He shrugged. “Allowing St. Marks to bring an FBI agent believed to be loyal to the Breeds to your bed was of interest to Security.”



“What was St. Marks paying him for?” Cabal asked. “And I should point out, that while you showered, the agent thanked St. Marks nicely for the two of you meeting his price so easily.”



She stared back at them blankly. It was one of the last times Chaz had touched her. Not that the experience hadn’t been pleasurable, but the hollow sense of shame that had filled her later had followed her for years. And now it was back.



“I had no idea Chaz was paying him for anything.” She forced herself to retreat mentally, emotionally. She couldn’t afford to feel shame or pain at this point. “All I knew was that he was a friend of Chaz’s.”



“Man, the men in your life managed to keep some hellacious secrets from you.” He clucked in mock sympathy. “Were you just too stupid to see how you were being used? Or did you enjoy it?”



“I enjoyed it,” she crooned, burying the flash of pain deep enough inside the dark little corner she reserved just for such occasions. For the times when the knowledge of her own stupidity cut into her like a hot blade. “Maybe Tanner should have let you watch. The two of you could have jacked off together while you played your little spy games.”



Cabal grimaced sarcastically. “Now, that’s just sick. You do have a twisted little mind, don’t you, Schemer?”



A knife slammed into the table in front of Cabal, point first, vibrating with an innate violence as Scheme’s gaze flew to Tanner.



“Keep it up, Cabal, and we’ll have words,” Tanner warned him. “Is that what you really want?”



“No, what I want is to figure out why the hell we have enforcers and Council soldiers jacking around in this mountain. How did they figure out who has her and where you’re hidden?” Cabal jerked the dagger from the table and stared back at his brother angrily.



“You’re a big boy,” Tanner informed him. “You’ll survive not getting exactly what you want. They’ll leave when they realize they’re not going to get what they want.”



“And both of you are beginning to get on my nerves,” she snapped as she turned to Tanner. “We need to talk. Get rid of Mr. Hyde here so we can do that. I believe your vacation is nearly up. We don’t have all year.”



“Does that make you Dr. Jekyll?” Cabal mused mockingly as he glanced at Tanner.



“Shut up, Cabal,” Tanner rasped again.



Scheme stared back at him, miserably aware that he was holding himself distant from her now. He hadn’t touched her since they entered the caverns, and now that Cabal was here, she could feel the chill in the air.



The sense of safety was rapidly evaporating.



“Tanner, please,” she whispered. “We need to talk.”



“Is that one of those hidden female messages for fuck me?” Cabal broke in. “Do I get to stay and play?”



Tanner stared back at him warningly.



Cabal grinned. “I think he’s waiting on permission from you, gorgeous. Can’t I play too?”



He was already playing, or attempting to play her by making her angry. Cabal wasn’t the joking sort. The only question was, was Tanner playing the game with him?



Of course he was. These two didn’t play alone, no matter the game. She should have expected Cabal to show up. Should have known he would be there. She was slipping bad, trusting a man, a Breed, when she knew better than to trust anyone.



“You two can play together all you like,” she informed them both coldly. “I’m not up for more games myself though, so you’ll have to count me out.”



Cabal’s grin widened, while Tanner stared back at her thoughtfully.



She turned and moved to the couch, lifted the remote for the television and pushed the power button. She flipped to the History Channel and settled back with her water, her mind running, plotting.



Tanner would make him leave soon, she told herself. Wouldn’t he? Surely he didn’t seriously mean to attempt to share her with him. Not now. Not when she needed to tell Tanner the truth, when she needed to accept everything he had been trying to give her for the past week.



Uncapping the water, she sipped at it as she focused her gaze on a documentary rerun on the marines, and her mind tried to deal with this new, surprising development. Her life was, quite literally, going to hell, and as of yet she had found no way to stop it.



Tanner had finally brought his brother in. Surprisingly, she hadn’t thought of that. As though some part of her had actually believed that he would consider her exclusively his. That he would maybe suggest using the mating clause in the Breed bylaws to protect her. If he claimed her as his woman, he could have taken her to Sanctuary and placed her under the Breeds’ protection rather than Breed Law.



She mentally kicked herself. What had ever made her even halfway believe such a thing would happen? She was hated. She was Cyrus Tallant’s daughter, his assistant, part of the organization that had created and tortured the Breeds for decades.



It didn’t matter that she had nearly given her life a dozen times over to save them. That on at least one occasion she had actually died from the torture her father had inflicted on her.



She blinked back the dampness in her eyes.



She should have known better. To claim her, he would have to love her. And that wasn’t going to happen. Ever. And no matter how hard her heart ached, no matter the regret that twisted through her and made her throat tighten, love wasn’t going to happen for her.



Her hand flattened on the warmth in her abdomen, an uncomfortable sting that didn’t make sense any more than the arousal building inside her did. Or the pain in her soul.



She was tired, she realized. Not weary, not exhausted, but so mentally and emotionally tired that she wondered if she could push herself to survive until Jonas found her.



He would find her. Alive or dead. He was the most determined, stubborn Breed she had ever known or heard of. He would have known when she requested the meeting that she was ready to come in, that she would need protection. Just as she had known for years that it would take pretty important information to gain that protection.



She had what she needed now. The names of every purist and supremist group working with the Council as well as the names of the heads of the organizations. The proposed plots to systematically take out the Breed community and the spies working within the government to aid the Council’s plans.



The only thing she didn’t have was the identity of the spy working within Sanctuary, plotting to destroy the freedom the Breed community had found.