“At least he was willing to tell me the truth.”
“Perhaps I would have been willing if you had dared to fight for it,” he accused her roughly.
“Fight for it? I should fight for it?” She looked like she was ready to shoot him. “Why should I fight for a respect that you should have given me willingly? For God’s sake, Cabal. You should have let me stand at your side without having to fight you for it, simply because I was your mate. You should have wanted me there.”
He stared back at her in silent shock, seeing in her gaze the betrayal she felt, and for the first time understanding why Cassa had never fought him for respect and acknowledgment when she had never hesitated to go head-to-head with other Breeds.
It had bothered him, he admitted that now. It was something he hadn’t wanted to admit before. Just as he hadn’t wanted to see what it was doing to her. He wanted to protect her. He had wanted her to demand her rights from him as he had seen her do with others she went up against. He had wanted her to challenge him. He hadn’t realized until this moment how she had been challenging him. Daring him to be a true mate. Daring him to be her equal.
As Cabal struggled to make sense of the mistakes he had made, the elevator came to a stop with a muted little ping and the doors slid open on Cassa’s floor.
The hall wasn’t empty. Waiting for them were Jonas, Lawe, Rule and Mordecai. And they didn’t look happy.
“We have a situation,” Jonas stated, his tone cold, implacable. “We need you for this.”
Cabal clenched his teeth together furiously as he turned to Cassa.
“Like hell.” She pushed in front of him. “I know Breed Law and don’t think I won’t use it.” She stared back at Jonas. “Where he goes, I go.” She shot Cabal a hard, angry look. “It looks like the only way to get the truth out of him at this point.”
Jonas’s brows lifted in surprise as the other members of the team stared back at Cabal in shock.
Cabal kept his expression carefully blank, though he didn’t doubt the arousal pouring through him was clearly detected. Mating heat was surging through his system, pumping in his veins. She was taking her place. She wasn’t asking for it. A part of him was exultant, another part was terrified. He couldn’t protect her if she was in the line of fire. But she was also proving that protection wasn’t what she wanted.
Was this what he had been pushing for all along? he wondered. A mate who would fight to stand beside him rather than behind him?
It didn’t matter, and he wasn’t questioning it at the moment. Later, they would discuss this. Just as they would discuss her penchant for getting information from Dog rather than her mate. If she needed information, then she could damned well challenge him for it.
“Very well.” Jonas shot Cabal a warning look. “We’ll take the elevator to the top floor. The meeting room is set up there.”
The same meeting room Cabal had been headed to when Mordecai had waylaid him in the upper hallway to inform him that Cassa was meeting with Dog.
A meeting Mordecai had set up to repay a debt he owed to Cassa. Cabal understood the repayment, just as he appreciated the loyalty the Coyote had shown in informing her mate of that meeting.
He had accepted certain facts the second Mordecai had informed him that Cassa was meeting with Dog. First and foremost was his own mistake in not working with her. He had thought he could quell that independent nature enough to allow him to protect her. He’d been wrong about that, he admitted it.
Breed society was much different from that of human society. Respect wasn’t given, it was taken. She had earned the respect of every Breed she had worked with but had held back with him. She had expected that respect to be given. She had demanded it in her own way; he had just been too dense to understand. And now it was hers.
Above all else though, he had wanted to save her from the truth of what was going on here, the truth of her own past and the parts that were not as dead as she had believed they were.
“In here.” Jonas led the way into the suite he had taken.
The meeting room was still set up from earlier. Pictures were displayed on a holographic board while several holographic vids still played of previous hunts the Deadly Dozen had been on. The videos had been saved from Council archives that had been discovered in some of the labs that were rescued over the years.
There weren’t many of them, but there were enough to show the horrifying measures the Dozen had taken in catching their prey.
Cassa stopped inside the room, her gaze on the images displayed across the electronic board.
The Deadly Dozen had been rumored to have taped some of their hunts. It was how they sold their services to the Council and the individual labs seeking to reacquire their escaped Breeds.
Actually seeing proof of it was horrifying though. Seeing the Breeds as they fought to run, to hide, to escape a dozen hunters that had lain in wait for them.
She heard the door close behind the four men, and she was aware of them moving around her, watching her as she stared at the images on the screen.
“They were too good,” she whispered as she watched the video for long moments. “There was a Breed with them.”
“Two. They weren’t part of the Dozen,” Jonas stated quietly. “That was always part of the deal. The labs would loan them two Coyotes to help track during the hunt.”
She shook her head slowly. “They led them where they wanted them to go. They watched. Waited.”
“Some of the hunts lasted for weeks, a few months at a time,” she was told. “They stalked their prey.”
Like a safari hunt, she thought. They knew what they wanted, where it was. They knew their prey’s habits and how they tracked, hid. As she watched, she could see that. They knew their prey intimately.
“This particular hunt was one of the first,” Jonas told her, and she felt Cabal moving behind her, his hands settling on her hips, pulling her against him.
The clasp was intimate rather than sexual. Comforting rather than arousing.
“We found this one in a lab in New Mexico,” Jonas continued. “The hunt took place approximately twenty-seven years ago. The Breeds they were hunting were a male and two females from that particular lab. They caught the first female a week before this hunt.”
She sensed what Jonas wasn’t saying. That she didn’t want to know the particulars of that capture. She probably didn’t want to know this one either.
As she watched the footage, she caught a few glimpses of the hunters themselves. Black-masked and black-clothed. It was impossible to tell who was who.
The dark landscape was illuminated by the thermal and night-illuminating capabilities of the video. She could see the male Breed, a Lion Breed if the brown eyes and tawny-colored hair were an indication, as he attempted to keep the female in front of him.
Both Breeds were cunning and swift, but the hunters had them surrounded. They played with them. They built the rage in the male and the fear in the female until the first shot was fired.
Cassa flinched at the sound and the sight of the bullet as it impacted the male’s back. There was a moment of stunned agony, of resignation on his face, before he went to the ground.
The female raced to him. Tears tracked down her face as a roar of rage tore from her lips. Her canines flashed in the darkness as the hunters advanced on her, their laughter echoing through the night.
“She’s a pretty sight,” one of them called out.
“Let’s not damage her too bad quite yet,” another suggested and Cassa nearly cried out in agony at the familiar tone. “I have a few plans for her.”
Another jeered. “I still say it’s like fucking an animal.”