“Your allowance has been pulled for the next four weeks.” He rose from his chair, his hands braced on the desk as he glared at her, fury beating at his temple. “In four weeks you will come to me and tell me why, Ashley, that Coyotes would have shed blood in that amount for your life.”
True distress filled her eyes. He suspected true tears.
“My allowance?” she whispered fearfully. “Oh please, Del-Rey, just like, knock it down. Don’t take my allowance.” She spread her fingers out. “Look at my damned nails. I need my allowance.”
“If a single Breed—Coyote, Feline or Wolf—pays for those fucking nails,” he stabbed his finger at her hands, “then I’ll make damned certain he pays for it in ways he doesn’t even want to imagine. Are we clear?”
The tears cleared; the lips trembled; her gaze shuttered.
“I don’t know what your deal is.” Her voice was perfectly composed. “If the coya were hurt or killed, you’d take out my throat. Fine. I’d expect it. She’s my damned coya too, so you really don’t have to play up any loyalty here. And fuck the nails, I don’t need your allowance.”
He growled, a low, lethal sound that had her flinching.
“Four weeks,” he told her. “One more smart-assed remark and we’ll go for six. Would you like to chance that?”
She crossed her arms over her breasts, hip cocked, and glared back at him.
He turned to Emma. “Why would I have gone to war over your death, Emma?”
She cleared her throat. “We’re pack?” she suggested.
He glared back at her. “I hope you enjoy kitchen duty for the next two weeks.”
She gasped.
“Two weeks?” Ashley bit out defiantly. “You’re punishing me for four.”
“Six!” he snarled back at her as she jerked back and stared at him, horrified.
“Sharone?” He was all but yelling. He was fucking pissed off, and realizing that only made him madder. “If you died? Why the fucking hell do you think I’d go to war?”
She blinked quickly. “Because . . .” She swallowed. “Do you love us, Alpha?”
He sat down in his chair and breathed out roughly as he stared at the three women. “The three of you, Marcy and Chanda, who are presently charming the hell out of the Felines, are the females of our packs and are the same as sisters to me. You are more to me than any man in this base.”
He could feel the anger churning in him. “Because I love you, I would have gone to war.” He turned to Sharone. “What would I have done if my coya had been captured or killed? My mate, Sharone. The other half of everything I am. What would I have done?”
Her eyes were wide as she shook her head slowly. “I can’t imagine anything worse, Alpha, than going to war.”
“Worse is having my soul ripped from my body,” he told her. “We, who are told we have no soul.
I found mine nearly seven years ago when a kid walked into the roughest, dirtiest, meanest bar I know of, to save her friends. If I lose her, I lose who and what I am.” He rose threateningly again. “And if you tell your coya I said that, then all three of you, no matter which one spills her guts, will be separated from the coya’s security detail for six months. Are we clear?”
They nodded slowly, fearfully. They had never been separated from Anya. The four of them were like kids together, learning how to be free, how to play. They were playmates, perhaps even sisters.
“Alpha?” Ashley asked. “May I ask a question?”
“Will it piss me off?” he growled.
“Yes. Probably.”
That was his Ashley. She didn’t balk. Shaking his head, he sat back down and stared back at her.
“What?”
“Why would you love us? You didn’t raise us. You’ve known us only as long as you’ve known your coya. Why do you care?”
He wiped his hand over his face wearily. “I’ve known you for nearly seven years, Ash,” he sighed. “Your coya talked of little else but five young girls that were her best friends. Her confidantes. Her family. In those years, she made me love you as fiercely perhaps as she does.”
He shook his head. “You are Coyote Breeds. You are not simply coyotes. You are not unfeeling animals, and you’re worth more than a fucking funeral. Are we clear on this?”
She bit her lip. “Can I have my allowance back?”
“No!”
She pouted, but she wasn’t hard, she hadn’t fallen back on her training to show her displeasure.
“The three of you will ensure, from here on out, that if your coya even thinks of leaving these caverns without me at her side, I’m notified. If she wants to train, I as well as a backup team will oversee it. If she wants to fucking pick flowers, she will have a backup detail and I will oversee it. If she just wants to step outside the fucking door and breathe in the mountain air, what will you do?”
“Notify you, Alpha,” they snapped at once.
“Emma, you’re on kitchen duty when you’re not with your coya outside Base. Ashley, you better hope you’ve saved back enough to fix those nails. They look like shit. Sharone, you’re assigned to Brim for two weeks when you’re not needed by your coya. He’ll let you know what he needs.”
He could have sworn Sharone whimpered. Brim enjoyed the hell out of the girls and loved every chance he had to torment them. It was his hobby, his fun. Like the older brother he had never been.
“Dismissed.” He waved to the door, waited until they filed out, and as the door closed behind him, he smiled and shook his head. Damn, if this was any indication of what human men dealt with when it came to daughters, then he was damned glad he was a Coyote.
CHAPTER 7
He had her timed perfectly. Ten minutes after the girls left his office, Anya was charging into it.
Her blue eyes sparkled with fury, her red gold hair tangled around her face and fell to her shoulders in such charming disarray that he wanted nothing more than to mess it further.
She slammed the door and faced him, arms crossing over the snug, thin white sweater she wore as she glared at him furiously.
“How dare you punish them!” She shoved a finger toward him. “You had no right.”
He sat back in his chair and forced control on himself.
“I’m not ready to head to Haven yet. I need about forty minutes at least. Could you wait to start throwing things at me and calling me names until then?”
“Wait?” she snapped in mockery. “Wait for you to do what? Devise more ways to torture my friends? You have no right. Now fix it.”
Oh, she was fucking beautiful. He could feel his cock hardening impossibly. He was so damned ready to fuck that smart mouth it was almost impossible not to jump from the desk and take what he wanted.
“What did you think would happen, Anya?” he asked her carefully instead. “I could have been much harder on them. I could have had them sent to Haven and celled for endangering their coya’s life. Instead, I did what I felt would teach them quickly not to fuck with your life or theirs.”
“And you think we didn’t learn our lessons last night?” she yelled. “Trust me, Del-Rey, we did.
You didn’t have to punish them this severely. Now damn you, fix it.”
“I don’t think so.” He straightened and braced his arms on the desk to look at the files on the e-pad lying before him.
Not that he read a damned word that was on there. It was the impression that counted.
“You can’t do this,” she argued.
“I’m alpha.” He shrugged. “I can and will do this.” He lifted his head. “By the way, since I can’t punish you in the same manner, would you like to know what I’ve come up with?”
Her eyes widened. “You do not punish me, you slack-brained, dim-witted mongrel. I’ll shoot your ass with your own gun.”