They were moving quickly through the ballroom, aware of the Wolves moving just as effectively.
Breeds were covering the humans, weapons drawn, eyes hard as mates and family were whisked from the room and into the late evening cold.
Secured limos were pulling into the drive, then moving out as quickly as they’d come in, as Breed Enforcers worked to get the pack leaders and families out of danger. Enforcers and soldiers stayed behind, covering them while still others took the rooftops, ensuring that snipers weren’t in place.
“I want that bartender in custody,” Del-Rey told Brim through the mic as he pushed Anya into the waiting limo. “I want him ready to be fully interrogated the moment we hit Base.”
“He’s in custody and rolling now,” Brim barked back. “Get your ass back to Base. Ivan should be your driver. There’s no way he could be compromised by that fucking drug; we just had him tested after our return.”
“I have Ivan. I want you at Base ASAP,” Del-Rey ordered him. “Don’t take chances and don’t bother with that fucking city council. I’ll take care of them myself.”
He slammed the door closed as he slid in, and Ivan sped away from the banquet hall. He could feel the fury filling him now. No other mate had been targeted. Carlen had gone after Anya. The bartender had been prepared to hold her there. Why?
He turned to her, his gaze meeting hers and seeing not one iota of fear.
“They have my purse and my wrap,” she stated. “Morons kept my gun and knives. If they had left me alone, Sharone wouldn’t have been wounded.”
Shock resounded through him. Where was the anger, the terror, the sheer fear she should have been showing? His mate shouldn’t be staring at him with furious brilliant blue eyes and a determination that normally only blood could quench. Others’ blood.
“Sharone will be fine,” he told her. “It was a shoulder wound. The worst it’s going to do is piss her off.”
“I’m past pissed,” she snarled. “You didn’t tell me to expect trouble, Del-Rey. That was damned unfair of you.”
Unfair of him? As though he had knocked her out of some sport? His mate was becoming more aggressive than he had ever anticipated. The thought of it made him hard.
“If I’d expected trouble, your ass wouldn’t have been here.”
Before he could stop himself, he was nose to nose with her. “Do you think for a moment I’d take my mate where I expected bloodshed? Expected some crazed fucking bartender and Wolf Breed to take a shot at her?”
He was yelling at her. Anya stared back at him, adrenaline and fury pumping through her. She was shaking with it, desperate with it. She’d fought Emma as the other girl held her down, fought not to protect herself or her soldiers, but to get to Del-Rey.
It had been the only thought in her mind. To get to him, to protect him. As though he needed her protection. As though he really needed anything from her outside of sex. But the knowledge, sudden and swift, had slammed into her. She needed it from him, and right before her eyes, it could have been stolen from her.
“I don’t know what you would do,” she cried. “My bodyguard is wounded and you could have been killed in front of my eyes, Del-Rey. I’m not a happy little camper right now.”
She was terrified for him. She was shaking, desperate; she needed to touch him, just to be certain, as though only touch would assure her that he was actually there with her.
“And you think I am?”
That growl sent a shudder up her spine. It sent sensation crashing through her adrenaline-laced bloodstream, and lust and emotion to sear her mind.
She could have lost him. It could have been him carrying a bullet rather than Sharone. Though he would have probably pretended the damned thing had never hit him, despite any blood he shed.
Man of steel. Unconquered. Undefeated. Oh God, she needed him. Needed to assure herself he was alive, that he was hers. That nothing could take him away from her.
“I really don’t care if you are.” She pushed against his shoulders, trying to shove him back, and he wasn’t moving. His hands were braced on the seat at her side, his nose nearly touching hers, his black eyes glaring into hers.
“Oh, I know just how much you don’t care,” he bit out. “To the tune of eight months. Without my mate.”
“Oh yeah, I can really see how you suffered.” She was shaking with emotion now. So many months of loneliness, fear and even, at times, guilt raging through her. “I saw that when I walked into my bedroom and caught you all but fucking Sofia. Damn you to hell.” She shoved harder, and was surprised that he moved back, even more surprised that she followed him.
She was in his face. Nose to nose. “You let that bitch touch you.”
“It’s not as though you attempt to touch me.” He bared his teeth at her. “You ran. Like the child you were, rather than facing what you knew couldn’t be changed.”
“I changed it. I suffered those damned tests and I got what I needed to make sure you couldn’t control me again.” She slapped one hand to his chest, then the other. She gripped the lapels and jerked.
Buttons flew as his gaze reflected surprise, then burning lust.
“And I’ll change it now if I want to.”
Desire and need was like a demon inside her. Not like the mating heat, but like a surge of pure, white-hot lust that didn’t need hormonal help. Like it had been earlier. Powerful. Desperate.
It was helpless emotion, caught in a grip of fearing for his safety, terrified, aware that anytime in the past months she could have lost him. A knowledge that she might never have the chance to touch him again.
Nights of tossing and turning. Dreams that didn’t stop. An aching hunger she couldn’t rid herself of. And fear. In one striking moment she could have lost all those dreams. He could have died in front of her eyes because she wasn’t prepared, because she was a liability. She had to be protected for his sake because she was too damned frightened to accept the place he had made for her. As his mate. As his coya.
Well, he had to be protected too. Because he was hers. Mate, lover, man, whatever. She couldn’t name the possessiveness that rose inside her, not yet.
Her hands pressed against his chest, feeling his heart racing beneath her palms, the muscles that bunched and rippled at her touch. Her fingers curled, her nails scratched across his flesh, and she reveled in the rumbled growl that left his chest.
“Did you want Sofia after me?” She shocked herself with the question, then with the actions that followed it. She bit his lower lip, and it wasn’t a love nip.
“Do you care?” His voice was graveled, so rough it was feral.
Did she care? Oh hell yes, she cared, but she’d be damned if she would give him the satisfaction of hearing it from her lips.
“Do you care if I fuck another?” she asked him. “Maybe I should have found someone else.”
She was challenging him and she knew it. Daring the Breed, part man, part animal, to claim what was his. To claim what she didn’t know how to give him.
He buried his hand in her hair and jerked her head back as he snarled in her face. “Don’t make that mistake.”
“Why?” Her nails scratched his hard abs. She felt the flexing power in them, heard the growl of hunger that parted his lips. “Why would you care?”
He didn’t answer the question. He bore her back until she was beneath him, stretched along the leather seat, arching against him as his lips covered hers, his tongue driving into her mouth.
Fire and lightning sizzled around her. Hunger and need clashed inside her head. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her fingers speared into his hair as she met the kiss, sucked his tongue into her mouth and gave them both what they needed.