“It was Ashley’s turn to load the dishwasher and clean the pots and pans,” Anya answered.
“I have a fucking rotation for kitchen duty.” His voice was harsh, primal, causing the three female Coyotes to flinch.
Anya shrugged. “When I checked the closet, the dishes hadn’t been cleaned well. They’re soldiers, Del-Rey. Men. They don’t understand rinsing first, nor do they understand cleaning.
Sharone, Emma and Ashley spent hours in here fixing it. Your rotation isn’t working.” Her head lifted. “Unless the Felines are doing it. They seem to have a clue. But I imagine Alpha Lyons wouldn’t be pleased if we used the Feline Breeds for kitchen duty only.”
She dumped her flour mess on the counter and began working it into a ball. A huge ball. He glared at her.
“You are not a servant,” he snapped. “This is not where you belong.”
She paused, stared at the dough and lifted her head. Her gaze was shuttered, but God, what he felt coming from her. Emotions were almost locked inside her, giving him only the smallest hint of the roiling, overwhelming anger, fear and need that twisted in her dark blue eyes.
“I’m busy, Del-Rey,” she finally said. “Schedule a time and I’ll be there. Until then, let me finish if you don’t mind. Or is this something else I need your permission to complete?”
Fury slapped him. He could feel it building inside him. The need rose inside him to force her submission, to carry her back to their rooms and fuck her until she didn’t have the energy to defy him. And another part, a saner part, the human part, paused as he sensed more than the animal wanted to see.
He turned on his heel and left the room. They would fight this out later. Once his orders were implemented, she wouldn’t find herself in that kitchen cooking for the whole damned base again.
He’d be damned if she would. She wasn’t the fucking cook. She was his mate. His coya. She could oversee until hell froze over, but it wasn’t her job to do the actual work.
He slammed his office door closed, stalked to his desk and sat down. He looked around the office. Dust was accumulating. Files were stacked here and there haphazardly. It hadn’t been like this when he’d arrived. His office had been immaculate. The scent of his mate had filled it.
He ran his fingers through his hair and blew out a hard, rough breath as Brim’s knock sounded at the door. He knew his second-in-command’s knock and the anger behind it.
“What?” he snarled out.
The door opened.
Military straight and perfect, Brim moved into the room. His gaze was icy, his manner stiff.
“What kind of stick has been shoved up your ass?” He bared his teeth at the other man.
Brim handed over an e-pad. “I need your signature.”
Del-Rey jerked the pad out of his hand, glanced at it, then felt a haze of red wash over him at the memo awaiting his approval.
Re: Official notification of reversion of duties from Anya Kobrin to Alpha Delgado. Status coya, revoked. Status mate, revoked. All due authority hereby revoked.
He stared up at the other man. “What the fuck is this?”
“By order of separation she only held her title if you didn’t rescind it.”
“I still haven’t rescinded it,” he informed Brim, his tone guttural. “What the fuck is this?”
“You should have read the separation agreement more fully perhaps,” Brim stated. “Anya posted the memo this morning to Lupina Gunnar and Prima Lyons as well as to their alphas. A decision that the mating ceremony tentatively scheduled for spring was being canceled. She lost her title when that memo went out. Word of it is already filtering through Base. She’s no longer coya and therefore your pack leaders need a directive from you.”
The memo was a directive all right. It rescinded all powers that Anya had previously held to command in his absence. It also directed her status to below those pack leaders, rather than above them as she had once held.
He stared at it.
“If she’s officially my coya, I paint a target on her back for any Coyote that has managed to fool us, or betrays us in the future. They’ll strike at her first.”
Brim shrugged. “That isn’t my call, Alpha. All I need is the order signed so Base runs properly.
Military structure must be adhered to.”
Del-Rey’s jaw clenched.
Before Del-Rey could control the impulse, he picked up the e-pad and threw it. A vicious, savage swing of his arm, and it shattered against the stone wall to his side.
Brim stared at the destruction before turning his gaze back to Del-Rey. “A copy was sent to your PDA. You can sign it from there. If you’ll excuse me now.” He nodded to Del-Rey with all due military respect.
Perfect, smooth, coordinated.
Del-Rey was out of his chair before Brim could stride across the room. In the next second he had his second-in-command against the wall, his arm braced across Brim’s throat as a snarl echoed from his throat.
“What is your fucking problem?” He stared into Brim’s eyes and saw nothing but that cool, emotionless facade.
“I wasn’t aware I had one.” And he wasn’t fighting.
Brim wasn’t a man that allowed even his alpha to throw him against a wall. But there he was, relaxed, cool. Del-Rey felt as though a volcano was ready to explode inside his own head.
“Erase that fucking memo,” Del-Rey bit out.
He could imagine Anya’s pain if she saw it, once she read it. He could almost feel the loss he knew would burrow inside her.
“I can’t do that, Alpha,” Brim stated. “This is a military base, and the rules have to be adhered to; otherwise, our men are going to become confused and uncertain. They’ll choose sides. Her people against your people. We can’t allow that.”
Del-Rey released him slowly. “Delete that fucking memo or I’ll do it for you,” he commanded.
Brim shrugged. “It’s already gone out to your pack leaders. Protocol demanded it be sent. Just as it’s gone out to the Wolf and Feline pack leaders. You’re showing weakness in refusing to send it out yourself. As alpha, you can’t afford to show that weakness at this time. A separation of packs could destroy us, Alpha. The alliance will go to hell and we’ll be left fighting in the jungles for meals again. That wasn’t as much fun as we pretended it was, I don’t believe.”
“Get out of my office,” Del-Rey ordered him coldly. “Now.”
He turned his back on Brim, listened until the other man walked to the door. Brim paused then and Del-Rey tensed further, knowing he wouldn’t like the other man’s parting shot.
“I’m your brother.”
Del-Rey flinched at the reminder.
“We lost our sisters in that hellhole. We lost brothers. Do you know, Del-Rey, until I received that memo this morning, I actually resented you for refusing to acknowledge that tie between us.” There was amusement in his voice.
Del-Rey turned back to him slowly.
Brim shrugged at the glare he directed to him. “I’ve decided it really wasn’t personal. Nor was it the fear for your brothers’ lives that caused you to deny those few of us still living.”
“And you decided this based on what?” Del-Rey could feel the fury building inside him, tearing through him.
Brim’s lips twisted into a cold smile. “You’ve just rejected your coya, Alpha Leader. Any man that could do that doesn’t have a soul. He doesn’t have brothers, nor does he have sisters. I think I’ll simply count myself lucky you have enough honor that you didn’t drown those of your bloodline while we were still pups.”
With that, Brim opened the door and left the room, closing it slowly behind him, a second before Del-Rey’s snarl of fury echoed through the room.
Fuck them. Fuck them all. He had a soul. A soul that cringed in horror at the memories, a soul that writhed and bled at the bottom of his guts at the thought of everything he had lost over the years. A soul that wept for everything he couldn’t have.