Diane nodded slowly. “When the Navajo first learned of the children who had been rescued whose genetics matched some of their missing, they created a group whose job was to ensure the protection and hidden identities of those children. I haven’t been able to find even a hint of anyone who could even guess at who any of them are, but Braden Arness’s mated wife, Megan, and her family, confirmed the stories of them.”
The Lion Breed Braden had mated a Navajo empath from New Mexico with close ties to Window Rock. The assassin class Breed now worked with his wife whenever his skill set, or her investigative gifts were needed.
“We’ve informed the chief as well as his father, the medicine man, and Terran, who’s currently the Navajo’s head legal representative, of the situation regarding Amber. Their refusal to give us the identities of at least the two girls and allow us to debrief them concerning their stay at the labs will be viewed as an act of hostility toward the Breeds. As such, the Navajo Nation will no longer be considered a sanctuary for our people, and they’ll be pulled out with all haste.”
Diane sighed wearily as she stared at Callan’s forbidding expression.
This was simply the wrong way to go about it.
Shifting an accusing look toward Lawe, she clenched her teeth in anger at the fact that Jonas had decided it wasn’t prudent to wait for their arrival and allow Diane to do what she did best. Find the people she was looking for.
She didn’t like going behind Lawe’s back, but that was exactly what she and Thor had agreed to do as they waited for Lawe outside the hotel the morning they’d left.
If he thought giving Thor another assignment had changed that, then he was wrong. It had instead given Thor the chance to work as he and Diane preferred. Under the guise of a completely unrelated mission while Diane remained with Lawe and kept the Breeds off his back.
It was usually the other way around. She investigated while Thor ran interference with whichever parties were deemed the most hazardous to their job. But, she knew how to handle this part. She and Thor had perfected both areas of the mission parameters and understood how each worked.
“The Navajo won’t know who they are, where they are or, after all this time, how to reach them,” Diane informed them all as she faced them impatiently. “There’s not even a number that’s called anymore. No one knows how the group becomes aware that a pickup is needed, but they’re always there.”
“Then they have a Breed working with them,” Jonas guessed.
Diane shrugged. “Getting anyone to talk to any of you will not happen,” she told them. “I have some ideas, and once I begin investigating—”
“Once we begin,” Lawe injected.
She glanced up at him, feeling her chest tighten at what she knew she had to do.
“No, once I begin,” she reiterated softly. “They won’t talk to me if you’re around or anywhere close enough to identify them. You’re a Breed, Lawe. To them, you’re the same as a Coyote, a scientist, or a rogue.”
She watched his gaze turn to ice as Jonas cursed softly.
“I hate to keep repeating myself, but I know what I’m doing,” she stated, knowing that with the exception of her sister, possibly, no one there was willing to believe her at this point because of the fact that she was now a mate.
Her chances of investigating were thin to none, but this was her role to play, and if she simply stepped back, then there was no way Lawe would accept that she and Thor hadn’t planned something else.
“Diane, you’re the strongest woman I know,” Rachel said with an edge of bitterness, a clear indication she’d tried to discuss the matter with Jonas. “But the danger to mates right now won’t allow a single Breed in the vicinity to allow you to investigate this on your own.”
Despite the grief she heard in her sister’s voice, the knowledge it could mean her daughter’s life, Diane realized that even her sister couldn’t help her here.
“And all of you are willing to lose Amber for this?” She met her sister’s gaze and watched the tears that welled in her eyes.
“There’s nothing on this earth I wouldn’t do to protect my baby.” Rachel’s voice hitched on a sob. “But nothing is going to change how they’ll surround you or their determination and vows to protect you. Nothing will change the fact that not even my child is as important to Lawe or to the animal genetics that are a part of him as his mate is. Even Jonas’s orders won’t sway him.”
Diane refused to accept that.
Her head lifted as she stared back at the males watching her. “Every damned one of you will get over it,” she told them coolly before turning to Lawe. “You will get Thor back here if that protection is all important to you. He’s not a Breed; he won’t be seen as suspiciously as you will be.”
“He follows your orders,” Lawe growled. “If you told him to back off, then he would do just that. Your safety will always be endangered by the fact that you’re his commander.”
There was truth to that.
“He would cut off his own arm and tell me to go to hell before he’d allow me to do anything to place myself in a situation that would risk my capture by anything or anyone associated with the Council,” she informed them all firmly. It did about as much good to argue with them as it did to attempt to use fuel to put out a fire. And she knew that, to the bottom of her soul.
There wasn’t a chance in hell he would ever step back if that were the case.
But she was better at what they were doing than Thor was. She knew how to listen, how to talk to women and how to put men at ease. Thor’s size alone intimidated everyone. Emma and Sharone were Breeds, and the fact that the information they had acquired so far had been stolen by listening to conversations, rumors and suspicions before being pieced together, just frustrated her.
She watched Lawe’s jaw tighten, saw the denial in his eyes, though he didn’t voice it. The muscle in his jaw jerked as he glared back at her for long, silent seconds.
The tension in the room was palpable. His gaze moved to Rachel’s, and Diane knew what he saw there, knew the plea that filled her sister’s face, while Jonas had moved away, turning his back to the exchange.
Diane stared at him.
He was gripping the back of a chair with claws that had retracted and pierced the upholstery. Smears of blood from the sharp-tipped protrusions showed against his cuticles as he glared at them.
He was forcibly distancing himself. He could order Lawe to allow it, he could convince him to, but he wouldn’t give into the urge to do just that. At least not yet. She knew his devotion to his mate and to the child he called his own. He would do it if he considered it the only option but only if all other options had been extinguished.
Diane closed her eyes for a second, praying for strength. He was going to make her crazy before the night was over, let alone the mission.
This was their last chance. She could feel it.
If he wasn’t willing to bend now, when the situation was so desperate, then there would never be a chance that he would allow her to participate in protecting their own child if such a situation ever arose.
“Don’t,” she whispered despairingly. “Don’t make me hate you, Lawe, because you stood in the way of saving my niece. I’ll never forgive you.”
It was no longer a game. Facing her mate, facing the battle that never seemed to end, she realized she’d had enough.
Thor could do this without her. He had before. But it was her niece. She needed to be a part of this.