Was the director related to Gideon?
Hell, Rule was beginning think Jonas and Gideon didn’t share just genetics, but parents if it weren’t for the fact that he was a Bengal rather than a Lion.
The growl that left Jonas’s throat had him wincing.
“Maybe not,” Rule lied, though he was now convinced it was highly likely.
CHAPTER 29
Gypsy knew the second the Dragoon had increased speed and begun racing for the hotel that something was wrong. No more than a heartbeat later she felt something shift inside her own senses. A door opening so swiftly inside her that she had no idea how to close it or what to do with it.
“Go with it, Gypsy,” Lawe suddenly ordered as the Dragoon roared along the highway. “Rule’s in trouble.”
Rule was in trouble?
In danger?
She focused on that link, ignoring the doorway that had opened into Lawe’s senses and concentrating totally on Rule’s instead.
What was she supposed to do? How was she supposed to do it?
Centering her attention on him, she remembered how he said he could borrow from Lawe’s strength, but was he trying to borrow from her?
It sure as hell wasn’t her patience because she was going to kick his ass for making her wait to find out what was going on.
Eyes closed, she felt a glimmer of amusement touch her mind as Rule became so firmly entrenched inside her soul that she swore she could feel steel bolts anchoring him to her.
Mental strength, she realized. If he wanted stubbornness, she had that in spades.
Was that a chuckle echoing through her head without sound? Oh God, she was so going to kill him for this.
“Interesting.” She heard the voice, felt Gideon’s name whisper through her mind. A second later she knew what was going on and felt her heart nearly stop in dread at the knowledge that the insanity Rule had described as Gideon held Rachel’s baby in his arms.
She couldn’t “see” what was happening. It was impressions, a sense of Breeds filling the suite, Gideon’s amusement and Jonas’s fury. And a second of complete terror at the knowledge that Gideon had tossed the child free of him as he jumped from the opened balcony door, over the railing to a two-person jet-copter obviously there to retrieve him.
Lobo Reever had a jet-copter. It was the only one in the area, she thought. At least, the only one she knew of. Except for the one the Navajo Covert Law Enforcement Agency owned.
The link between them immediately shut down as Gypsy blinked in surprise.
“Son of a bitch,” Lawe hissed through his teeth, his gaze meeting hers in the rearview mirror for the briefest second. “Tell me, Gypsy, just how many fucking secrets is my brother hiding from me?”
Uh-oh. She had a feeling Lawe just might be one up on the fact that Rule had been hiding Judd for the past nine years or so.
Bad Rule.
“He’s your brother,” she scoffed, glaring back at him. “Take that up with him.”
His gaze shot to hers through the mirror once again, the suspicious disbelief glittering brilliantly in the lighter blue hue.
“You know, Gypsy,” he pointed out, his tone rougher, frustrated as he turned his attention back to the road, “I’d be careful. Even as his mate, you’ll learn you’re not exempt from Rule’s manipulations.”
“I could have sworn I heard the same thing said to Rachel at some point concerning Jonas, just in the past weeks,” she mused, turning her attention out the window of the Dragoon once again.
For a moment, her thoughts had been distracted from her parents, their crime, and the decision she faced concerning her brother’s betrayer.
Eight years before, she’d shot a Council informer that the Unknown had been certain had betrayed her brother. He’d deserved to die for other crimes against both Breeds and the Navajo, but knowing he had been the wrong one cut at her.
The man who betrayed Mark deserved to hurt. He deserved to feel the same hell Mark had felt, knowing that his sister would be raped and killed and even the chance to help her was denied him. The fact that she had been rescued at the last moment hadn’t helped Mark. It didn’t salve her fury now.
Years of distrust made sense now. She’d been so angry as she’d watched her parents allow him to take Mark’s place. He tried to be a brother to Mark’s sisters, he’d married Mark’s fiancée, he’d taken over Mark’s company.
He’d thought he could live Mark’s life.
Her nails bit into her palms as she realized they’d curled into fists, prepared to inflict whatever damage possible.
Damn him.
She wanted to slip away now. She wanted to find him, wanted to tear his throat out herself.
The only thing stopping her was the knowledge that he had disappeared, just as she’d known he would. The Breed team sent to find him that morning had reported that he couldn’t be found either at his home or at his office.
Where would he go? she wondered. Where would Jason hide?
Eyes narrowed, she scanned the desert as it rushed by, going over old haunts Mark had once shown her, remembering bits and pieces of her childhood that she’d refused to allow herself to remember before.
As she did, she could “feel” Rule. As though the very fact that she was considering where he could be, where to find him, how to make him pay, had alerted Rule to her not-so-hidden desire to kill him herself.
She almost smiled as she felt him. Geez, it was the strangest damned feeling. He would just be there, like the caress of a breeze, but in her mind. She really wasn’t certain if she liked it or not.
One thing was for damned sure, though, she thought on a sudden sigh; there would be no going after Jason by herself, and there wasn’t a chance in hell Rule would allow her to kill him herself as Cullen had. And she wondered if anything else would exorcise the ghosts of her past?
...
Did she love him?
Had she just accepted the mating, nothing more?
Standing in the lobby of the hotel as he leaned against one of the stately pillars that supported the atrium, Rule crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the doors as he waited for Lawe to roll into the courtyard with his mate. Allowing her to make that trip without him had been hell.
He’d been a part of her in one form or the other since her final surrender to him the night before. Exploding like the fourth of July and crying out his name, she had opened every part of herself to the link he had forged within her soul. And still, he was damned if he could sense whether that love was there.
“Damn creatures,” Dane murmured as he sidled up beside him. “I can tell by your glare, fixated into space, that the lovely Gypsy McQuade is no doubt driving you to distraction.”
“You got back fast enough,” Rule grumbled. “How?”
Dane chuckled. “Father ensures that I have the fastest, most technologically advanced vehicles possible whenever I’m out of his sight. He’s somehow convinced himself it lessens the danger I may find myself in.”
“Or just gets you there faster?” Rule grunted. “Tell me, Dane, was that your technologically advanced personal jet-copter that Gideon caught a ride on earlier?”
“I was wondering if there was a way I could take credit for that one,” the Breed sighed morosely. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. And the black-hearted bastard is refusing to answer my calls.”
“Well, go figure.” What the hell did the fucking hybrid expect? He was dealing with a psycho, not just another manipulating, calculating Breed as he usually did.
“Gideon was nearly dead when I found him.” Dane’s voice lowered as he too leaned a shoulder against the pillar. “Nearly emaciated to the point of death, so savage Father feared he would have to have him caged. And the Leo does not keep cages on any of his estates, you know.”