Rule flicked him a look.
His dark blond brows were lowered, his green gaze distant as though his look into the past wasn’t a pleasant one.
“The secrets he knows,” Dane whispered. “So much intelligence, Rule. Insights into Breed physiology unlike anything you could even guess. The few months he was healing in South America after we found him, Mother was in scientific heaven just from his ramblings.”
“And once he healed?” Rule asked.
Dane inhaled heavily. “One night he was fevered and rambling about a transfusion and why it had driven him insane, speaking of the creature pacing, lurking and breaking free. Mother left the audio recorder on and went to check on another of the unfortunate Breeds we were attempting to coax back to health. When she returned, the recorder had been turned off, part of it obviously erased, and Gideon had simply vanished through a steel door or concrete walls. We’re really not certain how, because strangely, the recording from the camera trained on him was destroyed for nearly an hour up to the moment Mother returned.” Dane chuckled. “Smart-ass fucker had taken a moment to get into the camera and hack the programming from within the device itself. Though how he fuzzed the equipment before doing so eludes me.”
“What are you up to here, Dane?” Rule asked when the explanation finished. “Why not just go to Jonas, tell him you could acquire what he needed and allow Ely to continue the injections?”
“Jonas would have never allowed it,” Dane told him, his tone suddenly weary. “At the most, he would have injected them himself to take the responsibility from Ely’s steadily weakening shoulders, and only Gideon truly understood what he was doing. It was far better to maneuver my baby brother rather than watching that sweet child, or Jonas and Rachel, being destroyed from the inside out should something go wrong.”
Rule stared outside the main doors for long moments once again, his eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun as it spread across the glistening lobby floors.
“Callan so resembles Father that there are times I find an edge of jealousy rising inside me,” Dane said, his voice filled with amused self-disgust. “And such pride the Leo has in him, despite their differences. But if one knew the Leo as only Mother and I do, then they would see the pain he suffers each time Jonas is about. The guilt and self-recrimination, the unspeakable nightmares that have haunted him for years where one of his children is concerned. And this was before we learned of the reports he’d acquired that Jonas’s maternal genetics were from Mother rather than Madame LaRue, as we had believed. Since he learned that piece of information, his anger at himself often worries Mother.”
“Leo doesn’t seem to be the type to stress over past mistakes,” Rule offered. “Or children who were created rather than conceived by him.”
“Ah, but how little all but I and Mother know him,” Dane retorted mockingly. “Father suffers for past mistakes, decisions that resulted in less than the situations he anticipated, and the children who carried his genetics. His pride in Callan is absolute. But his pride in Jonas is ever growing, my friend. A pride that demands that Jonas acknowledge that choices are often made with a knowledge of the outcome and its tragedy, but they are never made without regret and without grief.”
“Jonas understands that.” Hell, of all people, Jonas knew that better than anyone Rule could think of. “Leo has amends to make, Dane. Many of them.”
“Jonas resents Leo for leaving him in the labs when he feels he could have gotten him out.”
Rule shook his head, staring back at the other man in surprise. “Is that what he thinks?”
“That’s what Jonas states. Often.” Dane’s look sharpened.
“No, Dane.” Rule was the one to breathe out roughly now. “It wasn’t that Leo left him in the labs. It was that Leo left Harmony there. That Harmony suffered as long as she did and that he was forced to turn on her to ensure her survival. He will never forgive the Leo for the price he paid when he lost his sister’s love. A condition that continues, even now.”
Silence stretched between them now. For the first time since he’d known him, Rule watched as Dane appeared saddened. No manipulation. No calculation. Just unaccountably saddened.
“It would seem, then, both Jonas and I have a particular grudge against our father,” he finally said softly before turning and spearing him with a sharp, fierce look. “Take that as a lesson, my friend. Don’t wait for your mate to declare her love. Don’t wait for her to realize her love. Give of yourself first if you must. Perhaps when you do so, she’ll realize what she’s refusing to allow herself to see for fear of losing once again that which sustains her.”
Rule narrowed his eyes back at the hybrid as Dane turned and moved away from him, heading back to the bank of elevators, his shoulders not as straight, his head not thrown back as arrogantly as normal.
He knew Dane had feelings for Jonas’s sister Harmony, just as he knew damned good and well Harmony’s love for her mate, Lance Jacobs, was absolute. A mate she had been given a chance to find through Dane’s and Jonas’s machinations, separately, though no less effectively.
He almost smiled.
He could smell the true affection and sense of loss and regret Dane felt, but the love . . . no, it wasn’t love. It had been close. Perhaps the closest Dane had ever come, or ever would come. The man jumped across continents like other men traveled across town. The chances of finding his mate, or of finding love, wasn’t going to be high.
Rule had a feeling when and if it happened, though, Dane would be thanking his father for whatever hand he’d had in taking Harmony from his son’s life rather than resenting it.
Straightening as the Dragoon shot in beneath the hotel awning, Rule strode quickly to the doors, Dane’s comment running through his mind.
Let her know how he felt. Let her feel it, he thought. Maybe, just maybe, she’d realize she didn’t have to hide her tender heart from him. Nor her fears.
He had her back, and he was about to prove it.
Dane wasn’t the only one to whom Gideon owed a favor or two.
...
The heavy iron door slammed closed with enough force that the cavern itself seemed to shudder from the impact.
A roar ripped through the underground space, sinking into stone before echoing back, only to be followed by another.
A glass beaker shattered against the doors, spilling a dark liquid that instantly turned to mist and filled the area with a hint of sandalwood and a male genetic scent that would have fooled any Breed living but the one who had made it.
“Motherfuckers.” The roar was nearly incoherent as the animal lent its voice to the explicit curse.
Another beaker shattered, this time, the scent evocative of desert nights with a hint of a rose. Poison should smell sweet, he’d always claimed.
His head tipped back, his lips curled back from his teeth, and this time the roar all but shook the rafters and might have actually caused dust to rain down from the cavern’s roof.
“Oh really, Graeme, what the hell did you think would happen?” Khileen propped her hands on her hips and watched the primal Bengal with a healthy dose of amused wariness. “Did you really believe you had us fooled? That we weren’t very well aware of exactly where the Bengal Gideon was hiding?”
Propped against the curve of the far entrance, she tilted her head and let a smile curl at her lips when he swung around to her, his head lowering, his amber eyes morphing to the most incredible green color.
It really was too bad she couldn’t stand another man’s touch, she thought regretfully, because Gideon was no doubt hell in bed. He was simply too much male, too much animal, not to be.