“The truth was in his eyes, and his scent,” Jonas growled before his gaze turned intent, somber. “Rule, I need you on this. I don’t want you going off half-cocked because you think someone might be your mate,” Jonas stated, his voice echoing with concern now. “This is Amber’s life. Liza’s memories of her life as Honor Roberts are still too scattered and broken to help much further. Claire’s have returned in even smaller portions, and we have no idea how to find Judd and Gideon. Without the information they hold about those experiments and the key to Brandenmore’s encrypted files, Amber doesn’t have a chance of surviving this.”
Rule deactivated the e-pad and returned it to the padded pocket he stored it in before staring back at the director. “I never go off half-cocked, Director,” Rule reminded him. “Now, how do you suggest we identify Whisper, and who her contact within the Unknown is?” he asked, regarding the director curiously. “Or even if either of them are the contact you’re searching for?”
Son of a bitch and dammit to hell. He did not need this, Rule thought with an edge of carefully concealed anger. Investigating Gypsy’s sideline wasn’t his preferred course of action. Not when he’d prefer investigating that sensual, erotic side of Gypsy instead.
Jonas frowned, a severe, dark look that tended to make most Breeds extremely nervous. Rule had known him far too long, and knew far too much on him, to be nervous.
Wary in some instances, but never nervous.
“Commander Breaker, do I ask your advice on how to run the Bureau?” Jonas growled when the look had no effect on Rule.
“You don’t have to ask,” Rule quipped deliberately. “I believe I offer on a fairly regular basis. One of the reasons I’m considering that division directorship, remember? By the way, should I take it, Lawe, Diane and Thor will join me in the top-tier positions that have been outlined.”
Jonas grunted at that as he tapped a single slowly extending claw tip against the desk. “Taking my best people, Rule? Now you’re just trying to piss me off.”
That was entirely possible, Rule admitted silently. If only he could piss the director off enough to make him drop this damned case.
He knew that wasn’t happening, though.
“Distract you maybe.” Rule shrugged as he admitted to the accusation but not his reasons why. “You’re looking stressed, Jonas.”
And Jonas had never looked stressed in all the years Rule had known him.
He watched as Jonas shook his head before wiping his hands over his face. “Just find the Unknown, Rule. They’ll lead us to Gideon. Maybe then, Rachel, Amber and I can get some rest.”
Gideon was the last link.
Anonymous files had been sent from Judd to the Bureau, after Liza had remembered parts of that ritual that hid her for so long.
The files had detailed the codes he remembered, outlined clearly the research notes he’d seen and advised Jonas that if Amber had been given the first injection and was still living, to make damned sure the injections continued on a schedule he’d listed as the same that the scientists overseeing Honor and Fawn had used.
There was no serum to continue, though. No one knew the formula and there were too many files of children, young adults and adults who had been a part of that research and had been a casualty of it.
So why was Amber still living?
Rule knew the questions, he knew where to find some sources for the answers, but what those sources knew, Jonas already had. They needed Gideon, and Rule was afraid Gideon just didn’t want to be found.
Not even the one small favor the feral Bengal owed Rule would be enough to fix this problem.
“I’ll get to work then.” Rule rose from his chair.
He prayed he could find something, anything, to get Gypsy off that list.
“Rule.” Jonas spoke his name carefully, hiding his wariness at the tone.
“Yeah?” Rule was a master of casual demeanor. He fucking worked at it.
“Orrin Martinez made another request to meet with you and Lawe. I’m advising you, as your friend, to make an appointment and get it over with.”
As far as Rule was concerned, Orrin Martinez could go to hell. They had nothing to say to one another after the trouble the Martinez family had given them when they first arrived in New Mexico, especially Orrin’s son, the chief of the Navajo Nation, Ray Martinez.
“Talk to Lawe.” He shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned, I have no family here other than Isabelle and Chelsea. The male members of the Martinez family are just too far over the prick line to suit me.”
Jonas’s lips quirked. “Understandable, but not acceptable. Get it taken care of and get them off my back. Quickly.”
With that, Jonas pulled up the computer once again, a signal that as far as he was concerned, the discussion was at an end.
It was, because Rule wasn’t meeting with the old bastard or his family.
Leaving the office, Rule closed the door behind him before striding down the hall and heading to his brother’s suite.
Lawe’s mate, Diane, had found the information leading the Breeds to the capital of the Navajo Nation in their search for Honor Roberts and Fawn Corrigan. Perhaps she would have something on the Unknown as well.
Something that would get Jonas off Gypsy’s back.
At least he knew there wasn’t a chance of mating her. His animal instincts didn’t even twitch when she was around. Hell, in the nine years he’d been checking up on her, watching after her, he’d become fond of her, he admitted. But even once she’d matured, those mating instincts hadn’t appeared to even attempt to awaken.
Just his dick.
And in the past months, she affected that part of his body in a way that, for a few weeks, had made him wonder if he was going to have to run after all.
In all the years he’d watched her, checked up on her, ensured that she was safe and as happy as possible, she’d never known he was there. He’d brushed up against her, moved silently into her apartment as she slept, and more than once he’d allowed himself to tempt the hunger he’d realized he was feeling for her after she began maturing into a woman.
But he’d never gotten close to her in any way that would have allowed her to recognize him, or to come to know him until the past two months since the search for Gideon had led them to Window Rock.
So far, he had reined in his impulse to take her as a lover and ignored the restless sexual awareness plaguing him.
He should have taken advantage of the numerous offers for a one-night stand, given by both the human and Breed females. There were certain things a man learned about specific women quickly, though.
What he’d learned about Miss Gypsy Rum was the fact that she refused to bed any man or Breed known to have a promiscuous lifestyle or one who had already slept with a female she knew.
That had obviously narrowed the playing field for her.
But, he had to admit, it was refreshing to know a woman who actually stuck to her own rules, no matter the obvious flaw in them.
Rule was damned certain that she’d never had a lover, though.
But she was going to have one soon.
Women, their hearts, their luscious bodies, every aspect of them and every part of them that made them the amazingly complex creatures he so enjoyed, never failed to please him.
Perhaps that was why she drew him.
He knew the intelligence and the complexities behind the façade she presented. That mask of a shallow young woman was just that—a mask.
He suspected that was why she had made the list of possible Unknown contacts. And now, he was going to have to find a way to get her off that list.
To convince Jonas that she was just what she seemed to be. Even if he did know better.
The hurt she carried behind her bright smile and sensual, flirty demeanor haunted her waking moments as well as her nightmares.