Breathing in deeply, she moved to the back door again, staring into the courtyard with narrowed eyes.
She had to get out of here before she lost her mind. Before this need, before these unfamiliar emotions, destroyed her.
But how did one escape from a highly secured Breed compound?
The front of the cabin was watched diligently. At any time day or night she could look out and see a Breed stalking the area.
Here though, in the courtyard where they all gathered to play and to socialize, security was much lighter. There had been two Enforcers conducting rounds in the past two nights. They had mostly spent their time beneath the wooden canopy where the food was laid out each evening. They were a little less on guard here, trusting the Breeds on perimeter patrol to alert them of any danger.
She could slip through the courtyard and out the other side. Getting past the sentries wouldn't be easy, but she could pull it off. If she took the last scent-neutralizing capsule hidden in her bag, then as long as they didn't see her, they would never know she was there.
Some of her stuff had been brought in that morning before the doctor arrived. Her jeans were in the bag she had been forced to leave in the hotel, and no doubt the Coyote soldiers who had trashed it had taken the bag just to be certain what they wanted wasn't there. But her car had still been in the parking lot, and the small duffel bag with her boots, socks and winter jacket was still stuffed in the trunk. The tiny compartment built into the hole of that boot still held her last scent neutralizer. She'd checked just to be certain.
It would last twelve hours. Long enough for her to get the hell out of Haven and halfway to the nearest town. If she were lucky, she might be able to contact the only friend she had ever been able to depend on and hitch a ride clear out of Colorado.
She was going to have to escape. She needed to figure out what to do with that data chip, and the best way to keep it out of both Breed and Council control.
She should just destroy it.
She played with the ring on her finger, her thumb rubbing over the sapphire set within the ring of diamonds. The gem looked real, the outer shell actually was real. What lay beneath it was the true value of the jewelry though. It was there that her father had hidden the chip filled with information on Project Omega.
Only God knew what it said, or what was actually in the files. She couldn't decrypt them, and she had tried countless times over the years.
One thing was for certain--she was going to have to do something. Getting out of here was imperative. Even more imperative was figuring out who to give that chip to.
She couldn't give it to the Council. They had killed her father and brother, given the order to the Coyote to rip her brother's throat out. Nothing on Earth or in hell could convince her to give them the information they wanted. She would destroy it first.
Giving it to the Breeds was just as dangerous. She had no idea what the information was or what her father's research entailed. She knew though that he considered it so dangerous, so lethal in the hands of the Council that he and her brother had died to protect it.
He had promised her someone would come for the chip, but no one had ever come to her to tell her that he was the one her father had sent.
The Council demanded it. Coyote soldiers fought to capture her and to force the information from her. Breeds shadowed her as though she would turn around and pass it to them in the shadows.
But no one had simply said, "Your father told me to come to you."
Running at fourteen hadn't been easy. There had been days, weeks at a time when she had hid in the deserts of the Southwest, trying to ensure no Breed caught her scent, trying to figure out how to survive.
It didn't matter where she hid though, she was always found.
On a snowy, frigidly cold night the year she turned eighteen, she had been at a breaking point. Dirty, sick, cold and hungry, she had huddled in an alley behind a loud, popular restaurant and nightclub. She couldn't have gone any farther. She couldn't have fought so much as one more battle.
Gena Waters, a rough-talking, tattooed biker, had found her. She had pulled Storme up and urged her to come to the apartment she rented over the restaurant. She'd helped her bathe, fed her, and given her a place to hide.
Over the years, Gena had pulled her ass out of more fires than Storme could count. Fires they had assumed the free Breeds had begun and Council Breeds had tried to follow through with.
Gena had asked for nothing. She'd always been there.
Even when Storme hadn't called her.
That thought pierced her mind, causing her to pause now as it had in the past, as she wondered how Gena had known she was in danger those times.
God, she was becoming so suspicious.
Moving through the house, she began to plot the best course out of Haven and the best way to contact Gena.
Sometimes it took a day or two, but she always managed to find a way to help Storme when there was no other recourse.
It was Storme's only option. Because God knew, if she stayed here much longer, then she was going to lose her mind. Or even worse, her heart.
CHAPTER 10
Lips thin, Styx stalked to the guest house Jonas and his mate had taken while in Haven. The heli-jet had landed within the secured gates of the Wolf Breed community, which was rare. Normally, unless medical care was required, the heli-jet landed just outside the gates, on the three-story-high helipad, which housed a secured entrance into Haven.
Enforcers had reported that the heli-jet had arrived with Jonas and Rachel's infant daughter, Amber.
The child was human, she wasn't Jonas's child by blood, but Styx knew that sometimes blood wasn't all that mattered. Jonas would be more protective now, most likely even more determined to force Storme into giving up the information she had. Unfortunately, Styx had a bad feeling Storme would fight to the death, or the last measure of strength, to hold on to whatever her father had given her to hide.
Stepping to the wide front porch, Styx laid his knuckles to the wood door and waited.
Jonas didn't make him wait long.
The door opened to the hard, savage expression of the director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs.
"We need to talk," Styx informed the other man.
Jonas blinked once before stepping back and allowing Styx to move into the house.
"I've already received Dr. Armani's report." Jonas's voice was graveled, hard. "I've requested a second set of tests to be run."
Styx gave a short nod.
He knew the results as well. Just as he knew Nikki was presently in her lab scratching her head, cussing and trying to figure out how a Breed could be an "almost" mate.
The hormone was in his system, there were minute amounts in Storme's system, and the mating compatibility had been established between the two of them. Nikki had pulled off the impossible and gotten him just enough evidence to ensure that Jonas couldn't move to pull Storme from Haven without the express permission of the alpha.
Mating compatibility was high. The hormone in Styx's and Storme's blood was even higher. Saliva and semen were showing a marked increase in the mating hormone, and the glands beneath his tongue were enflamed just enough to make him aware of it.
All the proof was there, but something held back the full, burning effects of the biological bonding between mates.
"I need you to back off, Jonas." Styx got straight to the point as the director led him into the modest office off the large living room.
"I'm sure you do." Jonas moved to his wide, old-fashioned wood desk and sat down in the leather chair behind it.
"There's enough evidence to support the request for examination that I've submitted with Wolfe," Styx informed the director.