CHAPTER 22
“And I don’t know if it’s entirely your decision.”
Tanner jerked around, a growl rumbling in his throat as Jonas and three of his enforcers stepped into the room. How the fuck had they managed to sneak up on him?
Jonas’s lips tightened as he tested the air, his strange silver eyes flashing with anger.
“You should have smelled us coming the moment we dropped into the tunnels,” he snapped. “Mating heat is making you weak, Tanner.”
Tanner lifted his lip in a sneer. “Not so weak that I can’t take your throat out, Director,” he snarled. “Why the hell are you here?”
Jonas snorted at the question. “Callan did a good job of hiding you, but you forget, I hold my position for a reason. Tracking you wasn’t as hard as you would have imagined. It’s a goddamned wonder the Council hasn’t already found this place.”
“It’s a goddamned wonder a Breed hasn’t killed you yet,” Tanner growled.
“Several have tried.” Jonas shrugged, staring around the room. “Where is she? Don’t make me go looking for her.”
“Touch her, cause so much as a flicker of fear to ignite inside her, and I’ll kill you.” Murderous rage brewed in Tanner’s gut as he stared back at the director of Breed affairs.
Jonas’s lips flattened. “Don’t sign her death warrant here, Tanner. Let’s protect her together.”
The animal awoke with a roar. Tanner could feel blood pumping through his body, tightening his muscles, sending a surge of adrenaline-laced rage to race through his head.
His head lifted as he stared back at the taller man, not in the least intimidated by Jonas’s six-six frame or the glowering menace in his expression.
“You signed yours,” Tanner rasped, “when you recruited her rather than rescuing her.”
“It was her decision,” Jonas refuted coolly. “I offered her safety; she chose revenge for the death of her child. You can’t fault her for that.”
“I don’t care how you’ve excused ignoring a woman’s torture,” he snarled contemptuously. “And neither will the Breed Cabinet when I request asylum for my mate.”
Jonas’s eyes flickered, his jaw hardening. “I ignored nothing,” he finally retorted. “She never reported it.”
“She gave her soul for the Breeds,” Tanner hissed. “How old was she when you recruited her, Jonas? Nineteen? Twenty?”
Jonas stared back at him coldly. “She was twenty-two.”
Tanner’s smile was savage. “A child. You recruited a child, Jonas. One likely already scarred by a father’s torture. A woman you should have sensed needed your help rather than your exploitation.”
Jonas’s expression never changed. “We do what we have to, Tanner, to survive.”
“You son of a bitch!” Tanner’s fist flashed out, connecting solidly with Jonas’s jaw and knocking him backward.
A hard lion’s roar left Jonas’s lips as he moved to counterattack, only to draw himself up short, his expression twisting with fury as the enforcers beside him tensed for action.
Cabal stood beside Tanner now, a warning growl echoing in the room as Jonas’s eyes flashed toward him.
“My mate”—restraining the killing rage surging inside him was nearly impossible—“is not a tool to survive.”
As the words left his throat, his senses exploded with the scent of Scheme, his gaze moving to the doorway as she stepped into it slowly.
She was pale, her dark eyes wide, tortured.
“Unfortunately, that’s exactly what I am,” she said as she faced the six Breed males that had turned to her. “First a tool against the Breeds and now one for them.”
Her voice sounded calm; her expression was stoic, but Tanner could smell the pain and the fear twisting inside her.
“Not any longer.” He pushed past Jonas and his enforcers, growling warningly as he tossed Jonas a furious glance.
Tanner pulled her into his arms, sheltering her against his chest as his hands tucked the sheet she had wrapped around herself more firmly about her body.
“You should be sleeping.” He didn’t want her here, didn’t want her facing Jonas’s cold, hard objectivity. It was the reason he made such an excellent director of a bureau created for the covert operations the Breeds were forced to use to survive.
“No, there will be time to sleep later.” Her words had his heart jerking in his chest. “It’s time to finish this now.”
“You’re late.” She felt the nervous smile trembling on her lips as she faced the director of Breed affairs, the man who had once saved her life, who offered her a chance to destroy the monster haunting her.
She watched as he breathed out heavily, regret flashing in his silver eyes.
“Finding the caves wasn’t easy,” he growled as Tanner’s arms tightened around her. “I knew who you were with. I thought we had time.”
“And what changed that?” Tanner snapped behind her.
He really was protective. It surprised her, the warning and fierce protectiveness in his voice.
Jonas’s silver eyes flicked to Tanner before returning to her. “And here we thought he was the calm Breed,” he commented. “Go figure.”
“Jonas, I’m going to kick your ass,” Tanner warned him.
“No.” Scheme tightened her hand on the arm surrounding her. “You don’t understand, Tanner.”
“Probably because you never explained it to me, Scheme,” he bit out mockingly.
“I tried. Right before you left me alone with Cabal.”
Silence filled the room.
“He saved my life,” she told Tanner then. “Right after I lost the baby. He found me.” She swallowed tightly, trying to dislodge the grief in her throat, the memories of the loss and of her own weakness.
“We were trying to get a few bugs in her home at that time. We thought she and St. Marks both were still at the Tallant estate. Scheme had returned.” Jonas began the explanation only to stop as Scheme shook her head harshly.
It was her weakness and it was time she faced it. “I was sitting in the dark, in the living room, staring at a handful of pain pills.” Her lips twisted in disgust. “I couldn’t run. I would have been found and punished. I knew that. And I needed to escape. I just wanted to escape.”
She remembered that night clearly.
A shadow had moved at her side. Her gaze had lifted to meet the silver eyes of what she knew was one of her father’s greatest enemies.
Go ahead and kill me, she had whispered. Saves me the trouble.
He had crouched to sit on his heels, staring at the pills in her hand.
I can take you out of here. The offer had been tempting.
Finally Scheme had shaken her head. I don’t have the information you want, Breed. Not enough to stop him. Not enough to convict him. Saving me is more trouble than it’s worth.
Then get me the information, Scheme. Find it. Get what we need and we’ll take him down together. Do you want to die? Or do you want to see him suffer?
“I wanted to see him suffer,” she whispered then, refusing to see the effects of her explanation on Tanner’s face. “I wanted to see him destroyed. So I stayed. And I worked for Jonas. And he never knew of the punishments I received. He never knew the lengths I was going to. All he knew was the proof I sent him. And I could never get enough.”
Her father had been smarter than she was, it seemed.
“Why did you call for pickup?” Jonas asked then.
Scheme breathed in roughly. “In roughly one week, the spy at Sanctuary will have everything in place to kidnap the pride leader’s son, David Lyons. I found the reports on this just before I called you.”
And then she waited. There was so much information she didn’t have. Promises she had made to Jonas that she hadn’t kept.
He watched her now, his silver eyes flashing with satisfaction.
“You have enough.” He suddenly nodded. “We’ll get you back to Sanctuary and you can start making the lists of contacts and resources that you can pinpoint. You did good, Scheme. You know that, don’t you?”
Had she? Tanner hadn’t said a word. He was silent behind her, his hold on her less fierce now, though the tension in his body was much higher.
“I did what I could,” she answered faintly, suddenly feeling self-conscious, and terribly aware of Tanner’s silence. “I wish it had been more.”
“We have the heli-jet waiting outside,” he announced. “We have to get you back to Sanctuary. Then we can make our plans from there.”
“Not yet.” Tanner’s voice was frightening. “Scheme and I have a few things to settle before we leave. Wait outside.”
“Tanner.” Jonas’s voice was warning. “We need to leave.”
The primal snarl that came from Tanner’s chest caused Scheme to flinch and Jonas to stare behind her with a suddenly wary expression.
“Leave,” Tanner ordered him then. “I’ll deal with you later. Right now, I’ll deal with my mate.”
Jonas stared back at Tanner for long moments before nodding shortly. With a brief flick of his hand, the room began to clear and Tanner was releasing her, jerking his arms from around her and stalking to the other side of the room.
She had known this was coming. He was furious; she could feel the waves of anger ricocheting around her and sparking a defensive reaction inside her soul.
“You couldn’t tell me.” He swiped his fingers through his long hair as he turned back to her, his eyes glowing with anger, his expression suddenly hard, savage. “You would have let David be kidnapped and the first Leo murdered before you told me.”
Scheme shook her head as she swallowed tightly.
“I tried to tell you this morning, before you left me with Cabal. I was going to tell you everything.”
His jaw clenched.
“And before then? Why didn’t you tell me when I first kidnapped you? When I couldn’t decide if I was going to fuck you or kill you?” His voice rose perceptively; the fury building inside him was frightening to watch.
“Father’s spy,” she said faintly, knowing what she was about to say would only add fuel to the anger. “I don’t know who he is. All I know is that he holds a position of trust within the main pride. Your profile fit the spy’s.”
His expression went blank. No emotion. It wasn’t cold; it wasn’t furious. It was just without emotion, period.
“You thought I could betray my family?”
“I didn’t know you, Tanner,” she cried. “All I knew were your files and the public persona you project to the world. The information I’ve managed to find on the Breed working within Sanctuary coincides perfectly with your training and your escape from the labs. I was too scared to trust you simply because you wanted to fuck me.”
He shook his head slowly. “You knew better.”
“And I thought I knew better than to believe Chaz would help abort my baby.” Her fists clenched as pain tore ragged wounds into her soul. “I couldn’t risk it. Not then. You have to understand that.”
She could see the struggle in his face now, the fight to accept her distrust, to understand how she had held back.
Would she have understood? She knew the betrayals he would have felt in his position, the personal sense of failure. But it would have been personal. Emotional.
“I tried to be logical,” she said faintly. “I did my best to protect them.”
“As you’ve done your best to protect the Breeds for eight years?” He growled. “How would your death have served us, Scheme? It would have served us no more than remaining silent now. You could have spoken up. You could have told me about the plan to kidnap my nephew.”