Tanner loosened his hold on Scheme, turning slowly to face the director of Breed affairs, a low growl building in his chest as Scheme’s soft voice whispered his name, only adding fuel to the rage building inside him.
“Tanner had no knowledge of the abuse being perpetrated within the Tallant estate against Miss Tallant, Callan,” Jonas said then. “That information was confined to myself.”
“Why?” Tanner snarled. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I suspected she might be your mate,” he said softly. “Cabal had already made the connection and we needed the information—”
Deliberately, purposely, Tanner loosed the animal clawing inside him on the Lion Breed who had dared to allow Scheme to suffer in such a way. To allow her to be tied hand and foot with a cold electronic voice counting down her oxygen allowance within a coffin and buried beneath dirt.
He plowed into Jonas. They hit the wall, plaster cracking then falling away as the force of the two heavy male bodies crashed into it. Before Jonas could recover, Tanner found his feet and righted himself as he jerked Jonas back and slammed his fist into the other man’s face. He was pulling back for another strike a second before restraining hands were jerking him back, grappling with him, strident orders barking into his ear.
Tanner roared in outraged fury, struggling to break free as Jonas pushed himself slowly to his feet, a smug smile almost tugging at his lips.
“I said enough, goddammit.” Callan was suddenly in his face, amber eyes blazing, his expression furious as Tanner snarled back in his face.
“My fucking mate.” Rage was burning hard and hot inside him. Bucking against the hands holding him, he nearly broke free, nearly threw another punch at Jonas before Callan was in his face again, pushing him back as whoever dared to retain their hold on him jerked his arms back and wrapped his powerful arms around his neck. “You knew what that bastard was doing. You fucking knew and you didn’t save her.”
“No.” Scheme’s cry diluted the haze of red in front of his eyes; her soft hands slapping into his chest drew his gaze to her furious one.
“It was my choice,” she screamed back at him, her cheeks pale with fear and anger and damp with tears that still welled in her eyes. “Do you understand me! It was my choice to make. I knew Jonas’s men were part of Father’s soldiers. I knew and I didn’t ask them to save me.”
“Dammit, Tanner, do you think I didn’t try to get her to come in?” Jonas yelled back at him, the growl in his voice filled with anger. “Do you think I didn’t give her a choice?”
He snarled back at Jonas before leveling his fury back on Scheme.
“Why?” he bit out with primal fury. “Why would you let him do that to you?”
Agony was racing through him. She hadn’t just allowed her father to bury her, but she had done it when she had a choice to escape.
“To convince him I knew nothing.” Her chin lifted, her brown eyes glittering with furious intensity. “To prove to him that I wasn’t betraying him. That my mistakes were mistakes rather than the deliberate attempt to destroy him that they were. Because seeing him destroyed meant more to me than my own life.”
Tanner shook off the hands holding him, restraining him. Violence pounded through his bloodstream, created a buzzing in his head that threatened to drown out the voice of reason in his mind.
“Never again,” he grated out. “You will never again place yourself in that kind of danger.”
Her expression shifted then, became cold, calculating, filled with determination.
“I will do whatever it takes to see that monster destroyed,” she declared hoarsely. “This isn’t your choice now any more than it was your choice then. Don’t make the mistake of thinking for one moment, Tanner, that you can, or will, be allowed to dictate these choices to me. Because it will not happen.”
“And don’t you think for one moment that I won’t tan your hide should you ever, fucking ever, make such a choice again.”
CHAPTER 24
He’d had enough. Tanner admitted to himself that he had reached the point where he could deal with this situation in a sane and logical manner. His mate had lived in fear, in pain, under the threat of an agonizing death for ten years and he hadn’t known. Jonas had known. The Coyotes they had managed to recruit within Tallant’s organization had known and reported it to Jonas. But Tanner hadn’t known.
“Cabal.” He heard the guttural sound of his own voice but couldn’t find the need to care that the animal part of his nature had risen so close to the surface.
Cabal had made the suggestion in the caves as they were preparing to meet Jonas at the heli-jet. To keep the pride confused about the mating, to allow them to believe that both of them had mated her. Even Jonas wouldn’t know any better. Their scents were too similar, their natures too extreme for the Breed community to ever doubt that it could have happened.
Not that Tanner would allow Cabal to touch his mate in any way. He couldn’t handle it. But her protection meant more than his comfort. If the spy thought he and Cabal both had mated her, then they would believe Cabal’s senses were too frayed by the mating heat, as well, for him to be watching closely.
He needed Cabal to be able to watch very closely indeed.
“I’m right behind you,” Cabal answered as Tanner gripped Scheme’s arm and pulled her to the door.
“Tanner.” She jerked at her arm, sending a firestorm of possessive determination racing through him. “Stop dragging me around like this.”
He could smell her heat, her arousal. He could smell the need and the anger and it spurred his own. But he could also smell her fear, her pain, her discomfort and a sense that the world was falling apart around her.
She had survived her father’s abuse because she understood it. She had survived it and dealt with it even as she worked toward his destruction. But she didn’t know how to handle acceptance. She had no idea how to handle love.
And he couldn’t afford to argue the point with her here. Not while everyone was watching. Not that the cabinet would ever speak of anything that happened inside this room, but he needed their confusion where the mating was concerned. He needed their reactions to the uncertainty of whether or not he and Cabal had continued their games with Scheme.
Before she or anyone else could object, he had her over his shoulder, her squeak of surprise following her hands bracing at his back as she struggled against the dominant hold he had on her.
“Stay still.” He tapped her rounded little fanny, smiling tightly as he stalked through the room and headed at a quick lope for the stairs.“Are you crazy?” she screeched from her upside-down position.
“It’s a popular opinion,” he assured her tightly as Cabal moved ahead of them, entering the suite before Tanner followed him.
As the door closed behind them, Tanner set her upright on the floor, and before she could voice what appeared to be a very loud protest, he pressed his fingers against her lips indicating silence.
She was fast. Smart. A frown instantly formed between her brows as suspicion filled her eyes.
Turning, she watched as Cabal began checking the room for electronic devices. Several minutes later he stored the small device he was using away and shook his head.
“It’s clear,” he finally said.
“They’re smarter than I thought they were,” Tanner muttered as he moved across the room to the electronic jammer at the side of the windows. He found two loosened wires when he disabled the device and lifted the protective covering from it. That wouldn’t have disabled it, but it would have severely weakened it.
Shaking his head, he replaced the wires, reset the device and secured it back to the wall. Propping his hands on his hips, he growled low in his throat as he lowered his head and shook it wearily.
“Whoever it is can get into the house easily,” Cabal said then. “I didn’t expect that.”
Tanner lifted his head and stared back at Scheme. He hadn’t truly expected it either.
Scheme wrapped her arms over her breasts and stared back at Tanner uncertainly. She could see the concern in his gaze now as he watched her, just as she had seen the hope that she had been wrong. That whoever the spy was, he wasn’t in a position that would afford easy entrance into any part of the estate house.
“This is going to be a problem,” Cabal said softly.
Scheme looked from Cabal to Tanner. “What’s going to be a problem?”
“Convincing the Breeds here in Sanctuary that both of us have mated you.” Cabal’s grin was all teeth.
Scheme narrowed her eyes back at him. She hadn’t forgotten the terror that had filled her the night before when he had held her against the stone wall, acting for all the world as though rape were nothing new to him.
“Good luck,” she said sweetly. “It’s going to be hard to do when I won’t let you within a hundred feet of me.”
Cabal grimaced at that, his gaze shifting to Tanner.
“Don’t even look at him like that,” Scheme ordered roughly as she turned to Tanner. “Tell him to leave, Tanner.”
Tanner crossed his arms over his chest. “Cabal, you can spend some time in the bathroom.” He nodded to the door that led into the other room.
Scheme stared back at him in shock. “Are you insane?”
“Probably,” Tanner grunted. “But everyone in Sanctuary knows us. They know the games we play with our women, and there’s been speculation for years that we would end up mating the same woman. I need them to believe that’s exactly what happened so Cabal won’t be suspected to be watching for danger. Mating heat burns through the senses, Scheme; it makes us weak for a time. Cabal can watch our backs if we play this correctly.”
She shot Cabal a glare. “And I’m just supposed to accept that?”
Cabal’s expression shifted, became suddenly more relaxed, less cool and hard to read. And regret lay in his eyes. “I had to frighten you, Scheme; otherwise dumbass over there might have convinced himself he really wasn’t your mate. He wanted your safety, your protection bad enough that he would have kept hold on that primal part of himself to achieve it. I would never have hurt you.”
Her eyes narrowed on him. “I had that part figured out. That doesn’t mean I want you in the bed with us.”
“Can I watch?” Amusement glittered in his eyes. And a dare. A challenge.
Scheme rolled her eyes. He was serious and she knew it. She glanced at Tanner in time to catch the incredible heat that flared in his eyes at the thought.
These two men had been sharing their women for ten years. They had established a reputation for it, an easy, playful air of sexual amusement. Strangely, that didn’t bother her. And it appeared Tanner was more than willing to allow his brother to watch.
Playfully.
Tanner seemed more relaxed, less intense, amusement glittering in his gaze as he stalked to her, his eyes darkening with desire and hunger as his hands suddenly gripped her waist and he picked her up.
She bounced on the bed, gasping as Tanner’s fingers went to the snap of her jeans.
Her eyes widened.
“Tanner.” Her fingers curled around his wrists. “What are you doing?”
“Too many clothes,” he growled.
She tried to bat at his hands as the zipper released and his twin leaned against the door and grinned rakishly. “Are you sure about this? Cabal’s still here.” He stopped, his head swinging to the side. A warning snarl curled his lips.
“I have no intention of touching,” Cabal murmured wickedly. “I’ll content myself right here.”
Tanner growled again. God, she loved that growl. The way his incisors flashed, that wild light that lit his amber eyes. It was almost an orgasm by itself.
“As long as he just watches,” he panted, literally tearing his shirt from his shoulders before his hands went to the belt of his jeans, ripping it free.