Christmas Heat

Chapter 10

"Aww, how sweet." The menacing drawl had Noble tensing as he pulled away from Haley, the air of danger, of death, filling the room as he turned his head and snarled.

Alaiya Jennings was propped against the doorway between the living room and kitchen. She wore her black breed mission uniform, which she had obviously not turned in when Jonas revoked her position as Enforcer. The utility-and-weapons belt was strapped to her hips and secured to her thigh. She was dressed to kill. And he knew, she intended to kill Haley. As well as him.

Noble felt Haley's nails pierce his side, felt the fear that began to flow through her, and the anger. She turned her head and stared at the breed watching them.

Smiling, Alaiya lifted a cookie and bit into it while she held the imposing, snub-barreled high-powered rifle she carried in one arm.

"The cookies are really good." She lifted her brows.

"Such a shame. Not many people can make good homemade cookies anymore. And now we're going to lose another fine homemaker." She clicked her tongue and shook her head. "Pity."

"How did you manage to get into the house?" he snarled.

Noble eased up until he was sitting in front of Haley, watching the barrel of the powerful short rifle carefully. He knew the mark of that weapon, though it had only been seen rarely. When explosives didn't work, Uriel always found a way in, and the hole that gun made was not something men survived.

"Now, Noble, that would be revealing trade secrets. Assassins never do that."

"Uriel," he muttered, disgust filling his tone.

Alaiya smiled.

"Are my men still alive?"

"Alive. Sleeping, but alive. I'm not a total monster, you know. Jason wouldn't have died if he hadn't seen me." Her giggle was maniacal. The girlish sound scraped across Noble's nerve endings and lifted the hairs at the back of his neck. "Oh and your security system." She waved her hand negligently. "So trite Noble. Did you think any professional assassin would have missed the buried cameras? Really, darling. I thought you better than that."

He was better than that. The cameras inside the house were still working, and the moment another heat signature had been detected, the information would have been sent to Sanctuary.

The cavalry would be coming, but it could be too late if he wasn't careful.

"You're not saying anything." Alaiya frowned as Noble felt Haley's forehead press against his shoulder. "You should be congratulating me on how I managed to outsmart you."

"Yeah, congrats," he muttered, and she giggled again.

Noble could feel Haley behind him, shuddering. Fear was whipping through her, but not panic. She wasn't breaking down on him, she was sitting strong, staying behind him, not distracting him. And son of a bitch, he felt a gun press against his back. Where the hell had she come up with a weapon?

"What do you want me to say, Alaiya?" he asked her, keeping his hands in sight as he watched her. "We knew it was a breed, we just weren't certain who."

"Poor Jonas." She sighed. "He's been racing around Sanctuary, trying so hard to figure out who it is. I even helped him a time or two." Amusement gleamed in her brown eyes. "That was so funny. I, of course, played the distraught mateless mate. Very irritated, very saddened that I had lost Mercury to that bitch Rio. He never guessed, of course, that he was being played."

"He'll figure it out," Noble asserted. "Did you figure out who your mate is?"

Supposedly, she had believed another breed, Mercury, was her mate weeks before.

She stared back at him blandly then. "I've always known who my mate was. The act was merely that, an act to throw Jonas and his enforcers off-balance. To allay suspicion, it was much easier to walk into Sanctuary demanding a mate."

He felt Haley whisper

I

love you

against his back.

He felt his heart pick up, race in his chest as she began to tense.

"Come on now, Noble, let's finish this quickly." Alaiya straightened from the doorway, finished her cookie, then gripped the rifle with both hands. "I do want you to know this wasn't easy for me. If the little bitch had just taken her pills as she was supposed to, then she would have been dead by now."

The pills. Noble tightened. "You messed with the hormonal supplement?"

"Of course I had it messed with." She smiled. "Ely Morrey made quite a few toxic batches for us while under the influence of those drugs, you know. It was easy to exchange them for the ones Amburg made up for your mate." She grimaced. "The breed butcher is determined to become the breed savior. I believe he just might find a way to help all that nasty mating stuff." Her lips tightened at the thought of it.

"Don't like being a mate, Alaiya? How sad."

She grimaced. "Such a nasty exercise, that mating shit. And disposing of the pregnancy is a pain in the ass. Those hybrid bastards don't want to die, and I'll be damned if I'll carry one of them."

The evil that poured from her sickened him.

"You're going to die with her, you know," Alaiya stated then, the barrel of the gun lining up with them. "And killing you will be a treasured memory, Noble. No other breed has kept up with me nearly so well."

He stared at the gun, careful not to tense before he moved.

When he moved, the rifle exploded. The blast tore into the fireplace as he threw Haley to the side, jerking the gun from her grip and firing.

There was no time to aim. He hit Alaiya's arm as she cocked the rifle to reload, throwing her back, causing her to lose her grip on it.

"You bastard!" she screamed, launching herself at him. Noble fired again, and again. He could hear the coyote howling outside as Alaiya dropped to the floor, her gaze filled with shock. "It's not over," she wheezed.

"For you it is," he stated, watching the life disappear from her eyes a second before an enraged snarl rent the air.

The attic. How the hell had they gotten in through the attic.

The ladder dropped nearly on his head as a shadow dropped from the opening into the living room. Noble was thrown to the side, ending in a crouch, his leg swinging out in front of him, lashing at his assailant's feet.

He wasn't dealing with a breed this time. But he knew who he was dealing with. Alaiya's mate. A human male and, from his moves, obviously a former council trainer.

Noble came to his feet, his eyes narrowing as he found Haley crawling into the kitchen. Somehow, she had managed to jerk her gown on and was finding safety. Good. If she could just get out of the house. Just get to safety.

Hazel eyes narrowed on him as the man crouched beside the body of his dead mate. He screamed again, rage and anger, insanity burning inside him as a knife cleared the sheath at his thigh and he jumped for Noble again.

The fiery slash against his thigh had Noble cursing, but not pausing. His fist cracked into the trainer's shoulder, his arm blocking the knife as he pulled back quickly.

He jerked Haley's robe from the floor, twisted it, and used it to deflect the blade as he fought for an opening in the man's defenses.

Alaiya's trainer had been one of the best the council had, he remembered that. Mark English was a former black ops agent before the Council recruited him. He was well trained and had a taste for blood.

"You killed her." Mark jumped back, glaring at Noble.

"She would have killed my mate," Noble snarled back at him. "Get a grip, English. You'll die tonight, too."

English rushed him. At the last second, Noble knocked the knife from his grip, twisted his arm, and threw him into the wall.

A hard kick to his stomach had Noble flying back, then the sound of an explosion had him freezing.

He saw the shock on the other man's face, the hole in his chest, blood splattering the walls around him as he slowly sank to the floor.

Noble swung around, expecting to see Mordecai, perhaps even Shiloh.

Instead, he saw his mate. Her gray eyes were wide, her face white. She held the short rifle in her hands and stared at the body of the trainer she had killed without pity, then turned back to Noble.

Noble looked back at English, then back to his mate. Son of a bitch. She was holding that gun like a pro.

"My daddy is a former soldier," she reminded him.

Noble nodded. Hell, he had to be in shock. "He taught me to shoot first, worry about the fallout later. If you're falling out, then at least you're alive."

She was shaking.

Noble moved to her and took the gun. "I could have taken him."

She frowned and looked at the gashes on his waist, thigh, his arms. "Yeah, no doubt." She breathed out roughly. "But he was making you bleed. I didn't like that. He was going to cut something important." She stared down in disbelief. "God, Noble, you really need to get some jeans on. I don't want all those female breeds that I know will be here soon seeing you like that."

He looked down, his lips twisting in amusement. He was still more than semiaroused. Mating heat could be a wicked bitch.

He moved back to the couch and grabbed his jeans before jerking them on. Just in time to hear the kitchen door crash in and all those breeds she was talking about pouring into the house.

He jerked her robe up. Some of his blood was on it, and wrapped her in it as she leaned against him.

Jonas didn't bother asking questions. He stared at Alaiya, then at English, and Noble saw the heaviness in his expression.

"I should have known it was her," he finally said, sighing. "She managed to slip away from me. Stayed just out of range. But I should have known."

And Noble knew he should have suspected. They had all known she was lying about having mated a breed the month before when she arrived at Sanctuary. They had known she had influenced several of the tests that indicated she had mated a breed.

"She was good." Noble exhaled as he held Haley closer, his nerves still taut, still amazed by the sheer courage his mate possessed.

"Yes . . ."

"Don't you tell me I can't come in here!" A booming voice filled the house as Haley jerked in Noble's arms. "Son, you want to get out of my way before we jerk your head off your shoulders and rip your guts out your throat."

"Oh God. It's Daddy."

Noble stared down at her, then into the kitchen. Flaming-haired, gray eyes dark in anger, and followed by two more just like him, it appeared the McQuires had finally made it back to Buffalo Gap. All six-foot-five or better, powerful, red-haired, with blazing eyes and furious expressions. The three warriors stood glaring at him as his arms tightened around her.

Haley turned in his arms and faced her father as he shoved his way past the breeds filling the kitchen. He stopped in the doorway, stared at the carnage, then at his daughter.

His expression twisted in pain before it smoothed out.

"Are we going to have fallout?" he asked Haley, as she turned to him.

Noble stared down at her, expecting her to leave him, to rush to her father, the man who stared at her now with such paternal love that for a moment, Noble wondered how the other man bore the cost of having ever let his daughter out of his sight.

Haley sighed. "Noble will catch me, Daddy," she said then, shocking Noble, as well as her father and brothers. "Don't worry. Noble will catch me."