Coyote's Mate

CHAPTER 12

The first person Anya saw as she entered the main living area of the base was none other than Sofia. Anya made a mental note to decide she herself hated vodka, period. If the other woman enjoyed it with the same relish, then there wasn’t a chance in hell Anya was drinking another drop of it.

Slouching seductively on one of the stools that sat at a long teak bar, the Russian was sipping vodka and watching with avid eyes as Anya walked into the community room.

Communications and Security had been notified that the alpha would be returning within the hour; preparations were being made for the twenty-four- to seventy-two-hour length of time it would take for his body to completely heal.

“What are you doing back here, Sofia?” Anya asked as she moved to the bar. “Del-Rey said you were a secret contact. Secret contacts don’t show up flashing their pearly whites and interfering on the base.”

Sofia smiled with superior amusement. “He didn’t tell you my cover has been blown? I’d nearly returned to my apartment before the Breeds assigned to my security detected that assassin waiting on me. I’m now a security risk. I was kindly offered protection here.”

No, she hadn’t been told.

Anya extracted the cylindrical link from the pocket of her jeans, attached it to her ear and beeped Security.

“Yes, Coya.” Command came online immediately.

“Sofia Ivanova is banned from Communications, Security and all areas deemed proprietary until further notice from your alpha. Is this clear?”

“Understood, Coya. Order is being coded in as we speak.”

She smiled back at Sofia as the other woman frowned.

“Del-Rey won’t thank you.” She pursed her lips, perturbed. “He considers my opinion to be valued in all areas.”

“Then he will be unconsidering it,” Anya promised her.

Sofia shook her head slowly as a light laugh left her lips. “So confident. I was his lover, you know, several years ago of course, but we’ve remained close.”

Several years. Much longer than Anya had suspected.

“Sofia, you’re wasting your time here,” Anya informed her, determined not to play the shrew.

She was Del-Rey’s mate. They might have trust issues. She might want to rap his head against a wall. But he was hers, just as she was finally accepting that she belonged to him.

“I never waste my time, dear.” Sofia smiled. “He’ll grow tired of your childishness soon.” She looked around at Emma and Ashley, who stood prepared, watching her carefully. “I nearly raised the three of you, Anya,” she said as she turned back to her. “Trust me, I’m a woman, not a child.

Del-Rey understands that.”

“Wow, she doesn’t know about that whole commitment thing, Coya?” Ashley piped up innocently. “Did you tell her he made you coya of the packs?”

Sofia might have paled. “You little brat.” She swung around to Ashley again. “You always were a very practiced liar.”

Ashley popped her gum and frowned. “She doesn’t know?”

“I didn’t tell her,” Anya drawled. “It appears you have though.”

Anya straightened from the bar as Sofia’s face flushed with fury.

“Sorry, Sofia, I am his coya. I am coya of this entire base. What I say goes. And be very careful, because trust me, if I tell Del-Rey to kick your ass to the curb, the curb is where you’ll go.”

“He wouldn’t dare!” Sofia was shaking now. “He may have made you coya for now, but you won’t hold that title for long, you little bitch. Remember, it takes more than wanting it. He has to give it to you. Officially.”

Anya smiled slowly. “Sorry, Sofia. I’ll hold that title forever. Bet on it. And maybe I’ll send you an invitation to that ceremony.”

Mating heat didn’t go away. It was forever. And as soon as her mate was healed, she’d ensure it.

Then they’d see about that little ceremony.

Del-Rey walked into the narrow access tunnel, paying close attention to the soldiers that stood on alert, their gazes sharp, their hands ready on their weapons as he limped through the passageway.

Normally they were lucky if a single guard wasn’t dozing. Red alert secured the inner base, the soldiers outside rarely had problems, and if they did there was always advanced warning, so they normally weren’t at their sharpest here. Until now.

Passing the access tunnel, he waited as the reinforced doors leading into Base unlocked and slid open. On the other side waited a four-man detail, at the head of which was a younger soldier, Dorian.

“Alpha, med tech is waiting in your quarters. Coya asks that after you’ve rested you have your enforcer inform her when you’re ready to see her. We have communications reports and security details.” The electronic pads were pushed into his hands as he glanced at Brim in confusion.

Since when had Brim gotten the additional time needed to kick ass? Base was secure, but general work ethic hadn’t been at its best in recent months when he had been here.

“We also have the heli-jet lowering into the bay with diagnostics being prepared. I need your signature on that if you don’t mind, so the techs will get cracking. And we have all-terrains being pulled in for repair. Sign there too.” The soldier pointed to the X’s made on the electronic file.

Del-Rey scrawled his name and continued to limp toward his quarters. His people were moving at a quick pace through the corridors, and the community room was empty. No one at the billiards table or in front of the television screens.

“Meetings with our pack leaders have been scheduled for a time after you’ve healed. They send their greetings and request that you let them know if they’re needed.”

Pack leaders, besides Brim, were normally waiting in the corridor for him harping about everything from funds for their teams to the cost of parts for their equipment. Where the hell had the insanity gone? Hell, he’d been dealing with it for over a week now.

“Are you looking for a raise, Brim?” he muttered as they neared his rooms. “How the hell did you manage this?”

“I didn’t manage this,” Brim grunted. “I don’t know what the hell has happened here. Should we have Dr. Armani check them for a virus?”

“Or something,” Del-Rey said as he opened the door to his quarters and stepped inside.

Sure enough, medical technicians were waiting for him with all their little vials, scopes and various torture devices. He endured it but paid close attention to the somber expression of the techs who performed the checkup. They were intent, serious, as though their own lives hinged on his health. The best he’d gotten the last time he returned wounded was a perfunctory call to make certain if he felt he needed anything.

“You’re healing well. That Wolf doctor doesn’t seem to have done you much harm.” The tech chuckled as he stored his vials in his little case. “We do need a Coyote specialist though, the coya’s right about that. I hope she’s willing to consider additional equipment. She wasn’t happy when we didn’t have the sedatives for Sharone. You know how she cusses and throws things when she’s been shot.”

Del-Rey lifted his gaze to stare at the tech. “She’s been known to do that,” he said carefully.

The tech nodded his sandy-colored head. “We ran out of sedatives several weeks ago when team three was flown in with so many injuries. Coya hit the roof then and radioed Haven for extras at the time, but their supply was low as well. I’m waiting on a new batch. We should have the new analysis machines in soon as well.”

Del-Rey turned to Brim, giving him a speaking look. The other man gave a quick nod and moved to the adjacent office to begin making calls. Was Anya somehow responsible for all this? In a matter of months had she managed to whip fierce Coyote Breeds into the measure of discipline they had somehow lost since Del-Rey had signed out for mission status rather than overseeing the base and other pack leaders himself? They slacked when he was there because it was something he had a tendency to do himself in order to rest and prepare for the next mission.

“Glad you approve, Harding,” Del-Rey finally answered as the tech rose to his feet.

Regan Harding hadn’t been trained just for killing and bloodshed. He was a trained Coyote med tech. Not a surgeon or specialist, but as close as Coyotes were going to get to one.

“Good to see you back, Alpha.” Harding nodded his shaggy head before collecting his supplies and heading to the door.

Del-Rey moved from the chair to his bed and lay back with a weary groan. Damn. Armani was right, he was bruised clear to the bone and it always took longer for the bruises to heal. As though his body considered them unworthy of the effort of a quick healing.

He was running low on sleep, food and sex. Hell, the sex part he hadn’t had in two years until he took Anya eight months ago. He’d have been damned if he was going to fuck a woman with the image of Anya in his head. And since the day she’d turned twenty, that was where she had stayed.

The mating hormone had his tongue swollen despite the kiss he’d shared with Anya earlier that night. His cock wasn’t as hard as normal, but he had had significant blood loss, he thought. Give it time; it always managed full mast at little more than the thought of his mate.

Dammit, she was on base because he’d forced her here. No doubt the minute lockdown was reversed she’d run just as fast back to her cabin at Haven now that he was too weak to stop her.

Her and those female Coyotes that followed her like faithful little puppies.

So where was she and why wasn’t she here waiting for him until then? He closed his eyes tiredly, aching at the loneliness that suddenly wrapped around him.

He remembered the impulse he had nearly given into to steal one last kiss before he jumped from the limo. If he had, he might not have been able to tear himself away.

Touching her was like a drug. Hell, it pumped a drug straight into his system, if one wanted to consider the mating hormone. She kept him hard and ready for her. She stayed in his thoughts, and lingered around him like a dream he couldn’t escape. One he didn’t want to escape unless he escaped in her arms.

Damn, he should have stolen that last kiss, he thought.

“You’re not going to believe this.”

His eyes opened as Brim stalked into the room, his expression a mask of disbelief but not of danger.

“Bet me,” Del-Rey said and yawned.

Brim moved to the monitor on the wall, picked up the remote and flipped it on.

“Security recordings,” he announced. “Watch this.”

Del-Rey leveled himself up and watched. And watched. A sense of triumph, of satisfaction, sizzled within him at the knowledge that the coya had taken her place.

From the moment she was rushed into Base, she took over like a little general. He could see her in the circle of Breeds, their backs turned to her as she quickly shed her dress and dressed in jeans.

She handled Communications and Security as though she had been born to it. Which, in essence, perhaps she had been. Her father had been a whiz at the labs. Rumor was, Petrov Kobrin as well as his deceased wife were geniuses in their field. One of the reasons Del-Rey had planned their escape so exactingly. And still he had been surprised that so many of them had escaped. Petrov almost had a sixth sense for escape attempts.

As he watched, he saw echoes of her father, saw the intelligence in her eyes, the composed features and the confidence she had seemed to have lost in the weeks after he kidnapped her.

She wasn’t a woman-child any longer. She was a full-grown woman and taking her place. Her voice snapped and Coyote Breeds came to attention. She didn’t harass or harangue; rather, her tone was filled with command.

That added to the fact that she was the coya, the alpha in charge when he was away, and she had done what even Brim had been unable to do—instilled a sense of discipline in them while he was away.

She wasn’t bitchy, she wasn’t confrontational; she was confident, assured. She knew what the hell was needed and she was putting it into effect.

And it made him hard. He was as stiff as a board, and he could feel the fever working inside him, the need that crashed into his system and came close to stealing his breath as he watched her.

Those brilliant eyes cool and focused, her expression composed, an aura of command settling on her shoulders as it had in those labs when she ran the administration wing like a young general.

“Son of a bitch,” Del-Rey muttered.

“She knows Sofia’s here too. She has her barred from Command, Security and proprietary areas.”

Del-Rey lifted his head with a sense of foreboding.

“She knows Sofia was given asylum?”

“She knows.”

Did she throw her out? Had Emma or Ashley killed Sofia?

Admittedly, the woman he had once considered a friend was becoming an irritant with her determination to get back into his bed.

“Hell.” He leaned his head back on the pillows and stared up at the ceiling. “Where is Anya now?”

Hopefully far away from him, because if he saw her, if he smelled her, he was going to fuck her.

It was that simple.

“Looks like she’s in Communications at the moment.” Something in Brim’s voice warned him.

Del-Rey lifted his head again.

“She seems to have several of your pack leaders in attendance over that issue we’ve trying to resolve with team participation.” Amusement filled his tone. “Our teams, one and two, are working like the good little puppies they are. The rest, it would appear, are being shifted and sorted as any good little general would shift and sort them. So, you going to go play with her?”

Del-Rey snorted. “I’m going to sleep. Let her play. She’s damned good at it while I’m on mission. Maybe I’ll get some rest this time.”

If she was running Base as he knew she could, then he could tell Jonas to shove mission status, and Del-Rey and Brim could take their place in training the Coyote Breed soldiers more effectively and getting them into enforcer status.

That was a priority he had left the other pack leaders in charge of. Unfortunately, they weren’t as well trained themselves as they could have been. They were killers, not investigators or interrogators. Making that switch wasn’t as easy as it could have been if Del-Rey and Brim had been on base to train them.

“She has a junior soldier working up a proposal to slip into city hall and collect the purses and articles left there as well as to investigate any items missing and conduct covert searches of leading city council members’ homes to detect if they have said missing articles. According to the memo just sent to me, the soldier expects to have a full proposal prepared by tomorrow afternoon.”

Del-Rey blinked up at the ceiling.

“Did you consider that angle?” he asked Brim then.

“I’m sure one of us would have soon,” Brim answered laconically.

Del-Rey wasn’t so certain.

He sighed as weariness pulled at him and his healing body demanded sleep.

“Get everything together. We’ll go over what she’s done in the past hours and see how it’s affecting Base in general. I want a full report from all pack leaders, and I want Sofia’s input on that intel that came in last night concerning the drugs we’re trying to track. Tell her to be prepared to give her report. Once I’m prepared, then I’ll see about facing my mate.”

He had no intention of being ill-prepared when they came face-to-face once again. He wanted her in his bed, and he wanted the upper hand with her. That wasn’t going to happen if he didn’t have his shit together.

If her feelings were hurt, he’d have to fix that.

Added to dealing with a mate he realized he truly didn’t know, he was also faced with the fact that, for some reason, she had been targeted at that attack tonight. It hadn’t been just any female.

Carlen, the Wolf Breed soldier, had gone for Anya, just as the bartender had. The entire event had been a stage for a planned execution. And Del-Rey wanted to know why. Then he wanted to know by whom, because he wanted to know whose throat to rip out.

Haven was attacked often, though this was the first time Breeds had been attacked in the small town that resided outside the lands the government had granted the Wolf Breeds. And with each call sent to the army base outside the pack lands, delays had resulted.

Typical, he thought tiredly. So typical. Prejudice had found a new focus when the Breeds revealed themselves. Humans who had no acceptable scapegoat to hate had found one with the mysterious new beings that had been created without their knowledge. They’d found something to fight against, something else to fear. And Del-Rey often wondered if they wouldn’t, in time, find another war to fight in their battle to destroy what they didn’t understand.

No divine deity had given the Breeds life; therefore, they could have no soul. That was what the Breeds were taught, and that was how many saw them. Creations shouldn’t have rights. They shouldn’t have freedom, and there were those that would take every freedom, every right the Breeds had managed to acquire and steal it from under them.

That was the battle they faced, and Del-Rey often wondered if there was a way that the Breeds could ever triumph.

With that thought in his mind, he let sleep take him. The healing process came with its drawbacks. Twenty-four to seventy-two hours of complete weakness and weariness. The need to sleep. That weakness had hampered the Genetics Council several times as they tried to fix what they considered a defect in the Coyote genetics.

Del-Rey had, at times, considered it a blessing. It was the only time he slept deeply, the only time he didn’t awaken searching for the warmth and the sweet relief that only his mate could give him.