She was in a bona fide freaking forest. It took a few minutes, but she knew the general area she was in, several miles from Tanner’s cabin. Far enough away that the Coyotes there would never know she was in the vicinity. They weren’t in the area of the caves, according to Tanner, just the cabin. And the wind direction was with her. It was flowing from the cabin and back down the valley. And she was headed up.
She knew the direction to take to get to the main road. There were several houses on that road. At the most, she was a half hour’s walk from one of those houses.
There was just no help for it. She was going to have to make herself walk through the forest. Damn, it was a good thing she hadn’t known where she was before she attempted escape. She might well have stayed in Tanner’s comfortable, warm bed.
At that, her lips tilted mockingly. She knew better, escape was too important, but it was really nice to tell herself otherwise. It made taking that first step not so hard. Maybe.
Who was she lying to? She didn’t get along with nature. She liked her cement jungle. D.C. and New York were the perfect habitats for her. Cyrus preferred the Pennsylvania estate, but even it was nicely landscaped, with all the modern conveniences, and set just outside the limits of a very nicely populated city.
She doubted there was a Starbucks within a hundred-mile radius of this place, let alone an actual city. But all she needed was a phone. A half hour at the most and she would have that taken care of.
Okay, she didn’t have a choice. Tanner rarely stayed gone more than a few hours; he would be returning soon. She had to find a phone before he did that.
She peeked out again.
She put her best foot forward and stepped outside the cave, immediately grimacing in distaste as her foot came into contact with the loosely packed leaves, grass and soil layering the ground.
Her sock immediately dampened.
This was not going to be pleasant.
Breathing in deeply, she forced herself out of the protective stone shelter and began to make her way along a faint path leading up.
The caverns were down. No one would surely live in the bottom of this mess, and she couldn’t see a single house. So they had to be up. Simple. She could do this. All she had to do was go up.
Way up, it appeared.
Too bad there wasn’t an elevator.
“Son of a bitch. She found her way out.” Tanner scanned the entrance cave, drawing in Scheme’s scent, her determination, her hesitance, her sorrow. The scents lingered, fresh, strong. “She won’t be far.”
“Yeah, and she’s cutting a path like a sumo wrestler,” Jackal growled. “Get out there and find her while I clear out her tracks. I’m betting every Breed, Council soldier and enforcer has caught her scent by now.”
“Who needs her scent? You can hear the disturbance in the air,” Cabal snapped, fast on Tanner’s heels.
And Jackal was right; she had made a damned mess heading up the mountain. Leaves torn from the ground, grass smeared from where she had slipped, broken branches, leaves and bramble. Cleaning this up and keeping the damned entrance safe from detection was going to be a pain in the fucking ass.
He was going to paddle her ass.
“Get back with Jackal.” He turned on Cabal, snarling as the other man drew up short. “I want you two to draw the Council and enforcers off her scent. I don’t care how you do it.”
He couldn’t bring Cabal and Scheme face-to-face yet. Not yet, not until he could get a handle on the animal screaming inside him.
As Cabal turned back, Tanner lifted his head, scented the air and headed up. A hard smile slashed across his mouth. It would be harder for the Council Breeds or Jonas’s enforcers to catch her scent this way. Once he got her back into the caverns, the entrance cave would be sanitized and her scent dispersed. Even Cabal would be unable to tell where she was if he didn’t know. The cover stone fit the entrance into the caverns perfectly; no scent, no sound, nothing to indicate what lay below the rock would be detected.
He just had to get her back to the caverns.
Traipsing along the faint path up the mountain, Scheme kept her head down and fought to keep her eyes clear. This was a mistake. Everything inside her was screaming that one glaring piece of information back at her.
Leaving Tanner wasn’t the answer. Trusting him. That was the answer. As illogical as it seemed, as suspicious as she had been of him, every particle of her being was crying out for him.
She had to trust him.
Reaching a flat bench of land farther up the mountain, Scheme paused and wiped at the perspiration on her forehead before bracing her back against a tree and staring up at the glimmer of the sky beyond.
She didn’t want to go any farther.
She stared back along the valley below and blew out a weary breath. She was tired of fighting it. Tired of fighting the need for him, the feelings for him. She was tired of being alone. So alone she couldn’t trust; she couldn’t laugh or love.
She had to fight to hold on to what Tanner seemed to be offering her. Safety. Security. His love. Maybe his love. A big enough maybe that she was ready to turn around and run back to him. Right now.
Straightening quickly from the tree, she turned and came face-to-face with death.
“Stupid bitch.” Dog, her father’s most merciless blood soldier, had stepped from behind a massive boulder to her side. His cruel face was enhanced by steely gray eyes, his lips pulled back in a snarl, his curved canines flashing in the weak sunlight that penetrated the dawn light.
“Lapdog,” she snapped back. Show no fear. She had learned that a long time ago when it came to Cyrus’s pets.
His lips twitched. They always did that, just seconds from a smug smile, from gloating satisfaction. He was literally the top dog within her father’s organization. He controlled the Coyotes and the assignments going out, as well as the preparation of them.
He was as evil as her father, and twice as dangerous.
“You must like being buried alive.”
His gray eyes were constantly scanning, watching, his nostrils flaring as he drew in the scents around them.
Where the hell was Tanner? She could use a little help.
“Gives me time to think,” she sneered, moving back, nearly stumbling as her knees actually trembled. Of all her father’s Breeds she would have to meet up with this one.
Rather than following her, he crouched, his gaze narrowed on her. Six feet, two inches tall and corded with muscle, he would have been imposing without the cloudy gray eyes and black-streaked gray hair. He was said to be the most merciless Coyote the Council had ever created.
“If I bring you in alive, I get to fuck you before your daddy buries you.” He smiled in mocking pleasure. “I’d have to bathe you first. The smell of cat just offends my senses.”
She’d rather be buried first.
“You can fuck?” She widened her eyes mockingly. “Since when did Cyrus stop castrating his little pets?”
His lips tightened.
It was one of Cyrus’s favorite control measures. “I didn’t come to Tallant from the main labs, little girl,” he snarled. “You’re forgetting that.”
Okay, mistake on her part. Maybe Dog did still have his manly parts. Which only made him more dangerous. And he was right; he hadn’t come to her father from Tallant-controlled labs. He had come from the Council itself. Who or what had trained him, no one knew, at least Cyrus didn’t, but there was no denying he was one of the most proficient killers created.
She moved back a step. Running from him wasn’t going to do her any good.
Oh, this had just been a bad idea. Bad. Bad. Bad.
“Your daddy’s not going to like having the smell of that Breed all over you.” Amazingly, Dog felt into his shirt pocket, pulled a slim cigar free and lit it before straightening.
“My father’s not a Breed. He can’t smell me.” She backed up farther.
Surely Tanner had returned to the caverns by now. He would know she was missing. He would be following. He had to be here somewhere.
She looked around frantically.
“Tsk, tsk, little princess,” Dog murmured. “So, you want to tell me where you’ve been hiding for the past week? I might be able to talk your daddy into just shooting you rather than letting you die in that casket again. This time forever.”
His voice was cold, brutal. God, she hated him. She had seen him calmly walk into a room and snap the neck of one of Cyrus’s soldiers for nothing more than the sloppy care of his weapons.
And he had enjoyed it. She had seen the pleasure in his eyes, in the tight grimace of his expression. She had made certain never to attend another operation meeting from that day on.
“You haven’t answered me.” His voice dropped dangerously low.
“Oh, here and there.” She waved her hand about, encompassing the forest. “One tree looks like another, you know.”
So why hadn’t she slipped one of those kitchen knives out with her again?
Oh yeah, because she thought Tanner would stop her. That was right. For some reason, she just thought he was Superman.
Dog’s lips quirked as he looked around. “Yeah, I guess it does.” He drew on the cigar, blowing out a line of smoke rings before turning back to her.
He didn’t make a move to jump for her. She tilted her head and watched him curiously as he once again glanced down the trail she had used.
“Hello, Tanner,” he drawled.
Scheme twisted around, crashing face-first into a broad, so familiar chest. Her heart rate picked up, her fingers curled into the material of his shirt and a small cry broke free of her lips.
She tried to crawl into him.
His arm tightened around her, muscles contracting, allowing her to nearly climb his body in an effort to hide from the sense of danger smothering her.
“I’m going to spank your ass.” He did the growly thing at her ear. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Promises, promises.” She was latched onto him like a leech and had no intentions of letting him go. “Just get me away from him. Now would be good.”
One strong arm surrounded her, holding her to his chest, allowing her to soak up his warmth, the sense of security, of protection. She was shaking in reaction and so damned glad to see him she had to blink back tears.
“How many are with you?” she heard Tanner ask the Coyote.
“Half dozen. I took scout position,” Dog answered with a trace of amusement.
“How many Breeds?”
“Just me,” Dog answered. “Get her the hell out of here before your enforcers start investigating the crash and bang through the forest though. Didn’t you tell her how sound carries in these hills?”
Scheme turned her head slowly, her eyes narrowing.
Dog hadn’t drawn his weapon. He was leaning against the boulder enjoying that cigar, for all the world like a man taking a nice, leisurely hike into the woods.
“Is she Jonas’s too?” Tanner asked
She, Scheme assumed, meant her.
“That one only Jonas can answer.” Dog shrugged. “I don’t belong to Jonas, cat. Don’t make that mistake.” There was an edge of danger in his voice. “I just don’t see any reason to torture her further. If you can save her from herself, then more power to you. Saves me the trouble of putting a bullet in her brain.” His smile was cruel.
Tanner growled, and it wasn’t that low, purring rumble he used for her; this one was pure danger.
Dog inclined his head slowly before turning his back on Tanner and beginning to move back up the mountain.
“Hurry, cat,” he suggested smoothly. “My good moods don’t last for long.”
When Dog turned back to look, they were gone.
Dog shook his head grimly as he clamped the cigar between his lips and headed back to the top of the cliff. Not that he had a hope of catching sight of the bastard again. Tanner knew these hills like most men knew their own bodies. But he could try. Finding the Breeds’ hidey-hole in these mountains would be a hell of a feather in his cap. His boss had been searching for it for years.
