Shock held her still, silent.

“Damn. The boss just apologized,” Stygian sniggered, his voice filled with mock incredulity.

“And you’re next.” Faith turned on him with a feral growl.

He stepped back in surprise.

“Damned right I am.” Stygian nodded respectfully then. “It won’t happen again, B.A.”

Faith frowned. “B.A.?”

“Bad ass!” His head gave a sharp jerk of exclamation. “Damn, you don’t just look fine, but you move like lightning. Welcome to the Pack.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

They finally ended up back in the living room, where Jacob hit the switch that closed dark shades over each window and left the interior gloomy, intimate.

“Now, we have a problem.” Jacob’s voice was hard, cold as he flipped the four small, glossy photos down on the coffee table. “My mission has nothing to do with these women. And I think we’ve just established that those Coyotes were after you, not me.”

Faith sighed wearily as she collapsed on the couch, staring down at the small picture of herself. It was one that had been taken six years before, during their time in the Labs. Hope’s was only slightly older. The other two she wasn’t certain of.

“Why?” She shook her head in confusion. “If they wanted me, they had a better chance of it before I came here. How many Enforcers do you have? Are there enough to cover the other two women, if we can find them?”

“I have enough, if I pull in the other packs close by,” he told her. “Do you think you can find the other two women? I can get started on my connections, but we’ll move faster with both of us working.”

She pulled the comm. link off her head, but tucked the revolver into the back of her jeans. It should have looked out of place, awkward on her, but the gesture bespoke a quiet confidence, a strength he had never thought of her having. Faith was to be protected; that she was unable to protect herself had always been his fears. Seeing differently shook him a bit, he had to admit. She shouldn’t have to defend herself. Shouldn’t have to live a life that required it.

“I can get started as soon as Stygian gets here with the equipment.” She shrugged, though Jacob could see that nerves and weariness were tugging at her.

“We need to get some answers fast,” he bit out. “Those bastards were after you tonight. A risky move, even for Coyotes. They’ve never attempted to steal a female back from the Pack, or target one specifically.”

“Its not just the Breed females they are after,” Faith reminded him. “Hope is human, and so are the other two, if memory serves me right. And they were all associated with our birth Lab.”

Jacob knelt by the coffee table.

“Charity Dunmore and Honor Roberts.” He frowned as he stared down at the two women. “Charity is human. She was a technician at the Lab right before it went to hell. Remember? Honor Roberts, is Honor Christine Roberts, the daughter of one of the higher members of the Council. Last we heard of her, she was still in school when all this happened. She disappeared from sight just after her father was imprisoned.”

She knew this as well as he did. Her arms crossed over her chest, her hands rubbing at them as though to warm herself.

“We need to find out where she’s at, and figure out what connects us. Hope and myself I understand. We’re mates to two of the most powerful Wolf breeds alive. But notice the Feline Breed’s Alpha mate isn’t in there. Merinus, I believe. Nor her children. There are three now. None of the Felines are featured, so for at least this group of Coyotes, the focus was Wolf Breeds. I need to contact Wolfe and make him aware of the danger to Hope.”

Jacob was staring down at the list and the small drawings beside each.

“Did you recognize the codes on here, Faith?” he asked her slowly, his eyes raising.

She walked over to him, staring down at the list, frowning. It took a few moments to place them.

“Fertility codes,” she murmured, remembering those that had been set up at the Labs when the tests on Hope and Wolfe had occurred.

“Fertility is most possible when the female is in heat,” Jacob reminded her. “According to these codes, Hope’s is at the lowest mark, yours is at the highest, with the other two in between.”

“But you have to be mated to go into heat.” Faith shook her head in confusion. “That makes no sense, Jacob. Charity Dunmore and Honor Roberts aren’t breeds and shouldn’t be mated with any of our males. Why would they be on the list?”

“Unless they were, as you and Hope, slated for a mating somehow.” Jacob frowned as he looked up at her. “Wasn’t there some suspicion of such tests that came out during the Genetics hearings, during the days of our escape?”

There had been. Records that had been uncovered from several high level Genetics scientists that hinted at experiments delving into reversing the genetic code that would prevent the various breeds from multiplying. Nature it seemed, had only aided them in the genetic anomalies that had begun taking place in both the males and females since their first conception.

“General Roberts ordered a lot of those tests,” Faith sighed. “Just from the data I’ve been able to gather myself, we were headed for extinction if he had his way. He thought any children we could have would be easier to control.”

He considered the Breeds sub-human, that had been no secret. Assassins without conscience, without a need for warmth or life. They had been pawns in his grand schemes of power. He and Bainesmith had been a perfect pair.

“We need to contact Wolfe; he has to know about this, as well as the other Packs and the Feline Pride. We could just be looking at the tip of the iceberg here.”

“Finding out why those women are targeted will be the hard part,” Stygian said as he stepped into the room, followed by several other Enforcers bearing electronics.

Within minutes, a laptop was set up awaiting Faith’s attention, the satellite connection showing full reception and privacy.

“How secure are we here?” Faith questioned as she sat down in a chair in front of the computer.

“Only Pack territory is safer.” Jacob shrugged. “This is our base for this side of the mountains. Stygian is calling in several nearby Packs for added protection. But we won’t be here long. We’ll be heading back to Wolfe’s territory soon.”

As Alpha female of all Packs, Hope’s safety and that of any babe she would conceive was of the utmost importance. They couldn’t risk her life. The Enforcers would be gathering around her until the threat was eliminated.

“How soon do we move?” She clipped her headset into the cell phone at her waist. There would be a lot of work to do to get the information needed. To get any of it.

“Within days, with any luck.” Jacob was already keying numbers into the cell phone he carried. “See what you can find out for now. Any information we can dig up can only help us at this point.”

* * * * *

There wasn’t much to find, but what did come through in the next hours was terrifying. Already, two Wolf Breed females had fallen to attackers in the past month. Thankfully, neither had died, but they weren’t unscarred, either. Both females were unmated though, and had not gone into heat. Both women had been raped.

Faith trembled in fury at that knowledge. Damn the bastards, they never cared what horrors they created for others with their depravities. They had no conscience, and no sense of shame. They were merciless in their disregard of the lives they had created.

Faith put out a world wide alert to all the known Packs. She sat hunched over the computer for hours, working to alert those that she could and attempting to draw in more information. They needed to know why the Council was striking once again, and for what reason.

The Feline Pride was on heightened alert already after an attempted kidnapping of Callan and Merinus’ first-born child several weeks before. Tanner, the Pride Liaison, spoke directly to Faith, and she could hear the fury in his voice. His own mate had just given birth the past year to twins, and his worry was reflected in the cold, hard edge of savagery in his voice as he spoke of the attempt.

“The Council is at it again, Faith,” he said with brutal effect. “The bastards won’t stop until we kill them, and Callan refuses to allow an order to take them out before they strike.”

“Callan’s right, Tanner,” she told him wearily. “Right now, our position within world favor is too tenuous.”

“Fuck world favor,” he growled savagely. “These are our babes and our women we’re speaking of. The world doesn’t care if they survive, or if we do, or how.”

There was many times that Faith agreed with him. After relaying the rest of her own information, she disconnected the call, and went back to the arduous task of contacting as many informants as possible. There had to be answers somewhere, she thought bleakly.

“What’s going on?” Faith shook her head as she stared at yet another Internet transmission from an informant a long while later.

According to the report in front of her, there were no rumors, no orders, no whispered “suggestion” moving among the few Council members still in power. Due to extreme force from various law enforcement agencies, the Breeds were considered “off limits” for the time being, just as they had been for several years now. If one of them died, the repercussions that would result were more than they wanted. The kidnapping attempts of the Pride children supposedly had generated fear and worry among those Council members still free.

“How could the Council not be behind this?” Jacob was hunched down beside her chair, staring at the screen with a frown.

“I’m not saying they are not behind this at all.” Faith shrugged tiredly. “But there’s no information to substantiate it yet. There’s definitely something going on. But either none of my informants have the information, or it’s just too dangerous to leak. It could take days for me to get so much as a glimmer of information here.”

“We don’t have days.” Jacob shook his head. “Get some rest. You haven’t slept at all since the attack and not much before then. I’ll keep looking.”

Faith shook her head. She knew time was of the essence. Even her burning, throbbing pussy wasn’t going to detract her. Damn, she needed him too much. Even in the thick of whatever new danger they faced, she wanted him. It was a sickness, she decided. A plague of Jacob.

She had been sitting there for hours, ignoring the sensual ache that throbbed through her body, the burn of the blood in her veins, the soft slide of her juices along the lips of her cunt. She tightened her thighs. Too much work to do.

“You can’t ignore it forever.” Jacob’s voice was softer now, suggestive of the fact that he was aware, and had been all along, of her arousal.

“Too much to do.” Faith felt her breath rasp in her throat, her muscles tighten in protest.

“We’ve done all we can today, Faith,” he whispered as he pushed the heavy chair back and moved between her thighs.

Faith stared into his sun-darkened face, seeing the lazy sensuality that crossed his expression, the way his dark lashes shadowed his cheeks, his eyes glittering with lustful anticipation.

His hands spanned her hips, then pushed beneath her shirt to caress a path of destructive fire to her breasts. Faith was unable to halt the instinctive movement that pressed her nipples harder into the fingers that pinched at them lightly.

“I’ve smelled your heat for hours,” he groaned as he stared into her eyes. “It’s all I can do to function without fucking you, to think without imagining the taste of you on my tongue. How do you do this to me, Faith? Make me want you until I’m starving for you?”

“How do you do it to me?” she gasped as his lips feathered over her cheek. “Jacob, I can’t think when you touch me.”