Coyote's Mate

CHAPTER 7

He had her timed perfectly. Ten minutes after the girls left his office, Anya was charging into it.

Her blue eyes sparkled with fury, her red gold hair tangled around her face and fell to her shoulders in such charming disarray that he wanted nothing more than to mess it further.

She slammed the door and faced him, arms crossing over the snug, thin white sweater she wore as she glared at him furiously.

“How dare you punish them!” She shoved a finger toward him. “You had no right.”

He sat back in his chair and forced control on himself.

“I’m not ready to head to Haven yet. I need about forty minutes at least. Could you wait to start throwing things at me and calling me names until then?”

“Wait?” she snapped in mockery. “Wait for you to do what? Devise more ways to torture my friends? You have no right. Now fix it.”

Oh, she was fucking beautiful. He could feel his cock hardening impossibly. He was so damned ready to fuck that smart mouth it was almost impossible not to jump from the desk and take what he wanted.

“What did you think would happen, Anya?” he asked her carefully instead. “I could have been much harder on them. I could have had them sent to Haven and celled for endangering their coya’s life. Instead, I did what I felt would teach them quickly not to fuck with your life or theirs.”

“And you think we didn’t learn our lessons last night?” she yelled. “Trust me, Del-Rey, we did.

You didn’t have to punish them this severely. Now damn you, fix it.”

“I don’t think so.” He straightened and braced his arms on the desk to look at the files on the e-pad lying before him.

Not that he read a damned word that was on there. It was the impression that counted.

“You can’t do this,” she argued.

“I’m alpha.” He shrugged. “I can and will do this.” He lifted his head. “By the way, since I can’t punish you in the same manner, would you like to know what I’ve come up with?”

Her eyes widened. “You do not punish me, you slack-brained, dim-witted mongrel. I’ll shoot your ass with your own gun.”

God bless her. He was going to fuck her until she was begging for mercy. Right there on his desk if she wasn’t damned careful.

“Your punishment is a week in my bed, every night, eight hours, while I’m sleeping. Beginning tonight.”

“I’m returning to Haven, along with my security force.” Her voice was strangled. “You can’t order me anywhere.”

“Check our separation agreement,” he suggested casually as he scrawled his signature on the document and sent it to Brim. “While I’m here you’re only allowed off this base if your safety and security isn’t endangered. I’ve deemed both in jeopardy. My report was filed no more than an hour ago with the members of the tribunal and has been returned with their agreements.” He lifted his head. “As for sleeping in my bed, yes, Mate, I can order that as well under the same conditions. I’m certain you’ll consider that your punishment, rather than your reward for actually managing to stay alive.”

He pushed the e-pad to the side and watched as her breasts heaved, her nipples spiked. Caffeine and anger. They were a destructive combination with the mating heat and he knew it. Keep her pissed off enough, he might get a chance at that kiss that he was dying for.

“You’re not serious!” she exclaimed. Her blue eyes were shocked. Her face was flushed.

Oh, he was serious. As serious as the hard dick in his pants.

“Give me forty minutes, cupcake.” He smiled back at her. “And I’ll let you go bitch about it to the lupina while Dr. Armani is upping your hormones. I can smell your arousal. I like it.”

Her fingers curled at her sides. “You’ve lost your mind.”

“Nope, not this week,” he laughed back at her. “I’m really pretty sane for me right now. Ask Brim, he can tell you, sometimes I’m actually trying to have fun.”

Anya stared back at him in outraged amazement. The man took idiocy to a new level. He was sitting there grinning at her as though he were actually having fun. Calling her “cupcake.” She was going to poison his cupcake if he didn’t find a measure of intelligence in that thick skull of his.

“Look.” She tried for calm. “You can’t take Ashley’s allowance. Getting her nails fixed, buying her shoes and girly stuff keeps her grounded. Emma will break everything in the kitchen if you put her in there. And Sharone will end up shooting Brim. Not that he won’t deserve it. But I’d prefer she not have to deal with the guilt later.”

He relaxed farther back in his chair, lifted those long, powerful legs and propped them on the corner of his desk as he stared back at her, his lashes lowered over his eyes.

“If Sharone shoots him, then he’ll have deserved it.” He shrugged. “As for Emma, inform her if she breaks anything I’ll add a week. And Ashley will survive without her nail treatments for a while. It will remind all of them who the alpha is around here.”

His smile was all teeth as he crossed his arms over his chest and let his gaze drift down her body.

And she felt it, almost as though it were a phantom touching her.

“I will not sleep with you either,” she bit out. “Get it out of your mind.”

“Fine. I’ll sleep in your bed with you.” He shrugged. “Either way, you’re gonna be my cuddle bunny for a week. It gets damned cold at night for some reason, Coya. You can keep me warm.”

His what? His cuddle bunny?

“Oh, you are so reaching,” she said scathingly. “Warm your ass on a brick, because it’s not getting in my bed.”

“It’s not my ass that gets cold,” he laughed. “Come on now, my little coya. What’s wrong, afraid you’ll have another of those hot little dreams and let me actually get a taste of that wet little pussy?” His gaze dropped to her thighs. “I’ll make sure you’re awake for it. I’m a gentleman like that.”

“You’re a sorry excuse for a Breed and an even sorrier excuse for a mate,” she snarled. “How dare you order me to sleep with you. You didn’t buy me off the street, you crackpot.”

His brows lifted. “I’m going to wash your mouth out with soap. Be civil or we’ll try for two weeks.”

“You bastard!”

“Three?”

She was shaking. Anya couldn’t remember a time in her life when she had been more furious. It swept over her like a tidal wave, slammed inside her and sent heat searing her insides for vital seconds.

She stumbled against the onslaught, almost gasping as it peaked in her clit and sent a shot of pain racing through her system.

“Anya!”

Del-Rey’s chair slammed into the wall as he tore from his seat and raced to her, catching her before she hit the floor. Her face was suddenly pale, sweat gleaming on her forehead as her blue eyes stared back at him in stark pain.

“Brim!” He tore the door open as he held her to him, then picked her up in his arms.

Brim and Sharone raced from Command as Emma and Ashley moved from the lounge, fear flashing across the girls’ faces.

“I need transport,” he called out. “Contact Armani and tell her to be waiting at the door.”

Anya moaned, a low, pain-filled sound as she tried to curl against him. Sweet God in heaven.

What the hell was wrong? He ran for the base exit as Brim shouted out orders for his personal security detail to be waiting. Behind him, Anya’s friends followed, weapons being strapped on as they ran, concern filling the air with a dark, fear-tainted scent.

What the hell had happened? One minute she was sniping at him and the next she was nearly passing out from pain? This wasn’t mating heat. Mating heat didn’t do this. He’d researched that fucking curse and it simply didn’t do this.

“Del-Rey.” Her voice was weak as he stepped through the doors swinging open into the late evening air. “What’s wrong with me?”

Fear filled her voice as her body tensed. Del-Rey swore he felt the pain that tore through her slight body. She moaned, her forehead pressing into his shoulder as a Coyote threw open the passenger door to the all-terrain/all-duty vehicle they used on the rough passes they called roads.

Sharone, Emma and Ashley jumped in through the back access door and braced themselves as the soldier moved quickly behind the wheel and set the vehicle into motion.

“Hurry, Martin,” he ordered the Breed furiously as Anya moaned again. “Get us to Haven as fast you can get through those fucking passes.”

He held her tighter, wishing he could take the pain, hating the cold sweat that gleamed on her pale face as he braced her against his broader body for the rough ride into the valley.

Each time she flinched, gripped her stomach and cried out from the pain, he swore he lost a part of his control. He was enraged, fury roaring through his veins and, yes, fear tearing through his mind. Nothing could happen to her. God, nothing could happen to her, because Del-Rey knew, if anything did, he would lose himself.

Anya had never felt anything like the agony undulating in her lower stomach. She swore it felt as though something were being ripped out of her body in pulsing waves. Ice lashed at her, then heat. She was sweating and she was freezing everywhere except where Del-Rey was touching her.

What the hell had happened? She remembered the anger coursing through her, tasting it in her mouth, wanting to claw his eyes out. Then she remembered the wave of heat that swamped her an instant before the pain began clawing through her system, and the ride down the mountain at breakneck speed before Del-Rey rushed her into Armani’s examining room.

She was breathing through another wave of pain when the doctor’s gloved hands touched her arm. Excruciating, unbelievable pain ripped through her, causing her to cry out as she fought to get away.

She heard a snarl filled with fury. That was Ashley. She opened her eyes to see the three women in front of the bed, bodies braced as the sound echoed around her of a door crashing in on the room.

Del-Rey had seen it through the window on the other side of the exam room as Wolfe and Jonas waited with him. Anything that happened to one mate where the mating heat was concerned had the potential to affect the other.

He watched Dr. Armani steady Anya’s arm, a syringe poised to draw blood, when Anya cried out and jerked away. Instantly, three enraged female Coyotes were blocking her, throwing the doctor back, death echoing in their feral growls as Del-Rey crashed into the exam room.

Anya was curled into herself, crying again, her neck arched and thrown back as she gripped her stomach through spasms of pain.

“I need blood, Del-Rey.” Armani was frantic, her dark gaze filled with worry as she faced off with the three women poised to protect their coya. “Get those feral little monsters out of my exam room!” she ordered.

Ashley turned on him. “I won’t leave her. Take my allowance for life. You let that bitch hurt her again and I’ll rip her apart.”

Sharone was growling; Emma had drawn a blade and watched the doctor silently. She was the most dangerous at the moment.

“Emma, sheathe that blade,” he snapped.

“I regret, Alpha, that I must deny your request.” Her voice was barely human. “She won’t hurt Anya like this again.” She turned enraged eyes on him. “You let them do this to her the first time.

I swore then it wouldn’t happen again.”

Del-Rey moved to the bed, his hand brushing against Anya’s flesh as she suddenly turned to him, shaking, shivering as though freezing.

He eased onto the mattress, letting her crawl into him, easing her into his arms as she panted for air.

“What’s she talking about?” He looked from the doctor to the bodyguards standing so fiercely over her.

“She ordered us to stand down the first time they had her screaming in agony. Those three weeks they tested her to create that fucking drug they pump into her every week. They won’t hurt her again.”

Del-Rey looked down at Anya before lifting his head and staring back at Armani where she now stood at the foot of the bed with Wolfe and Jonas. “What are they talking about?”

“No.” Anya gripped his shirt, her voice laden with pain. “I ordered them not to tell you. It was my fault,” she sobbed. “Don’t punish them. It was my fault.”

Wolfe’s gray gaze was dark with regret; Jonas’s was as cool as ever.

“The three weeks she submitted, to testing,” Jonas told him. “It’s extremely painful. Though I don’t remember it being as painful as this for her. The scent of her agony is thicker now.”

Del-Rey stared at Wolfe coldly. “You allowed them to harm my mate?” he asked carefully.

Wolfe sighed heavily. “We monitored every second of it, Del-Rey. Hope, Faith and her bodyguards begged her not to complete it when it was at its worse. She refused.”

She had hurt like this? In this agony and they hadn’t told him?

“Sharone?” She was Anya’s lead bodyguard; the others followed her, no matter what.

Sharone glared back at him. “I didn’t know you. You had hurt her. The hurt you dealt her went so deep I would have sliced you alive before letting you near her then. I followed my coya’s orders until I gave you my loyalty. I still follow my coya against anyone who would dare hurt her again.” There was a warning in her voice.

These three women weren’t the ones that had faced him earlier. Submitting to his position of leadership, accepting his terms of punishment. They would fight even him to protect her.

“No one’s hurting her again,” he promised quietly, maintaining his control, realizing how close the girls were to losing their own at the sound of Anya’s strangled screams. “Emma, do you trust me to protect your coya?”

She stared back at him furiously. “You didn’t before.”

“Did I know?” he asked her softly.

Her shoulders relaxed only marginally.

“Put away the blade, Emma,” he told her gently. “Sharone, pull your team back. We’re going to fix this in a way that isn’t going to hurt your coya. I swear it.”

“Del-Rey, she has to be examined,” Dr. Armani said urgently. “Do you think it was easy for the others? That they didn’t suffer? I need that blood to see why the hell she’s in pain. Her hormonal levels have stayed normal. She shouldn’t be doing this.”

He held out his hand. “I’ll get the blood. I’ll do what must be done, Doctor. I’d suggest, for all our safety, that we do it this way.”

Wolfe and Jonas stepped back as Armani glanced at the women guarding Anya, then back to Del-Rey.

“I know how to do it,” he promised her. “Give me the syringe.”

She handed him the laser syringe with its vial capped to it. “Anya.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “I need some blood. Can you let me do this?”

She was shivering in his arms but managed to nod slowly.

“Good girl.” He kissed her forehead, stretched her arm out and extracted the first vial of blood and then the second.

“We need vaginal samples as well as oral.” Armani was moving quickly for the supplies as Del-Rey eased from the bed.

He hated hearing Anya cry. She was sobbing, both in pain and in embarrassment as he was forced to take the vagina samples. The oral was easier. He petted her as he took the samples, ran his hands along her sweating flesh, then laid his palm against her trembling stomach.

She gasped. Shuddering just for a second before he felt the tightness in her muscles ease. The scent of her pain, the hole shredding through his soul, eased just enough that he wasn’t ready to tear the walls down in his rage.

“I want my clothes on,” she whispered roughly, another tear easing from her eyes. “I don’t like being naked here.”

She wasn’t naked. She had her bra and sweater on, but he knew what she meant.

He eased her panties on, a bit of silk that covered very little. He helped her with her jeans, drawing them over her hips as she hiccupped and tensed again.

His palm pressed into her stomach, massaging the spasming muscles as she turned her head away from him and shuddered again.

“Has this happened before?” He turned to Sharone.

Sharone shook her head. “I haven’t seen her like this since the first tests. And Dr. Armani’s correct. It was never this bad. Extremely uncomfortable, but it wasn’t agonizing. Not like this. I would have told you, Alpha. I wouldn’t have let her suffer like this.” She nodded to Anya’s shaking body.

“Stop,” Anya groaned. “Just stop.”

He gave the girls a warning look, stroking Anya’s stomach slowly, easily, almost shaking himself with the fear that the agonizing contractions would return.

“Shit! Dammit! Fuck! Breeds are going to drive me into an early grave.” Armani slammed back into the examination room from her lab a half hour later, her dark face creased into a scowl, a million tightly woven braids bouncing with her movements.

Del-Rey’s head lifted.

“Hormone levels are normal.” She stopped, stared at Anya as Del-Rey felt fear crawl through his belly. “They’re normal, Del-Rey. This isn’t mating heat.”

“Then what is it?” he asked dangerously.

“I don’t know.” She looked on the verge of tears. “I ran every test. Everything. I have the best fucking analysis system that can be bought, begged or stolen. I rival the U.S. fucking government. And everything is showing normal.”

“Not possible,” he snarled, flashing his canines in warning. “Rerun your tests. She’s in pain, Armani. Do something. Give her something.”

“Like what?” she demanded. “Damm it, Del-Rey, Coyote physiology is just different enough to make me crazy. Your DNA has affected her; that means she’s just different enough to make it dangerous. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

“She was angry,” he muttered out roughly. “I slept with her this morning, all morning. Then I punished her bodyguards because she was out last night and in danger.” He fought frantically to try to figure out what to do. “I touch her and it eases,” he snarled, showing Armani how his hand lay on her stomach. “I was pissing her off. I wanted her angry with me. She was furious, ready to throw something at me. For a second I could smell her arousal.” He shook his head. “It was hot and bright, and then this.” He turned back to Anya’s damp face. “This. What happened?”

Dr. Armani’s expression grew thoughtful.

“She had coffee last night.” He was desperate for answers. “God damn you, do something.”

She narrowed her eyes on Anya before moving closer to the bed, ignoring the bodyguards’

growls.

“Coffee is a no-no, Anya,” she said gently.

“She was aroused when she awoke this morning.”

Anya groaned in embarrassment. “Dammit, Del-Rey.”

“She was dreaming. She wanted my kiss.” He was close to losing his mind.

“Anya?” Dr. Armani moved closer. “Have you hurt like this before?”

“Duh,” she managed weakly. “I would have been here.”

“Smart ass.” The doctor smiled fondly. “I want you to let Del-Rey take another sample of blood for me. I may have an idea.”

She moved, collected the syringe and pushed another vial onto it before handing it to Del-Rey.

Swiftly Del-Rey drew the blood, tensing as he felt the pain in her rising from the loss of the pressure of his hand.

Armani moved quickly back to her lab as Del-Rey returned his hand to her stomach.

“Mate, you’re going to give me a stroke,” he sighed as he moved closer to her and brushed damp hair back from her cheek.

A weak smile crossed her pale lips. “I should get a treat for being a good girl while you took the blood.”

“Anything,” he whispered, knowing what she would ask. That she would ask to be relieved from his bed, out of his arms.

She sighed. “Get Ashley’s damned nails fixed. Her whining will drive me insane.”

“Whenever she needs it.” He caressed her hair and laid his lips at her temple. “Nails are no longer included in punishments.”

She sighed, slowly relaxing. The tension eased, bit by bit, until her muscles relaxed beneath his palm. The heat of his hand and her flesh melded them together. He swore he sweat buckets while he caressed her rounded tummy.

Finally, she breathed out in exhaustion and turned her head to Emma. “Em. I need some water.”

“Yes, Anya.” Emma rushed to the outer room as Ashley and Sharone stood by her side.

“Anya.” Del-Rey eased up.

She shook her head. She was still pale, but she wasn’t sweating and normal color was returning to her cheeks.

“Pain in the ass, Coyote,” she snorted, but there was a smile in her weak voice. “I scared you, huh?”

“Terrified the hell out of me, Coya,” he admitted.

He wasn’t supposed to kiss her. He was to keep the hormone in those glands to himself, but he wanted to kiss her. Until hell wouldn’t have it.

“Hey, Breed.” Armani’s determined voice had him lifting his head. “Open.” She shoved a swab at his mouth.

“What?” Del-Rey jerked back.

“Oral swab. Now.” She shoved the damned thing in his mouth, swiping it over his swollen glands before turning and rushing back to her lab.

“Coya, your water.” Emma moved back to the bed as Del-Rey helped her sit up and sip at the water.

“I want out of here,” Anya muttered after Del-Rey handed the cup back to Emma. “Now.”

“Not yet.” There wasn’t a chance in hell. “Stay still a while longer, Anya. You’re going no place until we figure this out.”

“I’ll live here then,” she retorted. “I want my own doctors. We need Coyote Breed specialists.”

He snorted at that. “I killed them all. Remember?”

Her expression became mutinous.

“I trust Dr. Armani. She’ll figure it out.”

“Not without a Coyote Breed specialist she won’t figure crap out,” she groaned. “What if this happens to Ashley, Del-Rey, or one of the younger twins? Sharone or Emma? How will we help them?”

“Anya, there are no Coyote specialists left. Those that were left that the Council didn’t kill, I took care of. They’re murdering bastards with a god complex. Armani will fix that.”

She eased up on the bed and glared at him. “I want our own doctor.”

“Find me one then.” He threw his hands up in defeat. “If you can find one you trust your friends with, then go for it. Have at it. But they’re all dead. Six feet under and can’t help us.”

She wasn’t going to find one. When the Russian facility was breached, the doctors that returned to the Council had disappeared, their bodies turning up one by one over the months. The Council had suspected one of them of conspiring with the rescuers, so they had killed them all.

Over the years, Del-Rey and his men had taken care of the others. If the bastards weren’t alive, then they couldn’t create more. The process wasn’t easy. Coyote Breeds were the most difficult to create and to keep alive until age five. It seemed their mates were going to be difficult in other areas as well.

“Coyote Breed mates are just different.” Armani reentered the examination room. “Amanda Bear, Kiowa Bear’s mate and wife, is the only Coyote Breed we’ve been able to test. The Felines took care of that unfortunately,” she sighed. “But they did share the results of the tests with me.

Kiowa is more or less a hybrid, conceived naturally, so his genetics are slightly different, but we might have something here.”

“Meaning?”

“A hormone that only shows up when semen has been spilled inside the womb. There’s a hormone caused by the one in your tongue that acts as a blocker to prevent conception. It quite literally forms a barrier against viable sperm. Now she has that hormone in her system because you’ve kissed, you’ve had intercourse.”

Of a sort, Anya thought sarcastically as she watched the doctor.

“It’s been eight months,” Anya pointed out. “I’ve never hurt like this before, Dr. Armani.”

“Because you’ve not been in contact with him,” she stated. “Your hormonal levels are showing steady. But I wasn’t looking for that additional hormone, as you weren’t having sex. Were you?”

“No,” Del-Rey growled.

Anya gave him a hooded look. Maybe if she bought him an instruction book. Surely he could learn more than doggie style if he saw the pictures? Of course, knowing male Breed training as she did, he probably knew all the moves. He just hadn’t practiced them on her.

“Okay, so, this hormone just dropped off the radar, but it wasn’t gone.”

“Meaning?”

Armani sighed as though they were dim-witted children. “So there was no addition to your hormonal therapy for it. You’re ovulating, and that hormone is building.”

“So?” Anya asked again. “How many months have you tracked ovulation with me, Dr. Armani?

I’ve never hurt like this.”

“And your mate was never around to tempt you or to arouse you. I keep trying to beat it into you guys. Mating is not all about the physical. Emotions cause hormones and chemical reactions as well. Love, hate, anger, irritation, satisfaction—they all trigger separate chemicals within the body.”

“So I was angry.” Anya nodded.

“Pissed off, horny, ovulating and perhaps, Anya, you don’t hate your mate near as much as you once convinced yourself you did. Bam. That hormonal blocker is in place. But added to it is another hormone that also releases with it. One that tries to force the female to have intercourse, to get more seed, to break through that barrier. The Wolf Breed mates share that chemical barrier with the Coyote Breed mates. I hadn’t adjusted the hormone to allow for any change. Your hormonal levels were showing normal, because it takes more than a vaginal swab or blood to detect it. The test is much more in-depth and painful for the female; it requires actually penetrating the womb itself. That’s how it was found the first time. Dr. Serena Grace, she was there before Ely Morrey, found the differing chemicals and hormones and figured out how to adapt the hormonal treatments to that. But we weren’t able to get enough of that hormone until you submitted to those tests after you came here.”

“I didn’t hurt like this then,” Anya stated. “You’re not making sense.”

“Emotions are the difference, Anya,” she said, her voice gentle. “It’s not your hormones that are changing; it’s the chemicals released due to your emotions at any given time. I’ve adjusted your hormonal therapy for that additional chemical and hormone. This should prevent that pain from returning.” She handed the pressure syringe to Del-Rey. “Upper right arm, Del-Rey.”

He pushed the loose sleeve of her sweater back, his fingers going over the slight blemish on her skin where the syringe was used regularly.

“Next month, during ovulation, we’ll be on guard for this. Until then, we’ll need to step up the hormonal injections. Perhaps every few days.” Armani sighed deeply. “But damn, don’t scare me like that again.”

“Get a Coyote specialist,” Anya told her fiercely. “They might have answers you don’t.”

Dr. Armani shook her head. “I’ve looked, Anya. There are only a few that haven’t turned up dead, but they’re missing. Likely dead as well. I’m doing my best.” She shrugged heavily.

Anya thinned her lips. No, they weren’t all dead, but that didn’t mean she trusted Del-Rey to contact them. She would have to do this one herself. Because that pain was scary. And even scarier was Dr. Armani’s supposition that it was emotional changes causing it. Because Anya knew she only wished she could hate him.