It tormented him, tortured him. The thought of being buried alive, her slender fingers clawing at a narrow casket, it sent rage pulsing through him, ripping at his control and sending a growl rumbling from his throat.
“Tann
er. I would stand in front of her,” Cabal told him imperatively. “As God is my witness, I will protect your mate as though she were my own. It’s the only choice we have. ”
“And you think I would trade my brother’s life for my mate’s?” Tanner snapped, burningly aware of his limited choices. “Do you think I would ask that of you, Cabal?”
Cabal’s lips quirked in bitter knowledge. “You wouldn’t have to ask it of me. You saved my sanity after you rescued me. You made me live as a man instead of an animal, Tanner. Do you think I wouldn’t die for you or your mate?”
Tanner stilled, staring back at Cabal as he inhaled roughly. It was there, the scent of Cabal’s determination and something more. A hint of emotion, sadness, resignation, regret. They had always assumed they would mate the same woman. From the day Tanner had pulled him from that pit, the need to share the finer things in life with his brother has risen to the fore.
Food, wine, song and women. Playful teasing, a child’s laughter. Tanner had shared it all with him, and now they had found something Tanner couldn’t bear to share. And he couldn’t regret it. Nature had given him something that belonged to him alone, something he had marked, something he would give his soul for.
“I don’t want you to die for me or my mate,” Tanner said simply. “I want you to live to help protect my children. ”
Cabal frowned. “She was sterilized. ”
“So was Sherra,” Tanner pointed out, speaking of his pride sister.
Sherra had had herself sterilized after the loss of her first child, but once she had been reunited with her mate, somehow nature had repaired the separation of her fallopian tubes and her pregnancy had resulted.
“You believe the hormones are forcing her body to repair it as they did Sherra’s?” Cabal asked.
“Something is going on,” Tanner sighed. “There’s a difference to her scent; there has been for days, as though something were changing inside her. I could smell this on Sherra when she was fighting the heat with her mate, Kane. The scent is the same, Cabal. ”
“The healing process took much longer than a few weeks. ” Cabal frowned heavily. “Dr. Jacobs guessed it had been in progress for more than a year, from the moment Kane reappeared in Sherra’s life. It won’t happen overnight. ”
The mating heat and hormonal effects on the body were still unknown for the most part. There were too many anomalies for the Breed doctors and scientists to keep up with. It was one of the reasons they were so desperate to find the first Leo. Reports were that he existed, in his prime, still a strong, amazingly healthy male at nearly a century in age. And his mate was said to appear as young.
“What the hell am I going to do?” He sat down heavily in the couch, covering his face with his hands wearily. “How am I going to protect her?”
“We will protect her. ” Cabal’s voice was cold, hard.
Lifting his head, Tanner stared back at his brother in surprise.
“Listen to me, Tanner,” he growled, his incisors flashing dangerously. “We know those who are most loyal to us. This damned spy is good, I’ll give you that, but we can protect her and flush him out at the same time. You don’t have a choice. And neither does she. ”
“How?” The heat was messing with his mind now. All he could think about, all he could feel, was Scheme.
“We take her back to Sanctuary. We’ll place our enforcers around her, keep her under house protection and see who gets curious. Whatever she knows, once she knows she’s truly safe, she’ll reveal it. It will flush out Tallant’s spy. ”
He would have to risk her to save her.
Tanner shook his head. “I don’t know if I can do it, Cabal. ”
CHAPTER 22
“And I don’t know if it’s entirely your decision. ”
Tanner jerked around, a growl rumbling in his throat as Jonas and three of his enforcers stepped into the room. How the fuck had they managed to sneak up on him?
Jonas’s lips tightened as he tested the air, his strange silver eyes flashing with anger.
“You should have smelled us coming the moment we dropped into the tunnels,” he snapped. “Mating heat is making you weak, Tanner. ”
Tanner lifted his lip in a sneer. “Not so weak that I can’t take your throat out, Director,” he snarled. “Why the hell are you here?”
Jonas snorted at the question. “Callan did a good job of hiding you, but you forget, I hold my position for a reason. Tracking you wasn’t as hard as you would have imagined. It’s a goddamned wonder the Council hasn’t already found this place. ”