“He couldn’t have known where I was taking her, or that we’d be here,” Stygian growled as he moved quickly to the cycle. “I want a background report ASAP and I want to know every fucking second of his life since the day he stepped into the Genetics Council and I want it yesterday.”
“Yeah, you Wolves are an impatient lot.” Rule sighed, though he was far enough away from him to evade any strike Stygian could make for the smart-assed remark. “Why don’t you take it up with Jonas?”
“He’s next.” Flipping the key to start the motor, Stygian was burning rubber a second later as he tore from the parking lot and headed back toward the hotel.
Jonas had better have some fucking answers.
CHAPTER 8
“He did what?” It was Ashley Truing’s shocked exclamation that drew Liza’s attention from the fighting stance Emma was trying to teach her.
Oh hell. Oh hell.
She should have never, never told Chelsea and Claire what had happened before the shooting earlier that afternoon, Liza thought as her attention was pulled from her opponent to the three women on the other side of the room.
She found herself flat on her ass and staring up at Emma Truing in surprise a second later.
“Keep your mind on the bastard trying to kill your ass, not the pretty girl with the bottled-sex voice as she tosses her hair.” Emma snorted.
Liza sat up and hung her head, breathing heavily as she felt the perspiration rolling down her back and the ache just beneath her skin at each point where Emma had touched her.
She rubbed at her arm irritably where the Breed female had gripped it to—oh so casually—steady the hold she had when she threw Liza off balance.
“You’re getting stronger,” Liza muttered as she glanced over at Ashley, Chelsea and Claire where they were whispering and giggling in amusement, while Shiloh and Chimera stared back at Liza in amusement. “Your hands feel like hammers tonight.”
Emma arched her brow. “Really? Ashley swears I baby everyone.”
“She babies me.” Ashley threw her sister a hard look. “Every Coyote in town has been babying me too. It’s damned humiliating.”
Ashley was delicate, impossibly pretty and as spoiled as any debutante, and every time she bitched about getting kicked out of a fight, Liza wanted to laugh. She didn’t look capable of swatting a fly, let alone committing some of the bloody mayhem she’d heard of the other woman doing.
“And they’ll keep babying you or answer to my knife at their throat one night,” Emma stated, the cold hard tone an indication of her complete dedication to the threat.
“Stop interrupting the conversation over here if you two don’t mind.” Ashley displayed her incisors aggressively at her attempt to ignore her sister’s threats. “Em, did you hear about Liza and Stygian’s little ride out to the lake earlier today?”
“You mean the one where Stygian had her pinned against that post beneath the shelter a second before that shooter tried to rearrange her head?” Emma grinned. “Hell yeah, the Breeds on protective detail were ribbing Stygian over that one before we left the
hotel tonight.”
Liza glanced at the girls gathered at the side of the room. “Just what I need, a bunch of Breeds gossiping about me when they should have been watching for the bastards using me as target practice.”
“Honey, you should have expected that the minute you hopped on that Harley with him,” the Jaguar Breed Shiloh Gage spoke up with effortless sarcasm. “Breeds are nosier than any woman created. They’re bigger gossips too. The fact that you managed to evade a professional assassin’s bullet is just fodder for the rumor mill. What I can’t believe is that he actually comes home instead of rushing you straight to his bed.”
Emma and Ashley snickered at the declaration.
“I still can’t believe he didn’t just kiss you.” Ashley giggled, her gray eyes twinkling in a merriment they hadn’t seen since she’d been shot by Holden Mayhew.
And though Liza was damned happy that the other girl seemed to be recovering so well, she still wasn’t pleased that Chelsea had placed her head on the chopping block to amuse Ashley.
At least Chelsea and Claire hadn’t told the other girls how he refused to deny mating heat existed. That part, they had sworn to never tell. She should have made them swear on the rest of it as well. At least, until they knew for certain about the whole punishment-by-death thing.
Yet there they were, all watching her after her friend had been so kind as to inform them of what may have transpired before the shooting.
“How much did you tell them, anyway?” Liza questioned her with suspicion.
She should have told them not to mention that almost kiss. She’d remember next time not to.
Chelsea gave a light shrug and a smirk. “Probably more than you would be comfortable with, but come on, Liza, it was so interesting.”