"It doesn't matter." Her voice trembled at the words. "I know how to hide. You can get away and go for help."
He would have howled then, if he could have. She honestly thought he would allow her to sacrifice herself? For him?
"You're wasting your time," he growled. "I won't leave you." Even in death, he would follow by her side. But he didn't intend to die. If ever there had been a time when he intended to live, then it was now.
"Four. I have you."
Matthias slid to a stop at the sound of the number he had been known by in the labs. Not a name, by all means they shouldn't believe they had the rights that even pets had. No, they were known by numbers. He had been the fourth Breed created in the Albrecht lab in the German mountains. Matthias stared at the six coyote soldiers that stepped from the surrounding trees. Behind them stood Vidal Velasco, the Spanish directorate of genetic protocols.
It was this bastard who had chosen the women who were kidnapped for the European labs and used for their ovum and life-giving wombs. It was he who had decided which woman would be released and which woman would be bred to death. It was this bastard who had slit the throat of the surrogate that had birthed Matthias.
Matthias had been five when Vidal had gathered three of the Breed children in that lab together, called this woman their mother, then slid his blade over the weakened female's throat. Even then Matthias had recognized the thankfulness in the woman's eyes at her realization that the horrors she had been suffering were over.
"I hear you have chosen a name for yourself, Four," Vidal's mocking, aquiline features were illuminated by the glow of the full moon, as it peeked from the clouds above.
Vidal was much older now, nearing his seventies, Matthias knew, but he moved like a much younger man, his black eyes glowing in the night, his short gray hair gleaming. Even now, he wore a dark gray suit. His black shirt was dull against his swarthy flesh, his gray tie cinched snug at his neck. Matthias bet he was wearing the overly expensive leather shoes he was partial to, as well.
Vidal was nothing if not precise and neat in appearance and action. Even when he was killing. Matthias lowered Grace to her feet, keeping his arm wrapped snugly around her, as he checked the position of each coyote. He held his rifle in one arm, his finger on the responsive trigger, as the coyotes began to spread out behind him.
"You picked the wrong night, Vidal," Matthias growled. "I'm not in the mood for you." Inside, he was praying. He needed the coyotes closer together, not farther apart. He needed just one chance to catch them in a spray of bullets and to keep them from shooting Grace. If he died, he would die knowing he left his mate to these monsters. He couldn't allow that to happen. Grace must survive.
"Is she breeding yet, Four?" Vidal asked him in his precise, flawless English. "I hear wolves are having a difficult time transitioning from animal to man when they take their mates. Have you managed that yet?" Matthias watched Vidal carefully. He stood just behind two of the protective coyotes whose weapons were aimed, not at Matthias, but at Grace.
"When the shooting starts, I'm taking you out first, Vidal," Matthias said. "My bullets will tear right through your coyote pets and enter your chest. I won't miss."
Vidal frowned. "Now, Four, we don't have to be antisocial about this," he chastised Matthias. "Just give us your pretty girlfriend, and we'll let you run for a while longer." Matthias lifted his lip in a mocking snarl. "I think you know that's not going to happen. I'm well aware of the experiments the council scientists are running. I'd kill her before I'd let you get your hands on her." Vidal crossed his arms over his chest, as Matthias tracked each soldier with his eyes and with his senses. He would have one chance to get Grace out of this alive. If the coyotes continued to surround him, he would have just enough room to drop and roll Grace to the small, rocky crevice next to them. It would provide the barest cover, but perhaps enough for him to cover her body with his own, as he tried to take the coyotes out.
"I can't believe you allowed yourself to be caught so easily." Vidal's teeth flashed in the darkness. "You had a coyote on your ass the whole time you were courting Miss Anderson and never realized it. Have you grown soft, Four?"
Matthias shook his head. He had wondered about that.
"There was no coyote tracking me. You got lucky, nothing more. Seems fate shines on the diseased and soulless at odd times after all."
The scent of Vidal's anger began to pour around him. It made the coyotes nervous, as well it should. Vidal never could handle a Breed who dared talk back. It was one of his failings.
"Why did the directorate decide to send you on this little mission anyway?" Matthias shifted closer to the shadowed natural indention in the earth, as he watched Vidal. "Did they decide they didn't like you after all?"
"I am part of the directorate, you ignorant mutt," Vidal snapped.
"But not the head of it," Matthias pointed out, knowing well the ego that filled the bastard. "Are you certain they didn't send you on a suicide mission, Vidal? Every assassin you've sent after me has failed. What makes you think you could succeed?"
"I tracked you. I trapped you. With your mate," the other man gloated.
"Everyone gets lucky sometimes." He turned to glance around him, shifting ever closer to the rocky ledge that dropped into a four-foot ditch that water and erosion had created. "I think you just got lucky this time." He turned back to Vidal once more, giving him a cool smile. "Will your luck hold out?"
"Give me the woman, or the coyotes will fill her with holes, Four. My patience is wearing quite thin with your taunting."
Grace was shaking in his arms, but for each move he made, she slid into place with him. Her hands gripped the arm wrapped around her waist, and her body was tense, prepared. He could smell her fear, but he could also smell her determination to live.
Unfortunately, for them to live, their enemies had to die. The thought of shedding more blood in front of her was abhorrent to him. He had promised her the killing would stop. He had promised himself that for her, he would no longer kill. And yet, the cycle the council had began couldn't be stopped. Not for Matthias, not for any of them.
"I'll just have a bullet put in your head," Vidal sneered. "And I'll take your woman from your lifeless body. I hear it's quite painful for a woman after having been mated by you creatures, to be touched by another. Perhaps I'll get lucky, and my coyote was right when he sensed the possibility of her fertility. Is she carrying your pup?"