“Come on, Alpha, I knew you’d be looking for her the minute we left on ‘no comm.’ I figured you’d catch up with us sooner than you did. I mean, come on, you’re totally hot for her. She’s not going to be out of your sight that long when you don’t know precisely where she is.”
Cunning, manipulative, charming and too intuitive—because she was f**king right.
“That’s not the point.” He leaned forward in his chair. “What would have happened if that bullet had struck you at the top of that trail and left you dead?”
She stared back at him blankly. “Umm. The coya would cry. I’d be dead. And if that had happened, I would hope you would dress me really fine and give me one of those cool funerals, you know? Like real people have. And roses.”
She was utterly serious. Like real people. His chest clenched at the words, as though in her soul she believed she wasn’t ‘real people’.
“Coyotes would have gone to war,” he stated clearly, powerfully. “None of those hunters would have escaped. I let them go, all but one last night, Ashley, to track where they went. Had you, your sister or Sharone died on that mountain, nearly a hundred Coyote soldiers would have broken Breed Law and descended on Advert with the full fury of killing rage.”
She blinked back at him. “Why?” She looked to Emma and Sharone’s surprised faces. “We’re just Coyotes, Alpha. We were born to die.” She flashed him that f**king fearless smile that tied his guts into knots.
“Your allowance has been pulled for the next four weeks.” He rose from his chair, his hands braced on the desk as he glared at her, fury beating at his temple. “In four weeks you will come to me and tell me why, Ashley, that Coyotes would have shed blood in that amount for your life.”
True distress filled her eyes. He suspected true tears.
“My allowance?” she whispered fearfully. “Oh please, Del-Rey, just like, knock it down. Don’t take my allowance.” She spread her fingers out. “Look at my damned nails. I need my allowance.”
“If a single Breed—Coyote, Feline or Wolf—pays for those f**king nails,” he stabbed his finger at her hands, “then I’ll make damned certain he pays for it in ways he doesn’t even want to imagine. Are we clear?”
The tears cleared; the lips trembled; her gaze shuttered.
“I don’t know what your deal is.” Her voice was perfectly composed. “If the coya were hurt or killed, you’d take out my throat. Fine. I’d expect it. She’s my damned coya too, so you really don’t have to play up any loyalty here. And f**k the nails, I don’t need your allowance.”
He growled, a low, lethal sound that had her flinching.
“Four weeks,” he told her. “One more smart-assed remark and we’ll go for six. Would you like to chance that?”
She crossed her arms over her br**sts, hip cocked, and glared back at him.
He turned to Emma. “Why would I have gone to war over your death, Emma?”
She cleared her throat. “We’re pack?” she suggested.
He glared back at her. “I hope you enjoy kitchen duty for the next two weeks.”
She gasped.
“Two weeks?” Ashley bit out defiantly. “You’re punishing me for four.”
“Six!” he snarled back at her as she jerked back and stared at him, horrified.
“Sharone?” He was all but yelling. He was f**king pissed off, and realizing that only made him madder. “If you died? Why the f**king hell do you think I’d go to war?”
She blinked quickly. “Because . . .” She swallowed. “Do you love us, Alpha?”
He sat down in his chair and breathed out roughly as he stared at the three women. “The three of you, Marcy and Chanda, who are presently charming the hell out of the Felines, are the females of our packs and are the same as sisters to me. You are more to me than any man in this base.” He could feel the anger churning in him. “Because I love you, I would have gone to war.” He turned to Sharone. “What would I have done if my coya had been captured or killed? My mate, Sharone. The other half of everything I am. What would I have done?”
Her eyes were wide as she shook her head slowly. “I can’t imagine anything worse, Alpha, than going to war.”
“Worse is having my soul ripped from my body,” he told her. “We, who are told we have no soul. I found mine nearly seven years ago when a kid walked into the roughest, dirtiest, meanest bar I know of, to save her friends. If I lose her, I lose who and what I am.” He rose threateningly again. “And if you tell your coya I said that, then all three of you, no matter which one spills her guts, will be separated from the coya’s security detail for six months. Are we clear?”
They nodded slowly, fearfully. They had never been separated from Anya. The four of them were like kids together, learning how to be free, how to play. They were playmates, perhaps even sisters.
“Alpha?” Ashley asked. “May I ask a question?”
“Will it piss me off?” he growled.
“Yes. Probably.”
That was his Ashley. She didn’t balk. Shaking his head, he sat back down and stared back at her. “What?”
“Why would you love us? You didn’t raise us. You’ve known us only as long as you’ve known your coya. Why do you care?”
He wiped his hand over his face wearily. “I’ve known you for nearly seven years, Ash,” he sighed. “Your coya talked of little else but five young girls that were her best friends. Her confidantes. Her family. In those years, she made me love you as fiercely perhaps as she does.” He shook his head. “You are Coyote Breeds. You are not simply coyotes. You are not unfeeling animals, and you’re worth more than a f**king funeral. Are we clear on this?”
She bit her lip. “Can I have my allowance back?”
“No!”
She pouted, but she wasn’t hard, she hadn’t fallen back on her training to show her displeasure.
“The three of you will ensure, from here on out, that if your coya even thinks of leaving these caverns without me at her side, I’m notified. If she wants to train, I as well as a backup team will oversee it. If she wants to f**king pick flowers, she will have a backup detail and I will oversee it. If she just wants to step outside the f**king door and breathe in the mountain air, what will you do?”