“This one stays.”
Del-Rey heard the bartender’s voice, dark, ugly with menace through the bodyguards’ comm links.
Emma turned to Del-Rey, her expression icy, and mouthed, Weapon on coya.
“We have a weapon on my coya,” he announced into the mic. “Get your women the f**k out of here.”
He moved for the bar, aware of Brim striding quickly toward it and a young Breed, Carlen, moving for the females. The Breed was Wolf. He wasn’t Coyote, nor was he one of the Wolves assigned to Anya’s small protection detail.
“Jacob, call off your man,” Del-Rey ordered as he heard Jacob screaming through the link at Carlen. He moved faster, breaking into a run as he watched the young Breed jerk a weapon from inside his jacket and attempt to push past Sharone to get to Anya.
“She has to die, Sharone,” Carlen growled, his gray eyes too dark, too dilated. Fuck, they were going to lose another of their people to that f**king drug. “You know she has to die.”
Carlen managed to lift his arm enough to aim.
Del-Rey’s mate was going to die before his eyes.
Sharone pushed Carlen back, then threw him several feet across the room when he lifted the weapon and fired at her instead. At the same time, a knife streaked from her hand and buried itself in his chest as he stared down at it in shock.
Emma was on the floor covering Anya even as she struggled; Ashley had jumped the bar and taken out the bartender. She cocked the sawed-off rifle she’d jerked from him and leveled it on the room as she moved from behind the bar.
“Sharone.” The Wolf Breed went to his knees as Del-Rey jerked Anya from Emma’s hold.
Emma was on her feet, catching a swaying Sharone around her waist as blood seeped from her shoulder. They both stared at the young Breed as he gazed at them in confusion and fear. He didn’t even know what he had been about to do. Del-Rey knew the effects of that f**king drug, and this Breed, it appeared, was a victim of it.
“Why did you hurt me?” He sounded like a child.
Del-Rey was aware of the shouts, the orders filling the room. The Wolves had the city council surrounded, but Del-Rey was watching the death of an innocent young man before his eyes.
“What did I do?” Carlen coughed, blood spraying on Sharone’s white dress as a whimper left her lips. “What did I do?”
He toppled over, still trying to lift the pistol, still trying to focus on Anya as his eyes glazed with death.
“Get this taken care of,” Del-Rey shouted as more of his own men surrounded them. “Grab that Wolf off the floor and get him to the labs at Haven. I want full blood work done. The rest of you surround me until I get my coya to the limo. Emma, Ashley, get Sharone to a transport and get her back to Base. Now.”
They were moving quickly through the ballroom, aware of the Wolves moving just as effectively. Breeds were covering the humans, weapons drawn, eyes hard as mates and family were whisked from the room and into the late evening cold.
Secured limos were pulling into the drive, then moving out as quickly as they’d come in, as Breed Enforcers worked to get the pack leaders and families out of danger. Enforcers and soldiers stayed behind, covering them while still others took the rooftops, ensuring that snipers weren’t in place.
“I want that bartender in custody,” Del-Rey told Brim through the mic as he pushed Anya into the waiting limo. “I want him ready to be fully interrogated the moment we hit Base.”
“He’s in custody and rolling now,” Brim barked back. “Get your ass back to Base. Ivan should be your driver. There’s no way he could be compromised by that f**king drug; we just had him tested after our return.”
“I have Ivan. I want you at Base ASAP,” Del-Rey ordered him. “Don’t take chances and don’t bother with that f**king city council. I’ll take care of them myself.”
He slammed the door closed as he slid in, and Ivan sped away from the banquet hall. He could feel the fury filling him now. No other mate had been targeted. Carlen had gone after Anya. The bartender had been prepared to hold her there. Why?
He turned to her, his gaze meeting hers and seeing not one iota of fear.
“They have my purse and my wrap,” she stated. “Morons kept my gun and knives. If they had left me alone, Sharone wouldn’t have been wounded.”
Shock resounded through him. Where was the anger, the terror, the sheer fear she should have been showing? His mate shouldn’t be staring at him with furious brilliant blue eyes and a determination that normally only blood could quench. Others’ blood.
“Sharone will be fine,” he told her. “It was a shoulder wound. The worst it’s going to do is piss her off.”
“I’m past pissed,” she snarled. “You didn’t tell me to expect trouble, Del-Rey. That was damned unfair of you.”
Unfair of him? As though he had knocked her out of some sport? His mate was becoming more aggressive than he had ever anticipated. The thought of it made him hard.
“If I’d expected trouble, your ass wouldn’t have been here.”
Before he could stop himself, he was nose to nose with her. “Do you think for a moment I’d take my mate where I expected bloodshed? Expected some crazed f**king bartender and Wolf Breed to take a shot at her?”
He was yelling at her. Anya stared back at him, adrenaline and fury pumping through her. She was shaking with it, desperate with it. She’d fought Emma as the other girl held her down, fought not to protect herself or her soldiers, but to get to Del-Rey.
It had been the only thought in her mind. To get to him, to protect him. As though he needed her protection. As though he really needed anything from her outside of sex. But the knowledge, sudden and swift, had slammed into her. She needed it from him, and right before her eyes, it could have been stolen from her.
“I don’t know what you would do,” she cried. “My bodyguard is wounded and you could have been killed in front of my eyes, Del-Rey. I’m not a happy little camper right now.”
She was terrified for him. She was shaking, desperate; she needed to touch him, just to be certain, as though only touch would assure her that he was actually there with her.
“And you think I am?”
That growl sent a shudder up her spine. It sent sensation crashing through her adrenaline-laced bloodstream, and lust and emotion to sear her mind.
She could have lost him. It could have been him carrying a bullet rather than Sharone. Though he would have probably pretended the damned thing had never hit him, despite any blood he shed.