Tucking the sheet over her br**sts she sat up and stared down at him, her hair touseled around her face, her gaze drowsy and filled with satiation.
“Coyotes aren’t like Wolves,” she told him as she bent her knees and rested her chin on them.
“Yeah, their work ethic sucks sometimes,” he admitted. “We’re turning hardened killers into techs and security personnel. Just because they have the knowledge to do it doesn’t mean they have the temperament for it.”
He’d acknowledged that even before they had approached the Wolves for an alliance. His plans were vast in comparison to the roadblocks he faced.
Then his mate shook her head. “That’s not their problem at all.” She stared at him, wide-eyed. “Their work ethic is every bit as dedicated as the Wolves or the Felines. They just like to pretend otherwise. They’re working to create something and that means a lot to them. But they’re more solitary. Working within a team is their problem.”
Del-Rey propped his head on his hand as he lay on his side watching her.
“We weren’t trained to work together,” he told her. “We have more Coyotes coming in soon, pack leaders who have no problems stepping back in command, though their packs number less than the ten to twelve ours do. Mostly two-man teams. Stragglers who are deserting the Council as quickly as they can. We’ll have another dozen or more soon to add to the dozen coming in from the Middle East via the Bureau. Integrating them will be harder.”
He watched as she frowned at the information.
“Are you returning to mission status now?” she asked him.
Del-Rey watched her carefully. “I’m not going back, Anya. I’m needed here.”
“You say that as though someone disagrees.”
He sighed at that. “The order of separation disagrees,” he told her. “Until you inform the tribunal that you are accepting the mating and your status of coya, then I’m bound by my word, Anya.” He reached up and played with the ends of her fiery hair. “Are you accepting your place now, or merely feeling your way?”
“You’d allow that?” She tipped her head to the side. “Time for me to feel my way?”
Him and his big mouth.
Del-Rey stared back at her and sighed heavily. “I’d give you whatever time you needed.” He shrugged. “Would I have a choice? I don’t want to force you into my bed or into your place here. I want nothing from you that isn’t freely given.”
She nodded slowly. “We have things to resolve,” she said then. “With both of us. I notified those on the tribunal that the separation order is null and void, no matter your decision in the mating.”
Satisfaction surged inside him.
“I think you know my decision on it,” he told her somberly. “You’re my mate, my coya. I haven’t changed my mind about that. Nothing can change that for me.”
She nodded again, though clearly there was more on her mind and Del-Rey hesitated to push her. Here, he felt on very unfamiliar ground. He would have once said he knew this woman and each move she would make. She had shown him differently from the moment he had taken her from Russia.
She was stronger than he had ever imagined and definitely more stubborn. More her own woman than she would ever be any man’s lover or mate perhaps.
“We need to return to Haven,” he finally said into the silence. “You at least need to take the hormonal supplements that will allow you a measure of freedom from the more extreme symptoms of the heat. I don’t want you suffering.”
She shook her head. “This is my choice.” She turned to him again. “You suffered it.”
“It’s not as hard on the male, baby,” he sighed. “It’s endurable. For the females, it’s not as easy.”
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “So, I get horny. I’ll just drag you from whatever you’re doing and you can do your mating duty before anything else.”
“Really?” His brow lifted. “And should I get horny?”
An impish grin crossed her lips. “It’s not as hard for the males, remember?”
What the hell was that sudden tighteness in his chest, that emotion that gripped his throat and had him staring at her with a need to never have her out of his sight? To always see her eyes sparkling with mirth, that pursed little grin on her face?
She was, quite simply, adorable. And she was his coya. Not just his mate. Not just his woman. She was the other half of who and what he was as alpha of his packs.
She sighed then. “I believe, based on information I’ve gotten over the months, I have several hours before that luscious body of yours is going to be put to work again.” She bounced from the bed before he could reach out and stop her. “I have to shower and get dressed. We have a meeting at Haven as soon as you’re ready and an interrogation to watch. Wolfe agreed to hold the questioning of the bartender until you could be present.” Her expression tightened as she turned back to him, brazenly naked, br**sts firm and tipped with hard ni**les, fiery curls gleaming between her thighs. “He meant to kill me. Why target you like that?”
Del-Rey’s brow lifted as he rose from the bed, though fury clenched his gut. “That shotgun wasn’t on me, sweetheart, it was on you.”
“But all killing me would accomplish is whatever my death would mean to you,” she pointed out. “Very few outside Haven know about the separation agreement. To the world, according to the tabloids several months ago anyway, we’re the latest great Breed love match. The kidnapped Russian admin and the Coyote alpha. The stories were very romantic.”
“Really?” He frowned back at her. He hadn’t lied when he said he didn’t read the damned tabloids. “How romantic?”
She gathered up her clothing as she shot him a look he couldn’t quite decipher. One of those feminine looks that he’d often wondered about when he saw other men getting them. Normally when said male had done something that displeased said female.
“Excessively romantic,” she snorted as she checked her link. “Ashley has some information I was waiting on as well; she’s waiting for me.”
She dumped the clothes in a hamper. Only then did he see the dusty state of her clothing.
“How did that happen?” he asked as she disconnected the link she had put through to her bodyguard to request clean clothes.