Wolfe grimaced. Cassie, or Cassandra, Sinclair knew things she shouldn’t know. She saw things she shouldn’t see, and if she was scared, then there was a hell of a risk.
“I want every enforcer available,” he told Jonas. “Feline, Wolf, Coyote, I don’t give a shit. Get them ready. I want half sent to Advert and half ready to fly with us. Whatever the hell is going on, we need to be prepared.”
“Doctors,” Hope whispered.
Wolfe looked up at her with a frown.
“She’s meeting with two council scientists she helped hide in Russia. The very two Nikki has been searching for to bring to Haven. Chernov and Sobolova. Her father is bringing them into Advert. She requested asylum for them.”
“Did you grant it?” Wolfe asked carefully.
Hope shook her head. “Nikki just told me before Del-Rey showed up. But that’s why Anya ran. She’s afraid Del-Rey will kill them. He expressly forbade her to contact them. She’s breaking Breed Law and she knows it. She contacted Council scientists without the express permission of one of the alphas of the ruling cabinet.”
Jonas cursed, Dash breathed out roughly, and Wolfe felt a sigh of regret pass his lips. They had no choice but to give asylum to the doctors. Giving asylum to Anya wouldn’t be as uncomplicated.
“She had my permission.” Jonas shrugged, as though surprised. “Didn’t you get that memo?”
Wolfe’s head jerked up. Only one alpha had to be contacted. Responsibility then went to that alpha to contact the others.
“We’ve had server problems,” Wolfe said softly. “Had to shut everything down.”
“Ah.” Jonas’s eyes widened as he spread his hands. “Well, that explains it. Consider yourselves informed.”
“You informed Alpha Delgado?” Wolfe asked.
“Same memo.” Jonas smiled.
Wolfe chuckled.
“Manipulating bastard.” Dash accused him with a grin. “Remind me to watch the two of you more carefully in the future.”
“Hmm,” Hope murmured. “Dash is put out. He must not have gotten his memo either.”
Male chuckles filled the room, but there was a hint of worry there as well. The Coyote alliance was important to the Breed society as a whole, but more than that, Del-Rey and Anya were their friends. Their future was important to them too.
“Let’s get it together,” Wolfe said moments later. “Find out where Satin and her women are holding the coya and get a message to her. Let’s see if we can do this without killing anyone.”
“Let’s pray we can get this done without any of us getting killed,” Jonas sighed as he moved for the door. “It would look damned bad on the Bureau if we have to wade out of a war in Advert.”
And it would plain piss Jonas off, because war was the last thing the Breeds needed right now.
CHAPTER 24
Daylight was riding the mountains as the all-terrain moved over back roads, following satellite imagery of hidden cabins that could possibly be Breed safe houses. There were many in and around Advert, Del-Rey knew, though he didn’t know the locations of each as he should have.
He liked to say Coyotes were lazy and shiftless, that they were more rogues than warriors; otherwise, they’d be Wolves. It wasn’t true. They liked to play the game. They liked to convince the world they were that harmless, but the truth was, they were exacting in their deliberate sloppiness.
“Team one.” The general link opened to his comm. “Alpha, we’ve scoured this side of the mountain,” Brazon reported. “We found two cabins, empty. One with a vacationing family. Thermal imagery gives us a single adult female, an adult male and two minors. That’s it.”
“Turn north,” he ordered. “There are five cabins on the slope. Thermal tracking picked up smoke from two of them.”
“Heading north,” Blazon acknowledged as Del-Rey propped his elbow on the side of the door and ran his hand wearily over his jaw.
God, where was she? Was she as cold as he was?
He stared at the thick, heavy blanket of snow that covered the mountains around them, and for a moment he was back in time. He was ten, staring out the bars over his windows as he watched the soldiers chain Brim by a collar around his neck, in the middle of a snowstorm.
There had been a doghouse to huddle in. There had been no warmth. The five-year-old Brim had been naked and depending on Del-Rey to save him. Because Del-Rey had sworn he wouldn’t let the boy die.
Brim was blue by the time the soldiers dragged him into the warmth of the cells. He had shaken and shivered for hours as Del-Rey coordinated the Coyotes in the cell so there were two to warm him and the others to hide it.
It had taken him nearly six hours to manipulate the guards and the scientists into deciding to bring him in. There had been so many others he hadn’t been able to save.
What if he couldn’t save his mate now? After the years he had trained to protect his people, would fate laugh in his face and let him fail with his mate?
God, where was she?
“Team six,” he spoke into the comm link. “Any sign?”
“Negative,” the team leader reported. “We have four and five working a grid through town, but nothing’s shown. City council seems to be meeting today. Strange for a Sunday, don’t you think?” the leader mused.
“Keep your eyes open, cover the back roads out of town as well. I want her found.”
“We’ll find her, Alpha,” the team leader swore. “We won’t let our coya go unprotected.”
But they had, and it had been his fault. He should have thought. The animal genetics were too close to the surface. He’d thought the Coyotes that knew him, trusted him, would see what he didn’t tell them. That he was protecting his coya as he protected his brothers. By denying her. Instead, they had seen suspicion and distrust. She was a human, not a Coyote, and he’d rejected her despite the fact that she was his mate.
“Alpha Delgado, this is Base.” The communications supervisor came on. “Switch to private.”
Del-Rey flipped the link to a private channel, including Brim in the transmission.
“Delgado here.”
“Alpha, we found a transmission, erased. I was able to track it from the coya’s computer.”
“And?”
“Alpha, the transmission originated from her private computer to a public forum and bounced to France. Transmission was to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Separate identities. Another transmission tracked from Austria to the coya’s line in private chat arranging a meeting and then confirming said meeting for today. I ran the identities myself. Doctors Chernov and Sobolova from the Russian facility. She’s contacted Council scientists. Were you aware of this?”