Hawke didn’t believe that. Not once had Jessica tried to escape in the months that she had been free.
She had sought solitude. She had sought moments when eyes weren’t watching her. But she had never indicated a need to escape, or indicated anger with the Breeds in general. It was more an anger directed toward Hawke.
“I’m pulling in a team from the Coyote base,” Aiden informed him. “It will be done quietly, and they’ll be placed on protective covert detail around her. We know Haven is being watched. This way, whoever is watching will believe we’ve become lax about her safety.” Aiden leaned forward intently. “We need to capture her would-be assassin, Hawke. There were men we didn’t catch earlier this year with the pure blood society we disbanded. We need the information they have, as well as the resources they’re using. She’s our only link to them.”
“Her safety will not be compromised in this quest of yours, Aiden,” Hawke growled, the animalistic rumble of his voice burring his words. “I’ve held back the mating heat, but nothing will change the fact that she is my mate.”
Aiden nodded at the statement as he turned back to Wolfe.
“I’m claiming my mate.” Hawke stared his alpha down then. “I’ve given you the time you needed, Wolfe. Jessica Raines is my mate. I’ll go without her no longer.” Wolfe shared a look with his second-in-command before turning back to Hawke with a short nod. “I appreciate your trust in me, Hawke. You’ve denied yourself when others wouldn’t have, and given us the time we needed to find answers rather than giving her her freedom based on law. It tells me more than words can say about the loyalty you give to the Breeds.”
“My loyalty was to her,” Hawke snapped. “My mate was no traitor. There was only one way to prove it. It’s been proven. Now, I’ll have what’s mine.”
FOUR
She should have known Hawke wouldn’t stay away long. The bodyguard he had left outside the house was male. She had noticed both during and after her release that it was a very rare occurrence for a male of either Breed or human persuasion to come around her.
She had female bodyguards. Her doctor was female. Her visitors, namely the alpha’s mate, Hope, or his second-in-command’s wife, Faith. Occasionally, Charity Chance visited, but since the birth of her and Aiden’s son, she hadn’t been by.
She watched the Range Rover pull into the small graveled driveway in front of the cabin she had been given, and Hawke stepped out. As arrogant as any man could be, as handsome as sin, he stood beneath the falling snow like a force of nature daring the elements to come after him.
Daring anyone to come after him or to oppose him.
He was an integral part of Haven’s security team. He had been an advisor and security leader in the security and communications station where she had worked a little more than a year ago. He had been firm and honest, but he hadn’t always been easy to work with. He didn’t suffer fools easily, and he didn’t think twice about physically throwing out anyone not performing up to standards.
Did he still oversee security there? she wondered. She realized she had no idea what he did now. She saw him driving through the compound often, stopping, talking to the security teams, directing them to different areas or joking with them. Though she realized she hadn’t seen a smile on his face since she had been released.
He had often smiled at her when she worked security for the Breeds. Cautious little half smiles, as though he hadn’t known how to express his amusement with her shy jokes or at her attempts to flirt with him.
God, she had so fallen in love with him, she realized. Those months she had spent working with him, sharing the quiet lunches in the small garden behind the security center, she had fallen irrevocably in love.
He hadn’t kissed her. He hadn’t touched her. He had been courteous, chivalrous. Something she had never known with anyone else. He was larger than life, and the wound she had inflicted on the fragile relationship they had been building had gone deep. In both of them.
She had known, even then, about mating heat. It was hard not to know when working so closely with the Breeds. And she had known the signs of it. It had been building between them. It would have taken no more than a kiss, perhaps a touch, and it would have flamed to life like a wildfire out of control, as Faith had described it.
Faith, Hope and Charity had been brutally honest with her about the mating heat. Despite the fact that she had been called a traitor, they hadn’t held back when she had questioned them about it.
As Hawke walked to her front door, she folded her arms over the thick sweater that covered her br**sts and wondered about that. Why had they been so honest with her when she was suspected to be a traitor?
Of course, if she had been convicted of her crimes, it wasn’t as though the world would have had a chance to hear her side of the story. There would have been no lawyers, and no defense. Breed Law was brutally clear. The papers she had signed in agreeing to it had laid it out in succinct layman’s terms. She had agreed to an execution if she ever betrayed the Breeds. And she had signed it, knowing she would never willingly betray them.
She had learned that there was that one little factor though. Unwillingness. The drug her father had slipped into her system had given her little choice.
The front door opened with an air of arrogance and purpose that personified the man that stepped inside.
He carried a bag under one arm. Shifting it in his grip, he turned to close and lock the door.
Jessica cocked her head to the side. More gifts? He had sent her clothes, shoes, boots and coats since her release. During her captivity he had sent her food from her favorite fast-food restaurant, and soft outfits that had kept her warm in the sterile cell in which she had been confined.
He was always sending gifts. This was the first time he had brought any with him.
“We need to talk.”
Her brows lifted as he turned and walked into the kitchen after making the brusque statement.
She followed him anyway, despite the arrogance that had her hackles rising.
Stepping into the kitchen, she watched as he sat the bag on the kitchen table and pulled the contents free. A bag of regular coffee, a six-pack of soda, her favorite chocolate cookies and a small clear bottle of what appeared to be capsules, a drug of some sort.
“What exactly do we need to talk about?” She was almost salivating for that coffee. It was her favorite brand.