“You think you can maneuver them that easy?” Thane asked as the others watched curiously.
“I can maneuver anything or anyone,” Dog informed him confidently.
He knew his limits, but his abilities to be just as calculating and merciless as Jonas Wyatt were in doubt. “The four of you just make sure you’re in place. I don’t want to risk our agenda and I sure as hell don’t want to risk our plans here. There’s too much riding on it.”
“What do you have riding on it? Maybe it’s time you let us know what the hell is going on here, Dog,” one of the younger Coyotes in Thane’s group sneered mockingly. Dog didn’t have time to challenge him, but he couldn’t let it go either. In a dominant, powerful move, Thane was suddenly on his feet and throwing the younger Breed against the rock wall of the cave as the knife he carried at his thigh was pressing into the other Breed’s jugular. “Need to know,” Thane rasped, his scarred lips pulling back into a demonic snarl as a growl rumbled in his chest. “If you needed to know, then I would have told you.” There was no fear in the other Breed’s eyes, only the knowledge that he had pushed too far.
“There are boundaries, boy,” Thane told him, his voice brutal as he glared into the younger Breed’s eyes. “Step over the line again, and you won’t have another chance.”
“Understood.” The other Breed didn’t lower his gaze, he didn’t look away. He didn’t show submission; what he showed, though, was agreement. That was all Thane needed.
Stepping back, he released the other Breed and moved back to the position he had taken before the low fire and lifted his coffee cup to sip at it as though nothing had happened.
“Then we’re all on the same page here?” Dog looked around at each man, their nods assuring him everything and everyone was in place and knew their places.
Finishing his coffee, he set the cup back in place before sauntering to the opening of the overhang.
“Be in place on time or you lose half of your commission,” he informed them all without turning back. “And stay out of sight of those f**king satellites.”
“Dog.”
It was Thane who had him pausing and glancing back.
“What are you going to do when Jonas learns the game you’re playing here?”
Dog’s brow arched. “He’s never going to know.”
CHAPTER 23
“I want out of this suite, and tonight.”
Liza was waiting in the sitting room when Stygian walked into the suite.
Dressed in jeans, low-heeled western boots and a white cotton camisole top, she looked like a wet dream come to life.
Denim encased her legs and ass like a lover’s hand, making him simply jealous as hell at the thought of another man thinking all the nasty thoughts that were rolling through his mind.
The long, heavy strands of dark blond hair were pulled up from the sides of her face and secured at the top of her head then left to tumble down her back.
The camisole smoothed over her br**sts before disappearing into the band of the extremely low-rise jeans, which were secured with a wide belt. That belt and the cotton of the camisole tucked into her jeans, he swore, were the only things covering the upper curves of her pu**y.
“It’s not safe—”
“What isn’t safe is keeping me locked in this room one more night,” she warned him, the scent of not just her irritation, but also the edge of panic she was barely holding on to, reaching his senses.
Why panic? What had happened to leave her feeling the desperate fear she was fighting to keep such a hold on?
“We have signs of two different teams in the desert watching this hotel. Tell me you’re certain they’re not watching for you and Claire and I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and stared back at her, wondering if he could dare take her where other men could see her, watch her, perhaps attempt to touch her without the animal inside him going completely berserk.
As it was now at just the thought of such a thing happening.
“Fine, I’m certain they’re not watching for us,” she said with a shrug of bravado and an air of superiority. “Now, I want out of this room.”
He would have been amused if it weren’t for the fact that he could feel his primal instincts pacing furiously at just the thought of any other male touching her, coming on to her, or in any way threatening his tenuous hold on her emotions.
And he was very well aware of the fact that his hold on those emotions was tenuous.
Fuck!
Was he refusing to allow her out because of the danger, or because of his jealousy and fear of losing her?
There wasn’t a single female Breed mate that wasn’t constantly in danger, yet they weren’t locked in their respective communities on a permanent basis. Hell, some of them didn’t even live within the Breed communities, and so far, their protection even during times of danger had been effective.
There were ways of ensuring their freedom as well as their security, and Stygian knew it.
“Why? You haven’t been here long enough to have contracted cabin fever, so why is it so imperative that you get out tonight?”
“Because I’ve finally had enough.” Her chin lifted, eyes narrowed. “Enough, Stygian. Now get me the hell out of here.”
Yeah, she’d had enough. The scent of her determination to get out of the hotel was so heavy in the room that Stygian could sense nothing else coming from her.
He nodded slowly. “It will take a few hours to arrange everything.”
“Claire and Chelsea are going as well,” she informed him. “So while you’re picking out bodyguards, pick out theirs.”
He would have grinned if it weren’t for the fact that his dick was driving a spike of agonizing hunger raging through him.
She was hot as hell when she got all stubborn like that. She made him want to cover her and show all the ways he could definitely control all that feminine aggression roiling through her.
Liza watched the flare of arousal, brighter, hotter than she’d seen it before as it flared in his gaze. Giving in to him was a desire that wasn’t easy to push back. It tugged at her with regret and pricked at the determination racing through her.
She couldn’t stay in this room any longer.
She couldn’t stare in that mirror another second and see the girl she had been, the fear she had known, the desperation that had been so much a part of her that summer.