The Council. Rather than negotiating with Washington and trying to play fair, they should have slipped into the homes of the bastards running that little show and sliced their throats. They didn’t deserve the mercy that had been afforded them.
In the past three months, since the discovery and rescue of nearly a hundred other Feline Breeds that Kane had located, the Council had waged a silent, deadly war against them. They hadn’t been neutralized as the government had promised they would be. They weren’t powerless as Kane had hoped would happen.
In the past month alone, four of their liaisons to the government and military had been murdered. The last, a young female, had been returned to them in pieces, literally. And now Roni would be in even more
danger. They needed her to understand the mating process that had been leaked to the media. Needed her to figure out the best way to control, or to destroy, the creations that had escaped them. Taber was determined that anyone who tried to take her would die.
Taber’s lip lifted in a snarl. “Let them try, Callan. I won’t play nice this time.”
Through the years they had tried to be merciful. They ran rather than killed, and they killed only when no other answer was available. They had gained more amusement, more satisfaction, in seeing the soldiers running back to base in disgrace rather than in pieces. But if one dared to touch Roni, then he swore there would be too many damned pieces for anyone to attempt to collect.
“None of us will play nice in such an event,” Callan assured him. “But this worries me. The Council has lain low until now, with the report of the second known mate to the Felines, and suddenly they’re moving. It leaves me wondering what they’ve been planning while they were so silent.”
Taber grunted. They had been waiting for the other shoe to drop for three months now, knowing that eventually the day would come when they had to face the monsters of their past without the public support they had garnered. But moving now made no sense.
“What do they want?” Taber shook his head. “No one has even tried to threaten Merinus since we came forward. Why now?”
“Because Kane has every damned C.I.A. agent in the world swearing vengeance if his baby sister is touched, and he has the clout to back it.” Callan grunted. “The Tyler family name is protecting her, for now. I don’t know if it would hold the same weight for Roni, or even if this is the reason why the Council hasn’t moved yet. It’s too soon to tell. At the moment all we have are questions and supposition. I need more information to be certain of anything.”
“Could be the hormones the female produces during heat,” the doctor spoke up as he stuck a swab between Taber’s lips and poked it under his tongue.
Taber frowned down at the impatient doctor as a low growl vibrated from his chest.
“Stop that.” Doc frowned back fiercely. “Remember who circumcised you. It could be castration next.”
“You’d have to get the chance first,” Taber snapped, ignoring the doctor’s chuckle as he walked away with the saliva sample. “Is he getting grouchier or what?”
Callan shook his head as he flashed Taber a laughing glance.
“Get my jollies where I can, young ‘un,” Doc griped as he messed with the various vials and solutions on another table. “Now, go pee pee in the cup for the good doctor and get me some little soldiers while you’re at it, and then you can run along and play again.”
Taber grimaced as he flashed the doctor a killing glance.
“You’re getting damned strange in your old age, Doc,” he growled as he took the two small plastic containers from the doctor and stomped back to the bathroom at the end of the lab. “Hope you at least left my f**king magazines back here. A man needs more than your cackles to get the soldiers to move, ya know.”
Chapter Ten
He didn’t need the magazines and wasn’t bothered by the cackles. Taber’s libido was raging and all it took was the remembered feel of Roni, her sweet heat and the rippling contractions of her tight pu**y, to bring his little soldiers spilling into the container as the doctor requested. He returned to the lab a short time after leaving it, placing the capped containers on the table before turning back to Callan.
“What else do I have to look forward to?” he grunted. “First I rape my mate, now I’m in Frankenstein’s lab jacking off. Are we having fun yet?”
Callan chuckled, though Doc Martin only grunted with the absent-minded attention of a man thoroughly engrossed in whatever the microscope was telling him.
“Come on. I have the reports in the office upstairs. From the looks of things it appears as if we have several orders going out, though we haven’t busted that code completely yet. Our informants are nervous as hell, and money has started shifting around in select accounts again. Kane has his sources working overtime, as well as the brothers, but it could be days before we know what the hell is going on.”
The story of their lives, Taber grimaced. The past three months had felt like years. The progress they made by revealing themselves to a sympathetic society was marked by each hurdle the Council placed before them. Even more alarming was the rise of several groups spouting a “pure blood” agenda. Breeds weren’t human, they had stated. Their animal DNA canceled them from any human rights to which they would have otherwise been entitled. The bastards were fanatical monsters and growing in number daily.
“We have the perimeter fences wired for sound and ready to record,” Taber told him as they took the stairs to the second floor quickly. “The animals were released last week and they’re working out wonderfully. Just make certain to keep Merinus in the protected areas until we know how well Cabal’s connection with them is working.”
Cabal was an enigma, and often a worry. He was the only Breed so far to show a natural connection with the predatory felines that the Breed’s DNA was a part of. There was a Bengal tiger, a lion and two cougars now guarding the woods. All female. All under the control of Cabal St. Laurens.
“So far, they’re as tame as kittens,” Callan grunted as they entered the office. “But I’m keeping an eye on things. Kane and Gray are moving into the house tonight to provide added protection for Merinus and we have most of our people back within the perimeters until we figure out what the hell is going on.”
“Why would they need a mate before conception?” Taber frowned as he picked up several of the reports they had and began reading. “There has to be something they’re looking for.”