“Jonas is on his way,” Del Rey informed them. “I notified him when I heard the shots Cat fired.” He glanced at her questioningly. “What were you firing at?”
“To get your attention.” She shrugged. “I needed the trash taken out, and I didn’t trust these two to do it effectively.” Flicking her fingers at Lobo and Graeme, she gave both men a tight, hard smile. “I assumed you would contact Jonas that you were going in, though. Tell him he can thank me for the packages. I’ll send him my bill soon. It wasn’t easy.”
Graeme made a funny, guttural sound, as though he were quietly strangling behind her. She hoped he was. She couldn’t believe he’d actually been going to torture two Jackals and Raymond Martinez. All three were invaluable sources of information where the Council was concerned. Besides the fact that this evidence against Raymond was simply a godsend for the charges the Bureau of Breed Affairs was trying to prove to bring the chief before a Breed tribunal for crimes against Breed Law.
All that, and a favor Jonas would definitely owe her now. If Graeme had played nice to begin with, then she would have allowed him to take credit.
“Nicely done, Cat,” Lobo murmured at her shoulder. “Not excessively wise, perhaps, but nicely done.”
“And you can tell him Gideon made contact,” she snapped to the Coyote alpha. “He captured them; I merely kept him from killing them. And Graeme has cameras here somewhere that recorded every second of it with full audio as well as video. He has them all nicely wrapped up and tied with a very pretty bow. If Jonas is nice, I’m certain Lobo will agree to send a copy of the security videos.”
“And your bill will be in the mail,” Del Rey snickered, his gaze as amused as the scent of his laughter when he turned to Lobo. “She’s worth keeping, isn’t she?”
Graeme’s low growl earned him her elbow in his side while Lobo’s chuckle hid the sound of the warning rumble.
“Only if she wants to be kept,” Cat assured him with sharp sarcasm as she jerked from Graeme’s hold and moved to the staircase. “Tell Jonas we’ll talk later. It’s late and I’m really not in the mood to deal with more arrogant, superior Breeds without sleep. I’ll talk to all of you later.”
“Cat?” Del Rey had her pausing and turning back to him. “Are you okay?”
Her brow lifted at the question. “I’m walking and talking, right?”
“A bit stiffly,” he acknowledged with a hint of a grin. “Do we add assault to the Jackals list of charges?” It was evident he wanted to.
“Add it to Raymond’s,” she informed them shortly, preferring not to go into details. “Any damage done, he inflicted it.”
“Brave little tigress, yes?” Ashley piped up, the Russian accent heavier as she held back her laughter.
“Brave?” her sister questioned. “I don’t know if ‘bravery’ is the word for it.”
Cat glanced back at the two Breed females, aware of more than a dozen pairs of male Breed eyes on her. Particularly one, the Bengal posing as a Lion.
“Bravery?” She let her gaze slide over the males. “Self-preservation, ladies. Self-preservation.”
? CHAPTER 9 ?
Graeme watched as his delicate little mate moved unhurriedly up the stairs, her cute little ass bunching in the most delicious way.
Turning, he growled at the other males in the room watching as well, especially the two Jackals watching him with narrowed consideration.
The first spoke up. “She doesn’t carry your scent, Lion. I sense the bond, but not the completion of it. Complete it, before your rival does.”
The rumble of warning in his chest was one the Jackal took seriously. Shrugging as though it were none of his business, and ignoring the Wolf Breed at his side whose warning growl backed up the primal command, the stronger Jackal let a smile quirk his lips.
“Hey, Lion,” he said, calling Graeme’s attention back to him. “My name is Kiel, my partner Lowen. It would pay you to find a moment to speak to us before we meet Jonas’s volcano. Which I’m certain we will sooner rather than later.”
The rumor of Jonas’s volcano was a truth many scoffed at. The volcano meant there was no evidence, no trace of the director’s steps to ensure that certain types of evil were extinguished forever.
“Why would I want to do that?” Graeme sneered.
He’d learned all he needed to know, that when it came to Cat, he was far too susceptible to her desires.
Pale yellow eyes flashed with a moment—just the faintest heartbeat—of somber knowledge before a mocking smile crossed his lips. “Just for the hell of it perhaps.”
Just for the hell of it.