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Callan’s lips flattened as he turned to Kane Tyler.
The ex-military head of Sanctuary’s security was staring back at Scheme with brutal gray eyes as Callan spoke softly to him. Kane nodded sharply before his gaze moved behind her.
“Jackal. ” He said the name coldly.
“I got it, Commander. I’ll get on him now. ” Jackal, the scarred, bass-throated stranger Scheme had fallen into when Tanner had returned her to the caverns had entered the room with Jonas, Cabal and several Breed Enforcers.
Scheme glanced back in time to see him leaving the room quickly.
She turned back to the cabinet. “I have names, locations and profiles of the contacts Cyrus has that I’ve met. Jonas has most of them, but lately, there’s been a stream of purist and supreme race leaders and commanders passing through the Tallant estate. I don’t know if he’s gaining support or planning to make a larger attack than he’s attempted before. I know the Inner Council is losing faith in him. ”
“Bastards!” Callan cursed. “Why do you think they’re amassing?”
Scheme licked her dry lips. “I think they’re awaiting the kidnapping of your son and the chaos it will cause. Every Breed alive will be out looking for him. Breeds will begin striking Council strongholds and hitting their members. It’s what they want. They want the Breeds to shed blood, they want to prove to the world how vicious, how merciless you can be. And they believe David Lyons’s disappearance will do that. Once you’re destroyed, they’ll then use your son as a base for the new generation of Breeds. Ones they can control. They feel they’ve learned from their mistakes and that the killers they envision are finally within reach. ”
It was insane, but Scheme had never believed there was any sanity within the Council to begin with. The scientists that created and oversaw the labs were cold, w
ithout emotion. The Breeds were an experiment to them, nothing more. They were disposable because they were created rather than born. They saw them as animals, without soul.
The Breeds were their chance to do the experiments they dreamed of. Learning how far the human body could possibly be pushed, how to immunize against particular diseases, how the brain and the body functioned together. The Breeds were stronger, more enduring than normal humans, which made them perfect for such experimentation.
“Do you have any information that can shed any light on who we’re looking for?” Callan asked then, leaning forward intently. “We need more than this, Scheme. We need something to catch one of our own. That won’t be easy. ”
“They’re trained in subversive infiltration. ” She rubbed at her head, trying to think past the arousal that filled it. Tanner was too close, his body too much of a temptation. And she needed. She needed so desperately. “The spy he recruited posed as a Breed that followed his trainers to gain information, when in fact he was no more than a double agent of sorts. ”
“The same training Tanner received, then?” Callan asked. “The same training many of the Breeds received. We weren’t all trained as assassins. ”
Scheme sighed. “The profiles are similar from the quick glance I caught of it. ”
Callan chuckled at Tanner’s growl. “Let me guess. You were afraid Tanner was our spy?”
Scheme glanced at Tanner. The question didn’t set well with him.
“I was. ”
Callan shook his head, his expression somber, concerned.
“Miss Tallant, I would be pleased to offer you Sanctuary,” he said then. “I understand that this moment isn’t the best time for what we’re doing as far as the mating heat is concerned, but I hope you can stay here and talk to us a bit longer?”
She stared back at him in surprise.
“Yeah. ” Dawn spoke up then, her voice amused, her gaze cynical. “We can all smell how bad you want to bed the little Bengal. ”
Scheme felt her face flaming.
“Dammit, Dawn,” Tanner retorted. “Drop it. ”
Dawn rolled her expressive whiskey brown eyes and restrained the smile tugging at her lips.
Scheme hated having something so personal, so uncontrollable being so easily detected by these fierce men and women. Strangely, she didn’t hate the arousal that was continually building. The sensitivity of her flesh, the sharp awareness of Tanner sitting so close beside her.
“We need to reschedule this meeting,” Tanner said. “Scheme needs to eat and change clothes and rest for a while. She’s not going to be able to give you what you need as clearly as she could if she had a break. ”
Callan glanced at the others before sighing deeply. “Agreed. We’ll meet back here in a few hours. ” He turned to Jonas. “Get me the rest of those files together, then you can sit down here and explain to me why the agents you and Tanner had in place didn’t pull her out of that damned coffin when her father buried her. I’ll expect something a bit more than I read in the reports you supplied before heading out to find Tanner. ”
Tanner froze in the act of helping Scheme from her chair. She went still, the smell of her fear slamming in his face as he stared into her eyes. She knew. She had known there were Breed agents within her father’s inner circle that could have helped her, and she had refused to ask for that help.
He knew her now. Knew she would have died rather than ask those men or women to betray themselves. His gaze lifted to Callan, and he saw the condemnation in his brother’s eyes. In Merinus’s. Kane’s. They thought he had known. They thought he had left an innocent woman to suffer, to possibly die in a way that they all knew was filled with horrendous fear and suffering.
