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And Jonas. Jonas had kept those reports from him.
Tanner loosened his hold on Scheme, turning slowly to face the director of Breed affairs, a low growl building in his chest as Scheme’s soft voice whispered his name, only adding fuel to the rage building inside him.
“Tanner had no knowledge of the abuse being perpetrated within the Tallant estate against Miss Tallant, Callan,” Jonas said then. “That information was confined to myself. ”
“Why?” Tanner snarled. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I suspected she might be your mate,” he said softly. “Cabal had already made the connection and we needed the information—”
Deliberately, purposely, Tanner loosed the animal clawing inside him on the Lion Breed who had dared to allow Scheme to suffer in such a way. To allow her to be tied hand and foot with a cold electronic voice counting down her oxygen allowance within a coffin and buried beneath dirt.
He plowed into Jonas. They hit the wall, plaster cracking then falling away as the force of the two heavy male bodies crashed into it. Before Jonas could recover, Tanner found his feet and righted himself as he jerked Jonas back and slammed his fist into the other man’s face. He was pulling back for another strike a second before restraining hands were jerking him back, grappling with him, strident orders barking into his ear.
Tanner roared in outraged fury, struggling to break free as Jonas pushed himself slowly to his feet, a smug smile almost tugging at his lips.
“I said enough, goddammit. ” Callan was suddenly in his face, amber eyes blazing, his expression furious as Tanner snarled back in his face.
“My fucking mate. ” Rage was burning hard and hot inside him. Bucking against the hands holding him, he nearly broke free, nearly threw another punch at Jonas before Callan was in his face again, pushing him back as whoever dared to retain their hold on him jerked his arms back and wrapped his powerful arms around his neck. “You knew what that bastard was doing. You fucking knew and you didn’t save her. ”
“No. ” Scheme’s cry diluted the haze of red in front of his eyes; her soft hands slapping into his chest drew his gaze to her furious one.
“It was my choice,” she screamed back at him, her cheeks pale with fear and anger and damp with tears that still welled in her eyes. “Do you understand me! It was my choice to make. I knew Jonas’s men were part of Father’s soldiers. I knew and I didn’t ask them to save me. ”
“Dammit, Tanner, do you think I didn’t try to get her to come in?” Jonas yelled back at him, the growl in his voice filled with anger. “Do you think I didn’t give her a choice?”
He snarled back at Jonas before leveling his fury back on Scheme.
“Why?” he bit out with primal fury. “Why would you let him do that to you?”
Agony was racing through him. She hadn’t just allowed her father to bury her, but she had done it when she had a choice to escape.
“To convince him I knew nothing. ” Her chin lifted, her brown eyes glittering with furious intensity. “To prove to him that I wasn’t betraying him. That my mistakes were mistakes rather than the deliberate attempt to destroy him that they were. Because seeing him destroyed meant more to me than my own life. ”
Tanner shook off the hands holding him, restraining him. Violence pounded through his bloodstream, created a buzzing in his head that threatened to drown out the voice of reason in his mind.
“Never again,” he grated out. “You will never again place yourself in that kind of danger. ”
Her expression shifted then, became cold, calculating, filled with determination.
“I will do whatever it takes to see that monster destroyed,” she declared hoarsely. “This isn’t your choice now any more than it was your choice then. Don’t make the mistake of thinking for one moment, Tanner, that you can, or will, be allowed to dictate these choices to me. Because it will not happen. ”
“And don’t you think for one moment that I won’t tan your hide should you ever, fucking ever, make such a choice again. ”
CHAPTER 24
He’d had enough. Tanner admitted to himself that he had reached the point where he could deal with this situation in a sane and logical manner. His mate had lived in fear, in pain, under the threat of an agonizing death for ten years and he hadn’t known. Jonas had known. The Coyotes they had managed to recruit within Tallant’s organization had known and reported it to Jonas. But Tanner hadn’t known.
“Cabal. ” He heard the guttural sound of his own voice but couldn’t find the need to care that the animal part of his nature had risen so close to the surface.
Cabal had made the suggestion in the caves as they were preparing to meet Jonas at the heli-jet. To keep the pride confused about the mating, to allow them to believe that both of them had mated her. Even Jonas wouldn’t know any better. Their scents were too similar, their natures too extreme for the Breed community to ever doubt that it could have happened.
Not that Tanner would allow Cabal to touch his mate in any way. He couldn’t handle it. But her protection meant more than his comfort. If the spy thought he and Cabal both had mated her, then they would believe Cabal’s senses were too frayed by the mating heat, as well, for him to be watching closely.
He needed Cabal to be able to watch very closely indeed.
“I’m right behind you,” Cabal answered as Tanner gripped Scheme’s arm and pulled her to the door.
“Tanner. ” She jerked at her arm, sending a firestorm of possessive determination racing through him. “Stop dragging me around like this. ”
