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She breathed in slowly. “No, Pride Leader. Someone is selling secrets concerning mating heat to a drug manufacturer who is now experimenting on non-Breeds. And they’re doing it for money.”
The roar of rage that shook the cabin had her flinching, and this time she stepped behind Mercury willingly. Because in over twenty years of dealing with the Leo, she had never, not even once, seen the rage in him that now filled his son.
And Leo had never, in all the years Dane had been an adult, jumped for Dane as Callan did. It took Jonas, Rye and Mercury to pull him back, as Dane rose slowly to his feet and Ria watched the compassion flicker across his features.
The moment he was pulled back, Callan jerked from the others’ hold, stalked to the other side of the room and fought for control.
She watched his shoulders bunching, tensing, as Mercury moved back to her, obviously protecting her.
“Perhaps we should have been a bit more delicate,” Dane commented with a snort. “It seems the pride leader has a bit of a temper.”
“Ms. Rodriquez, is the Leo’s number on your speed dial?” Jonas asked carefully.
Ria remained silent.
“He’s on mine, whelp,”
Dane grunted. “Would you like to call him and tell him what we’re investigating? Go ahead, split his loyalties between Sanctuary and the twins my mother just gave birth to before flying out to save her older son. I’m certain those babes don’t need her, even if they do appear to be ill at the moment.” Disgust laced his voice. “Why the bloody hell do you think he doesn’t know about it now?”
That wouldn’t stop Leo from blasting her and Dane both with his anger, though, once he learned about it.
“Callan.” Ria stepped forward, ignoring Mercury’s warning growl as Callan turned, his head lowered, those dangerous eyes watching her closely, the rage burning in him so close to the surface that it washed from him in waves. “Any coup needs an event to give it momentum. You were nearly killed and you’ve been recovering from it. Your senses aren’t back to peak, Sanctuary is ripe for a takeover. Someone is moving to destroy you from the inside out. If the information Dane uncovered is correct, then it’s only a matter of weeks before those secrets are completely shifted to the researchers. We can’t risk that. My job was to uncover the culprit or culprits. And there were very few people we were certain weren’t involved in this, until I had spent some time with those files myself.”
“We knew you weren’t involved,” Dane told him, his voice harsh. “But other than that, we couldn’t be certain. Whoever is moving on you and getting this information out is a strong enough force that other Breeds, enough of them, may back him.”
“There are very few Breeds strong enough to do that,” Callan snapped.
“Exactly,” Dane agreed. “We couldn’t risk the information being leaked, and you trust your inner circle with your life. We had to make certain no one in that inner circle was involved before coming to you.”
Callan turned to Mercury then. “There was no order to relieve you of your rank,” he told him. “And there was no order to confiscate your weapon, your uniform or to force you into testing.”
“You have interoffice memos being falsified?” Dane’s eyes narrowed. “Are you using the tracking equipment we sent you last year?
The caustic look Callan shot him was thick with disgust.
“So you are.” Dane grimaced. “Have you traced them yet?”
“We’re still working on it.”
“Many of the memos coming from Sanctuary to the research institute and subsidiary contacts have come from one office,” Ria informed them then. “I’ve traced the information piggy-backing memos as well as scientific purchases to three locations directly connected to Brandenmore Research.”
“Who?” Callan’s voice was dangerous, savage, the enraged primal male just beneath the surface rising to the fore once more.
“From the Breed labs,” she said softly. “Dr. Elyiana Morrey’s office. And from Pride Leader Lyons’s personal computer.”
Mercury braced his hands on the table and stared at the proof Ria had managed to slip from the files and electronic messages she had duplicated from the office she worked in at Sanctuary. Proof that their safeguards weren’t worth shit, because under the watchful eye of the security cameras she had managed to slip the most incriminating evidence against Ely from the labs. The evidence was pretty damned incriminating against Callan as well.
“I’m not entirely convinced, either way in regards to Dr. Morrey’s involvement,” she stated. “But my suspicions against her have risen by the day. Her aggression when I refused to submit myself to her testing procedures upon my arrival. Her determination to induce the feral adrenaline in Mercury’s system, and her insistence that he be confined. Mercury was trained in a variety of highly sensitive and exacting areas before the feral displacement showed itself. And even after, many of the areas he excelled in still carried high ratings.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Jonas snapped. “Most of the Breed records from his lab were destroyed.”
“Vanderale Industries was hacking labs while you were still in nappies,” Dane sneered back at him. “We’ve had those files for years. Leo was arranging an op against that particular lab to rescue several of the Breeds when news hit that the labs were being hit. Mercury was one of the Breeds he was most concerned about.”
Mercury glanced up at him silently.
Dane sighed. “You’re trained in code, Mercury. Don’t bother denying it. We’ve seen your files. You’re trained to both create and crack sensitive coding. It was part of several of your missions.”
“Not like this.” Mercury waved his hands to the printouts of the information spread out over the kitchen table. I was trained in military code, not in whatever they’re doing here.”
