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Emma hunkered beside her, crying as well as she laid her head at the stone wall beside Anya’s.
“Anya.” Precious Ashley. Her face was pale, her lips quivering, tears streaking her face as she knelt in front of Anya, then curled into a small ball on her side, her head in Anya’s lap. “I don’t like this,” she sobbed at Anya’s knee. “I don’t like this. They separated us. They took you from us,” she cried. “I don’t like this, Anya.”
Anya sobbed with her.
“Don’t let them take you from us,” Emma whispered tearfully. “Please, Coya. You’ve always been our coya. You’ve always been our leader. Don’t let them take us anymore.”
Her fierce, ditzy little Ashley. Anya buried her hand in the girl’s hair as she laid her head against Emma’s, then reached up and drew Sharone to them.
Untamed, so filled with pride, and yet tears streamed down Sharone’s face as she laid her head against Anya’s shoulder. And not for the first time, they cried together, and they grieved. Because freedom was supposed to mean they would never lose one another. That never again could an order separate them. And yet that was exactly what had torn them apart. The order of the man Anya loved.
It was almost over. Tomorrow, it would finish. If she could manage to hold on, just a while longer, then it would be over. She would be the traitor and the Coyotes that had once followed her would once again follow Del-Rey.
And Anya would finally, irrevocably, be alone.
Del-Rey stepped into the infirmary slowly. Rage was burning a hole in his mind as he listened to the reports on the comm link. Anya hadn’t been found, and neither had her bodyguards. She had gone into the caverns and simply disappeared.
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Sitting on a gurney was his brother, the youngest, the one Del-Rey had despaired of saving when the boy was no more than a babe. And now, Del-Rey wanted to kill him.
Jax sat on the gurney, wincing as Regan stitched a part of his ear back where it belonged. Cavalier was there, under guard, willingly.
There were six Coyote soldiers covering him, but behind them were six others, the Russian Coyotes, and they looked furious.
He stared at Jax as the other man stared at the floor, refusing to lift his head.
“Ashley cut his ear off,” Brim reported. “Cavalier nicked the skin over his jugular.”
Cavalier was leaning against the wall, eyes narrowed, arms crossed over his powerful chest.
This was the man who never stepped out of line. He followed every order, fought like hell, and Del-Rey knew, he would fight to the death. He had never so much as struck at any of the men who had sworn loyalty to Del-Rey.
“That pup,” Cavalier spoke first, nodding to Jax. “The next chance I get, I’m slitting his throat. When I do, I’m going to watch him bleed like the gutless rat he is, Delgado.”
Delgado. Not alpha, not Del-Rey. The subtle insult was acceptable, but grating.
“Where is my mate?” That was all that concerned him. He’d find Anya, then figure this out.
Cavalier laughed at that. A harsh, grating sound that had a growl coming from his throat.
“Ask that little whelp brother of yours what he did to your mate.” Cavalier sneered at the title. “What he called her. Your whore I believe it was.”
Jax flinched as Del-Rey turned on him. He gripped his brother’s hair, jerking his head back and staring into his blue eyes. Eyes like the woman that birthed them. A deep, dark blue that swam with misery.
“What did you do?”
Jax was often impulsive, but he was never cruel. And he was intelligent, too smart to do anything to harm Del-Rey’s mate. God save him, Del-Rey prayed. He would hate to kill his own brother.
“I didn’t understand,” Jax said, making no apologies, knowledge of his own death filling his eyes. “I thought she had betrayed us. That you had rejected her because she was a traitor.”
Del-Rey felt every bone, every muscle clench in his body. “What did you do?”
“He touched her,” Cavalier snarled. “He caused her to slip when he gripped her arm to jerk her into place. When she ran out of here, there was a knife wound at her thigh. I think I heard her wrist snap and I know I heard her head hit the wall. That motherfucker hurt our coya, you son of a bitch, and if you’re going to kill anyone, put the gun to your head first.”
Bleak, desperate fury lashed at Del-Rey. He heard the snarl that left his throat as he threw his brother from him to keep from killing him.
Cavalier laughed. “You can’t even protect her against your own men. You make her stay and play your whore for what?”
