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“Armani!” he screamed out as he rushed inside the spa.
She was here. They had left her in the protection of the building.
“Del-Rey.” The doctor was there, rushing to his side. “Heli-jet is in the street, hurry.”
By her side were the two Coyote doctors. They were jabbering about inoculations, blood loss and fevers as he jumped into the jet.
“Lay her here.” A carrier was stretched out at his feet. “We have to get her to Medic. I have to stop the bleeding.”
Her shirt was ripped open and Del-Rey felt the fear that tore through him.
“Move, Ghost.” Alexi Chernov pushed him to the side. “Let me in there. Blood clotting should go fast,” he snapped to Armani as Del-Rey fell back. “The inoculations saved our lives when the Council nearly caught up with us. The boost to immunity has resulted in surprising little extras.”
“The blood flow isn’t as hard as it should be. We don’t know if the bullet hit an organ. Did it go out the back . . . ?”
The three doctors were shouting at one another as they surrounded her. The heli-jet lifted off, banked and shot through the sky to Haven as Del-Rey wiped his face with shaking hands and found tears on his cheeks.
His mate, his heart. She was bleeding, wounded. Her flesh was like fire to touch, her lips nearly blue. As Brim’s had once been. So cold.
He edged around until he was at her head, bent and laid his lips at her brow. “I love you, Coya,” he whispered. “Live for me, baby. Live for me. Because I can’t live without you.”
He stayed like that. He could warm her no other way. He held her head steady, his lips pressed to her forehead, and told himself it was the dampness of sweat that dripped to her brow rather than his tears.
Nikki Armani stood back in the surgical room of the medical facility in Haven and watched Chernov and Sobolova work steadily to stabilized Anya Kobrin.
Del-Rey sat by her side, his arm stretched out, a transfusion of his blood moving slowly from his strong wrist to his mate’s. His head rested beside hers, and sometimes, she swore she heard the big, rough Coyote praying.
Jonas, Wolfe, Callan, Hope, Dash Sinclair, his mate and daughter waited in the observation room, watching silently, their expressions somber.
“The hormonal fluctuations are too severe,” Katya Sobolova stated. “You can’t give such hormones during the fever. We need to counteract them.”
“She’s conceived,” Nikki argued then. “We can’t afford to mess with the hormones; it could harm the child.”
“You don’t give hormones to Coyotes in heat,” Katya stated. “It results in pregnancy every time. This we didn’t want the Council to know. From the creation of the first Coyote, our grandparents knew they were exceptional. Different in all ways. Their true potential was always hidden. That was the reason for the practice of killing their creators. That directive was given to them, even as babes. Their escapes resulted in their creators’ deaths. Destruction of all records. There were very few who could manipulate those genetics.”
Nikki stared at the other woman in shock. “That’s why the Council has been searching for you.”
Katya smiled. “We are two of the few Coyote scientists left living. There are no known records of the Coyotes now. Normally, Coyotes themselves took care of killing us. If not the Coyotes, then the doctors assigned to us. They knew their duty.” She glanced fondly at Anya’s still face. “This one, she hid us during that rescue. The doctors searched for us, but we stayed where she placed us for days, and finally we found another hidden exit from the room.”
“If the geneticists that worked on the Coyotes were Council, why make that directive?” Nikki shook her head in confusion.
“The past generations, our fathers and grandfathers, they, like us, could not tell the Council no. They would kill the families of those scientists as well. Our grandparents destroyed records and placed false ones instead. They reported that the Coyotes were as the Council wanted. Soulless, without mercy. They are without mercy, no doubt, but it was always easy to know those who would kill without compunction and those who would kill only when needed. So few Coyotes were created compared to other Breeds, that we were able to work together, pull those we knew were worthy to only certain labs where they would have a chance at life.” She shrugged. “Some of us succeeded, some did not. In Russia and in the Middle East, we succeeded. I hope you saved the scientist in charge there.” She glanced at Nikki. “Simply amazing. She was the brightest in our field for her young age. As though the Almighty reached down his hand and opened her mind to this area in a way no mind had ever been opened. Incredible.”
“There are no reports that she survived,” Nikki said.
“Ah.” Katya shook her head. “This is too bad. She was an angel sent to know things the rest of us only have questions about. We were attempting to contact her when Anya found us.”
“Bleeding is contained,” Chernov said quietly, nodding to Del-Rey. “Take him loose.”
Nikki shut the valve off and eased the needles from both their arms as Del-Rey refused to take his eyes from his mate.
“Give her a few hours to stabilize,” Chernov ordered as he applied the skin adhesive over the wound. “We’ll need blood samples then. Several. If you don’t get her off those hormones, she will go straight back into heat as soon as this babe is born. You don’t want that.”
“We have another mated Coyote,” Nikki said. “His wife hasn’t conceived.”
Chernov snorted. “She was not inoculated as this one was with an immunization created from Coyote blood. Coyote females will breed, Dr. Armani. We’ve always known this. This is why so very few females were allowed to live. We couldn’t risk it.”
“Why the girls in Russia?” Nikki asked.
