Styx's Storm (Breeds 16)

"The Sinclair mating anniversary." Marx looked over the heavily laden tables. "You can smell that pig roasting all the way to the main gates."

"Aye, the Breeds on duty this evening have already called, bitching. The scent they say is starving them to death."

Marx chuckled at the comment before standing awkwardly for long moments.

"I hear you have a captive," he drawled. "Something about a woman that's leading you a merry little chase."

Styx grinned. "She is at that."

Marx shook his head, his brown eyes filling with amusement as he inhaled slowly. "There's no mating scent, man. What the hell is going on with that?"

Styx lifted his hand to rub at the back of his neck as he gave Marx a confused look. The other man rarely poked his nose into anyone else's business. Hell, when he wasn't on assignment he rarely came down from the mountain the Coyotes used as their home base, unless he had to.

"No one said it was a mating," Styx informed him.

Styx was unwilling to discuss the details or the problems associated with this particular mating.

"True." Marx inclined his head in agreement as he looked around at the food once again.

Most Breeds were difficult to read at the best of times. They learned to control their emotions and therefore their hormonal scents, making it harder to sense if a Breed were lying, telling the truth, or perhaps hungry and needing to join a celebration he wasn't familiar with.

"Are you going back to Haven for a while?" Styx asked as he covered the last roast pig with a large sheet of foil, aware of other Breeds beginning to move into the courtyard.

"For a while," Marx answered absently. "Hey, have you seen Wolfe and Hope around? I wanted to say hello while I was here."

Talking to Marx was never easy. He shifted from one conversation to the next without warning and normally without finishing the previous conversation.

"They're visiting with Dash and Elizabeth," Styx informed him.

Dash didn't normally keep his family in Haven on a full-time basis. Cassie actually spent much of her time in Sanctuary. At the time that Dash had needed Breed help in protecting his new mate and her child, Haven had been a carefully guarded secret. Sanctuary, the Feline Breed compound, had been fully operational, with the Breeds of all species arriving almost daily from rescues and escapes. Dash had called the Felines, and Cassie had stayed there while Dash and her mother neutralized that first of many threats to the child.

"I'll catch up with them." Marx nodded. "See ya later, Styx."

Styx watched the other man leave, a frown on his brow before he shook his head. Marx had always been an odd one.

"Faith, the pork is perfect and ready." He turned to the Wolf Breed liaison to the Bureau of Breed Affairs.

Vivid black eyes, shoulder-length reddish brown hair and a creamy, satiny complexion. Tall and lithe, competent and deadly when she had to be, and still, she managed to look soft, gentle and without a merciless

bone in her body.

Styx knew for a fact that Faith could and would kill as fast as any Breed male. Perhaps faster. Breed females were hardened in the labs in ways the males weren't. In many cases they were considered no more than toys to the soldiers and Council trainers. The fact that they had managed to maintain the innocence of their hearts amazed Styx.

Faith had escaped the worst of it, but still, life had been brutal for her there.

"Great." A ready smile crossed Faith's lips as she moved from the vegetable table to the roast pork. "It smells wonderful."

"Aye, a'course it does." Styx winked. "I did the deed myself."

Faith laughed, those unusual black eyes twinkling in delight.

"Is your captive coming to the feast?" she teased him then. "She's stayed hidden in the past weeks. I was hoping to get to meet her."

"Aye, tonight she'll be here." He nodded. "I wanted to get the pork from the pit and finish preparations before escorting her to the party."

Faith nodded. "Nikki mentioned the tests she's been doing." Her gaze flashed in concern. "Have there been any answers there?"

Styx shook his head. "And they're beginnin' to piss me off, Faith," he growled.