Rule Breaker (Breeds 20)

She was his weakness, and he didn’t dare allow anyone to learn that secret.

Not again.

CHAPTER 27

Rule would have missed it if Lawe hadn’t forced him to stop, forced him to use his senses and the knowledge he’d gained over the months where his incredible little mate was concerned. And Lawe wouldn’t have known if Cassie, God bless her heart, hadn’t contacted him just before Rhyzan had allowed Gypsy to overhear the cruel, destructive words that had spewed from her mother’s lips.

As Gypsy had stood still, her gaze locked on the shattered screen, the soul of the woman he realized was more than just his soul ruptured in such agonizing knowledge that Rule wanted to howl with fury. Riding quick on its heels was something far more dangerous, more destructive than her pain, though. The link he hadn’t known he’d established within the stubborn, independent little hellion snapped quietly, so naturally going into effect that if Lawe hadn’t forced him to wait for it, he might not have realized it was there until too late.

And he would have missed perhaps the second most important moment of not just his life, but also Gypsy’s.

Gypsy had realized something far more than her mother’s belief that the daughter had been the cause of the son’s death.

She had realized something far more dangerous, to herself.

Turning down the hall to their suite nearly an hour later, Rule watched with narrowed eyes as Lawe stood outside his door with several other Breeds.

He could feel Gypsy tensing, uncertainty rising within her as Lawe nodded to the nearest enforcer. The Wolf stepped to the door, unlocked it quickly and pushed it open.

“I need to talk to Kandy,” Gypsy protested, though only halfheartedly, he realized as he dragged her into the room.

The door closed behind them.

“To tell her good-bye?” Using his hold on her wrist, he swung her into his embrace, one hand going to the back of her neck to ensure that his gaze met hers as she stared up at him in surprise.

And in an undercurrent of nervous suspicion.

“Good-bye?” Bravado suddenly gleamed in her eyes. “Why would I need to tell her good-bye?”

“What did you remember, Gypsy, that has you steeling yourself to die?” he asked, rather than answering her question. “Why did I suddenly sense the fifteen-year-old child you once were, filled with such guilt and self-hate, suddenly still, before she winked away as though she had never existed? Did she finally realize that what happened that night wasn’t her fault?” His head lowered, his lips pulling back from his teeth furiously. “Did she finally figure out that the same person might have betrayed her and her brother both?”

...

How had he known? How could he know?

Gypsy stared back at the Breed whose presence in her life had changed so many things, too many things too fast; she felt a part of her soul that lay so undefended, so raw and bleeding since the moment she realized who and what had taken a child’s only security, fill with something so much stronger, so much more intuitive than anything she had ever known.

Suddenly everything was more intense, more intent.

Each sound,

each scent, the brush of air across her flesh, the heat of her mate’s body next to hers, the feel of him, inside her spirit, where none should exist but herself.

Yet Rule was there. A comfort. A strength that grounded her as nothing had ever grounded her before.

She couldn’t tear her gaze from him.

Gypsy felt her breathing slowly even, felt the heartbeat that she hadn’t known had been racing with fear suddenly slow and calm.

“Lawe and I survived because of a bond no one knew we had,” he growled, satisfaction glittering in his eyes as that presence inside her refused to vacate. “Because we could strengthen each other. Because we could open ourselves, allow each other in, and whether the strength we needed was physical or psychological, we could provide it. Until he mated. Until I realized he was building a much stronger, much more intuitive bond with the woman he called his mate.”

She shook her head, emotions rioting through her as she realized there was nothing she could hide from this man, this Breed. There was nothing she could do to hide from him, and nothing she could do to protect him.

She couldn’t push him out. She couldn’t hold on to the fear, the driving fury or the hunger for vengeance. She couldn’t shut that inner, emotional door on the Breed who had stood by her side since the night she had stared across a crowded bar into his eyes . . .

“Far longer than that,” he revealed as her eyes widened in disbelief. “I’ve been by your side, Gypsy, since you were fifteen years old. If not I, then later, Cullen Maverick. Or should I say, the Bengal Judd.”

He knew what she had suspected? That Cullen Maverick was the Breed Jonas searched so desperately for?