Cross Breed (Breeds 23)

Then they waited.

The air of steady watchfulness never shifted. Not once was there a hint of aggression, hatred or conflict. They just stood there, all patient and easygoing, waiting on Dog to shift.

“Not going to happen.” He grinned, his hand gripping the holstered weapon as Mutt and Mongrel did the same. “So, tell me, John Kodiak and Troy Rain. What’s the sudden interest in my window that failed electronics don’t explain?”

The two Wolf Breeds stared back for long moments.

“Warned ya,” Rain muttered, amused and irritated at the same time, as Kodiak shifted a look his way.

Dog arched his brow and kept his attention on the more silent Breed. If danger came, if would be from this one, he knew. That air of calm that surrounded the Breed had to be a shield of sort. There wasn’t a Breed alive that calm and centered.

“We’re no danger to you or to your mate,” Kodiak assured him. “As I said, we were just checking it out.”

“Hmm.” Dog pursed his lips. He was highly doubtful of that. “You know I don’t believe you, right?” he pointed out.

Kodiak nodded slowly. “Yeah. I was getting that feeling.”

“Want to tell me something I’ll believe?” he asked. “Or do you want to fight your way out?”

Kodiak gave him an ironic grin. “That our only choice? Hell of a day when a Breed can’t even be a little curious. It’s not like you and your mate haven’t been moved out of here.”

He had a point, Dog admitted silently.

“Fight or talk,” Dog suggested.

The Breed stared back at him thoughtfully, his body shifting but not in preparation to fight. Or if he was, Dog was damned if he could sense it.

That damned air of complete nonconflict was fucking freaking him the hell out just to begin with. Any Breed that right with himself and who and what he was needed to die, just for the safety of all Breeds everywhere.

“Tell me,” Kodiak finally asked softly, his voice lower, his gaze thoughtful. “What do you know about your father?”

• CHAPTER 15 •

Nothing.

Cassie glared at the reports coming in on the tablet she carried as she and Ashley stepped from the elevator and headed up the hall to the apartment she and Dog had been assigned.

Her irritation level was rising along with the Heat sizzling in her body, and she wasn’t dealing with it well . The message she’d received from Dog more than an hour before informing her that he was delayed wasn’t setting well with her either.

She knew he’d returned to the building long before that. The diagnostics on the remains of the window had come through even before he’d returned, so he couldn’t be waiting on that. Jonas and Rule along with the deputy director, Rhyzan Brannigan were currently in a meeting with Seth Lawrence and his mate, Dawn, in regard to the window. Lawrence Industries manufactured the glass and electronics that reinforced the windows the Bureau used.

The disquiet she could feel gathering in the pit of her stomach was making her off-balance, the irritation was growing, and the Heat was so damned uncomfortable she swore she was going to break out in a sweat.

“All reports are in, Cassie,” Ashley stated as she followed her. “Even those from the dark web, and there’s not so much as a whisper of a Breed strike from anyone.”

Not even a whisper. There was a whisper, there always was; she just had to find it. And normally, she was damned good at finding those all-but-silent murmurings. But then, normally, her body wasn’t rioting for a mate’s touch either.

“Tell them to keep looking,” she ordered the other Breed, frowning as she tried to make sense of what she was feeling. “I want to know who that shooter was and who hired them. And I want that information now.”

“Well, now is a little illogical,” Ashley drawled, the Russian accent filled with mirth. “How ’bout quickly?”

Smart-ass Coyote.

Stopping at the door to the apartment, Cassie slapped her hand to the biometric plate, waited for the door to disengage then strode into the room.

“Fine, quickly,” she snapped, the heels of her shoes clicking across the tile entryway. “Real quick if you don’t mind.”

“Cassie, really, we’ll work our Coyote asses off to find it, if it’s out there,” the Breed assured her with a vein of flippant amusement. “But so far, there’s nothing.”