She tried to sense what he was thinking and feeling, but he held it back, keeping it carefully behind the shields that seemed such a natural part of him.

"Wish I could do that," she muttered in exasperation before pulling on the soft cotton tank top she was going to be forced to wear beneath her blouse. This was definitely a no-bra day.

"You could, if you tried." Megan stilled. She could hear the determination now, carefully banked.

Lifting the cotton blouse from the hook on the wall beside her, she shrugged into it, b.u.t.toning the loose material as she ignored him and his comment.

"I need to go into the office this morning." She tucked the shirt into her jeans before snapping them and latching her belt. "I'm sure I have plenty of paperwork piled up and waiting. I may as well take care of it while we're waiting for whatever answers you're going to come up with for this."

Braden crossed his arms over his chest. She ignored the action.

"The paperwork can wait." d.a.m.n. His voice hadn't changed; neither had his expression. That wasn't a good sign.

"For what?" She turned and faced him squarely now. It was better to get it out in the open and fight over it before they left the house. She was evidently not going to like whatever he had to say or he would have said it already.

"We have a job to do, Megan," he reminded her. "We have to find out why those Breeds were murdered and what the Council wants with you. We're not going to do that in this house f.u.c.king ourselves to death, or in the office completing your paperwork."

"I didn't tell you to infect me with that funky hormone s.h.i.t you have going on, Braden," she pointed out with a scowl. "So don't blame me for your own horniness."

He grunted at her declaration.

"Stop trying to change the subject." He straightened from the doorframe, pulling himself to his full s.e.xy, broad height as he stared down that perfect nose of his. Well, maybe not so perfect. She looked closer, barely detecting where the flattened plane appeared to be misaligned by the smallest degree. Aha, an imperfection. She knew he had to have one somewhere.

"So tell me what the subject is." Unfortunately, she was afraid she already knew. "I haven't heard you actually state anything, yet."

We're heading back into the desert today," he informed her. "Area Six fifteen, Section C. It's a small canyon we suspect Mark and Aimee may have gone to before heading to the gully where you found them."

Megan paused. "And you know this how?"

His lips quirked. "Jonas managed to pull another small bit of information out of that Coyote you let live. We're going to check the canyon because evidently the Coyotes hadn't made it there yet. That was their next stop. But we suspect Mark and Aimee might have stopped there."

"And you know this how?' she asked again.

"GPS tracking was turned off in their vehicle, but they kept a directional and mileage recorder on. a.n.a.lysis of the electronics indicates they were in that canyon for as long as twelve hours. Alive."

She stared back at him silently. She knew what he wanted. He wanted her to use the Empathic abilities she possessed to find the answers the others couldn't.

"It won't work," she told him softly. "If it would work, I wouldn't have to run to this desert to hide. I would have gone to my superiors and let them help me find a way to make it work."

"I'm not your superior, Megan," he reminded her, his voice dangerously deep now. "And the situation has changed. Because, baby, I can do more than just mute the emotions flowing around you. I can amplify them. Today we will find answers."

"Hold on just a d.a.m.ned minute." She rushed through the bedroom, determined to catch up with him as he moved down the stairs, obviously ignoring her.

"Braden Arness, you hold it right there," she snapped, grabbing the rail and taking the steps two at a time as she rushed after him.

He stopped all right, turning just in time for her to slam against his chest. She grunted at the hard contact, silently cursing the hard muscles before pushing back from him fiercely.

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about? You can amplify them?"

He arched his brows.

"Get your boots on and I'll show you. It's time to find answers, Megan.

It's obvious the Coyotes are not going to attack again any time soon and give me a chance to force the answers from them. And we can't stay here, hidden in the desert forever, waiting on them. We find our answers on our own now."

She stared back at him, fighting the fears rising inside her. She knew what it was like, the struggle to sift through the bleak emotions, the violence of lives forcibly taken. It was h.e.l.l, slicing into her brain with torturous strength. She had never managed it before, had never found so much as a glimmer of hope that it could be done. Even her grandmother, with her experience in controlling her abilities, had never truly been able to do it.

"And if I can't?" she asked, hating the thought of failing him, of failing them both. "I've tried before, Braden."

"Not with me you haven't," he pointed out coolly. "There comes a time, Megan, when you have to stop hiding and start fighting. I can help you if you'll let me."

Or he could force her to do it his way, whatever it took.

She saw it in his eyes, in the grim set of his mouth. She could feel her stomach twisting with nerves, her mind already rebelling against the coming pain. The emotions and horror attached to a violent death took years to recede from the area in which it occurred. It would be just as strong now as it had been when she first met him.

"Do you want to die like them?" he asked her then. "Do you let the Council win, Megan? Or do you fight back?"

She fought. The answer was instantaneous. She had never given anything up without a fight, she just didn't know how to fight this battle.

She moved around him carefully, stepping into the kitchen where her boots sat by the door, her holster and belt hanging on the coat rack on the wall. She stared at the Glock strapped into its protective holster before picking up her boots and pulling them on quickly. The belt went around her hips, the velcro anchors around her thigh. Moving to the hall closet, she opened the hidden door and lifted several sheathed knives from the velvet-covered shelf as well as a powerful snub-nosed machine gun.

"You're expecting them to be there," she said. She could feel it. Not in any sense of emotion or thoughts coming from Braden. but with an inborn gut-deep knowledge she couldn't explain.

"They've been watching the house." The information didn't surprise her.

"I suspect they haven't attacked because they're aware of the team of Felines watching from one of the points above us. They'll follow though. It's even possible they have a team in place."

"So how do you expect to get around them and into that canyon? And if we do, how am I supposed to figure anything out?' It seemed a recipe for disaster to her. "I can't function in those circ.u.mstances, Braden." The emotions would attack her if she abandoned the defenses she had built against them. Slight though they were, they allowed her to function for short amounts of time.

"You did fine in the gully the other day," he pointed out, his voice never deepening nor warming.

"You helped me." She knew that, realized it with an aching sense of failure. "I hid in that shield you have around yourself."

"Because I let you." His voice was lower, dangerous. "I've let you use the shields, because you needed them. Your mind needed to learn how they worked, even if it did so subconsciously. As powerful as I suspect you are, you'll learn quickly how to create your own shields by using mine as a guide."

A bitter smile curved her lips. "And if it doesn't work?"

"Then we're both in a s.h.i.tload of trouble." There was no doubt in his voice. "Do you want to risk that?"

Her lips trembled as she pressed them tightly together. Rather than speaking, she bent to strap one of the knives below her knee, the other to her thigh.

"I don't like the way you stack the odds. Have your buddies take out the team watching us here," she suggested.

He grunted. "If they can, they will. There's always the chance they can't. Now let's get moving. I want to get there before noon."

He turned and strode from the house, clearly expecting her to follow him. d.a.m.n. And she was going to do it, she knew she was. He smelled of danger, of adventure, of a way to conquer her demons and find the freedom she had longed for all these years.

And, in that moment, as hopeless as he made the mission seem, she knew he wouldn't carelessly drive them into the arms of their enemy. He had been doing this all his life, planning each move, each battle. He knew what he was doing.

That didn't mean she had to like it.

It didn't mean he wasn't going to tell her exactly what was going on. In that moment she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was no more than a test. The decision to follow him, to trust him. And she would be d.a.m.ned if she wasn't going to pa.s.s it.

Braden kept his expression calm, his shields carefully in place as Megan opened the door to the Raider and jumped into her seat.

"GPS, pull up Area Six-fifteen, Section C, Casper's Pa.s.s." The windshield immediately became a crosssection of lines and map points as he backed the Raider into the turning area and pulled out.

"There's the canyon. Lance and I always called it Casper's Pa.s.s, though officially it has no name. We named it that for the sound the winds make at certain times of the day, like ghostly laughter weaving through the canyon.

"Here." She pointed to a section of marked range, hilly, appearing impa.s.sable if one used the GPS appearance.

"There's a rarely used road that weaves through this range. It's pretty much hidden, even from the air, so satellite would have a hard time finding it. If we disconnect GPS and the locator beacon on the Raider, we could slip through here. It would bring us above the canyon and allow us to survey it from a point where d.a.m.ned near all the canyon is in full view, It could give us an advantage that the other routes won't."

Braden glanced at the screen, his brow furrowing as he stared at the direction she laid out by touching the points on the screen. As she had said, it was hidden, so well that even the Breed satellites had been unable to detect it.

"The Raider can traverse it?" The range looked remarkably rough.

"Lance and I went fishing up there last summer with Grandfather." She minted to the blue area indicated more than a mile from the observation point she suggested. "We took the range road with his Raider. It was rough, but definitely pa.s.sable, and the area is also greener than the valley below, which cuts down on the dust trail. Without beacon, locators or dust points, the satellite imagery-if the Council is using it-can't pick us up here. They won't be expecting us if they're there."

Excitement. He could feel it building in her, along with fear. And arousal. He inhaled slowly, restraining the l.u.s.t building within him.

"Stop sniffing." He almost grinned at the disgruntled tone of her voice.

"Leaving the house was your idea, not mine. I was perfectly happy bouncing in bed."

"You have a way of describing things that astounds me, Megan," he drawled. "Next time, we'll try the kitchen table and see what you come up with for that one."

"Ewww, I eat there," she retorted in mock distaste.

He glanced at her, allowing a smile to tilt his lips.

"I'll just make a meal out of you,'' he told her, not bothering to hide the hunger in his voice.

She flushed. He loved watching the color move beneath her skin, the way her eyes darkened and her breathing roughened.

"Pervert," she accused him, though her voice lacked heat. "I'll wait until we get closer to the area before I disable the GPS and locator beacon. Otherwise, anyone at the office can track us. I'll never believe Lance would betray me, but there are several people there I wouldn't trust as far as I can throw them."

There were several people he knew would sell her out in a second. Jonas had pulled profiles on each and every deputy on the force, as well as the sheriff. Their records weren't nearly as clean as the state investigators had listed them.

"I antic.i.p.ated that." He nodded, pointing to a small area several miles from their present location. "I'll pull over here and disable. While I'm at it, I'll contact the team watching the house and see if they were able to take out the Coyotes there. We hadn't pinpointed their exact location yesterday, but I'm hoping that when we drive off, they'll begin moving. My team will be able to locate them if they do."

Silence filled the vehicle then. Braden was aware of Megan breathing in roughly before disengaging the GPS map and settling back in her seat.

She watched the road in front of them, her body tense, her emotions chaotic. He knew the step she had taken hadn't been an easy one.

"I could fail," she finally reminded him, fighting to steady her breathing, her fears, as though frightened of giving the words strength by voicing them.

"And you could find freedom." He kept his hands tight around the steering wheel, refusing to reach out to her, to comfort her as every instinct inside him was demanding he do.

He was supposed to protect his mate. To fight her battles, to cherish her. And G.o.d knew he had grown to cherish her. h.e.l.l, he was so in love with her he was acting more like a callow youth than a fully grown Breed. She was his other half; the Mating would not let him deny it.

Taking her into danger wasn't sitting well with him. He knew the problems she would face as she learned to build the shields she needed. The pain she would endure in opening herself up to emotions that filled that d.a.m.ned canyon.

She wasn't a Breed; she had none of the natural, instinctive blocks to protect her mind from the horror she would face.

By letting it in, she would experience it, the same as Mark and Aimee had experienced it. She would know their pain, their horror, and their deaths. And with any luck, the secret of why they had made the fateful trip to Broken b.u.t.te in search of her would be revealed.

"Freedom would be nice." Her voice was reflective, thoughtful as she responded to his earlier comment.

"It would be very nice."

What she wasn't saying, he could feel. Freedom was adventure. It was the warrior's soul given the chance to fight, to make the difference it had longed to make. She would have no choice but to fight. Further training, if they survived this mission, would be a necessity. He was an a.s.sa.s.sin. He didn't capture the scientists and Trainers who had worked within the Council. As far as he was concerned, there was no redemption for the corruption that filled them. They were diseased animals. And like such creatures of the wild, the only peace the world would know was in their deaths.

He flexed his shoulders, feeling the scars crisscrossing his back that he had never allowed Megan to see. The whips used in the training centers and Labs were created to maim, to kill in the most painful ways. He had learned early on to avoid that punishment at all costs. But he had learned it at a painful price.

"We'll go slow." He made the promise against his better judgment. "We can observe the canyon from above, see what you can pick up from there."

"It's too far away," she said regretfully. "I drive through the canyon when on patrol, looking for tire tracks, or sensations of previous movement. I can't do that from a distance; I'll have to get into the canyon. Normally, GPS will pick up life signs, but something jammed it in the gully, so I'm hesitant to trust it now."

"Yeah, I noticed that. My Raider wasn't picking them up either. The jammers were gone when the team went through the canyon though."

"Unless it was being used from another point. Did we miss one of the Coyotes? She turned to stare at him, a frown creasing her brow.

"We missed one." He nodded, certain himself that there had been a third Coyote. "That's why we won't rely on GPS this trip. We'll use what G.o.d gave us to survive, Megan." He couldn't let her do otherwise.

"We don't have a choice. We find out now why they want you, and what my people were doing here. And then we take them out."

Chapter Fifteen.

The route they took to the canyon was longer than the others, but as Megan promised, the gra.s.sier terrain yielded no dust clouds and the sheltering hills and pa.s.ses muted the sound of the motor as it made its way to the location.

It wasn't an easy drive, and one he was certain only the Raider or a terrain-eating motorbike could have traversed.

The Raider sliced through several streams before squeezing through pa.s.ses he was certain there was no way it could sc.r.a.pe through.

Before noon, they were pulling into a hidden copse of trees. Braden cut the motor before leaving the vehicle. The edge of the canyon was just ahead.

Braden pulled the binoculars from the backseat and began surveying the area while Megan looked around nervously.

He could feel her fighting to lower the shields that were so much a part of her and search for any hidden enemies.

"What do you feel? He kept scanning with the binoculars; the heat seeking capabilities of the equipment couldn't be blocked. There was plenty of wildlife, but so far none of the two-legged variety.