Lion's Heat Read online

  Which he knew for a fact wasn't possible.

  "Has anyone else been in here?" he asked the two men, wondering how many others would be aware of that scent.

  Lawe shook his head. "Just us. We were here when she unlocked the office doors waiting on you."

  Jonas rose from his seat, his teeth clenched. He had to get Rachel to the labs for tests, there was no other way around it. But in doing so, he was opening himself up to a vulnerability he wasn't ready for anyone else to know, especially the Vanderales.

  If Rachel was indeed displaying the mating scent, then that particular hormone would display variances that would reveal the DNA used in Jonas's creation. Elizabeth Vanderale's DNA. It would also show that his creation was far different than his files stated. He wasn't created to be simply a Pride leader, and commander. He had been created to breed the very animal that Breeds and humans alike feared the species would eventually become.

  He couldn't ignore the fact that others knew this information. Scientists that had been at the labs and had escaped Breed justice. There was a slim chance Brandenmore at least suspected he was the Breed scientists still searched for. The one designated as Alpha One.

  He was one of a few male Breeds given a unique designation during creation. He was created not to be the ultimate Breed, but to create the ultimate killer.

  It was a hell of a legacy, he thought savagely.

  "Get Dog in gear and oversee Alpha Team One," he ordered Lawe. "I'll contact Callan to see what time we're needed for dinner. Assign a Breed to Marshal, while you're at it. Make it a female Breed. Someone nonthreatening."

  "Ashley," Rule murmured. "She at least appears nonthreatening."

  She was a killer in heels. As one of the Coyote Breeds, and exacting of her privacy, there were no tabloid pictures of her, and even less information about her.

  "Put her undercover," he ordered Lawe. "A little rich bitch looking for fun. That should be right up Devon Marshal's alley right now. Give her backup. Her sister Emma should work."

  As a team, Ashley and Emma were hell on wheels.

  "I was going to suggest both of them." Lawe nodded. "We'll have an update for you on Dog as soon as we speak with him, and I'll let you know when Ashley and Emma head out."

  Jonas nodded shortly, waited, then blew out a hard breath as the door closed behind the two men.

  Fuck! He jerked from his chair, his hand clamped to the back of his neck as he paced across the room. This was the last fucking thing he needed. A mating that wasn't a mating. Unknown hormones in his semen, and a variety of protests and actions being filed against him, the Bureau and Sanctuary at a time when he didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.

  To add to those particularly irritating problems was the nearly mindless lust tearing at his mind and tearing at his control. The past months had been hell, and it was now multiplying daily to the point that he hadn't even recognized Brandenmore's scent on Marshal's body last night.

  How the hell had Phillip Brandenmore managed to get out of the Middle East without Dog's team being aware of it? To fly out, and then back in, and no one being the wiser was a hell of a feat to accomplish. Especially considering the fact that Dog would have been watching for it.

  But as the Breeds had been trained, there were few things that were truly impossible.

  He truly hoped that getting Rachel in for those tests before a true mating didn't prove to be one of those "impossible" things. If she was displaying the mating scent without a mating, then Ely needed to know why. And she needed to know why now, before any more surprises were thrown at them.

  Rachel finished the report logs Jonas was required to submit to the Bureau of Breed Affairs Oversight Committee, a panel of several senators, Breeds and foreign ambassadors. The oversight committee was tasked with keeping an eye on the running of the Bureau, Jonas's actions as Bureau director and the official missions the Breeds participated in for the American and allied countries.

  Each day, a report log was filed for the day before and sent to the secretary of the oversight committee. At the end of each month, Jonas met with them for any outstanding questions.

  There wasn't a lot of factual information per se that went into the reports. But as Rachel read them, she was always amused at the inventiveness Jonas displayed in twisting many of his more calculated schemes and making them appear perfectly acceptable and logical.

  The man had to have the DNA of an Irishman well versed in kissing more than one Blarney Stone.

  Her head turned as his office door opened. That familiar little catch of her breath was stronger now. The memory of the night spent in his arms, her body humming with pleasure, caught at her senses, whipped across her flesh with ghostly fingers of sensation and had a smile tugging at her lips.

  "Your report logs are getting better," she told him as she sent the file to his electronic notepad for his signature.

  "Callan still gets a laugh out of them." He shrugged as he moved to the desk, his gaze hooded as he stared down at her. His nostrils flared as though searching for some scent he couldn't quite put his fingers on.

  Rachel tilted her head as she stared up at him quizzically. "Is something wrong?"

  "Many things," he told her. "Are you feeling okay today?" Propping her hand on her fist, she let her gaze lock with the liquid silver of his eyes. "I'm feeling fine. You?"

  "I've been better." That undefined emotion in his eyes that had always drawn her raged now.

  A frown pulled at her brow. He was unusually tense, and for Jonas, that was saying something. He gave tension a bad name. The man was normally drawn as tight as a bow string. For him to be more tense than normal was something to worry about.

  "Is there anything I can do to help?" She was willing to try many things. The thought of going to her knees in front of him, her lips caressing the straining length of his cock, had her mouth watering.

  "Actually, there is." As though he had made some decision within himself, his shoulders straightened and his gaze narrowed as he stared down at her. "I'm making an appointment for you with Ely this evening. We need to get started on the examination and tests you'll be required to participate in once full mating occurs."

  Rachel stared back at him silently. She had determined, once, that she wouldn't be his mate. That she couldn't be unless she decided she was.

  Had she made that decision?

  She knew she had.

  There was a part of her that knew she belonged to him, longed for him. There was a part of her that knew the mating heat was coming, it was simply a matter of time.

  "So soon?" she asked, rather than refusing outright. "I thought, after the mating . . ."

  "We need to get started now, Rachel." His tone was harder than it had been in past days. She was so used to him using the softer, gentler tone of voice that the normal tone was like a slight dash of cold water across her flesh.

  She nodded though. "Ely will be doing the examination?"

  She liked Dr. Vanderale but the other woman had the power to intimidate her. Rachel didn't like acknowledging that power where anyone was concerned.

  "Only Ely." He nodded as though he understood her hesitation.

  "Very well." She drew in a hard breath, mentally preparing herself for the coming tests. "I can do that."

  He nodded sharply. "We've also been invited to dinner tonight with the Leo, his family and Callan and his. I'm sure you'll enjoy some time with Merinus."

  His voice was oddly cool, even though she had agreed to what he'd asked of her, which indicated there was something more going on. She'd learned many of Jonas's ways, and one of them was that the more he expected a complication or a problem from one of his requests, the cooler he would become with whomever he was dealing with.

  Rachel nodded again. "I'll check with Erin to make certain she can stay with Amber." The young lynx Breed had taken to Amber with surprising affection.

  Jonas frowned at the statement. "Erin and Amber will be going with us. Socialization begins as an
infant, Rachel. You want her to know how to deal with others, and how to interact, even as a toddler."

  Her brows raised. Jonas's frown deepened.

  "She's my baby, Jonas," she reminded him. "I appreciate what you've done to protect her . . ."

  "She is our baby." He leaned forward, his hands planted on her desk with a suddenness that had her staring up at him warily. "Never doubt that I don't claim that child as my own. We will raise her together, we will protect her together. If you have other ideas, then perhaps you've been right to deny the mating."

  He straightened as quickly as he'd leaned forward, his shoulders straight, his expression forbidding as he seemed to glare at her.

  "Don't imagine you can demand those rights." Rachel was out of her chair immediately.

  "I don't demand them. I have taken them," he growled, bending again until he was almost nose to nose with her. "Raising a child is a partnership, mate. Don't imagine otherwise."

  "You're pissing me off." Her hands went to her hips. "Asking for something is a hell of a lot nicer than demanding it. What the hell is wrong with you, and since when did you decide you could arbitrarily decide that you have any rights over me or Amber?"

  "When I knew you were my mate," he snarled back at her. "And why have you decided to suddenly become so damned difficult? I do know a few things about children. Cassie didn't turn out so bad, and all of Sanctuary has participated in raising her."

  "Cassie has an excellent mother," she pointed out, exerting effort to be calm, her eyes narrowing. "And likely had a father who understood not to speak to her mother as though she knew nothing about raising a child."

  Jonas was fighting for control; Rachel could sense it. She watched him, her heart racing, a sense of impending doom rising inside her as his eyes flashed from silver to mercury and back again.

  He was testing boundaries he didn't want to tempt, not now, not yet. Likely, never.

  "Amber has an excellent mother," he growled, obviously pushing the words past clenched teeth. "I never implied otherwise, Rachel. You have turned a simple discussion into a conflict that should not exist."

  "Or perhaps you have." They were still nose to nose, eyes narrowed, the tension stifling. "Now that we've agreed Erin and Amber will accompany us, you can see about becoming prepared for the telephone conference you have with Senator Tyler in exactly one hour. After that, you have a meeting with the pre-cabinet concerning the latest attempt by various groups to gain access to a hunting permit for Sanctuary's northern boundary. You don't have time to stand here growling and snarling at me."

  He flashed his incisors at her. She crossed her arms over her breasts and stared back at him with steely resolve.

  "Mating heat is coming, mate." His voice lowered, rasped, stroked along her senses like dark velvet. "Let's see where all that anger gets you then."

  Turning on his heel, he stalked from the ante office back to his own, and closed the door quietly behind him.

  Very quietly.

  Rachel flinched, then blew out a soundless breath.

  Now, there was an attitude she hadn't seen from him before. If she wasn't mistaken, he had been seconds, inches, one last thread of control from kissing her.

  For one wild, exciting moment, she had nearly kissed him instead.

  And she'd had fun.

  Smiling, Rachel took her seat and returned to the computer and her own work.

  Not many people could say they had faced the bogeyman of the Breeds in a screaming match and came out unscathed. Rachel was betting she was the only one who could lay claim to that particular talent. And she looked forward to the next round.

  She paused at the thought.

  Hell, she knew she was in love with him now, because the only other person she would dare to yell back at was her sister. She and Diana had gone nose to nose many times over the years, and Diana hadn't always backed down, but she had always ended up laughing at Rachel's particular manner of "handling" her, as she called it.

  She glanced at the door again.

  She should stalk right in there and kiss him herself. She had no idea why he was holding back now. No idea what demons were shadowing him that he hadn't claimed her.

  She knew he wanted to. She knew it was going to happen.

  Yet, he was fighting it with every breath he took.

  He was drowning.

  Jonas sat at his desk, glared at the wall, and felt the stifling tightness in his throat, his chest. The taste of cinnamon and cloves was choking him; the need for her was stealing his breath and his control.

  He parted his lips to breathe in roughly and a growl tore from his lips despite his attempts to hold it back.

  His hands lay flat on the desk, claws extruding, digging into the wood. The glands beneath his tongue were so swollen, so sensitive, he was in agony. He felt as though his tongue were being ripped out.

  He lifted the comm link from a drawer, attached it to his head and pressed the direct secured line to Ely's office.

  "Jonas," she answered immediately.

  "Rachel will be in this evening for the examination and tests," he informed her. "Get whatever you have to have while you can."

  Silence filled the link for long seconds.

  "I'll be waiting for her," she stated. "Amburg was in here earlier. He's asking for more blood from the baby. He found a slight anomaly in the last test he conducted and wants to investigate it further."

  "I'll discuss it with Rachel."

  "If you're bringing her this evening, then whoever is watching Amber can oversee my assistant extracting the blood," Ely suggested. "There's no need to tempt her refusal, Jonas."

  He shook his head. "You've learned too well." He sighed. "She's my mate, Ely, not a particularly stubborn Enforcer. I won't go behind her back."

  There had been a time when Ely would have never suggested such a thing; to the contrary, she would have protested it had Jonas made such a suggestion.

  "Perhaps I didn't learn fast enough from you," Ely murmured. "Whichever, I'll be waiting for you this evening. Let me know by then how to proceed."

  The line disconnected, leaving Jonas to stare broodingly into the dark room as he reflected on games, machinations and his past calculating attempts to ensure that his Enforcers met, mated and lived, if not happily ever after, at least with a measure of softness in their lives.

  He didn't regret a moment of it, but damned if he wasn't paying for it now.

  CHAPTER 15

  The tests weren't so hard, definitely not the hell Merinus had warned her that they would be after mating. Rachel consented to allow the blood to be taken from Amber, more concerned with the fact that Jeffrey Amburg felt he'd found some "anomaly" in previous tests.

  The Breeds had more anomalies going on in their lives than a gardener had seeds to plant.

  Once the tests were finished, Rachel had re-dressed a sleepy Amber and handed her over to the lynx Breed assigned as caretaker. Then the real problems of the evening began. And they began with the Leo.

  Moving into the large family room of the estate house, Rachel followed the subtle directions of Jonas's hand against the small of her back as he led her to a settee to the side of the large fireplace, across from a matching settee shared by Leo and his wife, Elizabeth.

  In the two large chairs next to Leo and Elizabeth, Leo's son, Dane, and his bodyguard, Ryan--or Rye, as they called him--Desalvo sat, with Callan and Merinus in a sofa facing the fireplace and Kane Tyler and his mated wife, Sherra, in a matching sofa beside them.

  Dinner had been filled with discussions of the latest protests against the Breeds, the surge in protestors at the gates of Sanctuary, and a future still uncertain where Breed peace was concerned. It was a discussion still under way.

  "The Congo has a lot of hiding places, Callan." Leo sat in the corner of the settee, his arm thrown over the back behind his wife, his gold eyes fierce as he stared into the identical ones of his son. "My compound there is completely secure and not so damned easy to get to. The mat
es there live in relative peace. The tribes surrounding us are loyal to us. It's a good place to raise and train our children to meet the future."

  "Virginia's a good place to raise and train children as well," Callan argued.

  "My grandson has nearly been kidnapped twice now," Leo argued. "Each time, David has had to face the death or injury of a friend entrusted to protect him. It's beginning to affect the boy."

  The light chastisement wasn't lost on Callan or Merinus.

  "David has to learn to accept the dangers in his life." There was a note of regret in Callan's tone. "There is no utopia for us, Leo, you know that. He's in danger, no matter where we are, just as our twins are."

  "They'll be in less danger there."

  "This argument is moot," Kane interjected, his tone brooking no refusal. "We've set our course here, Leo. We're not willing to change it, and this argument grows weary."

  Leo didn't so much as look in the other man's direction, his gaze staying on Callan, his expression demanding.

  Callan shook his head. "Kane's right; our future is here."

  "Your people are dying daily," Leo argued. "Three Breeds were beaten to a bloody pulp in California last week. You want to pretend you're safe here, and you're not."

  "We prefer not to bury our heads in the sand and pretend that hiding is the same thing as freedom," Jonas spoke up then. "We've given the Breeds here the option of joining you in Africa, or staying. They choose to stay."

  "They follow Callan," Leo snapped back at him. "They'll go where he says to go--we all know that."

  "Leo, let it rest." Elizabeth laid her delicate hand on his knee as she looked up at him, her expression disapproving.

  "Each visit is filled with this argument and I grow weary of it. We hid because we had no choice, and we've built a society we're very happy with, and a life that holds a measure of safety. Callan has simply chosen the path you would have chosen then if you had had that option."

  He grunted at the statement before his eyes turned to Rachel. She watched his nostrils flare, the narrowing of his eyes. He'd done that often throughout the evening, just as the others had in a less direct way.

  "Ms. Broen, what's your opinion of safety for your daughter? If she were a Breed child, would you prefer life here, or one where she would be allowed to blend into society and to live without the threat of capture and torture?"

  Which would she choose?

  "I have to agree with Callan," she stated sadly. "Better that they know the price of freedom and what they're fighting for than to learn to hide and to lie. The battle isn't one that will be accomplished overnight. Just as it isn't a choice one man or Breed can make for many."

  "But you agree that this life," he waved his hand to include the room as though it were the entire Breed society, "is one far less safe for your child than the one I propose."

  Rachel frowned. "I agree with nothing of the sort. I simply believe it's a choice as individual as the man or the Breed making it."

  He stared at her as though she should be squashed beneath the heel of his very expensive boots. No doubt, that was exactly what he felt as well.

  "I've had enough of this conversation." Jonas rose to his feet, the tension that had burned inside him most of the day shimmering around him now. "Are you ready?"

  It was asked politely enough, but Rachel saw his face. Being ready wasn't an option; it was time for Jonas to leave.

  "You're not one to heed anyone's opinion but your own, are you, Jonas?" Leo rose to his feet as well, his gaze going between Jonas and Rachel, that quizzical look in his eyes making Rachel intensely nervous.

  "Leo, I'm not in the mood for your demands tonight, or your views on how your way is the best way and the only way to proceed. In my opinion, we were far better off when your wife was sneaking and helping Ely rather than having your arrogance infect Sanctuary on a regular basis." The statement was made calmly, even politely. The tension filling the room was anything but polite or calm.

  "Leo, take your seat," Elizabeth ordered softly. "Now isn't the time for this."

  He glared back at his wife. "The whelp has ignored every suggestion I've made for months, gone out of his way to ignore and avoid each of us, and tries to pretend he has no responsibility to the future of the Breeds in any way."

  "If I felt such a way, then I wouldn't be busting my ass to keep our Breeds out of your path and off your radar when they try to make a life for themselves here," Jonas snapped back, his tone icy now. "You can't force them to duck and hide in a jungle while you play the innocent benefactor and pretend to age at a normal rate." Jonas sneered in contempt, his gaze encompassing the temporary wrinkles around the Leo's eyes, the artificially gray streaks in his hair. "You're not human, Leo, and all the wishing in the world isn't going to make it happen."

  Lion's eyes narrowed as Elizabeth stared at Jonas in shock and surprise.

  "Jonas, enough." Callan finally felt the need to intercede, far too late by Rachel's estimation.

  "Suits me." Jonas shrugged as he laid his hand at Rachel's back and began directing her from the group once again. "I can always find something better to do than to argue with a man whose superiority far exceeds his logic."

  Leo growled. A low, commanding snarl, a sound that demanded instant respect.

  Jonas chuckled mockingly. "I can do that too, Leo. Mine sounds better though."

  "Leo, no!" Elizabeth's cry was the only warning they had. A second later, Rachel found herself pushed back from Jonas as he flew across the room, landing on his back with a thud while Leo began to slowly advance.

  Jonas rose slowly. "Callan, please excuse our father's manners," he requested snidely as Callan and Elizabeth both moved in front of the Leo. "I'm certain he must have forgotten to pack his manners when he made his hasty exit from Africa."

  "A hasty exit to ensure you di