Lion's Heat (22 page)

He was going to break behind her, his body was drawn so tight.

"It hurts," she whispered. "Ely said it hurts."

"Ely has a big mouth." He drew his fingers from her, released her slowly.

A second later, Rachel opened her eyes, stared up at him and watched as his gaze held hers while he tasted the fingers that glistened with her juices.

His silver eyes turned nearly colorless. His face tightened until his cheekbones seemed to push against his flesh, his lips tightening, his brows lowering.

The animal was there, close to the skin, fighting to be free as he tasted the release that had poured from her body.

"If you need anything, Harmony will be here for a while." He pulled from her as though he had to force himself to do so.

Then he was gone.

He didn't go to his office. He left the cabin entirely. The door slammed behind him, something that had only happened once before in all the months she had known him. Jonas didn't make noise, until now. And he'd nearly slammed the door off its hinges.

Stumbling to the bathroom, Rachel cleaned herself, repaired her clothing, then stared at the woman gazing back at her from the mirror.

Who was she?

She touched her perspiration-damp hair back from her face and stared at the stranger she had suddenly become. The stranger who was suddenly wondering what in the hell she was allowing to happen here.

She shook her head. Jonas wouldn't be gone long, and she knew it. She rather doubted he would make it to D.C., despite his claim to be heading there.

He was too protective. He had claimed her, even without the mating. She was his mate, despite the fact that he hadn't possessed her.

He wouldn't leave without her, and he had no intentions of risking her by taking her and Amber from Sanctuary until he managed to capture Brandenmore.

Moving back to her desk, she sat down and stared at the computer. They needed information against Racert. Something that would force him to back off and to stop his attempts to destroy the Breeds.

She pulled up her email, located an address and typed in the message she knew would produce results.

Racert is a threat.
Diana would know what she meant, and she would know what to do. If there was information to find, then Diana would find it. If there was a weapon they could use against the senator, then her sister would ensure that Rachel had it.

Rachel had never asked Diana to help her. The one time she had tried, her sister had been impossible to locate. Diana had sworn she would make up for it. That all Rachel had to do was ask.

She would have never asked for herself.

For this, for Jonas, for Merinus, for the Breeds who now stood between her and whatever plans Brandenmore had had in store for her and Amber, she would make the request.

Jonas strode into the estate house and moved directly to the labs below and Ely's office.

Pushing into her office, he watched as she lifted her attention from the samples she was studying, her gaze clearing as she watched him enter the room.

"Damn, she's killing you." She moved back from the bio-scope, a computerized biological scanning machine that she used to detect anomalies in Breed fluid samples, and crossed her arms over her breasts as she glared at him. "You touched her again, didn't you?"

"Give me a break, Ely," he growled before staring around the room. "Where the fuck is Jackal?"

He'd assigned Jackal to her security months ago. The other man was only to leave her side in the most extreme emergencies.

"The man has to sleep sometime, Jonas." She rolled her eyes at the question. "He has someone else on duty outside." She waved her hand to the door. "I don't want them in here."

She had been endangered. The protection he'd arranged for her hadn't been good enough; her assistants had nearly killed her, slowly poisoning her body and her mind in their attempts to betray the Breeds. It had nearly destroyed her.

He sat down gingerly on the stool she pushed toward him. He felt as though he had been through a war. Hell, he'd been through wars and hadn't hurt so damned much.

His cock throbbed worse than any bullet he'd ever taken; his flesh was so sensitive that the air around him was painful. This mating shit was about to kill him.

He held his arm out to Ely.

She shook her head. "More samples aren't going to help, Jonas. It's only going to show the same thing. The hormone is getting stronger. There's nothing I can find to stop it."

"Something's happening to me, Ely." He shook his head. "I haven't slept in days, and it's not just the arousal. I can't keep my claws sheathed." He showed her the deadly sharp claws, which had retracted beneath his nails. "My incisors ache and the barb is trying to emerge without sex. This is killing me."

Picking up the pressure extractor, the slender, wandlike needleless instrument used to take blood, she pressed it to his vein. The flesh was so tough from the tension inside him that nothing filled the vial.

"I'm going to have to use the needle." She sighed as worry filled her expression. "I've never had to use a needle on a Breed before, Jonas."

Moving to a cabinet, she pulled a sterile needle and vial from the supplies stored there and moved back to him.

Minutes later, two vials filled, she returned with a swab.

Jonas opened his mouth, grimacing at the swollen condition of the glands beneath his tongue as she swiped the swab over them, producing a heated ache as the hormone pulsed from overly filled glands.

"Kane didn't have these symptoms, but he's not a Breed," she stated as she began to make notes on the electronic pad she pulled from another counter. "Your genetic and biological makeup is so different from other Breeds that I don't know how to help you."

He was in agony. He was so close to losing control of the animal pushing at his mind that he could barely function now.

"I have to leave," he growled. "I'm going to end up raping her, Ely."

Ely turned back to him, sympathy and aching affection reflecting in her gaze now.

"I need samples from her," she told him. "The only chance I have at developing anything to help you will have to come from her."

"No." He had been refusing that idea since bringing her to Sanctuary. "I don't want this for her. I don't want her to see this part of the mating, Ely. The constant tests, the embarrassment of them. Hell, she's wary enough as it is."

He ran his hand over the back of his neck and fought to hold on to the furious lust raging through him. It was worse than feral fever, and he should know--he'd been there, done that.

"She's destroying you." There was an edge of anger brewing in Ely now.

Jonas shook his head, forcing himself to stand. "Do you need semen samples?"

She breathed out roughly. "Can you produce any?"

It hadn't happened yesterday. He hadn't been able to masturbate, to find release. Nothing worked, and he'd been trying for days.

"Is there any other way to get them?" Hell, he'd try for the needle if he had to. Anything to help Ely find a way to ease the agony washing through him in fiery waves.

"There's no other way, Jonas." She shook her head. "I need the semen samples. The blood and saliva isn't enough."

He grimaced, feeling the tightness of his expression as he tried to think of a solution.

"What about Amburg?" he asked. "Does he have any ideas?"

"Amburg always has ideas," she snorted rudely. "Unfortunately, he hasn't come up with anything to help with this."

Jeffrey Amburg was strange as hell, but if he said he had no solution to this problem, then he had none. He was a master geneticist, a third-generation Genetics Council scientist, and once considered the scourge of the Breed labs. He lived for his research and for his granddaughter. Nothing else mattered to the man. When Jonas had extended the option of living and serving the Breeds versus dying, Jeffrey had actually smiled.

Seeing the evolution of the Breeds, even if he couldn't share it outside of Ely and Elizabeth, was worth more than gold to the man. It was almost worth more than his granddaughter's life at times.

"Looks like I'm screwed then," he grunted as he headed to the door. "Let me know if you figure anything out."

"Jonas." She stopped him as he gripped the doorknob.

"Yeah, Ely?" He was certain he didn't want to hear whatever she was getting ready to say to him. There were times when she was a little too honest.

"Kiss her."

Jonas clenched his teeth at the overwhelming urge to do just that. He'd nearly taken the choice out of her hands earlier. The only thing that had saved her was the fact that he had managed to keep her back to him.

And still, he'd nearly kissed her. When her head had lifted back, when she had watched him taste the sweetness of her pussy, he'd almost taken her lips and spilled the hormone into a kiss that he knew would have burned them both alive.

"Let me know what you find out after you've finished with the tests." He opened the door.

"You're going to let her destroy you," she stated, her voice painfully low. "If she does that, Jonas, then she will destroy all of us."

Jonas shook his head. "No one is indispensible, Ely, even me. I've ensured that."

"You think you have," she said, her voice trembling. "But you haven't, Jonas. What you do, no one else can."

He almost laughed at the statement. "Ely, every Breed alive can manipulate and calculate until hell freezes over. Brim, Del Rey, Callan, Wolfe, any of them could do what I do and not cause nearly as much trouble doing it. You're just prejudiced because I don't let you sit around and feel sorry for yourself when others do."

He teased her. He refused to let her sink into despair of the lapse she'd had when the drugs spreading through her system had eroded her judgment.

Ely was a fragile little thing, despite her facade of strength. She had seen too much in the labs at too young an age, had been forced to harm too many Breeds while there. She lived with the nightmares of those years, and now she lived with the nightmare of nearly being forced to do it again.

"No, you don't allow me to feel sorry for myself," she agreed quietly. "But I should stand aside and watch you allow this woman to destroy you. Would you do the same, I wonder, if the tables were turned?"

He pursed his lips and stared back at her for long moments before saying, "I've been allowing it, little cat. Do you think I haven't figured out who your mate is, and that you know it as well?"

She blanched, her brown eyes skittering away from him as fear flashed across her face.

"Do something about it soon," he warned her.

"As you are?" she shot back, anger filling her voice now.

"I think I'd try a different venue there if I were you," he retorted as he left the office. "A far different one. Kiss him. I really don't think he'd object."

Closing the door behind him, he moved through the hall, back to the flight of stairs that led to the main level of the house.

He was trying to force himself to leave Sanctuary. Leaving was the best thing he could do for Rachel. If he didn't get the hell away from her, then he was going to end up taking this decision out of her hands.

"Jonas." Mordecai met him in the hall as he reached the main level, his expression hard. Several Enforcers followed him.

"What now?" he growled, sensing the trouble that was sure to follow.

"You have a problem."

It wasn't "we," as in the Breeds had a problem; it was "he," as in shit was about to hit the fan.

"And that problem is?" He propped his hands on his hips and regarded the Enforcers with a frown.

"Devon Marshal," Mordecai sneered. "He claims he's the father of Rachel's child. He's at the gates with his lawyer as well as a county official. They have papers signed by a judge out of D.C. demanding Amber be relinquished to Child Protective Services until the matter of custody can be resolved. The papers state Amber's safety is in danger due to Breed carelessness." Mordecai slapped the file into Jonas's hands. "I don't know about you, but I say we shoot the fuckers, bury the bodies and deny they were ever here. Because trust me, you don't want to turn that baby over to him."

Jonas stilled.

He was aware of the Enforcers backing away, even Mordecai, and glancing at each other as though uncertain about even their own safety.

Jonas grinned. He knew it must have been a frightening sight; the scent of nervousness began to pour from the three Enforcers, who watched him with varying expressions of concern.

"Well, then, Mordecai, perhaps you should appraise Callan, Kane, the Leo, of course, and the rest of the Pride that we're about to have a burial. I'll see you outside when you've finished."

With that, he moved toward the main doors, distantly aware of the growls vibrating in his throat and the rage tearing through his body.

Devon Marshal was a dead man.

CHAPTER 12

Jonas had made a claim on Rachel's child before she had even drawn her first breath. Sheltered in the womb, her senses much like that of an animal's, reaching out to him and her mother, the animal inside him had accepted her as his own.