Authors: Lora Leigh
“Kane?” Mercury’s voice was tense, deep and so dark she almost shivered.
“Yeah, Merc?” Kane asked warily.
“Could you ensure that Ms. Rodriquez is adequately protected when she returns to her cabin please? Shiloh Gage would perhaps be best to place within the house with her tonight.”
She stared at him in surprise.
“I’ll take care of that, Mercury,” Kane answered him. “Ely needs you back in the lab, though.”
Mercury’s lips pulled back from his teeth as he turned to look at the other man. Evidently, what Kane Tyler saw shocked him as much as it had shocked Ria moments before.
“Tell Ely she has all she’s getting from me.” With that, he stalked from the office, moving purposefully along the hall until, moments later, Ria heard a door slam, loudly.
“Ms. Rodriquez, I’m going to ask nicely,” Callan said carefully. “Please submit yourself to the labs below so Ely can take a few blood and saliva samples. I promise, it should be relatively harmless.”
“Like hell.” She straightened, suddenly furious. “What the hell did you do to him? You accused him of trying to rape me?”
“He moved in on you while you weren’t looking. Moments later, it appeared he was taking you without your consent,” Kane informed her. “I had a brief moment to see the tapes before we had to go to the labs. I admit, Sanctuary is a bit informal, but if there was something going on here, something you were unwilling to participate in, now is the time to say it.”
To Kane Tyler’s credit, he didn’t appear to believe any such thing, but that didn’t keep it from pricking her anger. What the hell did they think was going on? And how did they have the temerity to even suggest anything so preposterous as Mercury Warrant attempting something so horrible?
“And perhaps I was willing.” She was amazed at the anger that flooded her now. “That’s what you get for being so damned nosy, Mr. Tyler. You’ve managed to humiliate me in the middle of what should have been a perfectly nice Saturday afternoon, and you’ve insulted and betrayed a friend.” Contempt rose within her as she flicked them both a hard look. “Perhaps you should get me a ride back to my cabin. And don’t bother with another babysitter. I’ve grown pretty comfortable with the one I had; I wouldn’t handle another one well.”
They might not understand loyalty, but she could assure them, she did. It was what had landed her in the middle of this mess to begin with.
“An enforcer will accompany you-”
“I’ll call Dane Vanderale, my boss, and I’ll have a Vanderale heli-jet parked on your landing pad in thirty minutes flat if my wishes are ignored in this case.” She’d had enough. Even Dane couldn’t sweet-talk his way out of this one. “It’s no damned wonder you can’t keep a handle on the spies in Sanctuary. You’re too damned busy suspecting those loyal to you to look beyond them. Get a clue here. I’m not a Breed nor am I answerable to Sanctuary and as far as I’m concerned you can all go bugger yourselves.”
Her accent slipped free. That never happened. She’d been born and raised in South Africa, and her job habitually required that she maintain the impression that she could be from anywhere, everywhere except Vanderale’s home offices.
It irritated her to no end that it had slipped free now.
“Are we clear, sirs?” Dammit, it was still there. “I require a vehicle of my own, immediately. Your enforcers can freeze to death outside for all I give a bloody damn. But if one attempts to step inside my cabin, then that call shall be made.”
She jerked her bag from the floor, pulled it over her shoulder and glared back at them. “The vehicle. Now.”
This time Callan cursed, jerked the door open and stomped out, leaving her alone with Kane Tyler, who stared back at her curiously. “I thought Mercury lost his mate,” he mused.
Her jaw clenched and she had to hold back the trembling of her lips. “I’m quite certain he did. I was unaware it took mating to defend a man accused unfairly. You know, Tyler, I’m disappointed by the lot of you. To be honest, I had a better opinion of the inner strength of Sanctuary. Perhaps I was wrong about that.”
Kane sighed. “Some things might seem that way,” he sighed. “But trust me, it’s not always that easy. Come on, I’ll get your car and your escort.”
Not that either helped her frame of mind. And it wasn’t going to help Dane’s once she got hold of him. He had sent her on this damned fool’s errand. They both knew Sanctuary still had a very dangerous spy, but the first Leo wanted to visit. He wanted to spend time with his grandchild and the child Callan’s mate was now expecting, and Ria had a feeling he wanted to put Jonas Wyatt in his place. The Leo was
the Leo
. Period. Arrogant. Hardheaded, and stubborn. He was frighteningly intelligent, in control, and certain of himself. All the qualities that Jonas used to piss off everyone he came in contact with.
As Kane watched Ms. Rodriquez drive off, the enforcers trailing her, he bit off a curse.
“Ely thinks he’s going feral again,” Callan told him quietly from the doorway. “That was why he didn’t want her to have that last vial of blood.”
Feral displacement had once nearly driven Mercury insane. The death of the young Lioness he could have mated, likely cared for, had triggered a surge of such violent adrenaline in his body that he’d had to be confined in a special cell in the labs until a drug could be created to control him.
Kane shook his head. “I don’t believe that. I saw those videos of Merc from years back the same as you did, Callan. What Mercury is going through now isn’t some kind of bullshit feral fever.”
“She’s doing initial tests now on that last vial of blood. She thinks he’s beginning to lose control.”
Kane had seen the security videotape. What he saw concerned him, made him wonder what the hell was going on, but it hadn’t made him worry about Merc’s sanity. Evidently, Callan felt the same or they would be sending enforcers after Mercury now. But Ely didn’t make determinations without evidence either.
“I didn’t see anything to indicate force.” He propped his hands on his hips and stared at the entrance to Sanctuary, grimacing at the chanting of voices from the other side of the iron gates.
Protestors, again. They’d been amassing over the past weeks, no doubt drawn by more horror stories in those rags about human sacrifices. Shaking his head, he turned back to the pride leader and watched Callan curiously.
“What proof do we have that he mated to that Breed girl that died?” He headed up the steps as he asked the question. “Could we be looking at another anomaly in mating heat?”
“Ely says no. The mating hormone was detected in him in those labs, just as the feral fever was detected,” Callan told him. “The mating hormone was recorded in him from the tests for weeks before she was killed. Mixing with it was the unknown hormone they couldn’t explain. It seemed to mix with his blood, like adrenaline, or perhaps with the adrenaline during moments of stress, anger or danger. It was present after several missions as well. The day he learned the girl had been killed, he went feral. Hell, Kane, he punched his hand through a Coyote’s chest and tore out his heart. Even for a Breed, that’s not normal.”
Kane remembered those videos as well.
“They were smug about the death. The trainer was laughing and the scientist was less than sympathetic over the loss. Would either of us have done anything differently at the loss of someone we cared for?”
Callan glanced back at him as they moved through the mansion. “After restraining him, the scientist had the foresight to extract blood immediately. The adrenaline was so spiked with the unknown hormone that they decided it was some sort of fever. They used him to research it, then developed a drug therapy to control it.”
“A super downer,” Kane grunted.
“A drug perfected to control that particular hormone. They were still testing it when the rescues took place. He was slowly taken off the drug therapy after the rescues, but there was never a change in his control, until now,” Callan sighed as they entered his office. “And I have to agree with Ely, he’s not acting like himself. Mercury has never shown anger toward anyone in Sanctuary before.”
“Until someone accused him of attempting to rape a woman? Perhaps his woman?”
Callan rubbed one hand over his face as he collapsed in his chair and breathed out roughly. “Until now. And Ely doesn’t seem to know what the hell is going on.”
That one Kane very much doubted, and as he stared back at Callan, he knew his brother-in-law felt the same.
They had fought this fight for eleven years now. The battle to preserve the Breeds’ freedom and hold on to their secrets until they understood them themselves. The battle to protect their people, and their children.
Kane thought of his son, not much younger than Callan’s, and felt the same concern he knew ran through the other man’s mind. They couldn’t afford Mercury’s loss of control. He was the Breed that frightened little children on the street for God’s sake. The savage features of the animal stamped on the face of the man.
“What now?” he breathed out heavily.
“Pull Lawe away from the cabin and find Mercury. I’ll call Jonas back from D.C. Merc is one of his enforcers; maybe he can help us figure out what the hell is going on here. And how to control it.”
“And the woman?” Kane asked. “Can we afford to piss her off any further than we have already?”
Callan’s lips twisted thoughtfully at the question. “We need to convince her to let Ely take those samples, but after she stole that blood from Merc, Ms. Rodriquez isn’t going to allow Ely within touching distance of her.” He stroked the side of his jaw in contemplation. “And I swear, that video looked more like a Breed in mating heat than one experiencing feral displacement.”
“He stood between her and us until he stomped out of the house,” Kane pointed out. “He was protective and angry. And I can’t blame him for the anger.”
“He lost control after the episode in the lab.” Callan’s voice was tight now, hard. “And that isn’t acceptable. He’s a Breed. We were bred to have control over that part of ourselves and he’s lost it. That I can’t tolerate. Have Lawe find him and get him back to Sanctuary. Let’s see if we can’t talk to him and convince him to resume the tests.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Kane had a feeling he wouldn’t.
Callan shook his head wearily. “Hell, I don’t even want to consider that option, Kane, and neither do you.”
CHAPTER 7
Ely handed the vials to Charles Fayden, her lab assistant, with a vague smile at his murmured offer to replace them for her. He was one of the few Breeds allowed to assist in the mating tests, and he was showing quite an aptitude for them.
She inserted a sample of the last vial of blood she had taken from Mercury into the test vial, sealed it and placed it into the machine Vanderale had helped her to acquire.
She waited impatiently while the individual hormones were separated, then extracted the sample and placed it in the computer analyzer. The answers that came up didn’t bring her any comfort.
She covered her face with her hands for long moments before staring at the results once again. The feral hormone was definitely mixed into the strains of adrenaline now. It hadn’t been in the first three vials, but that fourth one, taken as anger had surged in his eyes, showed it.
Those eyes had terrified her. The warm honey color had hardened to molten gold, and within the gold, the lightest flicker of blue pinpoints had fired within it. She had never seen anything so frightening in a Breed during all the years she had been testing them. Far longer than the years they had been free.
But it had done no more than confirm her suspicions that Mercury was once again going feral. The scientists at the lab he had been created in had recorded the same phenomenon.
She saved the results, attached them to the encryption program and sent them along to Jonas. She wasn’t arguing with him further. If he didn’t respond quickly, then she was going to Callan. Forget the chain of command he was always reminding her of, Callan was her pride leader, not Jonas. No matter how Jonas may or may not lust for the position.
She set her pass code on the computer, stored the samples and rubbed at the back of her neck wearily.
“Everything okay, Dr. Morrey?” Charles stepped up beside her, staring down at her from his soft hazel green eyes.
“Everything’s fine, Charles.” She smiled back at him rather distantly as she rose from her stool. “I’ll be in my office if you need me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded before returning to the tests she had him working on. Matching for potential Breed mates was an exacting and time-consuming job. She was pleased to have found an assistant she trusted with it.
The tests on Mercury were another matter.
She sat down at her desk and carefully noted the information in her journal. She was going to have to find a way to convince Mercury to continue the tests. She needed this information, because there was always the chance it could happen again. No one knew the number of Breeds who had developed feral fever before the rescues. And she hoped no one ever found out.
Jonas stared at the report, his eyes narrowing at the findings Ely had sent to him, before he pressed the intercom button into his secretary’s office. Or rather his redheaded robot’s office, he thought with a silent grunt. For a new mother, the woman was decidedly un-maternal at work.
“Rachel, I need the heli-jet prepped for a return to Sanctuary. Inform Jackal we’ll be heading out again.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Wyatt.”
He grimaced at her cool, competent voice. He missed his last secretary, Kia, but she’d left in a storm of tears for some damned reason more than three months before. He still hadn’t figured out why she was so upset with him. But at least she’d had a personality. The piece of cardboard manning the desk now was as dry as dust.