Lion's Heat (27 page)

The line disconnected. Bringing the phone down, Jonas stared at it with a sense of amusement. Damn, Ely was getting bossier than she had ever been. That wasn't a good thing.

But she was right. She needed whatever he could give her now. Soon, there would be no chance for tests, examinations or nosy doctors. The animal inside him was raging out of control, the mating urge was tearing at his mind. And he knew, once he had Rachel, once he completed the mating cycle, he would become the most possessive son of a bitch ever known.

He was afraid he would make her hate him.

CHAPTER 14

Jonas strode into his office the next morning, aware of the taut expression on his face and the tension that filled his entire body stretched tight. It was hard to miss the toll the mating heat was taking on him. And if he had missed it, then Ely was quick to point it out each morning.

Hours in the labs with Ely hadn't produced any answers, only more questions. Questions such as what the hell was the hormone in his mating semen?

Mating semen came from the barb only, ejaculated after the main release, and mixing with Breed semen, which held just a few human sperm. The mating semen seemed to strengthen the human sperm as well as laying in important Breed DNA and a hormone that eased the mating heat for a short period of time.

The mating hormone Jonas had ejaculated had held all the same biological components as any other Breed mate's, but it had held a few additions as well. Additions that Ely was still frowning over when he'd left an hour before.

Returning to the cabin, he'd found Rachel in the office, right on time, Amber in her crib in the room beside her and everything running with the same efficiency that it ran with in D.C.

The only thing not running right was Jonas.

"Lawe, Rule, with me," he snapped to the two Enforcers waiting in Rachel's office as he strode through it.

Lawe and Rule followed him into his office, closed the door behind them, then stood and watched him silently. He could feel their readiness, their tense preparation for what they sensed.

Jonas was a man running on borrowed time, because the animal inside him was growing stronger by the day.

"I want a complete investigative profile done on Devon Marshal," he ordered. "Go deeper than we went before. I want to know who breathed the air that son of a bitch has breathed before he did. I want to know every strand of hair on his head, and who the hell is supplying his drugs. And I want to know why I smelled the scent of Brandenmore on him when he arrived yesterday evening."

It had taken Jonas a while to figure it out. His senses were so screwed up with Rachel right now that he was dangerous.

"Crank said the bastard stank," Lawe grunted.

"Of Brandenmore," Jonas agreed. "My guess is the son of a bitch was in the limo. Attempts had been made to diffuse the scent, but it was there. If he was that close, it was only because they were certain they would get Amber out of Sanctuary. I want to know why he wants her, and what he's after, and I want to know now."

Rage was eating inside him at the thought of what Brandenmore, a genius in pharmaceuticals, could have planned for such a small child. Especially a child he knew Jonas would never allow him to take.

"Jess Warden is trying to reach you as well, Jonas," Rule informed him quietly. "The lawyers for Horace Engalls have filed a protest with Sanctuary against the Enforcers we placed on surveillance to keep him from leaving the country as well. They've demanded we stop following him and have also demanded an immediate hearing with the ruling cabinet to hear their arguments."

Which meant, according to Breed Law statutes, Engalls was pretty much fucked. It would first have to go to the pre-cabinet, six Breeds and three humans who would decide if the ruling cabinet needed to hear the arguments. Then, and only then, would it go to the ruling cabinet, of which Jonas was a member. Once the request was kicked back and vetoed, only then could it go to court, where at least five or more Breeds had to sit on the jury.

Sucked to be Engalls this year.

"Not happening," Jonas growled. "Have the Enforcers appear to back off. Let's see what he has planned. If he attempts to get on a plane, then I want them there as well. I want to know what he's doing, where he's going, and what the hell he's doing each time he goes to the men's room. And I want to know before he does it."

Engalls would try to run next. So far, Brandenmore was having incredible luck with his little escape to the Middle East. The country that had taken him in was also providing lawyers and financial resources designed to buy Brandenmore out of his current predicament.

"Dog's been trying to reach you as well." Lawe kept his voice low. "Seems Brandenmore has a nice little lab where he's staying. He hasn't left the royal palace yet that they can see, so there's been no chance to grab him, and Dog hasn't found a way to slip into Brandenmore's suite yet."

Jonas lips thinned. "Tell Dog he has forty-eight hours to capture Brandenmore, get him on a plane and be headed my way. I have a feeling we don't have much longer here."

Pulling up his email, he began to sift through it quickly, his eyes scanning each subject header as his lips thinned further.

The Breeds were either loved, or hated, according to which story was hitting the gossip rags and who liked them at the time. At present, several of the world's largest box office draws thought it was cool to have Breeds for friends.

Tanner Reynolds made a great movie star groupie, though his wife, Scheme, was a bit more standoffish. There were other Breeds, trained in the art of endearing trust and friendship, who were working the same angles under Tanner's careful eye.

The groups opposing the Breeds were looking for a war though, believing there were no more than the thousand or so accounted-for Breeds that they would have to face.

How wrong they were, and Jonas wondered the panic many governments would feel to learn just how wrong they truly were about the Breeds' actual numbers.

"Dog will try, but I'd bet against it happening," Lawe stated as he moved closer to Jonas's desk. "Just as I'd bet for Engalls attempting to run in the next forty-eight hours. The protest and filing with pre-cabinet is just an attempt to divert your attention and force you to travel to D.C. to handle it yourself. Which would either leave Amber and Rachel here, where a spy could get to them; or in D.C., where they would be more accessible to a well-planned abduction attempt."

Mates rarely traveled alone. If Jonas went to D.C., Rachel, and possibly Amber, would be accompanying him. And there was no way that would happen without a full unit of Enforcers covering them.

Jonas would have to pull back the unit covering Engalls, pull a team from a mission, or pull in one of the units he kept in the shadows, revealing there were still more Breeds who had remained hidden thus far.

A straggler here and there didn't hurt the society one way or the other. But if units started popping up, they were going to be in trouble.

"Keep Alpha Team One on standby," he ordered Lawe. "Inform mission control they're at my command."

Lawe nodded quickly. As a member of Alpha Team One, he knew exactly how often they were needed and how many missions they could be sent out on in any given week.

"Rule, I want you talk to Sherra. Pull in the two female units we have here at Sanctuary. No one is used to seeing us use the female units. Let's see how pretty and defenseless we can make them look, if you don't mind. I'd prefer they not be seen as a threat unless we have no other choice."

That "no other choice" was only a life-or-death situation.

"I want more teams added to the mountain patrols as well." Jonas frowned over the map of Sanctuary that he brought up. "So far, each time we've had an attempted kidnapping from Sanctuary they've used the ravine here, where Mordecai found evidence of a watcher, or the ravines here, farther up." Jonas pointed out the weak areas. "Hidden sensors are in place now, but I want several teams patrolling each of those areas from here on out. If Kane has any problems with it, then please have him contact me."

Kane Tyler was head of Sanctuary's security, and a damned good man for it. But Jonas could feel the edge of premonition pricking at him now. There was going to be trouble, and he had no idea from which direction it was coming. And neither did Cassie.

"Callan and Leo have requested that you come to the main house, along with your mate and child, tonight for dinner." Lawe seemed hesitant to relay that information. "I believe it might have been the Leo's idea."

The Leo. His father.

Jonas rubbed at the back of his neck. They wouldn't have asked just for the hell of it.

"Find out what time," he growled, feeling his tension ratcheting higher now.

Lawe nodded. "By the way, congratulations."

Jonas looked up from the computer and frowned. "For what?"

Rule and Lawe both stared at him as though he were crazy.

"You're mated. Congratulations. We scented the proof of it the minute Rachel opened the door and allowed us in. It's particularly strong . . ." Lawe trailed off as Jonas stared back at him in surprise.

"There has been no mating," he told the other man.

There hadn't been. If there had, Jonas wouldn't be in the physical hell he was in.

Lawe scratched at the side of his cheek. "Well, there's no scent of crazy lust coming from her, I admit." He cleared his throat nervously. "But the mating scent is there, Jonas. There's no missing it."

Unless you were the mate. His own scent was so familiar to him that he wouldn't have detected the mating scent itself on Rachel. That scent was for other males, not for the mate.

Ely was right; he needed to get Rachel to the labs for testing as soon as possible. If he carried the mating out, then the examination would be painful, too painful. Though according to his Enforcers, the mating had already been completed.

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.