by Lora Leigh
Animal genetics were a bitch.
He watched as she breathed out roughly, raked her fingers through her hair once more and stared at him as though she weren't quite certain she knew who he was.
"Male lions kill the young when they take another male's pride," she muttered in exasperation.
"Human males love the children of the women they love," he completed for her. "We're not just animals, Rachel. We're men with a few added genetics. Nothing more, nothing less." Which wasn't a lie, but wasn't really the truth either.
"Devon isn't going to let this go this easily." She moved away from him, staring at the darkened windows. He felt her fighting to make sense of what her life had become.
"Devon has no choice." It was that simple. "All the money in the world, all the lawyers he could buy can't change Breed Law, Rachel. We ensured that."
A mocking smile twisted her lips. "You act as though the Marshals will play fair after this."
"You act as though Breeds will." He chuckled, though the sound was tinged with a warning of danger. "Come on, let's get the hell away from here and those damned reporters out there."
He touched her again. His hand pressed against her lower back, steering her back to the doorway, where Enforcers waited to escort them away from the entrance and the reporters who could just as easily shoot with bullets as with flashbulbs.
The ride back to the cabin was made quickly, silently. Rachel kept her arms wrapped across her chest as she fought to hold in not just the questions that raged through her mind but also the emotions that tore at her control.
She was falling in love with him, and she couldn't help it. There were just so many ways Jonas had proved his complete dedication to her. His hunger for her. His need. His determination to protect her.
He didn't call it love. To him, she was his mate, pure and simple. The one gift God had given him that could never belong to another man.
But he didn't call it love. He didn't recognize it as love. Moving into the house, she walked into Amber's room, informed the young Breed female watching the baby that she could leave, then lifted her daughter from the crib.
"Cassie's on the sat phone. She needs to talk to you." Jonas stood at the doorway, his gaze dark. "Would you like me to hold Amber while you talk to her?"
Silently, she handed Amber over to him, watching as he cuddled her close to his chest, his eyes still watching her carefully.
That look. There was complete arrogance in it, yet a vulnerability that tugged at emotions she didn't want to admit to.
She lifted the phone to her ear. "Cassie?"
"Go to another room, Rachel. We need to talk." Cassie's tone brooked no refusal. For a teenager, she could sound amazingly mature. "And don't bother to make excuses to Jonas; we both know he just heard every word I said."
She rolled her eyes as she glanced at Jonas, noticing how well he pretended he wasn't hearing every word Cassie said.
Breeds were a pain in the ass.
Shaking her head, she moved from the bedroom, through the living room, then into the kitchen.
"Good," Cassie expressed as she stepped into the far room. "So how are you feeling?"
How was she feeling?
"Cassie, are you doing drugs?" she asked carefully.
The young woman laughed lightly. "I don't do drugs at all, Rachel. I simply wanted to assure you that the legalities of Amber's acceptance into Breed society has no loopholes. There is nothing the Marshals can do to break that clause."
"What they can't acquire legally, they'll acquire illegally." Rachel sighed. "Amber will never be safe."
"No adult or child within Sanctuary is safe, Rachel," Cassie said softly. "No Breed mate or friend is safe. It's simply a part of our world."
A part of their world. And it didn't matter if they were child or adult, friend or mate. Anyone associated with the Breeds came under fire at one time or another.
She had known that, Rachel told herself. She was aware of it from the beginning, but until now, it hadn't truly hit her. She and Amber had never truly been safe; they had been living merely on borrowed time. Sooner or later, she would have been targeted because of her job, her friendship to Merinus and Kane, or simply because she believed so deeply in the freedom of the Breeds.
"I'm fine, Cassie," she finally told the young woman. "I just need some time to think."
"Thinking is perhaps what you don't need to do, Rachel," Cassie said gently. "Maybe now it's time to simply feel. Good night, Rachel."
The line disconnected, leaving Rachel staring into the kitchen with a vague sense of impending anticipation. Nervousness.
Disconnecting the phone from her end, she turned and headed back to the bedroom, only to come to a stop, once again amazed by the man, the Breed, who claimed her.
He was diapering Amber as though he had done it many times before. And he had, while Rachel slept.
"Cassie likes to poke her nose into things when it's not needed just as well as she does when it is." Jonas fixed the undershirt Amber wore before pulling her gown back around her feet.
The baby kicked, gurgled, her fists flailing as she stared up at Jonas with childlike wonder.
"She worries, I think," Rachel whispered.
Jonas nodded, picked Amber up from the bed, held her close to his chest and reached for the bottle he had obviously prepared earlier.
"Go bathe, Rachel." He watched her, his silver eyes calm rather than raging as normal. "Relax for a while. The next adventure will come soon enough."
The next adventure.
She almost smiled. That was similar to many of her sister's views. And it was nothing less than the truth.
Hopefully, the next adventure wouldn't be quite so hard on her nerves.
CHAPTER 13
The bath helped, but Rachel found herself not quite as sleepy, nor as tired, as she should be. Pulling on the long, warm gown that had been provided for her and a matching robe, she took a deep breath before leaving the bathroom.
She found Amber's crib empty when she reentered the bedroom. She touched the ultra-soft comforter on the mattress and felt her heart clench in something akin to panic.
Jonas was drawing her in. He was tying her to him in ways she wasn't certain she wanted to be tied to him.
Love.
She had thought she loved Devon. Those months in Switzerland had been incredible even though the job she had gone there for hadn't quite worked out.
She had thought it fate when she met Devon.
He had been bright, funny. She hadn't even known who his family was for months. Not until his father had arrived, dour, disapproving, and informed her that she wasn't good enough to marry into the elite Marshal clan.
Her confusion had been almost comical.
He'd looked Devon straight in the eye and disowned him until he decided to get some balls, as he called it, and ditch the dumb bitch he had knocked up.
He'd thrown a clip of money on the floor, ordered her to get an abortion and left.
Devon had sworn he loved her. He had contacts, he'd claimed. He would get a job; he loved working.
She snorted at the memory. That night he had disappeared. Not just with the money clip and Rachel's money, but also her passport and credit cards as well. She had been stranded; the rent and utilities were due. There had been no food.
He'd left a letter, short and to the point. He would contact her when the doctor he directed her to called and informed him the abortion had been performed. She could go home then.
The embassy had refused to help her after firing her. Of course, Devon's father had ensured that. She hadn't been able to get a job. Every time she secured one, something happened and she was fired within hours.
She'd called Kane out of desperation when she couldn't reach Diana.
And now, here she was.
Perhaps Devon had been fate after all, she thought. That road had led her to Merinus, and then to Jonas.
Or perhaps she was simply being as fanciful as Diana had alw
ays accused her of being.
Either way, here she was, and she was learning that love wasn't as tidy, or as sweet and easy, as she had once thought it should be.
It came with complications, and it came with a hell of a lot of questions.
Turning, she strode to the doorway, and for the second time, came to a stop. In front of the fire, on the large, soft rug before it, Jonas lay with Amber.
He'd changed clothes. Dressed in loose sweatpants, bare feet and a bare chest, he lay next to the baby as the fire flickered in front of them.
Amber was watching the flames with the drowsy wonder that only a baby could show. Her lashes lay low, sleep edging her expression as Jonas softly hummed a lullaby.
The dark rhythm of the sound lulled her as well, but it did nothing to cause drowsiness. Rachel felt her entire body flushing with arousal instead. The sensation was deeper, stronger, than it had ever been, fueled by emotions that tore through her, that left her aching for his arms around her, or a glimmer of warmth and amusement in his gaze.
Was it mating heat, or simply an amplification of the emotional and physical response to the person she was meant to love anyway?
Society had created a world where commitment to a relationship, to marriage, didn't mean what it had once meant. Marriages broke up over money, family, petty arguments and jobs that left individuals tired and searching for peace. A peace that wasn't often found when they walked through the doors and met screaming children, endless chores, and phone calls from demanding relatives.
Had nature decided to circumvent the ability to ignore the relationship and the commitment to one person?
What she felt wasn't a forced seduction or hunger. This was natural. What she would feel once she took the kiss she knew was awaiting her was another thing. That kiss would tie her to one man for more than a normal lifetime. And it would make her a part of something she still didn't understand, but found she didn't want to miss.
And her sister, Diana, said she lacked a sense of adventure. She was about to go on an adventure that even her sister would hesitate to face.
"She's almost asleep." The soft hum stopped to be replaced by the rich, dark sound of his voice. "She loves watching the flames."
And watching him with her daughter was breaking her heart. The man lying on the floor was nothing like the Director of Breed Affairs that he had been when he walked out of this cabin.
This man was meant to be a father. He was meant to cherish and to love everyone who came under his protection.
"It's the flickering light she loves," Rachel told him as she watched her daughter's lashes lower farther.
His fingers gently stroked the baby's arm, her tiny fingers. Amber looked so tiny next to him that Rachel wondered that he wasn't frightened to touch her. At times, Rachel was terrified of breaking her.
"She looks like you," Jonas said, his voice still soft. "A living beauty."
Rachel's breath caught as his gaze lifted from the child, to her. For once, the living mercury of his eyes wasn't raging. They were calm, glowing in his dark face with power and promise.
She couldn't speak. The words felt locked in her throat, the power to pull them free lacking inside her. He stared at her as though he truly adored her, as though she was perhaps perfect, beautiful, a woman well worth desiring.
No man had ever stared at her in such a manner before. No man had ever made her feel as though she was the center of his hunger, and only she could relieve it.
Jonas rose to his knees then, picked the baby up and straightened before moving across the living room to the smaller crib, which he must have placed there while she was showering.
Rachel closed the bedroom door and stepped into the living room.
He was putting the baby closer to them so they could hear her from his room, separated by the open fireplace. Private, yet accessible should Amber need them.
"I thought you would want to hear her if she fussed tonight." He laid Amber in the crib so she could continue to watch the flames, before drawing a light blanket decorated with tiny pink teddy bears over her tiny body.
"I don't understand this," she whispered as she paused before the fireplace and watched as he turned back to her. "And I'm frightened of it."
"Frightened of what?" He moved to her, his long legs eating the distance despite the fact that he was moving slowly. "What's there to be frightened of, sweetheart? More pleasure than you can imagine? A man who would die for you?"
Things women swore they would die for. It wasn't the love, or the devotion, that frightened her, though.
"Of the mating heat." She swallowed tightly. "I don't like not having control, Jonas. I don't know how to live and not be certain of what tomorrow will bring, or how not to control what my own destiny is."
"Did you know what tomorrow would bring when you were with Marshal? And sweetheart, I hate to tell you this, but you have all the control," he told her softly, his hands moving to her shoulders, his fingers caressing the flesh revealed by the loose neckline of the gown. "Whatever you want, I'm here to provide, Rachel," he promised. "Whatever keeps you safe, happy and in my arms, I'm here to give you. Just tell me what you want."
His head lowered, but he didn't kiss her lips. He didn't share the mating hormone that Ely had stated made each breath torturous, the hunger was so intense. Instead, his lips touched the skin just below her ear, where sensations were magnified, where heat built and spread along her nerve endings like wildfire.
Rachel felt her lashes drifting closed as sensual weakness and an emotional overload assailed her. What he did to her, she could barely make sense of. He could break her heart, he could make her want to shoot him, but through it all, she didn't want to miss this chance.
"What are you doing?" Breathing was becoming harder by the second as she felt arousal burning through her, marking her with the need for his touch.
His lips were warm velvet, his tongue, with its slight rasp, a heated roughness that had her eyes closing and her knees weakening, and the hunger to feel more, to feel all of him, nearly overwhelmed her.
"Jonas." She whispered his name, the need building inside her now, tearing through her and laying waste to any thought she may have been harboring about thinking this step through any longer.
Lifting her hands, she pressed her fingers to his hard, heated abdomen, feeling it flex beneath her fingers as her own stomach clenched in hunger. She loved how readily he responded to her touch. There were no games with it. She gave him pleasure just as well as he gave her.
"Come to bed with me, Rachel," he breathed against her ear. "I promise, there will be no heat tonight. You have all the time you need to become accustomed the idea of it. To decide if the loss of control is worth it."
She lifted her head, staring back at him, wondering at the incredible gentleness in his voice.
"It hurts you," she whispered.
"Like it would hurt any other man not to have you." He cupped her cheek, his thumb running over her lips. "You are an addiction to me, love. But it's not as though I'm going into withdrawal quite yet."
He looked amused, patient. He didn't look like a man in the throes of agony.
"Ely thinks . . ."
"Ely is sometimes a bit overprotective when it comes to mated Breeds, and a whole lot too nosy about the biology of the phenomena," he stated as his hand stroked down her arm, his fingers finding hers as he moved back to draw her to his bedroom. "Don't worry about what Ely says, Rachel. Worry about what you need."
He was lying to her. She could see the lie in his eyes, in the fine film of perspiration glistening along his forehead. He was in pain, and the knowledge of how he held back, to give her the time she needed, had her wondering if holding back was truly what she wanted to do.
He needed to kiss her. The glands beneath his tongue, as Merinus had explained it, could become agonizingly sensitive unless the hormone was shared.
He was protecting her.
She let him draw her to the bedroom as butterflies beat again
st her stomach and her lungs tightened with nerves.
She had fantasized for so long. So many nights she had imagined what it would be like if he ever touched her. And his touch was more than she had ever imagined.
As he drew her into the bedroom, Rachel stared up at him, seeing in his eyes the incredible control he was exerting on himself now.
Liquid mercury eyes raged with hunger, with need. His expression was tight, savagely hewn. And sexy. The powerful, primal features of his face, the corded strength of his body, were so damned sexy she could barely stand to look at him without needing his touch.
Without needing to touch him.
Reaching to his bare shoulders, Rachel let the tips of her fingers skim across the powerful muscles, feeling the tension in them, as well as the tightly leashed control.
"You are such a liar," she whispered. "Merinus told me all about mating heat, Jonas. And what she didn't tell me, I've guessed or Ely was kind enough to spit out information on."
"Merinus has a big mouth." He grimaced as she let her nails scratch across his flesh.
"Merinus tells me the truth," she stated as he stared down with those oddly colored eyes.
"No. Merinus lies." He jerked as her nails raked lower, glancing over the tight, hard discs of his male nipples.
She wondered how long she could play with him? How far could she push him? Would his control actually break? She had never heard of anyone, man or woman, shattering his much-lauded control.
"I think you like lying." Leaning forward, her lips touched his chest, her tongue reaching out to lick over one of the tight, hard male nipples, tasting it, and then wanting more.
His hand jerked up, tangled in her hair and held her still for long, tense moments before she felt it ease marginally.
"I don't lie," he breathed out, his jaw bunching as she stared up at him before raking across his nipple with her teeth.
"Enough." A groan tore from his lips as his fingers knotted in her hair once again. "Don't tempt me, Rachel. If you think you know fear of the mating heat now, then you will surely understand what true fear of it is if you keep pushing like this."
"Like what?" she breathed out roughly as she kissed the center of his chest. "Like this?" She bit into his flesh, tugged at it, felt his stomach tremble against her own as heat flooded her pussy.
The need for his touch rushed through her like a firestorm, weakening her knees and pulsing through her womb as her breath caught with the sensation.
That smallest indication of her pleasure was nearly enough to break his control. She felt him tighten, watched as his gaze flared, heated, became molten.
A groan rumbled in his chest as he pulled her head back, his own lowering as though in preparation to kiss her.
A kiss that never came. Instead, his lips pressed to her jaw, a muted groan tearing from his lips as he pushed her robe from her shoulders with his free hand before loosening his fingers from her hair, and with that hand, pulled the slender strap of her gown over her shoulder. It was so sensual, so sexual, Rachel couldn't hold back the whimper that tore from her throat.
The bedroom became heated with hunger. Rachel could feel it in the air, brewing between them as she fought to hold on to the shattered senses.
"The need to touch you makes me insane," he growled as the robe and gown puddled at her feet.
She was naked now. Standing before him, her body laid bare for him to see, to stroke, to possess.
"God, look at you." His gaze dropped to her breasts, her nipples tight and hard, so sensitive that the very air moved across them in a stroke of pleasure.
Rachel closed her eyes, lost in the pleasure as his hands cupped her breasts, stroked them. She could feel the imperative need rising between them now, a sense of primal hunger tearing between then.
Rachel felt tremors of need racing down her spine, flickering through her pussy, stoking a flame through it that she wondered if there was any way to put out. Could she ever be sated from his touch, or would the hunger only continue to grow?
As he gripped her nipples between thumb and finger, Rachel promised herself that tonight wasn't just for her. Jonas, she was beginning to realize, would put aside his own wants, his own hungers, for his mate. For her.
Was that fair? So many people took from him; even when he manipulated them into it, still, they took, raged at him for the games he played, the results he achieved, and all he gave of himself. And no one offered of themselves, or of their lives, for Jonas.
And once again, Jonas was willing to give of himself and ask nothing in return.
Was that what she wanted?
Her head tilted back as his lips moved down her neck, rough velvet, stroking pleasure through every nerve ending, yet it wasn't enough.
It was his lips only. No stroke of his tongue, no kiss from his lips. And she wanted it, so desperately.
She was terrified of the mating heat, yet she was just as terrified of never knowing it.
She was terrified, period. Her life was raging out of control in so many ways, and yet in others, it seemed to be exactly where it should be. She was where she should be. Here in Jonas's arms.
And she knew something was missing: his kiss. The feel of his lips moving over hers, his tongue stroking against hers.
His lips were at her breasts, stroking over the flesh, rubbing against her nipple. She arched closer, trying to push her nipple between his lips. She wanted it t
