rugged. “I just finished up-loading some information that came through after the party. We had a transmission go out across the secured server that didn’t come from any of the computers. We haven’t been able to track its destination as of yet. And there was code in it. Dane, Callan and Kane are in Callan’s office working on that.”
“Good place for them,” Ria said impatiently. “You should help them.”
Jonas grimaced as he shot Mercury an amused glance. The smell of Ria’s heat, the sweet scent of hunger and need, filled the small office space, and Jonas’s presence, his ability to smell it, rankled Mercury’s possessiveness.
When she turned back to them, Jonas’s gaze shot to her breasts. Mercury gave a small, almost silent growl of warning before Jonas turned away again, grinning.
Mercury turned back to look at her and nearly groaned. That damned crimson top he just had to see her wearing. It cupped her breasts like a lover’s hand, and beneath the material, beneath the bra she wore under it, the imprint of hard little nipples could be clearly seen.
He turned back to Jonas. “I’ll be here with her.”
“You’re out of uniform.” Jonas cleared his throat before turning back.
Ria gave a delicate, mocking sniff to that comment.
“Mercury decided he didn’t like my clothes last night,” she drawled sarcastically. “He shredded everything I owned. So I shredded his.”
Both uniforms actually. Mercury would have been enraged at the sight of his uniform in pieces like that only weeks before. His uniform, his position, had defined him. Now he’d found something much more interesting to involve himself in than the uniform that proclaimed his rank.
“I’m sure I could find an article in Breed Law to make that grounds for some kind of punitive measure,” Jonas grunted. “Could you two refrain from destroying each other’s clothes? At least until we have things figured out here.”
Ria gave them both a dark glare.
“Why don’t both of you find something else to do and let me work here?” She gave Mercury a pointed stare.
“I’m sure I can keep from bothering you,” he promised her.
Jonas sighed. “Damned mating heat. Lawe is threatening to join a monastery and Rule’s threatening to quit. Why don’t you two try to show the younger guys it can be fun instead of taking a note out of everyone else’s books and letting it drive you insane?”
“I’m as sane as I ever was.” Mercury shrugged.
“That’s such a frightening thought,” Ria muttered, and he almost chuckled. He would have, but he could tell her temper was rising with her heat.
“I’ll leave you two to it then.” Jonas cleared his throat again and opened the door to step out. “Have fun, kids.”
The door closed behind him, leaving them confined, trapped within the scent of Ria’s growing arousal, and her growing confusion.
She jerked several files from the table, stalked to her desk and slapped them on top of it before sitting down.
Mercury locked the door. Just in case she decided to get frisky. Or he did.
“Let her touch you in front of me again and I’ll rip both your hands off.” Her eyes shot chocolate fire across the desk.
Mercury arched his brow. “Who?”
“You know who,” she told him, her voice clipped, precise. “Whatever you do, Mercury, however this turns out. Don’t let me see her touch you, because I won’t be responsible for my actions.”
He kept his grin to himself. There she was. His woman. All attitude and fire and heated arousal. He nodded slowly, picked up his magazine and pretended to read it. He’d been reading the damned thing a month now. He still didn’t know a single article in it.
“And it would help you to read that magazine if you turned it right side up,” she said carefully. “If you’re just going to pretend to read it, then pretend with at least a show of decorum.”
He grinned behind the magazine. But he didn’t turn it right side up. And here he’d thought she hadn’t noticed.
CHAPTER 23
Ria hadn’t imagined the agony of need Elizabeth Vanderale had once described to her as she explained mating heat. She couldn’t have understood, she told herself later, feeling her womb spasming violently as a fire burned just under her flesh.
Sitting at her desk, her thighs clenched, her clit throbbing in heavy demand, Ria knew she was on the verge of screaming for relief.
She glanced through the screen of her lashes to where Mercury sat across from her. The comfortable easy chair that had been in the corner of the room for him held his large body easily. He was sprawled out in it, his long legs stretched out before him, the bulge between his legs thick and pressing against the black leather pants. His T-shirt conformed to the rippling muscles of his abs, and as she watched, those muscles bunched, his thighs shifted and she could have sworn his cock throbbed beneath the leather.
Moving up, her eyes finally met his. His eyes were brilliant with hunger. The sharp, crisp blue almost flamed within his dark face as he watched her. Yet he hadn’t tried to touch her. Each time she walked by him to get more files, she prayed to find him against her, to have him reach out for her. She wanted him with a violence that was beginning to eat away at her nerves, but other than the bulge straining at his pants, he showed no signs of the same hunger eating him alive.
The need was like a steadily growing flame working over her nerve endings, building in her sex. The need, not just to fuck, but to rub against him, to have his arms around her, to stroke him and pet him, had her entire body heating like an inferno.
She forced herself to lower her gaze back to the transmission Jonas had loaded onto the computer. It was definitely coded, though the code was much shorter, more hurried. Ria rubbed at her forehead as she pulled up other transmissions from the night before and worked those alongside it.
There had been a pattern, until this one. The culprit leaking information had found a system that had managed to keep itself from detection by snagging outgoing transmissions already in the works, attaching the code and then freeing them to their destinations.
Each transmission had gone to a subsidiary of either Engalls Pharmaceuticals or Brandenmore Research. The majority of them went to a subsidiary company on the research arm, and one fairly popular within Sanctuary for ordering innocuous supplies such as aspirin. Breeds were prone to mild headaches as the seasons changed, and they used aspirin in vast quantities.
There was also an order for another headache medicine, though. One a bit stronger. Ria frowned, tracking the orders and the transmissions attached to them as she moved them through the ghost drive.
In the past year the orders for the drug had grown, and were all being delivered to the same Breed. Dr. Ely Morrey.
As she shifted in more files, frowning over the findings, a heavy knock landed on the door.
“It’s Jonas,” Mercury told her quietly as he unlocked the door and allowed the other Breed to enter the room.
Mercury moved to the side of her desk as she glanced at him suspiciously. Did he think Jonas was going to turn rabid and attack or something?
Nearly shaking her head, she lifted her gaze to Jonas as the door closed and locked behind them. At the faint click, Ria’s eyes shot to the lock.
“Ely’s called the Ruling Cabinet together,” Jonas announced. “An emergency session. They’re convening day after tomorrow.”
“She’s going to demand Mercury’s confinement?” Ria knew that was the reason behind the emergency session.
Jonas nodded, his hard, arrogant expression tightening further.
“She’s already begun calling the cabinet members, who in turn are calling Callan. She’s not going to get the support she needs, but she could manage to force the tests for feral displacement and mating heat.”
“What about the blood you took yesterday?” Mercury asked, drawing Ria’s surprised gaze.
“What blood?” she asked.
Jonas’s gaze met hers. “After you left yes
terday, Mercury submitted a sample of his blood for feral displacement and mating heat. Which means we’re going to need a sample of yours.”
“For Dr. Morrey to screw with?” She stared back at him in disbelief. “I really don’t think so, Jonas.”
Jonas glanced at Mercury again, his expression questioning. At Mercury’s slightest nod, Jonas turned back to her.
“We do have another scientist.”
Ria smiled knowingly as she leaned back in her chair and stared at him mockingly. “You have Jeffery Amburg, don’t you, Jonas?”
Jonas crossed his arms over his chest and turned his gaze to Mercury.
“Do you trust him to do the tests?” he asked.
Mercury shrugged. “He’s a murdering bastard, but nothing matters to him but the tests and the results. He’s a scientist, Jonas. The worse sort. But he’ll follow through on whatever he finds.”
Jeffery Amburg, Ria knew, had been one of the scientists assigned to Mercury’s lab. He’d also been the scientist that helped develop the drug to control the feral displacement when Mercury had gone insane with rage at the news of Alaiya’s death. He had also been the scientist researching the hormone that showed up in Mercury, which was known to be the precursor to mating heat.
She was surprised by the hard pinch of pain that brought to her chest. She should have grown accustomed to the situation as it stood by now.
“He doesn’t touch her.” Mercury jerked his head toward Ria. “A Breed can take the blood and saliva samples. Nothing more.”
Jonas’s jaw clenched.
“Wouldn’t that be my decision, Mercury?” Not that she wanted those tests, but the arrogance in his voice raised the hairs at the back of her neck in both primal warning and irritation.
He shot her a glare. “Do you want Amburg to come out of there alive, Ria? If I saw his hands on you, knowing the blood that coats them, I wouldn’t be able to restrain myself.”
She ignored the declaration and turned back to Jonas.
“Is Alaiya being tested?”
His gaze moved to Mercury again.
“I didn’t ask Mercury, I asked you.”
He nodded shortly. “One of our enforcers escorted her to the lower-level labs we have Amburg in now. Her samples were taken several hours ago.”
“And was she showing signs of mating heat?”
Jonas didn’t speak. Ria felt her heart tighten, felt it burn like a live coal in her chest.
“I see.” She leaned forward, straightened the papers on her desk and stared sightlessly at the screen. “Let me know when you need me to give you the blood and saliva. I’ll be working until then.”
Silence filled the room for long moments.
“I’ll send Amburg’s tech up when I leave. She’s a young Breed; she worked in another of the labs, assisting the scientists there, before the rescues. She’ll take care of you.”
Ria nodded and moved another transmission into place.
She focused on work. She had always focused on work. It didn’t betray, it didn’t consume, it didn’t eat away at her emotions. “By the way, your transmission last night came from the Breed barracks, rather than the estate house as you assumed. Low-level, it piggybacked on an outgoing transmission and ended at the hotel in Buffalo Gap.”
She pushed her chair back from the computer as Jonas edged from the desk. Rising from it, she gave him the seat and moved around the desk as he sat down. He stared at the transmission display she’d had running within a tracking program she’d downloaded from the Breed satellite once the computer in the office had been linked directly to it.
“How did you find it?” Jonas’s fingers were moving across the keyboard. “We don’t have this program.”
“Sanctuary’s security level hasn’t been raised sufficiently to allow use of the program,” she told him. “I had clearance to use it personally, granted by Leo himself when I awoke this morning and checked my messages.”
Which meant Dane had come clean with him. For some reason, that had made her feel less like an outsider. Dane had called Leo when the situation had grown out of her control. He had been ready to face Leo’s rage to bring her back to South Africa.
She crossed her arms over her breasts, pushing that knowledge aside as she frowned at the other information she had found.
“Why is Ely ordering codeine from one of Brandenmore’s subsidiaries?” she asked. “I would have thought all medications and research supplies ordered outside Vanderale or Lawrence Industries would go through Engalls.”
Jonas paused and lifted his gaze, his eyes sharp, deadly.
“Breeds don’t take codeine,” he told her. “It doesn’t work as well with our systems as it does with non-Breeds.”
Ria shrugged. “Check her order transmissions, the ones with the attached coding on them. She’s made several orders over the past six to eight months, with increasing frequency. She’s also ordering pain medications of increasing strength. Morphine was added to the list last month.”
“There haven’t been any requisitions or payments for those drugs,” he told her. “I’d know if there were.”
“Then maybe she’s paying for them another way.”
The silence, the heavy, dangerous tension, that filled the room had the hairs along her arms and her neck lifting in response.
Jonas pulled a communicator from the side of his belt, attached it to his head and pulled the mic to his cheek.
“Jackal? Secure Dr. Morrey’s office and place enforcers Blade, Noble and Mordecai within the labs until all computers can be confiscated. I want Ely confined to her quarters, and inform Callan and Dane I’m on my way to Callan’s office for an emergency meeting.”
He disconnected the link, pulled the headset off and stared at Ria, fury swirling in his eyes.
“When did you find this?”
“Just before you came in.” She shrugged. “But I’d be careful, Jonas. It was too easy to find and I don’t like that.”
“Ely is no electronics wizard.” He sighed heavily. “She hates computers just to begin with. If it’s not scientific equipment, then she has no use for it. They would have to keep it simple.”
His voice was heavy, filled with regret, as he rose to his feet. “Get this information printed out, pull the program here, and I want it installed on the personal network we’re putting together for in-house use.”
Ria smiled tightly. “Not without clearance, Jonas.”
“We need this program, damn you!” His hands flattened on the desk as he growled back at her.
“Jonas.” Mercury stepped between them, his large body tense, his voice warning. “Pull back.”
Jonas jerked back from the desk and glared at Mercury.
“Fuck this shit! When this is over, I’m joining Lawe in the damned monastery. I’ve had enough of overly territorial Breeds and the mating heat bullshit that makes my job hell. Watch it, Mercury. I’ll give you my job.”
He pushed his hands over his short, dark hair and breathed out heavily before turning back to Ria. “Can you at least print out the information and bring it to Callan’s office? I need proof, Ria. Not supposition or information on a program we’re not allowed to have,” he sneered.
“I can install the program on Callan’s computer. It can ghost for up to seventy-two hours before it deletes itself and becomes inoperable and undetectable to the main network. Or any other private network.”
He nodded sharply as he moved from the desk and allowed her back in her chair.
Sitting was agony. It clenched her thighs around her clit, reminding her of the emptiness inside her core, and tightened her womb spasmodically as the need for sex began to eat her alive.
She restrained the need to place her hand against her lower stomach in protest of the pain, and she feared that the next few hours were going to be impossible to get through.
She typed in the key to release the program from the computer, inserted another ghost program to clean it from the drive and the network, then pulled t
he small external drive that held the information they needed.
When she looked up, it was to see Mercury’s gaze on her, that hard blue color of his eyes burning within his face. He needed too, and yet he did nothing to ease either one of them.
If she wanted him, she would have to take him.
She stared at him, almost feeling the sweet relief, the burning need as if she had forced his heavy erection inside her, taking him to the hilt and feeling all that heat and power at her control. That could become more addictive than the mating heat itself.
Her breasts became more swollen, her nipples painfully hard beneath the lace of the bra she wore. She felt like panting. Like going to her knees and taking what she wanted.
“Today, children,” Jonas cleared his throat, breaking the spell weaving around them. “Sometime today, if you don’t mind.”
Ria rose to her feet and forced her gaze back to the files she had laid aside to back up the information on the external drive.
She wanted to shake her head, to attempt to clear it and the emotions striking through her—anger and need, heartache and the certainty that living without him wasn’t an option now.
He had done this to her, she argued inside. He had made the choice to take her rather than the woman that nature had meant for him.
And if that woman was suffering as a result?
She shook her head. It didn’t work like that. Elizabeth’s research proved that mating heat required an exchange of the hormone; a kiss, a sex act—more than just a desire. The hormone could only show up with mating heat in full force. The Breed tongue might itch, but the glands would swell only minutely at first unless further contact was initiated.
It took more than just the knowledge that mating heat could be an option. And obviously, it was possible for a Breed male to take another mate, if that exchange wasn’t made. Because he had mated her. And mated her. And she needed him to mate her again before she melted into a puddle of need on the floor.
They left the office and Mercury came up beside her, his hand riding low on her back, fingers sliding beneath the short hem of her shirt as they headed to Callan’s office on the other side of the mansion.
As they turned down the main hall once again, she was there. Avaricious eyes watched Mercury, sliding over his body as he and Ria moved toward her. Greed and lust flickered in the other woman’s eyes as Ria clenched her fingers to fists to restrain the need to claw those eyes out.
She could feel the violence rising inside her. Something she detested, feared, within herself. There had always been a part of her psyche that she kept tightly restrained, that she never allowed free, for a reason.
She had dressed down, rarely worn makeup and stayed on the perimeter of everyone else, for protection. For herself. She hated the inner violence she felt whenever she lost something important to her.
She remembered the rage that had consumed her as a child when she realized, when it finally hit her, that her mother had left her forever. No matter the reasons, her mother had left her alone.
The foster family that she had been staying with had been forced to contact Dane. She had destroyed the pretty bedroom Dane had had decorated for her. She had smashed toys, ripped stuffed animals, and when that hadn’t eased the hard knot of fury, she had tried to escape by running.
From that moment, once sanity had returned, Ria had fought to make certain it never happened again. And now she could feel that core—older, more mature, but knotted in rage at the thought of losing what she had claimed with her soul.
Mercury had made his choice. If he asked her for release, she would open her hands and let him go, though it would kill her inside. But this woman didn’t have a chance of taking anything from her.
She let her gaze meet Alaiya’s as Mercury moved beside her and Jonas moved up on the other side. As though protecting her. She didn’t need their protection and she let Alaiya know it.
She held the Breed female’s eyes, poured all that anger, frustration and determination into the look she gave her, and had the satisfaction of watching the other woman’s eyes flicker.
Oh no, this battle wasn’t going to be that easy. Ria knew it, and now Alaiya would know it as well.
“Jonas.” Alaiya’s lips suddenly curled. “I just received the results from the blood workup.”
“Later, Alaiya,” Jonas ordered as they moved to pass her.
“No, Jonas. Not later.” Her voice stopped them all.
Jonas snarled back at her in anger. “You overstep your bounds, enforcer.”
Alaiya smiled. “According to Breed Law, I’m establishing them. The mating hormone is in my blood workup, Jonas. And it matches Mercury’s.” She straightened from the walk, slid forward and stared back at Mercury with feral possessiveness. “He’s my mate.”
Ria felt herself shatter inside. But rather than the storm of last night, she felt a furious, burning core rage inside her instead.
“Breeds have only one mate,” she stated through numbed lips as Mercury gripped her arm, pulling her forward.
“Exactly,” Alaiya drawled. “And we matched.”
“And we mated,” she retorted coldly, watching as Alaiya’s gaze suddenly narrowed. “You can smell it. You can sense it, can’t you, Alaiya?”
The other woman’s lips thinned as Mercury’s rumbling growl became louder.
“Touch him, and you’ll deal with me.”
To that, Alaiya’s lips curled in satisfaction. “Oh, I think I can take you, little mouse.” Her laughter slid from her throat. “No contest.”
“And I think, dear, if you attempted it, I might have to kill you myself.” Dane stepped into the doorway at the same moment Mercury jerked Ria back and snarled in Alaiya’s face.
“Remember my warning, Alaiya?” he snapped, his voice cold.
“Breed Law . . .”
“Don’t you throw Breed Law at me.” His voice was a powerful, dangerous rumble of violence. “Remember the warning. Heed it. Or you’ll suffer the consequences.”
“And I don’t need either one of you to stand before me.” Ria pushed by Mercury, coming back to his side, anger riding the arousal, like lava spewing its wrath from a volcano. “Let her find out for herself what she’s dealing with. On her own terms.”
“So confident,” Alaiya sneered.
“So malicious,” Ria retorted coldly. “There’s nothing for you here. No matter your belief.”
She let Mercury draw her away then. Not that