You know I’m always here.”
“I know.” Mica felt her lips trembling again. “I promise, Cassie. Now I better go. I have a few things to finish here, then I think I’ll go to bed.”
“I love you, Mica,” Cassie stated, the regret and compassion in her voice nearly breaking Mica as Cassie fought to hold back the loneliness and the fear Mica could hear building inside her.
“I love you too, Cass,” Mica promised. “Good night.”
She disconnected as she breathed in a hard, ragged breath.
She couldn’t let herself cry. God only knew if she would ever stop if she started. There was too much pain built inside her, too many long, lonely nights of wondering what was wrong with her, why it seemed that even making friends was so difficult. Let alone lovers. Before Navarro, she’d only had one previous lover, in college, and she’d awakened the next morning to find him gone. He’d never even called her back, after spending months chasing her.
She’d moved to New York to escape her father’s rule and learned that the big city was less than friendly. Making friends was nearly impossible for her.
She’d never seen herself as an unlikeable person.
She was friendly. She was reasonably attractive. Sometimes, she even knew how to carry off a joke. Yet she’d spent the better part of her life alone, except for Cassie and her parents.
Alone and wondering why.
Now she was mated and her mate had rejected her in the most elemental way, proving once and for all that something was indeed wrong.
Rising to her feet, she moved slowly across the room to the windows on the other side. Standing before them, she stared into the gathering darkness, hands shoved into the back pockets of her jeans, and faced the knowledge that she would spend another night alone.
Aching.
Hurting.
So flawed that even her mate didn’t want her.
Ely paced the exam room portion of the labs as she nibbled at her thumbnail and fought to find a way to help Mica out of the hell she could be entering if they didn’t find a way to fix whatever was going on with Navarro.
If they didn’t find a way to force him to release the primal, more animalistic side of his genetics.
That had to be the answer. The recessed genetics were more or less a block between the man and animal, separating them and keeping the man from accessing some of the animal genetics inside him. Though Dash Sinclair had waged this fight for years in his mating with Elizabeth, it hadn’t seemed to affect his sanity. It also hadn’t seemed to allow him to walk away from his mate.
But walking away wasn’t something he seemed capable of doing either, if the confrontation in the lab earlier was any indication.
Moving back to the holo-comp, the holographic computer she’d finally convinced Vanderale she so desperately needed, she once again pulled up the files from the Omega labs.
Project Omega had dealt with mating heat and the variables the scientists had found within the four mated couples they’d managed to detect.
The horrific experiments that had been done on the couples still had the power to give Ely nightmares. She forced herself to go through them again, praying she could find in time the answers Navarro and Mica needed.
Everyone thought she had grown cold and hard inside. That she no longer cared.
She cared too much, but she was so much more aware of her limitations now than she had been before.
The low though nonetheless strident buzzer from within Phillip Brandenmore’s cell pinged again.
Ely turned and stared at the activated partition, the glass that had been darkened to keep Phillip from seeing out or anyone else from seeing in. It had been activated all day while she tested Mica and ran the tests for answers.
Answers she had yet to find.
The strident summons came again.
What would it hurt?
The man was crazed, she knew. A psychopath slowly dying while the senses of the animal were being born inside him. Seeing the progression from a scientist’s standpoint was incredible. Watching the tortured destruction of the man would give her nightmares for years to come.
The sound echoed through the labs once more as Ely gave an exhausted sigh and moved to the control panel.
The glass cleared, revealing Brandenmore as he sat huddled in the foam chair, his knees drawn to his chest, his face staring back at her through saddened, pain-filled eyes.
The old, diseased man was slowly regaining his prime. A thick head of hair had been brushed casually to the side. He was muscular and fit beneath the loose scrubs he was given to wear.
So handsome, and so corrupt. Even before he had injected himself with the devil’s brew he’d concocted to return his body to its former condition and his mind to its once crystal clarity.
Before he’d injected a baby with it, and forced the Breeds to halt the freedom he had so very little time left to enjoy.
“I hear whispers,” he told her as she activated the two-way communication between the rooms. “I hear a Breed has mated a human, and has now unmated her.”
It didn’t surprise Ely that he knew, despite the fact that he shouldn’t have. The guards knew now, and sometimes the small slots were left open in the door of the cell to facilitate the guards’ ability to hear his screams if the pain returned. It also allowed him to hear what they gossiped about. She had no doubt the gossip was flowing now. Talk of the Breed that had reversed mating.
“You shouldn’t listen to whispers, Phillip,” she reminded him as she returned to the holo-comp. “You know how deceptive they can be.”
Sometimes, the whispers he heard were in his own head.
“The whispers keep me company,” he said and sighed.
It seemed the day was one of his calmer ones. They were becoming few and far between.
“Have you figured out how to save me yet, Ely?” he asked conversationally, as though they were talking about anything other than his death.
“I haven’t yet, Phillip.” She shook her head. “I told you, I need your help.”
She had to have the recipe he’d used for the formula he’d injected himself with. The recipe he’d injected Amber with. He refused to tell them, certain that if he held that information back, then they would have to figure out how to save him, to save the child.
That theory wasn’t working very well. They couldn’t figure it out. The drug seemed to have mutated inside him, whereas they could no longer find traces of it inside Amber.
In a matter of no more than eight weeks, the changes that had been wrought in Phillip Brandenmore were horrifying. But other than a few anomalies, Amber seemed to be thriving as any other infant would be.
“What if I wasn’t certain?” he mused when she said nothing more. “What if the recipe was one I found, the notes indicating success?”
Ely froze.
She stared at the files she’d pulled up on the holo-comp’s grid and prayed he’d continue with his musings. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t.
“Are you listening to me, Ely?” he asked.
“I’m listening, Phillip,” she assured him with apparent absentmindedness as she continued as though she were concentrating on the files on the grid.
She heard him sigh heavily.
“I’m dying Ely,” he stated. “I wasn’t supposed to die.”
“You killed yourself, Phillip,” she reminded him.
A rough chuckle sounded from him, a wheezing, ugly sound.
“Angels await me,” he sighed.
“Last I heard demons inhabit hell, Phillip.”
“Fallen angels, beauty and grace, the most beautiful of God’s angels. Then man thought he could be God, and create a creature in his image. Beings of beauty and grace. And they betrayed us, as do all beings betray their maker.”
She shuddered at the reverence in his tone and the sense of omnipotence in his words.
“If we couldn’t control the creations, could we become the creations?”
Ely turn
ed slowly.
He was watching her. Sly. Knowing. He knew she was listening to every word that passed his lips.
“Project Omega.” He nodded to the file on the screen. “It came from there. From where her Breed was created. From where he was trained. From where his brother died.”
Ely knew that. Brandenmore had funded that lab. He had researched there. He had tortured Breeds there.
Ely turned back to the files, staring at them. He always talked about the Omega lab. It was his favorite of those he’d worked within and those he’d funded. It was there the mated couples they’d found were taken, and there that the breakthroughs in mating heat had been made.
The answers to the formula he’d injected himself with had to be there. It could save him, and she wasn’t certain she was doing anyone a favor in saving him. But in saving him, they would save Amber as well.
“He controls his animal,” Brandenmore sighed. “Ahh, such training. Such insight into the Breed mentality and creation there, even all those years ago. Insight into the genetics, into training, into the psychology and physiology of each Breed. They were the masters of genetics.”
He rambled and Ely let him. Unobtrusively she turned on the lab recorder rather than relying on security video and audio alone.
And as she pretended to ignore him, pretended not to believe him, for the first time Phillip Brandenmore gave out a few clues, just enough for her to start working on, just a few directions to lead her to the answers she needed.
And, she prayed, at least a clue as to the direction to take to save Mica.
What now?
Navarro paced his suite, the restlessness he’d fought to contain building inside him despite his attempts to hold it at bay. It was like a million electrical pinpricks racing beneath his flesh. Irritating, the reminder that there was more to him than he wanted to admit. That his genetics were those of an animal, a predator. And that predator wanted out. It wanted free.
It wanted its mate.
Recessed genetics were rare in Breeds, or perhaps it was that known surviving recessed Breeds were rare. Most Council scientists had terminated recessed Breeds in the womb if they were detected. If not, then they were usually terminated at birth.
But there were those few who had used the recessed infants for further research. They had kept some, others had been given to adoptive parents and kept under close supervision. Others, like Navarro, lived between the two worlds.
He’d been placed with his birth mother’s parents after his tenth birthday. His nanny had been Council, his bodyguard had been a Council trainer, and his pediatrician had been a Council scientist. And he’d always known, always been aware that each day of his grandparents’ lives hinged on his perfect adaptation of the Breed they wanted him to be.
The Infiltrator. The Breed with the ability to move between both worlds. The human world, and the world of a Breed assassin.
He raked his fingers through his hair, grimacing as he inhaled roughly, searching for the scent of her, the action unconscious, primal. And he couldn’t stop it.
He couldn’t smell her. Not the scent of her or the arousal of her. He was at this moment truly recessed in ways he had never been.
Protection.
It was the only way to rein in the animal searching for her, the one intent on throwing him back into mating heat.
It was mating heat, or lose her.
He’d seen it in Callan, Jonas, and Dane Vanderale’s gazes. They’d actually considered Josiah’s suggestion that he should be banned from her. No doubt they were discussing it now.
Like hell.
There wasn’t a chance in hell he was going to allow it.
Pulling the sat phone free of the holster at his hip, against his better judgment, he put a call through to Dash Sinclair.
It was the height of idiocy and he knew it, but he was damned if he knew who else to talk to at this point. He had no idea what was left.
“Navarro,” Dash answered the call quickly. “Talk to me.”
There was a wealth of suggestion in his voice, a controlled command from a man, a Breed, who had known nothing but command for most of his life.
“She’s mine!” There was no other way to put it. “If they try to ban me from her, there will be a war.”
Silence filled the line.
“I know from Dr. Armani that the mating heat has disappeared,” Dash said. “Your genetics are making you crazy. It feels as though there’s something beneath your flesh threatening to break free. As though those genetics are creating an animal inside you that’s fighting to be free.” He paused, and Navarro remained silent, waiting until Dash continued. “Why do you think I asked if you had mated her, Navarro? Why do you think you’ve been watched so closely around her?”
“You could have told me.”
“And have you hoping for a mating that might never happen?” he asked. “Just because I mated didn’t mean you would. It doesn’t mean any other recessed Breed will. I had hoped you’d come to me once you experienced the first symptoms.”
Navarro grunted at that. “Who knew? I kissed her the night of the attack against Haven and there was nothing.”
Frustration roughened his voice. “There was nothing, Dash. I assumed she was safe.”
“Safe?”
Navarro grimaced again. “Hell. Yeah. Safe. I won’t say I haven’t wanted her, we both know I have. Bad. But I tried to keep her out of mating heat. I came in slow, Dash. Touches here and there, a kiss to the cheek. A kiss to the lips only. I tried to keep this from happening.”
“And I warned you, you couldn’t expect normal mating symptoms as a recessed Breed, Navarro,” Dash growled with an edge of anger.
“You didn’t say to expect no symptoms at all,” Navarro snarled.
The primal rasp had him stilling instantly, the loss of control a warning so deeply ingrained he couldn’t ignore it.
“Do you want to lose her, Navarro? Is it what you want, to have the one thing you could call your own taken from you?”
“And if nature is taking that out of my hands?” He felt as though he were numb from the inside out. The mocking laugh was more a grim sound of disapproval than anything resembling amusement.
“She’s loved you since she was sixteen years old,” Dash stated. “We’ve all sensed it, Navarro, we’ve all known it. All but you. You’ve ignored it, just as she ignored it every time you came around. Letting her go won’t change what’s going to happen, or what has already happened. You’re changing, just as she is. Your genetics are becoming active rather than recessed, and denying it, or fighting it, will only end up hurting both of you in the end.”
“It happened to you.” It had to have. There was no way the other man could have known all this if it hadn’t.
“It happened,” Dash admitted. “And it had the potential to steal my mate from me. I felt, at the time, that I could make the choice, Navarro. I could be unencumbered; I could accept what my heart was longing for, what my soul needed to survive, or I could let that part of me die forever. Are you willing to lose the only person that could mean anything to you?”
“The question is, am I willing to destroy her?” he asked.
He definitely wasn’t willing to stand here arguing it, not when he could smell Josiah nearing, sense the other Breed going to Mica.
As though the bastard could take his place.
A growl definitely rumbled in his chest this time. A low, dangerous sound that would have shocked him, would have had him pulling back in a desperate attempt to rein in the animal he could feel surging forward.
But it was too late.
Just that fast, he went from recessed genetics to full, raging beast, in the blink of an eye.
The door was jerked open hard enough that it bounced against the wall as he released it. The resulting crash was loud enough that as he stalked from the room, several doors opened along the hall.
Taber Williams stepped from the suite he shared with his mated wife, his broad chest bar
e, his jeans obviously hastily pulled on.
Behind him, his wife, Roni, stared into the hall in surprise, her fingers gripping the robe tight at the top of her neck as her disheveled hair fell around her delicate face.
“Problem, Wolf?” Taber drawled, his green Jaguar eyes knowing as Navarro moved past him without speaking.
He would get to Mica’s door before Josiah, but the other Breed would be there before Navarro could get inside her room.
Perhaps.
As he made his way to her, the most intriguing scent met his senses. A dark hint of a raging storm as it rolled in across the ocean. A taste of honey, a hint of cinnamon and spices. And heat. Pure wild heat so addictive he wondered how he’d survived the past hours without tasting her.
His tongue became sensitive, swollen. He could taste the hint of spicy sweetness in his own mouth, feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins, raging through his body.
He’d felt it that last night he’d taken her as well though. Then the next evening it was as though the mating had never happened, as though it had never existed.
Until now.
It was flames tearing through his senses. It was a rush of heat, of hunger; it was being infused by the lush, earthy scent of her and the determination rocking through him.
He couldn’t even say he was himself at the moment. Hell, he knew he wasn’t himself. He was a creature bent on one thing and one thing only.
A mate.
His mate.
CHAPTER 13
A cold shower didn’t help.
A hot shower didn’t help.
And she wasn’t even about to try masturbation, no matter how badly she needed to.
Walking from the bathroom, a robe wrapped around her, no one could have been more shocked than she was when the door was shoved open, the panel crashing against the wall as she froze and stared at Navarro in shock.
He stepped in and slammed the door closed before turning the lock.
Mica blinked.
He looked . . . different.
The sensual Asian features of his face were suddenly sharper, his eyes darker and gleaming with surprising, shocking hunger. A physical need that matched her own, that could even threaten to surpass it.
Staring across the room at him, her gaze locked by his, held by it, Mica found herself unable to break that invisible line, the hold those deep black eyes had on her.
She could feel that touch inside her. It wrapped around her clit, tightened her womb and the tender tips of her nipples. A ghostly caress raced up her arms, stroked across her swollen breasts. It was like being wrapped in the most incredible heat. For the first time since the mating had begun, Mica actually felt as though there was more flowing between them than just his lust and the love she had fought to keep hidden for so long.
“What do you want?” She shook her head as she tried to shake off the dazed, drugging hunger flowing through her now. Before, it had just been heat. It had been lust. Now it was something more.
Something had changed. She could see it in his face, in the ink black of his eyes and the violent tension raging in his body.
Her breathing escalated, her breasts rising and falling heavily as the blood began pumping hot and wild through her body.
“Mica, are you okay?” Her gaze jerked to the door as the sound of Josiah’s concerned voice came through the panel. “Just say something, baby. I’ll get Callan and Dane, Mica. You don’t have to let him touch you.”
Mica blinked again, shock resounding through her at not just the tone of Josiah’s overly familiar words, but also the offer and the suggestion that Navarro would somehow demand something she wasn’t willing to give.
For a moment, she wondered when she had managed to step outside reality into this perverse ”almost” world and the Breeds she was facing now because of it.
“Would you like to tell me what’s going on?” she asked as Navarro’s head turned, his teeth snapping at the closed door in a completely un-recessed-Breed-like way.
What had happened to the icy, determined-to-walkaway Breed she had seen that morning?
“Josiah wants to die.” Navarro turned back to her, a tight smile curving his lips as his eyes narrowed on her. “I hope he wrote out his will. I heard he had some impressive art hidden away.” This time, the smile showed teeth. “He even offered me a piece if he died. He didn’t say how he had to die, and I think I’m ready to collect.”
“Not a chance, Navarro,” Josiah snapped from the other side.
Mica licked her lips nervously, then her breath caught at the expression that appeared on his face. If the savagery reflected there was anything to go by, then Navarro was definitely going to attempt to collect that piece of art.
“I want that hot little tongue on my body,” his voice grumbled. “I want to feel it stroking my dick, Mica. Licking it like a favorite treat as you go down on me.”