Lion's Heat (28 page)

Rachel finished the report logs Jonas was required to submit to the Bureau of Breed Affairs Oversight Committee, a panel of several senators, Breeds and foreign ambassadors. The oversight committee was tasked with keeping an eye on the running of the Bureau, Jonas's actions as Bureau director and the official missions the Breeds participated in for the American and allied countries.

Each day, a report log was filed for the day before and sent to the secretary of the oversight committee. At the end of each month, Jonas met with them for any outstanding questions.

There wasn't a lot of factual information per se that went into the reports. But as Rachel read them, she was always amused at the inventiveness Jonas displayed in twisting many of his more calculated schemes and making them appear perfectly acceptable and logical.

The man had to have the DNA of an Irishman well versed in kissing more than one Blarney Stone.

Her head turned as his office door opened. That familiar little catch of her breath was stronger now. The memory of the night spent in his arms, her body humming with pleasure, caught at her senses, whipped across her flesh with ghostly fingers of sensation and had a smile tugging at her lips.

"Your report logs are getting better," she told him as she sent the file to his electronic notepad for his signature.

"Callan still gets a laugh out of them." He shrugged as he moved to the desk, his gaze hooded as he stared down at her. His nostrils flared as though searching for some scent he couldn't quite put his fingers on.

Rachel tilted her head as she stared up at him quizzically. "Is something wrong?"

"Many things," he told her. "Are you feeling okay today?" Propping her hand on her fist, she let her gaze lock with the liquid silver of his eyes. "I'm feeling fine. You?"

"I've been better." That undefined emotion in his eyes that had always drawn her raged now.

A frown pulled at her brow. He was unusually tense, and for Jonas, that was saying something. He gave tension a bad name. The man was normally drawn as tight as a bow string. For him to be more tense than normal was something to worry about.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" She was willing to try many things. The thought of going to her knees in front of him, her lips caressing the straining length of his cock, had her mouth watering.

"Actually, there is." As though he had made some decision within himself, his shoulders straightened and his gaze narrowed as he stared down at her. "I'm making an appointment for you with Ely this evening. We need to get started on the examination and tests you'll be required to participate in once full mating occurs."

Rachel stared back at him silently. She had determined, once, that she wouldn't be his mate. That she couldn't be unless she decided she was.

Had she made that decision?

She knew she had.

There was a part of her that knew she belonged to him, longed for him. There was a part of her that knew the mating heat was coming, it was simply a matter of time.

"So soon?" she asked, rather than refusing outright. "I thought, after the mating . . ."

"We need to get started now, Rachel." His tone was harder than it had been in past days. She was so used to him using the softer, gentler tone of voice that the normal tone was like a slight dash of cold water across her flesh.

She nodded though. "Ely will be doing the examination?"

She liked Dr. Vanderale but the other woman had the power to intimidate her. Rachel didn't like acknowledging that power where anyone was concerned.

"Only Ely." He nodded as though he understood her hesitation.

"Very well." She drew in a hard breath, mentally preparing herself for the coming tests. "I can do that."

He nodded sharply. "We've also been invited to dinner tonight with the Leo, his family and Callan and his. I'm sure you'll enjoy some time with Merinus."

His voice was oddly cool, even though she had agreed to what he'd asked of her, which indicated there was something more going on. She'd learned many of Jonas's ways, and one of them was that the more he expected a complication or a problem from one of his requests, the cooler he would become with whomever he was dealing with.

Rachel nodded again. "I'll check with Erin to make certain she can stay with Amber." The young lynx Breed had taken to Amber with surprising affection.

Jonas frowned at the statement. "Erin and Amber will be going with us. Socialization begins as an infant, Rachel. You want her to know how to deal with others, and how to interact, even as a toddler."

Her brows raised. Jonas's frown deepened.

"She's my baby, Jonas," she reminded him. "I appreciate what you've done to protect her . . ."

"She is
our
baby." He leaned forward, his hands planted on her desk with a suddenness that had her staring up at him warily. "Never doubt that I don't claim that child as my own. We will raise her together, we will protect her together. If you have other ideas, then perhaps you've been right to deny the mating."

He straightened as quickly as he'd leaned forward, his shoulders straight, his expression forbidding as he seemed to glare at her.

"Don't imagine you can demand those rights." Rachel was out of her chair immediately.

"I don't demand them. I have taken them," he growled, bending again until he was almost nose to nose with her. "Raising a child is a partnership, mate. Don't imagine otherwise."

"You're pissing me off." Her hands went to her hips. "Asking for something is a hell of a lot nicer than demanding it. What the hell is wrong with you, and since when did you decide you could arbitrarily decide that you have any rights over me or Amber?"

"When I knew you were my mate," he snarled back at her. "And why have you decided to suddenly become so damned difficult? I do know a few things about children. Cassie didn't turn out so bad, and all of Sanctuary has participated in raising her."

"Cassie has an excellent mother," she pointed out, exerting effort to be calm, her eyes narrowing. "And likely had a father who understood not to speak to her mother as though she knew nothing about raising a child."

Jonas was fighting for control; Rachel could sense it. She watched him, her heart racing, a sense of impending doom rising inside her as his eyes flashed from silver to mercury and back again.

He was testing boundaries he didn't want to tempt, not now, not yet. Likely, never.

"Amber has an excellent mother," he growled, obviously pushing the words past clenched teeth. "I never implied otherwise, Rachel. You have turned a simple discussion into a conflict that should not exist."

"Or perhaps you have." They were still nose to nose, eyes narrowed, the tension stifling. "Now that we've agreed Erin and Amber will accompany us, you can see about becoming prepared for the telephone conference you have with Senator Tyler in exactly one hour. After that, you have a meeting with the pre-cabinet concerning the latest attempt by various groups to gain access to a hunting permit for Sanctuary's northern boundary. You don't have time to stand here growling and snarling at me."

He flashed his incisors at her. She crossed her arms over her breasts and stared back at him with steely resolve.

"Mating heat is coming, mate." His voice lowered, rasped, stroked along her senses like dark velvet. "Let's see where all that anger gets you then."

Turning on his heel, he stalked from the ante office back to his own, and closed the door quietly behind him.

Very quietly.

Rachel flinched, then blew out a soundless breath.

Now, there was an attitude she hadn't seen from him before. If she wasn't mistaken, he had been seconds, inches, one last thread of control from kissing her.

For one wild, exciting moment, she had nearly kissed him instead.

And she'd had fun.

Smiling, Rachel took her seat and returned to the computer and her own work.

Not many people could say they had faced the bogeyman of the Breeds in a screaming match and came out unscathed. Rachel was betting she was the only one who could lay claim to that particular talent. And she looked forward to the next round.

She paused at the thought.

Hell, she knew she was in love with him now, because the only other person she would dare to yell back at was her sister. She and Diana had gone nose to nose many times over the years, and Diana hadn't always backed down, but she had always ended up laughing at Rachel's particular manner of "handling" her, as she called it.

She glanced at the door again.

She should stalk right in there and kiss him herself. She had no idea why he was holding back now. No idea what demons were shadowing him that he hadn't claimed her.

She knew he wanted to. She knew it was going to happen.

Yet, he was fighting it with every breath he took.

He was drowning.

Jonas sat at his desk, glared at the wall, and felt the stifling tightness in his throat, his chest. The taste of cinnamon and cloves was choking him; the need for her was stealing his breath and his control.

He parted his lips to breathe in roughly and a growl tore from his lips despite his attempts to hold it back.

His hands lay flat on the desk, claws extruding, digging into the wood. The glands beneath his tongue were so swollen, so sensitive, he was in agony. He felt as though his tongue were being ripped out.

He lifted the comm link from a drawer, attached it to his head and pressed the direct secured line to Ely's office.

"Jonas," she answered immediately.

"Rachel will be in this evening for the examination and tests," he informed her. "Get whatever you have to have while you can."

Silence filled the link for long seconds.

"I'll be waiting for her," she stated. "Amburg was in here earlier. He's asking for more blood from the baby. He found a slight anomaly in the last test he conducted and wants to investigate it further."

"I'll discuss it with Rachel."

"If you're bringing her this evening, then whoever is watching Amber can oversee my assistant extracting the blood," Ely suggested. "There's no need to tempt her refusal, Jonas."

He shook his head. "You've learned too well." He sighed. "She's my mate, Ely, not a particularly stubborn Enforcer. I won't go behind her back."

There had been a time when Ely would have never suggested such a thing; to the contrary, she would have protested it had Jonas made such a suggestion.

"Perhaps I didn't learn fast enough from you," Ely murmured. "Whichever, I'll be waiting for you this evening. Let me know by then how to proceed."

The line disconnected, leaving Jonas to stare broodingly into the dark room as he reflected on games, machinations and his past calculating attempts to ensure that his Enforcers met, mated and lived, if not happily ever after, at least with a measure of softness in their lives.

He didn't regret a moment of it, but damned if he wasn't paying for it now.

CHAPTER 15

The tests weren't so hard, definitely not the hell Merinus had warned her that they would be after mating. Rachel consented to allow the blood to be taken from Amber, more concerned with the fact that Jeffrey Amburg felt he'd found some "anomaly" in previous tests.

The Breeds had more anomalies going on in their lives than a gardener had seeds to plant.

Once the tests were finished, Rachel had re-dressed a sleepy Amber and handed her over to the lynx Breed assigned as caretaker. Then the real problems of the evening began. And they began with the Leo.

Moving into the large family room of the estate house, Rachel followed the subtle directions of Jonas's hand against the small of her back as he led her to a settee to the side of the large fireplace, across from a matching settee shared by Leo and his wife, Elizabeth.

In the two large chairs next to Leo and Elizabeth, Leo's son, Dane, and his bodyguard, Ryan--or Rye, as they called him--Desalvo sat, with Callan and Merinus in a sofa facing the fireplace and Kane Tyler and his mated wife, Sherra, in a matching sofa beside them.

Dinner had been filled with discussions of the latest protests against the Breeds, the surge in protestors at the gates of Sanctuary, and a future still uncertain where Breed peace was concerned. It was a discussion still under way.

"The Congo has a lot of hiding places, Callan." Leo sat in the corner of the settee, his arm thrown over the back behind his wife, his gold eyes fierce as he stared into the identical ones of his son. "My compound there is completely secure and not so damned easy to get to. The mates there live in relative peace. The tribes surrounding us are loyal to us. It's a good place to raise and train our children to meet the future."

"Virginia's a good place to raise and train children as well," Callan argued.

"My grandson has nearly been kidnapped twice now," Leo argued. "Each time, David has had to face the death or injury of a friend entrusted to protect him. It's beginning to affect the boy."

The light chastisement wasn't lost on Callan or Merinus.

"David has to learn to accept the dangers in his life." There was a note of regret in Callan's tone. "There is no utopia for us, Leo, you know that. He's in danger, no matter where we are, just as our twins are."