Lion's Heat

by Lora Leigh

  He'd shoot him, but the slightest movement of Brandenmore's finger on that trigger and the laser burst would destroy Amber despite Jonas's attempt to protect her.

  "I'll kill you," Jonas promised him, staring into the cold, merciless cruelty of the other man's gaze.

  Brandenmore smiled again. "You've been trying for a while now, Alpha One. You haven't succeeded yet." He glanced to the cradle, which held the child. "And you won't succeed now."

  Before Jonas could jump for him, Brandenmore dove through the doorway.

  A roar of rage tore from Jonas's lips. Adrenaline and pure animal fury had him starting for the door before he stopped, turned and went for the child instead.

  Pulling the tiny body from the cradle, Jonas tucked her close against his chest. He launched himself through the window seconds before fire and heat exploded behind him, catapulting him through the air as the night seemed to go to hell around him.

  CHAPTER 2

  SANCTUARY, FELINE BREED HEADQUARTERS BUFFALO GAP, VIRGINIA

  The Breed heli-jet touched down in the main estate yard, an almost unheard-of occurrence. Teams of Breeds--Feline, Wolf and Coyote--surrounded the area, hard eyes, weapons ready as the outside entrance to the labs was flung open just as the doors to the heli-jet slid open.

  Jonas Wyatt jumped from the black jet, his clothes singed, his dark face smeared with soot and blood as he clutched a small bundle to his chest and raced for the labs.

  Behind him, Feline Breeds Lawe Justice and Rule Breaker stayed close on his heels, each gripping a fragile arm of Jonas's secretary, Rachel Broen.

  Tears and soot streaked down Rachel's face. Her dark red hair was no longer in its carefully arranged, precise little bun. It flowed around her face, long waves cascading to the middle of her back as she was pulled into the bunker beneath the main house.

  "I want Elizabeth and Ely immediately," Jonas shouted as they raced through the steel- and cement-lined corridors to the main lab.

  "They're waiting in the labs." Pride Leader Callan Lyons raced at his side as head of security Kane Tyler and Sanctuary's Enforcer commander, Mercury Warrant, brought up the rear. "Elizabeth was still on-site when you called. She and Ely have everything ready."

  "Jonas, what's going on?" Rachel could feel the dread tearing through her system.

  The hair-raising ride from D.C. to Virginia hadn't taken more than fifteen minutes in the heli-jets. It had raced to Sanctuary at full power with Jonas yelling at the pilot for more speed as Amber lay lax and limber in his arms.

  He wouldn't let her hold her child. Amber hadn't whimpered, she hadn't cried.

  "Here's the syringe. It was beside her in her carrier." Jonas slapped the small pressure syringe that Rachel hadn't even noticed in Callan's hand. "I want a full analysis from Amburg ASAP."

  Callan passed the syringe off to Mercury, who took a quick turn down another corridor and disappeared.

  Jeffrey Amburg, the scourge of the Breed community. He had been known as a butcher in the Breed labs before the rescues twelve years earlier.

  Moving ahead, Kane Tyler, his dark hair cut military short, his icy blue gaze frozen with fury, flung open the doors to the main level of the labs where two women raced from a nearby office.

  "We have everything prepped and ready." Elizabeth Vanderale, her dark hair tied back in a close ponytail, a white lab coat flying out behind her, pushed open another door as Ely Morrey, the Breeds' main scientist, moved quickly to an incubator set up in the middle of the room.

  "Jonas." She was pulled to a stop just inside the room, watching in horror as Amber's small gown and diaper were pulled quickly from her before she was laid inside the incubator.

  "We need blood, saliva and tissue samples immediately," Elizabeth was barking out as she and Ely began to move quickly.

  "What's going on?" Jerking away from the two Breeds holding her Rachel latched onto Jonas's arm, fury and fear tearing through her as she stared into the living fury that brewed in his gaze. "Damn you to hell, talk to me. What did that bastard do to my baby?"

  Terror was tearing at her mind, digging into her soul. God help her, if anything happened to her baby, she couldn't survive it.

  She'd been begging Jonas to talk to her since the second he had rolled to his feet, just ahead of the fiery blast that had taken her house to the ground in an explosion of flames.

  "Rachel, give him room." Kane gripped her arm to pull her back, only to face the snarling, animalistic fury that Jonas turned on him.

  Rachel almost stepped back herself as Jonas's head lowered, his lips pulling back from his teeth to flash the predatory canines at the side of his mouth. One hand clamped on her arm, and Rachel jerked her gaze down in time to see the lethal curve of sharpened claws that had sliced from the flesh beneath his fingernails.

  She lifted her gaze slowly. "Jonas, please. Tell me what happened."

  A growl tore from his throat.

  "Miss Broen, my son is primal at the moment. He can think, he can react, but the beast is currently controlling the man."

  Rachel jerked around to face Leo Vanderale. He was a near replica of Callan Lyons, or perhaps it was more accurate to say Callan was a replica of the other man.

  Long, flowing tawny hair was streaked with blacks and reds. Fierce features framed golden eyes, and power seemed to exude from his very pores and give lie to the civilized cut of his dark gray suit.

  Jonas snarled back at Leo, only to receive a flash of canines as the other man came slowly forward.

  He stopped and stared into the incubator for a long second before turning to Jonas. "Will you trust me to oversee her safety as you oversee the child?"

  Jonas's jaw clenched. "No!" The sound was a rumble of rage.

  Leo's lips tightened. "Do you really want to take me on tonight, whelp?" he growled. "Or make this woman hate you?"

  Jonas growled again as he finally allowed Rachel to jerk away from him.

  "Get them out of here, Leo," Elizabeth barked out at him as she moved back to the incubator with a syringe designed to draw blood.

  The pressure-activated vial was quick, painless, but at the moment, it looked like a tool of death as it neared her baby's tiny arm.

  "Jonas, please." Her nails dug into his arm as she gripped him. Anger and fear latched onto her with an inhuman grip. "What's wrong with my baby?"

  "Brandenmore," he snarled down at her. "He injected her with something, Rachel. We have to find out what."

  The words were barely human. The implications were a nightmare.

  She released him slowly. Rachel pressed her hands to her stomach as it cramped with a spasm of horror, threatening to heave what little contents she had taken in that day.

  Her gaze flew to the unconscious form of her child as she began shuddering, shaking with such fear now that she wondered how she managed to stay on her feet.

  Amber looked so tiny in the incubator. She'd been born underweight, not sickly but her slight weight had given Rachel months of worry.

  Now she lay pale and unmoving, her mop of red-gold curls laying limp along her tiny head as Rachel slowly released Jonas's arm and backed away from him.

  "Amburg is testing the syringe," Kane reported, a finger pressed against the small communications bud at his ear. "He expects an initial report within thirty minutes."

  "Five minutes or he dies." Jonas turned on Kane, his dark face so much more savage than normal and filled with predatory mercilessness. Rachel had no doubt he meant what he said.

  Coldly, Kane repeated the order.

  Evidently, Amburg didn't argue.

  "Why?" Rachel turned to the only man willing to give answers, the man who had called Jonas his son. Rachel had no idea that Leo Vanderale was a Breed until this moment--until she had seen the wicked incisors at the side of his mouth that he normally kept hidden. "Why would he want to kill Amber?"

  Leo shook his head. "I doubt seriously what he's done was done with the intent to kill her. Anything Brandenmore does is done with the int
ent to experiment, nothing more. He simply doesn't care if she lives."

  Jonas snarled at Leo again.

  "Why?" Rachel cried again, her voice rising as terror began to steal her senses. "Why would he do it?"

  "Because certain tests have proven that you, as well as your daughter, are viable Breed mates." It was Callan Lyons who answered her, despite the rumble of fury that came from Jonas. "Brandenmore managed to steal certain information from Sanctuary last month, Ms. Broen. That information contained the results of several tests done for Breed mating. Your tests."

  Rachel shook her head. Breed mating was supposed to be nothing more than a rumor, though she had wondered at the truth of it often enough.

  She stared at Callan. Neither he nor Merinus appeared to have aged in the twelve years they had been together. And Kane. She had once worked for Kane. He was in his mid-forties, but appeared to be a decade younger.

  Good genetics; she had heard that given as an excuse.

  There had been a multitude of reasons thrown at the press, as well as scientists who had questioned the phenomenon. No Breed had ever admitted to mating heat though.

  "Tests," she whispered as she tried to control the nausea welling inside her. "I was tested?"

  "The blood, saliva and vaginal samples you were asked to give were to test for your viability as a mate with any Breed that you would come in contact with." Callan nodded shortly as Jonas snarled silently before turning his back on them all. "You tested positive in that viability, which led us to suspect that Amber would be viable as well as she grew older. It was a precaution we had to take, Rachel."

  She shook her head slowly, denying the truth. Merinus hadn't warned her of this. Surely she would have warned her if anything like this were possible.

  "I need all of you out of here," Elizabeth snapped, as she was forced to move around Jonas.

  Blue eyes flashing with ire, she glared up at Jonas. "You and the mother can stay, but get the hell out of my way. The rest of you, clear out. That means you too, Leo." Her tone brooked no refusal.

  Rachel turned her head, stared at Jonas and suddenly the implication of those tests hit her.

  "They think we're somehow mated?" she asked as he kept his back to her.

  "If you have questions, then get out with the rest of them," Elizabeth ordered as she attached electrodes to Amber. "I can't save this child if I have to listen to you berate Jonas at the moment."

  Rachel clamped her lips shut, but the look she directed at her boss was a promise. The questions would come, and once she had answers, then she would decide exactly where she and her daughter would relocate to.

  She wouldn't trust another Breed, not as long as she lived. She had trusted Jonas; she had trusted Merinus and Kane.

  As the heart monitor began to beep, Rachel latched desperately onto the noise. Blood pressure and heart rate monitors, as well as several machines she'd never seen before in any hospital, began a life-saving symphony of sound as they surrounded the incubator.

  Elizabeth Vanderale nodded slowly at the readings as she attached a nearby comm set to her ear and began to talk quietly into it.

  "Rachel, we'll be outside if you need to talk," Kane promised as they passed her. "Merinus is on her way back from Colorado now. She flew out immediately when Callan called her with the report. We'll answer what questions we can."

  The large lab emptied as Rachel crossed her arms over her breasts and fought back more tears as she stared at her daughter.

  "She's innocent," she whispered. "You should have warned me she would be in danger."

  She would never forgive Jonas or Merinus for neglecting that warning.

  "We had no reason to believe she would be in any danger." Jonas's voice was still an animalistic rasp. "We had no reason to believe you would be. It wasn't the tests of viable mates that Brandenmore needed. It was the tests of current mates and certain hormonal shifts that occur with mating that he was interested in. There was no reason for him to go after potentials, because it's been proven that those tests aren't always reliable."

  Rachel rubbed at the chill that invaded her arms as she focused on the machines once again.

  Elizabeth Vanderale was still talking softly. Jonas glanced her way several times, his more acute Breed hearing picking up the conversation when Rachel most likely couldn't.

  "Amburg has initial results back," he told her softly as her lips parted to question him. "The syringe held certain Breed hormones, but in his estimation, nothing that should be harmful to her."

  "She's not moving," she whispered painfully.

  Jonas jerked as though in pain before rubbing his hand along the back of his head. She'd seen him do that often over the past months she'd worked for him. The gesture normally indicated a sense of frustration.

  "He believes it reacted as a sedative," he related. "If so, then in a few hours, she should awaken her normal self."

  "If so, then we're leaving . . ."

  "Dream on." The look he turned on her was almost terrifying. Or would have been, if she hadn't already faced such an influx of fear in the past hours. Her system now seemed immune to his fierceness.

  "I won't stay here." She shook her head fiercely.

  "You won't be leaving until I know for a fact that you and that child are safe." He paced closer, his head lowering until her vision centered on the roiling mercury of his eyes. "Understand that, Rachel. If I have to place you under twenty-four-hour guard, you will go no place, make no move, not take so much as a breath that I don't know about first."

  She stared back at him, shock winding through her system first before pure rage took over. Before she could stop herself, her hand lifted, flew, smacking open-palmed against the hard contours of his face.

  Everything in the room seemed to freeze.

  Elizabeth and Ely stared at them in shock, their expressions wary as they watched Jonas.

  He could have stopped her. He was fast enough, instinctive enough that he could have prevented the blow. Instead, he stood still for it. He took it, his expression never changing, his eyes boiling with currents of emotion she couldn't make sense of.

  "That changes nothing," he rasped. "Where it comes to you and that child, my word is law, sweetheart. Trust me on that. There's not a man or a woman in Sanctuary who would dare defy me on this."

  "Kane . . ."

  "Won't risk his life for it." His smile was tight, confident.

  "Merinus won't let you . . ."

  "Merinus wouldn't dare interfere," he snarled.

  "They won't let you hold me here." She shook her head, certain they would never betray her to that depth.

  "Tell me, Rachel, the mating tests that were ran--who do you think they were run with?"

  She couldn't breathe now. She could feel her chest tightening with panic at the knowledge she hadn't wanted to face.

  "It doesn't matter--"

  "Oh, but it does," he cut her off again. "It does matter, Rachel. Those tests were run against my samples. They wouldn't dare interfere because they know the hell they'll face. You're my mate, Rachel. And I will protect you and my child with every last ounce of blood I possess. No one, but no one will do anything to harm either of you again. If I have to lock you in these labs to assure you don't leave, then I swear to you on all I hold dear that is exactly what I'll do."

  Hours later, Jonas glanced at Rachel where she sat in the small chair beside the baby's bed.

  She hadn't spoken since the promise he had made to her, since he'd revealed exactly whose mate she was. She'd backed slowly away from him, her expression never changing, the scent of her fury never abating.

  At least he hadn't scented her fear of him, he thought mockingly. That was the last thing the beast prowling inside him needed to sense.

  The animal.

  He rubbed at the back of his head, where his lab number and birth ranking had been tattooed into his skull. He hadn't been branded as many of the other Breeds had been. He'd been tattooed instead while the woman who claimed t
o be his mother had looked on in pride.

  His mother. What a job that bitch had been. Madame LaRue had carried him to term, but it hadn't been her egg or the sperm of the male scientist that had created him, as she and the lab reports had claimed.

  According to those reports his DNA had been enhanced with that of the first Leo, but that wasn't entirely true. Just as it wasn't true that Callan Lyons was more the son of Elizabeth and Leo than he was.

  He let them believe it. Callan, Leo, Elizabeth. Dane. He let them exist in that comfort zone they had that the bogeyman of the Breeds wasn't really related by blood to any of them.

  Not that they would believe it without proof. He didn't carry their familial scent. His DNA had been fucked with too many times; his scent was unique, with few of the markers that other Breeds possessed.

  There was just enough tint of the Leo's familial scent that they had been assured Jonas carried his DNA, but nothing more. And he was certain the Leo wanted it no other way.

  And Elizabeth.

  He glanced at his mother. Hell, she stared at him as though he were an aberration most of the time. A puzzle she couldn't quite figure out, and wasn't certain she wanted to know.

  That was how most people, Breeds and humans alike, stared at him.

  Except Rachel. The few times he'd been able to draw any emotion from her at all, it had been colored with desire and laced with amusement. She tolerated him better than most. But then, she was his genetic mate. What else could she do? It wasn't as though she could hate him. Not with any amount of true strength anyway.

  Breathing out wearily, he paced the lab, his gaze going between Rachel and the child.

  His child. He had claimed the babe, though he had no basis for it. He hadn't helped create that life inside her. Over the months, he'd done nothing but attempt to watch over them both, and he'd failed miserably at that.

  The beast inside him claimed the mother, and in turn claimed the babe.

  Damn, Amber was too small.

  He'd thought that the first time he'd seen her in the hospital, just after her birth. She'd been so small, underweight and yet feisty as hell. She'd screamed in rage each time the nurses had taken her from her mother, demanding with everything inside her tiny body that they return her to the safety and security of her mother's arms.

  Unless Jonas had arrived.

  How many times had he gone to the nursery and sworn the nurses to silence as he held her? Too many times for him to count.

  Unlike adults, children's emotions were an open book. He'd connected with the babe while she had still rested safely in her mother's womb. The beast that was so much a part of him had bonded with the child. That animal sense reaching out on a plane that was mostly reserved for mother and child alone.

  He had known the moment he'd seen Rachel Broen that she was his mate. The second he'd sensed she was with child, he had staked that claim as well. A solitary claim that he'd had no intention of informing Rachel of. And a claim he'd no intention of doing anything about.

  What the hell was he supposed to do now?

  "Blood pressure and heart rate are normal." Elizabeth's gaze went between the monitors and the incubator, one hand propped on her hip. A frown marred her brow as she turned to watch Ely, who worked silently on the samples of blood and saliva that had been taken.

  "Initial blood readings are normal, as is saliva. There are no hormonal abnormalities thus far." Ely turned back to Elizabeth, avoiding Jonas's gaze before returning her attention to the tests results. "Everything is in range of the readings taken at birth."

  Jonas's jaw tightened as he watched Rachel straighten, alert, rising slowly from the chair she had just sat in.

  "What readings were taken at her birth?" Accusing eyes turned on Jonas.

  "It's normal, Ms. Broen." Elizabeth's smile was comforting as she moved to Rachel to lay a hand against her arm. "You work within the Breed society; that makes you a part of our world as a whole, as it does your daughter. It was simply a precaution as well as a courtesy. You have the best doctors in the world overseeing your baby."

  That was such complete BS Jonas almost snorted. He had ordered those tests. He had fought the Breed ruling cabinet for them to ensure that this baby had the best start in life, health-wise, as possible.

  Rachel was less than convinced. She watched Elizabeth and Ely suspiciously, while all her senses were held captive by Amber.

  "Jonas, Callan needs to speak with you." Kane stepped inside the lab, his icy blue gaze filled with a warning, a silent message.

  Jonas turned back to the babe and mother, torn between staying to protect what belonged to him, and accepting that they were safe while he took care of the business waiting on the other side of the door.

  He could smell that business. Dr. Jeffrey Amburg had a particular scent, was tinged with blood and Breed. How the hell the man had managed to become infused with Breed scent without Breed DNA, Jonas hadn't yet figured out.

  He turned and stared at Ely, waiting until he caught her eye before glancing at Rachel. He was leaving his mate in Ely's care, none other.

  Ely's gaze shifted with uncertainty before she gave a short, quick nod, allowing him to stride quickly from the room to the small glass-walled meeting area that looked into the lab.

  Amburg waited. He stood still and silent as he stared into the lab, a frown on his face, his arms crossed over his chest as he seemed to glare at the mother and child.

  Jonas stepped into the room, closed the door behind him and waited.

  "I'll need