Tessa patted her on the hand. “Don’t worry about it.” She tapped her ears. “It’s the hearing. You get used to it after a while. The only downside is that nothing is really private anymore.”
“Oh God. Did Nico hear us?” She could only wonder how much she had probably traumatized the boy.
“No, he was in his room. A few days after Mitch and I mated, I was in the kitchen fixing lunch when Nico came and stood in front of me just staring. When I asked him what was wrong, he wanted to know where my “boo boo” was because he thought I had hurt myself with all the screaming I had been doing. After that, I refused to let my mate touch me again until he had Nico’s room soundproofed. It was one thing for other shifters to hear me having sex, but I was mortified to know that my baby could as well.”
Jacqueline laughed. She couldn’t imagine how embarrassed Tessa had been. “Do I even want to know the explanation you gave him?”
“I was so shocked I couldn’t think of anything to say.” Tessa covered her mouth and giggled. “There was no way I was explaining sex to my two-year-old son, so I did the first thing that came to mind. I stood and limped out of the room pretending I had twisted my ankle. Once I was out of sight, I took off running, screaming for Mitch.”
Jacqueline busted out laughing and slapped her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. She shook her head when Tessa tilted the ice cream carton toward, her offering her some. “No thanks. I was actually headed down to the lab.”
“Would you like some company? I’m not very sleepy myself.”
Jacqueline paused. Growing up with her father, she had never had the opportunity to have any friends. Tessa was the closest thing she ever had to one, and she didn’t know how to handle it. In the lab, she was normally in her own zone, tuning everything out, and she didn’t want to offend the woman by ignoring her. In the end, she decided to take a chance. “Sure, you can come on down. I’ll warn you though. You’ll probably be bored to tears.” Tessa waved her comment away and followed her toward the stairs.
In the lab, Jacqueline thought over everything Ben had told her about mating and the changes she would go through. The first thing she wanted to do was get a blood sample from herself. She already had samples from Ben and the other shifters and one from herself before she mated. At the time, she had taken the sample because she had wanted to compare her human blood to theirs to see the differences. She had hoped it gave her some new ideas for the antidote because she was grasping at straws. Now she was a little curious to see the changes to her blood, if there were any, since she had mated.
Gathering the supplies she needed, Jacqueline set them all on the table and grabbed the tourniquet. Without even being asked, Tessa took it from her and tied it on her arm. She decided that maybe having Tessa in the lab with her wasn’t so bad.
“What are you doing?” Tessa asked.
Jacqueline inserted the needle into her arm and connected vial before answering. “Ben explained the mating process, and I already drew my blood before we mated, so I just wanted to look at the two samples and compare them. Maybe if I can see the difference in the before and after, then I will understand the shifter blood better.”
“Do you think that will help you with the antidote?”
She nodded as Tessa bandaged her arm for her when she removed the needle. “I hope so. At this point, I’ll do just about anything.” She looked up at Tessa. “I can’t lose him.”
Tessa rubbed her shoulder. “I know, honey. I don’t want to lose him either. He was the one who taught me to fight. If it hadn’t been for him, I would have never had the guts to stand up to the rogue that attacked me and Mitch. We would both be dead. For that, Ben will always hold a special place in my heart.”
Jacqueline couldn’t say anything past the lump in her throat. Instead, she got to work, placing a drop of her mated blood on a slide. She set up two microscopes and placed her human slide on one and the mated slide on the other. Once she had the microscopes focused correctly, she looked at her human slide first. There was nothing out of the ordinary with the slide. Her blood cells looked like normal healthy human cells. It was exactly what Jacqueline had expected. When she looked at the slide with her mated blood, she gasped.
“What? What do you see?” Tessa hovered over her anxiously.
“I expected there to be some changes, but I didn’t expect them to be that drastic.” The blood cells in her mated blood looked to be about three times the size of the human ones. They were a bright shade of red, so bright it looked almost as if they were glowing. There was also about ten times as many cells in her mated blood as there were in her human sample. “This is incredible,” Jacqueline said, awed at what she was seeing.
Moving the slide over a little to see more of the sample, she frowned. “That’s odd.” Jacqueline stood and blinked. She rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn’t seeing things before she peered back into the microscope. Mixed in with the red cells, there were a few cells that looked almost black, like they were dead or diseased. She watched, mesmerized as her healthy cells surrounded the black ones. Once they had each cell surrounded, the dead cell seemed to get absorbed until there was nothing left of it. Jacqueline watched this happen several times until there was nothing but healthy red blood cells left in the sample.
She sat back and stared into space. She was aware of Tessa hovering behind her, but Jacqueline’s mind was spinning too much to say anything to her. She kept going over everything she had just seen. What she didn’t understand was where the black cells had come from. She knew she wasn’t sick, and her human sample had proven that. There were only healthy blood cells in that sample. Between the time she had mated and taken the new sample, Jacqueline had somehow been contaminated with something. She just had to figure out with what.
“I bit him!” Jacqueline shouted. She sat forward and grabbed Tessa’s hand. The woman had jumped when she yelled.
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
Jacqueline ignored Tessa and jumped up. She grabbed Ben’s blood sample. “When we mated, and Ben bit me, I bit him as well.” She was too excited to be embarrassed to explain. “It wasn’t intentional, but when I came, it was so strong that I clamped down on his shoulder hard enough to draw blood. I swallowed some of that blood. I contaminated myself and didn’t even realize it.”
“Is that a good thing? The way you’re smiling I’m hoping it’s a good thing.”
“Let’s find out.” Jacqueline took a drop of Ben’s blood and placed it on the slide. She then took a drop of her blood and put it on top of Ben’s. She put the slide on the microscope and took a breath to calm herself before peering down into it. Afraid to move in case her eyes were playing tricks on her, she watched as her blood repeated the same process with Ben’s unhealthy blood cells over and over again until there was nothing left but bright red blood cells.
Jacqueline looked up at Tessa and grinned. Her heart was pounding at what she discovered. “I need your blood.”
Tessa looked startled at first, but she recovered quickly. “Okay, but can you explain to me why?”
“I think I may have just found a way to cure Ben. I need your blood to test my theory. I don’t want to say any more than that right now because I don’t want to jinx it.” Jacqueline expected Tessa to demand more answers, but the woman simply rolled up her sleeve and stuck her arm out.
Working on the theory that her blood had cured Ben’s because of the changes due to mating him, Jacqueline grabbed a fresh slide and combined a drop of Ben’s blood to Tessa’s. Instead of her blood surrounding his, the reaction was the complete opposite. His blood completely contaminated hers.
For the first time in three weeks, Jacqueline felt hope. She was closer than she had ever been to making sure her mate stayed with her. Wanting to try one last test, she contaminated Mitch’s blood with Ben’s. Once Ben’s blood cells took over the sample, she added a drop of Tessa’s blood to Mitch’s sample. She literally felt like her heart stopped beating as she held he
r breath and waited for the results.
When Tessa’s blood cells started destroying the contaminated cells in Mitch’s sample, Jacqueline let out a scream and began jumping up and down. She grabbed Tessa and pulled her into a hug. “We did it!” She felt tears streaming down her face but didn’t bother to wipe them.
“I take it you got good results?” Tessa’s excitement showed on her face.
“Yes!” Jacqueline practically screamed. “It’s the mated blood. My blood cured Ben, and yours cured Mitch’s when I contaminated it. It’s not a complete cure since those infected would have to have mates, but it’s a start.”
Jacqueline knew she had a lot more work to do, but at the moment, she was too happy to care. There was no way she could just give Ben a complete blood transfusion because their blood types didn’t match. She needed to come up with a serum using her blood to create it. Knowing she wasn’t going to get any sleep until she had the antidote completed, Jacqueline set about gathering all the supplies she needed.
“Tell me what I can do to help.”
Jacqueline felt bad. With her mind on her task, she had already forgotten Tessa was in the room. “I’m going to need coffee and lots of it,” she told her. As Tessa nodded and headed for the stairs, Jacqueline smiled at the woman she considered her first real friend before turning her attention to her work.
* * * *
Wake up! She’s doing it again!
Ben cracked his eyelids open and froze. The sight of his mate standing over him holding a huge syringe and grinning was not what he expected to see first thing in the morning. “Do you remember that little talk we were supposed to have about this needle fetish of yours? I think now would be a good time to have that.”
From the scents in the room, he realized they weren’t alone. It seemed everyone was in his room, and they were all grinning like idiots.
Maybe they want to play, his wolf told him, sounding eager.
Games that involve huge needles aren’t my idea of fun, pup. You can count me out.
“What’s going on?” Ben swallowed and resisted the urge to scoot away from his mate as she sat down on the bed next to him.
“Tessa and I have been working all night, and we finally did it.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Tessa said from Mitch’s arms. “Your mate is the genius. All I did was keep the coffee hot and hand her things when she asked.”
Ben sat up and leaned against the headboard. “Okay. Does someone want to put me out of my misery and explain to me what it is?” He eyed the needle warily as Jacqi held it up. Ben recalled the last time Jacqi had held a needle. She’d been slamming it down into his chest. He wanted to protest now, but he was momentarily distracted by his little mate’s beauty as her face lit up and her smile got even bigger. It was as though she were glowing. Ben decided that he would do whatever he could to always keep that look on her face.
“Do you remember when I bit you?”
Ben felt himself getting hard at the thought of her tiny teeth sinking in his shoulder as he had marked her. He pulled a pillow onto his lap, ignoring the snickers coming from the guys. “Yeah, I remember.”
Jacqueline continued. “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I went down to the lab. I got curious and wanted to see if there was a difference in my blood now that I was mated to you. When I looked, I realized that I had contaminated myself without even knowing it when I bit you.”
Ben felt his blood run cold and sat forward. He opened his mouth to say something, but his mate held up her hand.
“Don’t worry, I’m fine. My biting you was a good thing. If I hadn’t done that, then I never would have been able to create this.” Jacqi held up the needle again. “It’s the antidote.”
As Ben listened to his mate explain how she had created the cure, he had to agree with Tessa. His little mate was a genius. He didn’t understand half of what she said, and he didn’t care. He had never doubted she would eventually figure it out, but he winced at the thought it had taken him contaminating her to get it. He was just glad she was okay.
“Thank you.” If it wasn’t for the audience they currently had, Ben would have ripped his little mate’s clothes off and roll her under him to show his gratitude. Instead, he gently took the syringe out of her hand and set it on the nightstand before pulling his mate into his lap and kissing her. “I know those words aren’t nearly enough for what you’ve done for me, but I promise to spend the rest of my life showing you how much I love you.”
“If it wasn’t for me, neither you or your friends would be in this mess. This was the least I could do to try and make up for my father and myself. The antidote still isn’t perfect. It will only work on mated shifters, but it’s a start.”
Ben hated seeing the guilty look on Jacqi’s face and vowed that he wouldn’t stop until he convinced her that she had nothing to feel guilty for. Her father should have never put her in that position in the first place. No child should ever have to fight for a parent’s affection. It should have been freely given.
As he rolled her underneath him and deepened the kiss, Ben was aware of footsteps leaving the room and the bedroom door easing closed. He released her mouth and nuzzled her jaw, trailing kisses down the side of her neck until he got to his mark on her shoulder. Ben blew gently on the now healed bite and felt Jacqi shiver underneath him at the same time he heard her moan. He smiled. Causing that reaction in her could quickly become his new favorite hobby.
The smell of her arousal was quickly filling the room, and it was driving Ben crazy. He felt his body heating up as he ground his erection between her thighs. She had on too many clothes, and he was desperate to feel her bare skin against him. Using his enhanced strength, Ben gripped the collar of Jacqi’s T-shirt and ripped it down the middle. The treatment he gave her jeans wasn’t any better. Ben let his nails shift into claws and shredded them. When his little mate was finally bare, he spread her legs. He saw the fluid glistening on her thighs, proof that she was just as ready as he was.
Lining up his cock, Ben thrust inside her in one swift movement. He didn’t stop until he was buried deep. He resisted the urge to cross his eyes from the tight squeeze her pussy gave his cock. Jacqi had him in a vise grip as the muscles in her channel clamped down on him. He rested his forehead against hers and breathed in her spicy cinnamon scent as he fought to get his control back. It seemed when it came to his mate he was like an untried virgin all over again, ready to blow at the first touch from a girl.
“Damn, little mate.” Ben wanted to whimper when she wrapped her legs around his back, pulling him impossibly deeper. “You’re killing me here. I want to pound into you so hard right now that it’s taking all my strength to stay still.”
“Do it.”
Those two words were like a checkered flag being waved in front of him. Ben hissed through his teeth as he pulled out and plunged back into her. The silky walls of her channel fluttered as Jacqi threw her head back and moaned in pleasure. Ben gritted his teeth as he built up a steady rhythm. He felt the familiar tingle building at the base of his spine that let him know he was close to coming. He needed his mate to go over the edge first, so Ben slid his hand between them and down into her moist heat. He circled her clit several times before pinching the swollen bud between two fingers. At the same time, Ben nipped her mating mark, assaulting her body with pleasure from top to bottom.
Jacqi screamed, and Ben sealed her lips with his to muffle the sound as she came, writhing against him. The muscles in her pussy contracted and released against his cock as if they were massaging him. Ben felt his sac draw up tight moments before he came, spurting hot ropes of cum deep inside her.
Feeling weak and drained, Ben sagged against his little mate as he caught his breath.
How long do I have to wait before I can play with the pups?
Ben frowned, trying to figure out what his wolf was talking about. It seemed he had lost a few brain cells when he came but could feel his wolf pouncing around in his head.
; Don’t you smell it?
Ben took a deep breath. The smell of Jacqi’s arousal was almost overwhelming and took him a while to filter it out. He also filtered out the fading scents of all his friends until he got down to his mate’s cinnamon scent. He was about to question’s his wolf’s sanity when the scent finally hit him. It was so faint he would have never noticed it if he hadn’t been looking for it. Ben gasped and opened his eyes, only to find Jacqi staring at him and frowning.
“What? What’s wrong?” Jacqi asked.
Ben opened his mouth a few times to answer, but before he could say anything, there was the sound of explosions in the distance and the alarms in the house started blaring.
Chapter 13
Jacqueline slapped her hands over her ears when the alarms started going off. With her new sensitive hearing, the harsh sound felt as though it was going to make her eardrums burst as it bounced around in her head. She saw Ben’s lips moving as he told her something, but there was no way she could hear what he was saying over the alarm. Finally, he scrambled out of bed and tossed her clothes to her before getting dressed himself.
Jacqueline stared down at the rags in her lap that had formerly been her clothes and shook her head. She knew they were under attack and that she should have a sense of urgency about her, but for some reason, she was having trouble concentrating with the noise. She felt as though her skull was going to explode and wondered how Ben was able to ignore it.
He was suddenly on the bed and shaking her shoulders. Jacqueline could tell he was shouting at her, but his voice sounded as though it were underwater. Thankfully, the sound was cut off, leaving her ears ringing.
“You have to move, little mate. That alarm signaled a perimeter breach, which means we only have a few minutes to get into position.”
She noticed he was fully dressed and nodded. Jacqueline shook off the last of the effects of the noise and climbed out of bed. “Go. I’ll be fine.” She knew the plan and how important his part in it was. “The noise just got to me for a moment. I’m fine now. I promise.”
Forever Is Not Enough [Council Enforcers 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 11