"No." To his amazement, her face lit up. "Keenan is absolutely, utterly healthy and he'll stay that way. I don't know what Amara did to him in the test tube, but Dorian, he's a miracle... he has antibodies in his blood."
He wasn't a scientist. It took him a second. "He holds the answer to a cure for all prion diseases." Hard on the heels of that joyful realization came another, darker one. "He's also the key the Council needs to unleash Omega." It was a truth they could never be allowed to discover.
Ashaya nodded. "Amara has no idea about the antibodies - I sabotaged her tests. But no matter what, I knew it would come down to her or him." Her eyes met his and in them he saw a heartbreaking decision, the bloody protectiveness of a mother winning out over the ties of a bond formed before birth. "Age five was the point at which she planned to dissect his brain."
Jesus. "You were racing a deadline from day one."
"Yes, at first. Then two and a half years ago, when Ming began to pay her too much attention and she went underground, I thought he was safe."
"But she didn't forget him," he guessed.
A jerky shake of the head. "She considers him the first step in her most important piece of work."
Her fingers were clenching around his hard enough to bruise. She was, he realized, barely keeping it together. "You want to talk about something else for a while?" He wasn't up to subtlety at the moment, but he needed to take care of her.
She grabbed on to the offered escape with desperate quickness. "Yes."
"How about my abnormal DNA?" he teased, though the cat was still snarling in protective fury. "Have you fixed me?"
"I'm working on it." Her fingers relaxed as she found her footing in science.
His leopard growled in pleased approval. Ashaya's internal strength was a thing of beauty. Yet she'd let him soothe her. It was as much a caress to his predator's soul as if she'd curled those long, talented fingers around him.
That was all it took.
Sexual heat was suddenly a talon inside him, his beast one step closer to animal savagery. "Tell me." Letting her go, he squeezed both hands around the steering wheel in a vain effort to stop the primitive fury of his reaction. He'd waited too long, and now his cat was no longer giving him a choice. Either he coaxed Ashaya into melting for him in every way... or he got the hell away from her. And right now, there was no damn way he was going to leave her unprotected.
"It's a puzzle," she said, unknowingly stoking his hunger with the primness of her voice. Especially now that he knew how uninhibited she was in bed. He could still hear her gasping little cries from this afternoon, all hot and demanding.
If he didn't have her naked and under him soon, he'd go fucking insane.
"Your DNA is identical to normal changeling DNA in every respect that I can see, but - "
"Where did you get the control sample?" A flash of dark heat raced through him and he knew himself well enough to identify it as a dose of pure jealousy.
"From Tamsyn." A pause, as if she was debating whether to continue. "I knew you'd react negatively if I approached a male. You're... possessive."
"Sugar, I'm way past possessive." His voice was no longer fully human.
"Dorian?"
The sound of her voice, thick velvet and honey, wrapped around him like a silken fist. "Be quiet." He focused his attention on getting them where they needed to go.
"I won't take being talked to in that tone."
She was worried about his tone? If she didn't stop inciting the beast, she'd be hot and tight around his cock before they even got off this bloody highway. He growled low in his throat, releasing the leopard the only way he could. "Be. Quiet."
Ashaya seemed shocked into silence. It lasted about six minutes. "Predatory changeling men are meant to be protective toward women."
He kept his eyes on the road.
"Their women, in any case," she said after another pause.
Fifteen more minutes and he'd show her exactly how protective he was.
"I suppose technically I'm one of the enemy, so the protective element of your nature wouldn't apply."
Where the hell was the turnoff? There! He swept the vehicle into a narrow dirt track, taking Ashaya deep into an isolated section of the sprawling Yosemite forest. While most of it was a national park, habitation was allowed under certain restricted rules.