“I stopped in to talk to you.” Hope’s statement had her pausing.
“Why?”
“Brim informed our head of security, Jacob, that you were no longer on the hormone treatments, even those that still the more painful effects of the heat. You don’t have to suffer, Anya. The base hormonal therapy controls the pain and conception until you’re ready for it. What you were taking before controlled the heat itself. You have a choice in this.”
Anya breathed in more roughly this time. “I made my choice, Hope,” she whispered, staring back at the other woman intently. “It’s just . . .” She swallowed tightly. “It caught me off guard.”
Hope stared back at her in disbelief. “The heat is terrifying,” she said. “I know well how bad it can be. Until Kiowa’s mate, and then you to a greater extent, allowed our doctors and scientists to track how it works within our bodies, we knew that horror every month. We could feel it coming before we cycled, then as soon as that was over, we were hit with the mating heat cycle. And that doesn’t even count that first month of mating, when it’s like a vicious claw tearing at your mind and your body. It doesn’t have to be that way.”
Anya stared back at the lupina, the pain in her chest nearly brutal as she swallowed back her tears.
“What happens,” she said, “if I’m not able to get to your doctor? If Base is on lockdown and we’re under attack? If I don’t know how to handle it, then how do I help Del-Rey? How do I keep from becoming something he has to protect above all things, rather than someone that can help him? You learned how to work through it; I’ve heard how well you take care of your duties, even in the middle of mating heat, while Haven is under attack. How you’ve worked within the secured areas to make certain everything is running smoothly while Wolfe and the others fought back the attacks. How can I do that, if I don’t understand how to control my own body?”
“And being more than just a lover is very important to you, isn’t it, Anya?” Hope said gently.
“Isn’t it to you?” Anya asked, confused. “You were raised in Wolfe’s labs. We’ve seen what awaits them if they’re recaptured, what they came from. Protecting Del-Rey means everything to me.”
“You didn’t feel that way eight months ago,” Hope pointed out.
Anya turned quickly away from her as she ran her hand over her forehead and propped the other on her hip.
“I couldn’t think then,” she whispered before turning back. “All I knew was the anger and this fear that only grew day by day. For three weeks I lived in this horrific little world where I couldn’t control so much as a single thought.” She shook her head as she shoved her hands in her pants pockets and stared around the feminine little outer room that led to the toilets beyond. “I fought through puberty to control my temper. Once I had it conquered, suddenly there was something worse that my body and mind could do to me, that I couldn’t control.” She blinked back her tears as she stared at the lupina. “And I blamed him, when I shouldn’t have. I don’t like that about myself, and I’m damned sure not going to let it happen again. But I’m also not going to let this reaction to what’s going on between us make me a liability to him.”
Hope tilted her head and stared back at her. “Because you used your logic, your composure, and the challenge you knew it would present to the Breed to draw his notice to you,” she guessed. “Now you’re terrified to let him see the real you.”
Anya flinched. She stared back at the lupina miserably.
“I berate my bodyguards for maneuvering me into the position of coya. But I knew what they were doing, distantly, in a place where I didn’t have to admit it to myself. I knew, because
I used the same wiles to make him notice me, to make him want me, to trust me. He thought he was choosing a woman that could help him establish his freedom. Instead he found he had married a child that couldn’t accept the changes in her life. I don’t want him to learn that she grew into a woman that can’t even control her body long enough to make a rational decision.”
Hope sighed and shook her head. “I can understand your reasons. But I can’t countenance your suffering, Anya. There is help available.”
“But it isn’t help I can count on,” she cried out, before capping her hand over her mouth. “God, listen to me. I can’t even debate effectively. I won awards for my ability to debate when I was ten years old, and now I feel like sitting on the floor and sobbing like an infant.”
It had been worse eight months before. A thousand times worse. Ten thousand times. She barely remembered those weeks, the fears driven so deep in her head that she couldn’t escape them. She had sobbed then. Sometimes for hours, holding her hands over her mouth so the doctors and her bodyguards wouldn’t hear her crying out Del-Rey’s name.
And now she nearly had to bite her tongue to keep from screaming for him. She simply wanted him to hold her. Just that if nothing else, to do something to ease the ice inside her.
“I’m a mess, Hope,” she whispered.
“Oh, Anya.” The other woman’s expression twisted in compassion. “You need to talk to him. Your body and your mind know what you need besides the sex. He could help you.”
She shook her head as she forced back her tears and inhaled again, determined to get a handle on this.
“I have it. I’ll be fine.” She wasn’t going to whine to Hope about the relationship that wasn’t a relationship between her and her mate. That was her fault. She had to find a way to fix it.
“Yes, you will be,” Hope said softly. “Tell you what, when you’re feeling more up to it, give me a call. Prima Lyons and I were thinking spring would be a great time for your official ceremony. She’s offered Sanctuary’s grounds for the vows, or Haven’s are available as well. I’d love it if you’d use Haven.”
The ceremony. A wedding. She wondered if Del-Rey was looking for the rings. Of course, he wouldn’t mention it to her if he was. He probably already had the damned things and wasn’t even telling her.
“I would love Haven,” Anya admitted. “And spring sounds wonderful. When Del-Rey finally gets around to mentioning it, I’ll let him know.”
Hope nodded. As she parted her lips to speak, the door pushed inward, leaving Del-Rey standing in the entrance, Wolfe behind him.
Del-Rey’s gaze pinned her, his brows lowering into a frown before he held his hand out to her. “We’re returning to Base,” he told her. “The alphas will reconvene there later tonight to finish the plans that have to be made.”
Because of her. Because her emotions were in such chaos that her mate knew he had to get her back to Base and f**k her. Her face flamed at the awareness that everyone else knew that as well.