Okay, now that was shocking. Grace stared back at him, her lips parting in disbelief.
"How much longer?" she asked.
He swallowed tightly. "We aren't certain, but there's rumors that the first Lion Breed created more than a century ago still lives, and that he and his mate are still in their prime."
"Whoa!" She breathed out, moving to the chair beside her and sitting down heavily. "That's definitely a decrease in aging." Her hand pressed against her lower stomach. "Does it stop after conception?" He shook his head sharply. "Not that we've seen. Conception is so difficult that our doctors and scientists believe this is nature's way of ensuring the species. Until the babes have grown and we see how this aging affects them, we can't be certain of anything."
"Well, this definitely throws a little kink into things," she breathed out roughly. "You said Merinus and Callan have only one child? The reports state three. I remember that." He shook his head. "There are three pride children. The press mistakenly reported the children as all belonging to the pride leader and his mate, and they didn't bother to correct it. They keep their mates closely guarded while they're pregnant, and out of the public eye. It's the only way to ensure their safety."
"And the wolf mates?"
His jaw flexed, a muscle ticking violently just under the flesh.
"No one knows where Dash Sinclair hides his family. Aiden and Charity stay on the Wolf Breed compound in Colorado and never leave it. Their child will be born under as much restriction as we were created in."
"And if I conceive?" she whispered.
"We'll have no choice but to return to Colorado. If it happens." CHAPTER TWELVE
Grace rubbed at her bare arms as she stared back at Matthias, the irritating pinpoints of sensation racing over her flesh were driving her insane. She needed him to touch her, not stand there trying to explain things neither of them could change at this point.
"So, you're regretting not telling me all this before?" She leaned back in the chair and licked her lips, watching as his eyes darkened, his dark cheeks flushing a brick red, as his lips became fuller, his expression darker with lust.
"I should have told you." His nostrils flared as she lifted her hand and stroked it over her collarbone. Every inch of her body was tingling now, begging for him.
"Consider me told," she stated.
"What?" He was staring at her, almost dazed now, his hands slowly pulling from the pockets of his black leather pants. Pants that did nothing to hide the straining length of his arousal beneath them. He was thick and hard. She was wet and wild, and she needed him now.
"Look, this is all very interesting, and I'm sure I'm going to have questions eventually. You know, once the ramifications of the whole mating thing hits me? Sometime after you get your wolfie ass over here and f**k me."
His eyes narrowed, as his hands went to the black shirt he wore, his fingers sliding buttons from their holes, and his gaze gleaming now with pure lust.
"My wolfie ass?" He asked her softly, his voice dark, rough. Grace slid her shorts from her body, leaving only the silk panties she wore, as his shirt was tossed to the floor. Her own shirt came off easily, as he sat down and pulled his boots and socks off. She rose to her feet, and before he could rise from the wide, padded stool he had sat on, she was in front of him.
"You're slow." She knelt before him, pushing him back against the chair behind the stool, her fingers moving for the metal closures on his pants.
"So I am," he growled, his tight abs flexing as she parted the edges of the pants and revealed the straining length of his cock.
The piercing gleamed against the dark flesh.
"Why the piercing?" She asked, lowering her head to let her tongue worry the little ball at one end of the bar.
His hands slid into her hair, a tight groan leaving his throat.
"A reminder," he panted.
"What does it remind you of?" She held the hard shaft, turned her head, and sucked the upper side of the crest between her lips to allow her tongue to stroke around the jewelry with flickering movements.
"Freedom," he bit out. "It reminds me of freedom."
"Why?"
He tightened further as her teeth gripped the bar.
"We weren't allowed piercings or tattoos in the labs. Nothing that would identify us. Nothing that would make us individuals. It reminds me. I'm free."
Her heart clenched, and her soul bled for the pain that resonated in his voice. His freedom came down to his choice to be pierced and marked. His ability to be an individual. She sank her mouth over the engorged head of his erection and sucked him in deep. She wanted the memory of that place wiped from his mind. She wanted it replaced with need, with hunger. For her. He belonged to her.