And the animal inside paced in fury because he hadn’t.
She jumped against him, suddenly moving to tear away from him, to escape his grip as she whirled around to face him.
“No.”
No.
His lips quirked. No was no. It was intrinsic, whether it was a game or not. It had the same meaning.
He would heed it. This time.
“We have a meeting with Jonas, Callan and Leo tomorrow,” he told her instead. “You’ll be there to give your report.”
She nodded sharply, the scent of her heat nearly drugging him with the nearly overpowering need to taste her as only her mate could do.
Turning, he stalked to the door and left without a good-bye, without a hint of the primal response to her that he was quickly losing control of.
One second more. So much as another breath scented with the flowering lust that wrapped around her and he would have forgotten she said no. He would have forgotten that edge of fear he’d sensed inside her.
He would have forgotten it all and he would have taken his mate.
CHAPTER 6
“I’m sorry, Diane,” Rachel spoke from her bed where she lay curled around the little girl who blinked back at Diane as she stood beside the bed.
Amber awakened even before Diane had disabled the digital window lock and wiggled through the narrow opening. Her little head had lifted, her eyes focusing on the window as Diane had stood on the ledge outside considering the lock and the occupants of the room beyond the window.
She watched the baby now as a sleepy little smile curled her tiny lips. Tugging at a soft curl beside her face, Amber watched her, gaze somber, as though she could sense her aunt’s heavy heart.
“Why turn on me, Rachel?” Diane asked softly as she sat down on the mattress, her fingers reaching out to touch her niece’s downy cheek. “Why didn’t you speak to me tonight? Why couldn’t you stand with me rather than against me?”
Why had her sister turned on her? She had shown her loyalty was with Jonas and Lawe by standing across the room in hushed conversation with them rather than standing next to the sister who had been with her all her life.
“Was it because I wasn’t here when you needed me? When Amber needed me?” Diane asked, the ragged pain of that memory tearing at her when her sister didn’t speak.
“God no,” Rachel exclaimed, her voice still hushed and now filled with tears and pain. “I could never blame you for that, Diane. There was nothing you could have done when Brandenmore struck.”
Rachel’s eyes closed briefly as her hold on her daughter seemed to tighten.
The pain of that memory still had the power to bring tears to Diane’s eyes, as well as sending a shaft of pain striking at her heart. Her gaze slid to Amber. She was so sweet and innocent, and Diane was well aware that she had failed the child.
As Diane watched, she saw the glimmer of tears on her sister’s cheek a second before a tiny, almost silent little rumble of a purr emitted from Amber’s tiny chest.
The only sign Rachel gave that she heard it was a brief tremble of her lips as Diane gave a surprised start. It was the first time she had heard the sound and found it to be completely endearing. But with her mother’s reaction, a whimper left Amber’s lips as they puckered in the threat of tears.
“Jonas says she can feel it when we’re frightened, or if something causes us pain,” Rachel’s voice was jagged, obviously causing the confused cry and the tears that dampened the little girl’s eyes.
For a moment, Diane wished she could still berate her sister as she had when she was a child. Unfortunately, they were far past such recriminations. The need to ease Amber’s confusion was one she didn’t have to ignore though.
“Look at Mommy, getting all upset over a little ole purr, Ambie. She just doesn’t realize how special that makes you does she, sweetie?” Diane chided the baby as she leaned down and rubbed her nose against her niece’s little button nose.
Amber’s smile trembled for a moment before a baby laugh parted her lips and Diane lifted her from Rachel’s arms. Cuddling the little form close to her own breast as the small head tipped back to stare up at her had Diane’s heart melting with such a surge of love it was painful.
“She looks like a mini-you,” Diane whispered in awe as she glanced at her sister for only a second, her eyes drawn back to the baby. “She’s more beautiful every time I see her, and every time I see more and more of your features when you were a baby. They are coming alive inside her. Mom and Dad would have melted for her.”
Her sister sniffed as a tear slid down her cheek. “And you look more like Mom every day, Diane. Sometimes, I swear, it’s like having her here.”
She couldn’t help but laugh.