Rapture exploded over and over inside them.
Beneath him, Diane convulsed again, the second wave of release more intense than first, fueled by the barb spurting and fluttering against the sensitive curve it held in its possession.
Lawe growled against the nape of her neck, his hips jerking, his release spurting inside her again, blinding him with the pleasure of it until the last eruption sent a shudder racing through him.
His teeth were still locked in place, his tongue licking, stroking, easing the sting that might have existed if it weren’t for the hormone spilling into the womb.
The mating hormone.
Easing his teeth back from the shallow bite, he laved it again, this time with more languorous licks as he felt the final pulses of the hormone easing from the glands beneath his tongue.
Covering her, Lawe felt her body relax into the bed, exhausted, sated, her ragged breaths matching the pace of her still-racing heart.
Still buried inside her, locked in place to allow his seed every chance to find fertile ground, Lawe too fought to simply breathe.
A part of him felt shattered. An emotion much too close to terror began to grow insidiously inside him.
He could lose her. Even now, over twenty years after the vivisection that had killed his mother and her mate, there were still those scientists who used the pure blood groups and other various Breed enemies to secure live research specimens for them.
Mates.
Those Breeds who found the one whose unique biological, chemical and pheremonal makeup came together to ensure they stayed together as long as they lived. Because each was the perfect match to the other to ensure conception and the survival of the species.
He’d heard some say God had adopted them.
The reverend he knew said God had touched man’s creation and bestowed the Breeds with a soul to show man, once and for all, that only God could give life. And still others said they were no more than a fluke of nature, like a reptile. Soulless, capable of nothing but survival and dark evil.
And there were those who would give their own children to possess a hybrid Breed, a child of a mated pair, to learn the unique secrets the Breeds could one day possess.
Proof of any of their abilities would almost certainly ensure the destruction of the Breeds if used the wrong way.
This was all that contained the information. Keeping it confined to mates for the most part. Men and women who understood exactly what they had to lose if the world ever knew.
This.
Their souls.
“Diane,” he whispered her name as he clenched his eyes closed for the impossibly long moment it took him to bite back that dark emotion threatening to engulf him.
He’d get her back behind the protective walls of Sanctuary, deep in the middle of the compound, surrounded by the cabins, tents and lairs of the unmated Lions and Lionesses, Wolves and Coyote Breeds that constituted the Breed community.
Once there, she would be safe from the fanatics as well as her uncle’s enemies. The men who had taken her nearly a year before had been but one of the teams searching for her. They were the only ones who knew who they were searching for or at least knew the face of the woman they believed could lead them to the man they were seeking and the secrets they believed he held.
Secrets she was rumored to hold as well.
“You’re heavy, Lawe,” she answered moments later, her voice drowsy, lazy.
She would sleep well tonight.
She didn’t always sleep well, Jonas had informed him several months ago after Diane had spent a few days in the new wing of the main house, which had been built for Jonas and his mate.
Jonas was a member of the Pride family, whether he liked it or not, and his Pride leader half brother, Callan Lyons, had insisted on building the new wing to house Jonas, his new mate and their daughter. The main house was connected to a series of underground protected rooms and tunnels that had once been used for Breed research. It was now used to protect the mated wives and children on the few occasions the compound had been attacked.
Lawe knew that a wing of the main house was something he would never want himself. He’d never aspired to such things. He preferred a measure of privacy, and Lawe knew Jonas often chafed at the lack of it at times.
Lawe’s home was located close to the main house, though, less than a half acre away. As the head commander of the Bureau of Breed Affairs, his position necessitated a close proximity to the Bureau director as the commanding force behind the Bureau’s teams of Enforcers.
He worked with Jonas on each phase of every operation and mission going out of the bureau and ensured Jonas stayed up to date on each one.