Lawe was being groomed to take the assistant director’s chair, which allowed him to voice more of an opinion than most would have. It allowed him privileges Jonas would have never given another Enforcer or alpha leader, Breed or human.
Jonas had no need for a “yes” man, but he was damned if he’d be challenged much further over this particular decision. Or any decision regarding the search for the three research victims. Victims who could help find answers to the changes his tiny daughter was experiencing. Changes that made no sense and that so far couldn’t be reversed or explained.
Especially considering the fact he was being challenged over the woman who had undertaken that search. The woman Lawe refused to claim. The mate he refused to mark, or to take. The mate he was attempting to cage and restrain as one would a pet. A decision Jonas highly disagreed with and one he would block at every chance.
“And why is that?” Jonas asked as he closed the file, restraining the need to flex his claws in warning.
Lawe didn’t hesitate to answer him either.
“The mission was too dangerous. Dealing with the various forces also searching for the girl has turned it into a bloodbath waiting to happen. I don’t want her in the middle of it and neither should you, considering she’s your mate’s sister.”
“Mate her, make it official, and get it over with, then you can deal with the situation yourself,” Jonas growled as he felt the prick of the “claws” threatening to stretch free. “Otherwise, as long as she’s making her men available to cover for the Enforcers we currently have out on assignments, I intend to use them.”
And Lawe couldn’t enforce any wish he had where Diane was concerned until he had fully mated her, marked her and ensured the mating bond between them.
More to the point, until she officially accepted the mating, Lawe had no rights where she or her safety was concerned. It was an amendment to Breed Law that had been unanimously voted in after a female mate had denied the Breed who marked her, because of her perception of his lack of honesty and his treatment of her.
Lawe stared back at Jonas for long moments, the animal genetics he carried burning inside him in the need to challenge the Bureau director.
There was also the damning knowledge that he had no right to that challenge.
He should have known Jonas was aware that mating heat was brewing between himself and Diane. The blood tests would have revealed the potential for it the moment they were conducted. But even more, Jonas would have detected that she carried Lawe’s scent the moment Jonas met her.
A scent her body had refused to relinquish since the night he had aided in her rescue from a Syrian jail cell sixteen months before.
He had refused to take the final step that would initiate mating heat past the preliminary stage it was currently at. Any further and they would be burning for each other. At the moment, it was simply an irritant and a knowledge of what he was denying himself.
Enough of an irritation that he had been running in the opposite direction from the girl for far too long.
The glands beneath his tongue were only slightly swollen; the hormone within them hadn’t yet begun seeping into his system. The hard-on that the need caused came and went with frustrating regularity, but the need for her wasn’t yet a vicious bite in his balls.
He was simply uncomfortable.
It wasn’t yet a biological imperative, but it would take very little to create an overwhelming hunger that would erode the restraint he had so far managed to keep in place.
Allowing his hunger to have its way was a step he had yet to take.
To kiss her or to touch her in any way would send the mating heat spiraling out of control. It was something he refused to do.
To lose a lover to the viciousness of the forces attempting to destroy the Breeds was one thing. To lose a mate, the one woman who would soothe his soul and heal the bitter, ragged wounds a Breed carried inside himself, was something else entirely.
For a second, the memory of his mother, so delicate and fragile beneath the scalpel that cut her open, flashed across his mind. He heard her screams, her pleas, the moment her voice broke and the scent of her horrifying death.
The chances of such a thing happening to a Breed and his mate were much higher than any Breed wanted to face, especially those who had mated.
Mates were protected, kept behind the walls of Sanctuary, the secured Wolf Breed compound of Haven or the newly named Coyote base overlooking Haven, aptly code-named the Citadel. Every unmated Breed made a pledge to protect the mated females and any children of a mating, with his very life. They were too important. They were vital to the survival of the Breed they were mated with and to the future survival of Breeds as a whole. No chance could be taken that they would be harmed.
There were those with mates who allowed their women to travel with them, to fight beside them, but they were few. And though those Breed males were forced to allow their women that freedom for the sake of their female’s happiness, it was still a risk Lawe couldn’t image allowing.
“You’ll lose her,” Jonas spoke softly into the silence, as though he were aware of the thoughts tormenting him. “Just as Dawn nearly lost Seth when she separated herself from him. Continue to ignore it, Lawe, and the mark of your scent will dissipate and leave you vulnerable to losing her.”
Lawe stared back at him as a savage fury threatened to burn through his control.
“I never had her.”
The director’s lips quirked with an edge of knowing mockery as he sat back in his chair, relaxed and at ease despite the fact that Lawe couldn’t control his tension and the need to confront the director over Diane’s position within the Bureau.
She was an Enforcer, one of the well-trained, armed, often covert operatives who fought to eradicate any threat to the survival of the Breeds.