"I didn't say that." Amburg turned to him, his gaze heavy but clearly shielding his concern. It didn't matter, because Jonas could sense each emotion on him.
"Then what are you saying?" Jonas leaned back against the door, crossed his arms over his chest and watched the scientist narrowly.
Amburg's gaze flickered. "Just what I said. Where Brandenmore's concerned, you should worry, and worry a lot. For the moment, it appears the child is fine. There was nothing more than a sedative in the syringe. I just want to be certain."
And that was the truth. Jonas could accept it, though he knew there were still things he wasn't being told. He could wait. For a short while.
"Return to your lab if that's all you have." Jonas moved back from the door. "Let me know if you learn anything further."
Amburg nodded shortly before moving for the door.
"Jeffrey." Jonas stopped him as he reached for the doorknob. "Betray me, and you know what I'll do."
Amburg swallowed tightly, his gaze flickering in fear. "She has nothing to do with any of this, Jonas. She's innocent."
"So were the Breeds, once," Jonas countered. "Did that help us?"
It hadn't.
Amburg lowered his head before pulling the door open and leaving the room. He would find the answers Jonas needed, assured that if he didn't, his granddaughter would pay the price.
Jonas looked into the lab once again. Amber lay still and silent, her mother beside her, pacing, uncertain. Frightened.
Her fear dug sharpened claws of emotion into his soul, and left him questioning himself and decisions he had once felt were set in stone. It had him questioning the danger he had allowed into his life, and the danger he knew would now, always, be a part of it.
Rachel and Amber had become his life, and now he wondered how the hell he was ever going to protect them.
CHAPTER 3
Jonas forced himself to leave the small room more than an hour later. Amber was waking, groggy and hungry. Blood tests were showing no abnormalities or anomalies. She appeared to be as healthy as she had been before her ordeal with Brandenmore.
Jonas knew he wouldn't know more until he could slip into the room himself and hold her. The ability to connect with her through her mother had disappeared after her birth. Now he found that only when he held her did he sense any problems she might have.
Moving through the steel-lined corridors of the medical bunker, Jonas stepped into the meeting room where Kane, Callan, Lawe and Rule awaited him.
"You're already getting weird on us." Lawe flicked him a disgruntled look as Callan and Kane watched silently. "I swear, this mating shit has to be contagious."
There was an edge of bachelor fear in Lawe's voice, as well as in his brother Rule's expression.
Not that Jonas could blame either man. Mating was damned scary when a man had no idea how to proceed. Heeding the animal's demand that he take her now, that he mark her immediately, wasn't going to work. He'd be damned if he wanted his woman to come to him because hormones forced her to do so. He wanted her to want him because he was a man willing to love her, to care for her and to ensure that her child was protected.
"What have you found out?" He ignored Lawe's previous comment as he turned to Callan.
"Mordecai is trailing Brandenmore." Callan leaned forward, laying his arms on the polished surface of the meeting table. "He had a heli-jet waiting several blocks from Ms. Broen's house. He flew immediately to Iran."
"He has a research facility there." Jonas nodded.
"And neither America nor the Breeds has an extradition treaty with them," Kane stated. "Our hands are tied unless Mordecai and his men can catch him outside the facility and manage to grab him without being seen."
If anyone could do it, Mordecai could.
"Dog was spotted in Iran just hours after Brandenmore landed," Rule reported. "He and his team were about a mile from the research facility and there's a rumor Brandenmore called them in."
Brandenmore had made a major mistake if he had thought to hire the mercenary Coyote unit Dog commanded. Dog might play the bad-assed mercenary, but Jonas and Dog knew whom he owed his loyalty to.
"I want Brandenmore." He turned to Callan. "This is Breed Law, Callan. It's no longer public. It's no longer a matter of bringing him to the humans' idea of justice. He's mine."
And he would suffer.