"It's called a woman's nightmare," she informed him tartly. "I can't imagine anything worse than being so tied to a man that you can't exist without him."
His gaze slipped to hers as she turned from him.
Merinus had told her about mating heat. In that moment, Jonas knew that the Prima had broken the strictest law of the Breed society. Mates were forbidden to reveal the mating heat to any unmated Breed or human. It was the only protection they had.
"I've yet to see a mate who considers it a nightmare," he snapped as he forced himself to turn from her. "But the subject is moot. If I had intended to follow that path and tie you to me, then trust me, sweetheart," he turned back long enough to spear a hard, cool look in her direction, "you would be tied."
He didn't wait around for her reaction. At that moment, the sound of Amber's protest that she had waited too long for her breakfast echoed through the house as Jonas stalked to his room and closed the door softly.
He felt as though he was going to break apart. Parts of him were shattering on the inside as the animal part of his psyche clawed and roared in protest at being jerked from his mate.
Mark her, it urged.
Tie her.
God help him, that was the last thing he should do.
He'd seen his Enforcers locked in mating heat. He'd seen how it compromised their abilities to maintain control and focus on their assigned missions.
There was something about the hormonal, super-charged aphrodisiac that spilled from a Breed's tongue that made that tie impossible to deny.
It formed a tie that bound him to her, despite her unwillingness to be bound in return.
But wasn't this what he wanted? he reminded himself. He had denied the heat for months. He had forced himself to hold back, deny the instinctive need that ripped through his senses.
Now, in a matter of hours, he was ready to bed her for a single touch.
He was screwed. It was that simple, and he knew it. Just as he knew that there wasn't a damned thing he could do to stop it.
Rachel stared at her shaking hands before breathing in roughly, collecting the items she needed and moving back to the bedroom and to Amber, who fussed for her bottle.
She checked Amber's diaper, changed it quickly and all the while reminded herself, more than once, of all the reasons why she wasn't going to allow herself to touch the man. He was such a fascination to her that she could barely keep her mind, let alone her hands, off him.
And now there was the added complication that he thought she was his mate?
Oh, she knew about the mating. Merinus had been kind enough to go into detail--explicit, amazing detail--before Rachel had taken the job. That was just after Rachel had been asked to sign a confidentiality agreement that didn't just affect her own life, but any heirs she may come to have, and a very subtle warning of the grief family members could suffer if she ever divulged the information. But even if her friend hadn't given her those details, Rachel would have still suspected the truth of the rumors that circulated.
Mating heat. Forced desires. Breed sexual virus. The gossip rags were full of names for it. Merinus's description was kinder. Natural selection, she had called it. God had chosen the perfect mates for the children He had allowed the Council to create bodies for.
Merinus was nothing if not a great believer in a higher power.
So where did that leave Rachel?
As she placed Amber on her shoulder, cuddling the child close to her and rubbing her back soothingly, Rachel began to pace the floor.
Jonas fascinated her too much. That was her problem. That had nothing to do with hormones, pheromones, or anything chemical or biological. It was simply an attraction she had learned to accept.
It was now a complication she was going to have to deal with.
After burping Amber and laying her down for a nap, Rachel let herself linger long enough to smooth her fingers over her child's red-gold locks, and to once again be amazed that such a perfect creation had come from her body.
It wasn't often that she allowed herself to become sentimental or find any regrets in her life. She tried to live in a way that ensured she had as few regrets as possible. But as she stared down at Amber, she wondered if she had made a mistake in informing Amber's father of her birth.
Devon hadn't been perfect, but she had felt he deserved to know about his child, whether she thought he would be interested or not. Now it was something she might regret though. Devon was so firmly against the Breeds that it was hard telling what he would do once he learned where Rachel and Amber were located. And finding her wouldn't be hard. The explosion at her home had been all over the news, as well as reports that Rachel and her child had been flown to Sanctuary. It wouldn't be something he would do out of love for his child, but rather out of pure spite.
Unfortunately, that was Devon's personality.
Breathing out wearily, she leaned forward, kissed her daughter's cheek, then turned on the monitor system beside the crib before leaving the bedroom and venturing to the front porch of the cabin.