He held his arm out to Ely.
She shook her head. "More samples aren't going to help, Jonas. It's only going to show the same thing. The hormone is getting stronger. There's nothing I can find to stop it."
"Something's happening to me, Ely." He shook his head. "I haven't slept in days, and it's not just the arousal. I can't keep my claws sheathed." He showed her the deadly sharp claws, which had retracted beneath his nails. "My incisors ache and the barb is trying to emerge without sex. This is killing me."
Picking up the pressure extractor, the slender, wandlike needleless instrument used to take blood, she pressed it to his vein. The flesh was so tough from the tension inside him that nothing filled the vial.
"I'm going to have to use the needle." She sighed as worry filled her expression. "I've never had to use a needle on a Breed before, Jonas."
Moving to a cabinet, she pulled a sterile needle and vial from the supplies stored there and moved back to him.
Minutes later, two vials filled, she returned with a swab.
Jonas opened his mouth, grimacing at the swollen condition of the glands beneath his tongue as she swiped the swab over them, producing a heated ache as the hormone pulsed from overly filled glands.
"Kane didn't have these symptoms, but he's not a Breed," she stated as she began to make notes on the electronic pad she pulled from another counter. "Your genetic and biological makeup is so different from other Breeds that I don't know how to help you."
He was in agony. He was so close to losing control of the animal pushing at his mind that he could barely function now.
"I have to leave," he growled. "I'm going to end up raping her, Ely."
Ely turned back to him, sympathy and aching affection reflecting in her gaze now.
"I need samples from her," she told him. "The only chance I have at developing anything to help you will have to come from her."
"No." He had been refusing that idea since bringing her to Sanctuary. "I don't want this for her. I don't want her to see this part of the mating, Ely. The constant tests, the embarrassment of them. Hell, she's wary enough as it is."
He ran his hand over the back of his neck and fought to hold on to the furious lust raging through him. It was worse than feral fever, and he should know--he'd been there, done that.
"She's destroying you." There was an edge of anger brewing in Ely now.
Jonas shook his head, forcing himself to stand. "Do you need se**n samples?"
She breathed out roughly. "Can you produce any?"
It hadn't happened yesterday. He hadn't been able to masturbate, to find release. Nothing worked, and he'd been trying for days.
"Is there any other way to get them?" Hell, he'd try for the needle if he had to. Anything to help Ely find a way to ease the agony washing through him in fiery waves.
"There's no other way, Jonas." She shook her head. "I need the se**n samples. The blood and saliva isn't enough."
He grimaced, feeling the tightness of his expression as he tried to think of a solution.
"What about Amburg?" he asked. "Does he have any ideas?"
"Amburg always has ideas," she snorted rudely. "Unfortunately, he hasn't come up with anything to help with this."
Jeffrey Amburg was strange as hell, but if he said he had no solution to this problem, then he had none. He was a master geneticist, a third-generation Genetics Council scientist, and once considered the scourge of the Breed labs. He lived for his research and for his granddaughter. Nothing else mattered to the man. When Jonas had extended the option of living and serving the Breeds versus dying, Jeffrey had actually smiled.
Seeing the evolution of the Breeds, even if he couldn't share it outside of Ely and Elizabeth, was worth more than gold to the man. It was almost worth more than his granddaughter's life at times.
"Looks like I'm screwed then," he grunted as he headed to the door. "Let me know if you figure anything out."
"Jonas." She stopped him as he gripped the doorknob.
"Yeah, Ely?" He was certain he didn't want to hear whatever she was getting ready to say to him. There were times when she was a little too honest.
"Kiss her."