An hour later she was still going through the first file faxes and requisitions to several businesses in D.C. She was frowning over one particular memo when the door to the office opened.
She restrained the need to groan at the knowledge of who was walking through the door. But at least he set a cup of coffee beside her elbow for the aggravation she knew she was about to endure.
Her head lifted and she stared back at Jonas as he stared up at the sweater lying over the eye of the camera. His silver gray eyes moved back to her and his lips twitched.
"You are aware that camera is there for our safety as well as yours?" he asked her. "How are we supposed to know that you aren't stealing files?"
She lowered her head once again to the memo she was going over. He didn't want her to answer that question. She had already taken incredible advantage this morning and loaded the memory chips she had brought along with her for further study.
"If you treat Dane this way, then it's a wonder he hasn't fired you." He took the chair across from her desk and stared back at her.
"Dane knows better than to disturb me while I'm working on a job he assigned," she told him. "But then, he does pay me an exorbitant hourly wage, so it's usually in his best interest to keep me satisfied and undisturbed."
"And how much is he paying you for this job?" He leaned back in his chair, those silver eyes intent on her, his expression curious.
She almost snorted.
"Your brother Dane has the same annoying habit of couching nosy questions in a subtly curious voice. Go away, Mr. Wyatt, though I do thank you for the coffee."
She threw the knowledge of his relationship to Dane and the Leo in his face.
She lifted the mug and sipped the heavenly brew before turning her attention back to the memo. But she wasn't concentrating any better now than she had been the first few minutes after she opened the file.
She missed Mercury. It made her angry, it made her wonder where the hell her common sense had gone, but there it was, steeped in a feeling of loss and loneliness.
"Where is he?" she finally asked as Jonas continued to sit across from her and drink his coffee silently.
She didn't lift her head, but she no more saw the words on the memo than she knew what they said.
"He spent the night patrolling your cabin. He came in right behind you and went to the barracks to crash."
Her throat tightened as she swallowed and forced her gaze up to meet his.
"What's going on, Jonas?" Sanctuary itself seemed subdued today, the enforcers guarding her quieter than normal, less friendly.
He leaned forward and set his cup on the desk before relaxing back in the chair. The white silk dress shirt and slacks did nothing to hide the body of the powerful male animal beneath.
"Mercury is an anomaly within the Breed community," he told her. "Few of his kind were allowed to live."
"What do you mean, his kind'?" She already knew this information, but Jonas wasn't aware of that. And she wanted his stand on it. It was hard to fight a battle when you weren't certain the battle you were fighting.
His jaw bunched as he stared back at her. "Those whose features were so similar to the animal. The scientists in the lab he was created within kept him mostly isolated from the others, fearing his ability to escape or aid the others in escape if what they expected occurred."
She stared back at him, staying silent. His lips quirked as he nodded with a subtle gesture of approval.
"They were right. Mercury was more cunning, swifter, stronger, more dangerous than other Breeds within their lab. His training was highly advanced, but as he grew older, he began showing signs of a phenomenon they called feral fever; other scientists named it feral displacement. It was something that normally only infected the young, those at toddler stages. It only affected adult Breeds who were closer to the animal they were enhanced with."
"The call of the wild," she whispered. "That's what Leo calls it. He says all Breeds have it to a degree."
Jonas inclined his head slowly as he grimaced.
"He was barely twenty when he learned the young female of the pride, the one the scientists were watching closely when he came in contact with her, had been killed. She was only fifteen and sent on a mission she should have never been a part of. When he was told, the Coyotes, two of them, the scientists that worked with her, weren't exactly sympathetic. Mercury had just come in from a mission of his own; the feral displacement was already running high within him. He killed them all, with his bare hands, before he could be restrained by the other trainers and guards."
"Sweet heaven," she whispered. She hadn't known the details of that event. "With his bare hands?"
"We have the videos of the event. At one point, Mercury slammed his hand into one Coyote's chest and ripped his heart from his body. He took two bullets that should have been fatal wounds, but he kept going. He tore a scientist's head from his shoulders, the trainer . . ." He paused and shook his head. "Bare-handed, Ria, he disemboweled a trainer. Once they managed to restrain him and begin running tests, they found a hormone that attached itself to the adrenaline pumping through his body. One they still have no name for, no idea from where it's produced. But they found a way to recess it. A drug therapy that kept him calm, kept him controllable."
Ria was horrified. She hadn't known this. She stared back at Jonas, sick to her stomach, imagining the horror of being controlled.