Josiah scoffed. “As if you didn’t. Even I scented it, Navarro.” Rage clouded the Wolf’s voice, roughened and rasped it until it was more animal than human. “You’re not a worthy mate and you should be barred from approaching her.”
Navarro felt as though his brain were clouding for the briefest moment before he fought back. Instinct, hunger, rage and animal fury threatened to overwhelm him before he managed to get control of them.
He forced them back, restrained them as he had all his life. Since birth. Since before birth.
Navarro turned slowly to Callan, Jonas, and Dane Vanderale.
So far, the current Vanderale heir and hybrid Breed had remained silent—watching and amused, but silent. But Navarro knew if Dane took a side, then that side would be sure to win, against all odds.
Navarro couldn’t take that chance. He wouldn’t take that chance. The very thought of any of them taking her from him had rage threatening to shake his control.
“Attempt to bar me from her and there will be a war,” Navarro promised them.
“Ely believes if he is barred from her, then there’s a chance Mica could mate with a Breed willing to take on the responsibility of loving her,” Josiah snapped. “I request he be barred from her long enough to learn if she’ll be compatible with me. I’ll claim her.” His gaze raked over Navarro with insulting emphasis. “And he can go to hell!”
Shock resounded through Navarro.
A snarl slipped past his throat as he turned on the other Breed, fury spreading through his system with the force of a tidal wave.
He’d be damned if he’d allow any other Breed a chance to do any such thing.
“She’s still my f**king mate,” Navarro informed them all with icy rage. “She carries my scent.”
Josiah’s arms crossed over his powerful chest as a smirk curved his lips. “No, Navarro, she doesn’t. She smells of heat and arousal, but her scent is still her own. She has not taken your scent. Dr. Morrey believes nature would allow Mica to choose another mate, as you’ve so obviously rejected her. She’s Breed compatible and mate hungry. And I have no problem whatsoever fixing that little problem.”
Breed compatible and mate hungry?
Navarro sneered back at him. “If she had wanted you, whelp, then she would have claimed you years ago. What makes you think you can claim what’s mine now?”
“Because you so obviously don’t know how to do the job right.” Josiah smirked.
That smirk, the confidence and male gloating in his eyes, seemed to snap something inside him, something primal and vital, and before Navarro could restrain it, that unknown something disappeared from his grasp beneath the anger surging through him.
“Get the hell out of my way.” Navarro went to move around Josiah.
He was finished with this conversation.
“If the doctor is right, then perhaps we should consider what Mica has to say first, Navarro,” Dane drawled with a hint of amused interest. Enough so that Navarro knew the other man was entirely serious about asking Mica’s opinion. And Navarro was certain it wouldn’t be in his favor.
Navarro froze for the briefest second before turning to face the Vanderale heir, a man he had considered a friend until this moment.
“Go to hell!”
Turning back, he pushed past Josiah and slammed out of the vid-comm room to stride furiously up the hall to Ely’s office.
He’d be damned if anyone would take his mate.
He didn’t have to let the animal free to claim her. No matter the mating hormone that no longer filled his system, he could still claim her.
He’d already claimed her. He’d left his mark on her, and he’d be damned if he’d allow another Breed to replace it.
But to keep her, could he release the animal struggling to awaken inside him?
It was a question he wasn’t willing to answer.
But, he feared, it was one he would have to face. He could feel some unnamed emotion, a burning sense of awareness flaring inside him that he was unable to fight, unable to define. And for both his and Mica’s sake, he prayed it wasn’t the animal finally breaking free.
CHAPTER 12