“You are being foolhardy,” he snapped, swinging his gaze back to her. “Why suffer this way? Why would you allow yourself to be hurt in such a manner?”
“They need the information,” she argued back. “Dammit, Kiowa, someone has to find a cure.”
He recoiled as though she had smacked him. She watched the mask drop into place, the blank eyes, the emotionless expression. She shivered at the look, knowing that somehow she had just made him angrier than he already was. No, she had hurt him. That stark, blinding truth whipped through her mind and had her staring back at him in surprise. Somehow, she had hurt him.
“Merinus, tell your mate I’ll return to the communications shed later,” he finally said quietly, never looking at her.
“We need those blood samples, Kiowa,” Merinus said firmly. “We’re almost finished.”
“No. You are finished. Not almost.” His voice was too soft, too dangerously controlled. “Leave now,
Merinus.”
He was exceedingly polite but Amanda swore she could feel murder in the air. Amanda rose slowly to her feet as the room cleared out.
“This is my choice,” she told him coldly. “Not yours.”
He stood stiffly in front of her for one long moment before turning away from her.
“Are you hungry? I thought I would fix us dinner. Your father should be calling in a few hours. I think I should warn you, though; Callan has a ban on information concerning the mating heat. It’s the one thing you cannot mention to him.”
She stared at his back in shock.
“No, damn you,” she cursed furiously. “You will not pull that I-feel-nothing-change-the-subject routine on me. We’ll discuss what I can and cannot say to my father later.” She gripped his arm just inside the living room pulling him to a stop as he turned back to her slowly. “This was my choice. My decision. You had no right to take it from me.”
“I’m your mate. It’s within all my rights to protect you. Even from yourself.”
“From myself?” She lifted her brows in amazement, her hands fisting at her side to keep from knocking him over the head with something. “I wasn’t trying to commit suicide. It was just an examination.”
“Which caused you excessive pain.” He could have been discussing the weather. Oh, by the way, the sun was shining today but I think it was a bit overbright, she thought sarcastically.
“My pain,” she snapped. “Dammit, Kiowa, they will never figure this out without the tests. Without someone willing to endure them. Do you think this is comfortable for me? That I enjoy having my very will stolen from me in such a way?”
“The heat eases.” He shrugged dismissively, pulling away from her. No emotion. Nothing.
“That doesn’t help when it’s burning you alive,” she informed him furiously. “And that’s besides the fact it was none of your business. It was my choice.”
“Then make another choice. “
“Then leave again.”
He stopped at the entrance to the kitchen, his shoulders flexing beneath the light gray shirt he wore.
“I think I’ll stay, thank you,” he finally said mildly.
Amanda shook her head as amazement cascaded along her senses.
“Do you think I’m just going to accept this, Kiowa?” she finally asked him softly, knowing she never would.
“I really don’t think you have a choice. Now we need to discuss your father and what you cannot say.”
He stared back at her unblinking then, and for a moment she wondered if he did have a soul.
Chapter Eighteen
She refused to just accept.
Amanda made her way as quietly as possible from the cabin, staying in the shadows as she forced herself to move into the darkness of the mountain the cabin sat within. She had listened to Kiowa, Kane Tyler and Callan Lyons discussing the security of the compound earlier, before Kiowa left to help Kane with some kind of computer malfunction. After she had talked to her father and reassured him she was fine. Not that she could do anything else with Kiowa standing over her like an avenging angel. She had even whispered their code phrase— I’m fine, Poppa—rather than Father…and she still couldn’t explain to herself why she had done that. Perhaps because the independence she had won from her family had been so very hard to achieve. Her father and brother were just waiting on the excuse to haul her back into the fold, marry her to a nice, staid, dependable young man and see her become the perfect Washington wife. She didn’t think so. Fighting it out with Kiowa would be easier. And she was about to show him here and now that she wasn’t someone he could so casually order around. She would get herself off this damned mountain, out of the Breed Compound and back to the White House on her own. It wouldn’t be so difficult. By rescuing herself, she could assert her independence even in the face of the danger surrounding her.