Hell, this was harder than he had thought it would be. He didn't want to stand here and state his continued failure to claim his mate to anyone, let alone the Breed scientist in charge of figuring out why there would be a failure to begin with.
"The glands ache?" She rubbed at her ear, a gesture that bespoke her confusion.
"That's not common. The glands normally swell. Does she have any symptoms?"
"A few." Pushing his hands wearily through his hair, he breathed out roughly.
"The faintest scent of chocolate and cinnamon. Tonight, there was a subtle scent of heat, but it receded before she found her release."
"Abstaining as I suggested didn't work then? Nor did it make the need greater?"
she asked.
"For me." He grimaced. "She doesn't refuse me, but damn, Nikki," he growled, "I can all but hear her cursing because the pleasure is more than she wants to reject. She wants me, but I feel she hates the fact that she does."
No matter how hard he'd tried, he couldn't quiet the need to take her, to come, to pump inside her until maybe he could force that final satisfaction free.
Tonight though, as she'd turned her back to him and wrapped her arms around herself, he'd wondered if she was lying there flaying herself for giving in to the hunger.
She hadn't cried, there had been no scent of pain, but what he had sensed, a dark, confused emotion, had tightened his chest with the need to ease her.
Nikki crossed her arms over her br**sts, rather as he had seen Storme do when she was trying to figure something out, or when she was considering her next smart-assed crack.
"How far has intimacy gone?" she finally asked.
"As far as it can go," he growled, deciding to jump in rather than ease in painfully. "The glands ache as though they're blocked. My flesh is sensitive, like a slight tingle beneath the skin. The need for her is always present, but not painful, and I can feel the knot forming, but it never emerges. As far as I can tell, she has none of the symptoms."
Nikki blinked back at him in disbelief, and he was damned if he could blame her.
He was confused as hell himself.
Pushing his fingers through his hair again, he blew out another hard, rough breath.
"I don't know what the hell is going on, Nikki, but I know Jonas. He's making threats to go before the Breed Cabinet to place her under Breed Law. He's determined to force her to give up any information she has, and I can't allow him to take her. You have to prove the mating compatibility if nothing else."
Disbelief still filled her face.
"Proving compatibility isn't a problem, Styx, but none of this makes sense.
According to the tests I've conducted, both of you should be in full mating heat." She shook her head. "You can't almost mate your mate."
"Then explain it," he snarled, feeling the imperative demand of the Wolf howling inside him. "She's mine, Nikki, I know she is. The animal senses it, but mating heat is just out of reach. Explain to me what the hell is going on before it makes me insane."
He had tried staying away from her. He had considered attempting to find another lover, but the thought of that brought nothing but distaste. He was spending the better part of his time trying to figure out how to block Jonas rather than figuring out what the hell was going on with his own body. Not that he had any answers there either.
"Hell," she finally breathed out roughly as she stared at the files piled around her.
"I've gone through every file I have of experiments done in the labs for the phenomenon they called feral fever as well as mating fever. The only references I can find to anything like this are regarding some of the highest trained assassins, as well as a deep cover operative the Council used as a glorified prostitute. In each case, the Breeds were in positions where the mating heat would have risked the mate, or even those they were responsible for in the labs."
"A subconscious blocking of the heat then?" he mused thoughtfully. It was something he hadn't considered.
"This is going to be a hell of a mess, Styx," she said and sighed as she stared back at the stacks of files then turned back to him with a grimace. "I can prove compatibility, I can prove the mating hormone in your system, but only in minute quantities. I don't know if it's going to be enough to block Jonas if he calls to have her brought up on charges through Breed Law."
"Consider it a challenge," he growled. "I don't care what you have to do, Nikki, but if you don't help me here then I'm going to end up coming under Breed Law myself.
I'll run with her. I won't let him take her from me."
That admission hadn't been easy to make. Styx took his oath of loyalty to the Breeds, to Wolfe and to the Bureau, which he had sworn when he accepted the position of Enforcer, very seriously. The thought of breaking that oath filled him with pain, with a sense of loss.