He wore the same clothes he had worn when he went after Amber. Black. Black mission pants, a long-sleeved shirt that was torn and bloody, and combat boots, which laced over his calves. The string of one boot was fraying. The left knee of the mission pants was torn, exposing reddened and bloodied flesh.
"Jonas, have you been checked for your injuries yet?" Elizabeth moved to the tray of digital and sterilized instruments next to the incubator.
"Ely takes care of me, Dr. Vanderale," he answered coolly. "If I need it."
"And of course, you don't need it," Elizabeth murmured. "How like the Leo you can be."
"And I'm certain the Leo is just as tired of hearing that as I am," he responded mockingly. "As the whelp he barely claims, I can tell you, it gets old."
Rachel heard the thinnest vein of some underlying emotion in those words. Resentment? Hurt? She couldn't imagine the steel-edged Jonas hurting over anything. But she had learned over the past months that there was a lot Jonas hid from the world and the people around him.
Elizabeth chuckled. "Why do you believe he calls you a 'whelp,' young man? Could it be because you're so like him that he's not certain whether to feel pride or to shoot you and put the world out of its misery?"
"I think he's just as happy over the fact that his DNA was used against him as I am." Jonas shrugged and turned back to Rachel. "We have a cabin ready for you. I'm sure you'd like to eat and get some rest now that Elizabeth has finished her examination of you."
Merinus had warned her when she first agreed to work for Jonas about the Breeds' incredible sense of smell and intuition. She had warned Rachel that the least weakness would be perceived by Jonas as a weapon, nothing more. That he would use it against her, would poke and dig until he managed to find a way to get her out of the office.
"I'd like to finish feeding Amber first," she stated with a calm composure she didn't feel. "I rather doubt Phillip Brandenmore had the consideration to do so."
The small rumble of danger that sounded in his throat would have been worrying if Amber hadn't chosen that moment to emit a small, distressed whimper.
"Calm yourself, Jonas." Elizabeth moved across the room to one of the myriad machines that lined a counter. "I've warned you that children sense emotions much better than adults do. You'll upset the child."
Rachel was surprised to see the grimace that tightened Jonas's face, but within seconds Amber calmed down once more and proceeded to finish her bottle.
He did that a lot, she realized: backed off when at other times she was certain he would have pushed for dominance in a given situation.
Setting the bottle aside, she lifted the baby against her chest. Patting the baby's back, she smiled softly when a loud, definitely unladylike burp came from the perfect, cupid's bow lips.
"We can leave now." Pulling a small blanket from the table by the incubator, Rachel wrapped her daughter snugly, then turned to Jonas.
He was staring at Elizabeth, his expression tight, almost angry. Glancing back at the other woman, Rachel saw the same expression mirrored on Elizabeth's face.
These two were so much alike that it astounded Rachel that they weren't related.
"Let's go then." Stepping back, Jonas allowed her to pass before turning in behind her and following her to the door.
"Jonas. Rachel."
They stopped, glancing back.
"I'll need the two of you in for tests in the morning," she informed them. "Please be here before breakfast. It's rather important that it be done before you eat."
"That what be done?" Rachel asked.
"Mating tests," Jonas informed her, his voice cold. "Never let it be said that mating a Breed is easy."
Rachel glared back at him. "Never let it be said that I agreed to any of this. Forget the tests, Jonas. I haven't decided I'm your mate. Therefore, no tests are needed."
She pushed through the lab doors, determined not to show a weakness either in expression or emotion. For all Jonas knew, her heart wasn't racing in excitement, and her thighs weren't ready to clench in arousal.
She was immune. At least, that was the image she presented. The truth was a far different matter.
She watched as his expression seemed to change. It became emotionless, almost lifeless. Bronze, savage features tightened until they seemed carved from stone as his eyes boiled like heated mercury.
"Rachel, simply because you refuse to accept it doesn't make it so," Elizabeth ventured cautiously as she stepped closer, her hands sliding into the wide pockets of her lab coat as her dark blue eyes softened in understanding. "Mating heat is not a choice, my dear."
"I beg to differ." Rachel shifted Amber in her arms, her fingers rubbing against the baby's back in a comforting motion, despite the fact that Amber was sleeping peacefully. "I'm not an animal, Dr. Vanderale. Neither is Jonas, despite his attempts to convince me differently over the past months. I'm not ruled by my hormones, nor am I ruled by Breed hormones. Rest assured, should I decide to accept whatever anomaly dictates your mating heat, then I will submit myself to your tests." She stared back at Jonas. "Are you ready, or do I need to see about finding a hotel for the night?"
It was his luck. Jonas entered his cabin, stood aside and watched as Rachel walked in, knowing that every curse, every ill thought his Enforcers had had concerning his turn at mating were most likely coming true.
The sight he'd seen in the medical facility had made his c**k harder than it had ever been. She'd lifted her head with an arrogance that still amazed him, looked down that little button nose of hers and informed Elizabeth Vanderale that she was not mated because she hadn't accepted it.
It would have been amusing had she been another Breed's mate. Unfortunately, she was his, and though he'd had no intentions of fulfilling the mating promise, in that second, nothing else had mattered to him but mating her.
It was the Breed genetics, he told himself as she toed her shoes off and moved into the large living room and looked around. It was the challenge--the steely eyed certainty that she could deny him--and the fact that she was attempting to deny what he knew couldn't be denied.
It was the fact that she belonged to him. She was his. And she had dared to stand in front of the one woman he would never show weakness to and state that she was not his mate until she decided it was so.