She cleared her throat carefully. "Well, maybe you'll get lucky one of these days."

"We could only hope." The doctor snorted. "Until then, we do our best with what we have. One day, we'll figure it all out."

Megan nodded with what she considered impressive seriousness. She could feel the betraying blush threatening to rise beneath her skin, and she knew the doctor, being a damned Breed, would have no trouble whatsoever…

"It would really help, my dear, if you would at least give me the information I need." The doctor, Elyiana, slanted her look from the comer of her eyes as she leaned over the case and fidgeted with the lock. "I know how to keep my mouth shut in the interests of science, you know."

Shit.

Megan opened her eyes wide.

"I've told you everything I know," she promised as she fought any betraying evidence of a lie.

"Nothing more at all?" Elyiana arched her brow curiously. "Strange, start talking about that barb and the hormone levels and your pulse rate go sky high. Has Braden ever mentioned that subterfuge has a scent?"

"Actually, he says a lie does," she retorted calmly.

Elyiana smiled demurely. "One could say denial comes in many forms," she pointed out. "As do lies. And the scent changes for each. You can keep your secrets for only so long, Megan. Eventually you have to face the consequences of the Mating and its reactions on your body. Hiding it will do you no good, and it will do nothing but make it harder to help you and Braden."

"We're doing fine." Megan frowned at the subtle chastisement. "No problems whatsoever."

"Very well." The doctor tilted her head in a small, mocking nod. ''I'll

leave you in peace to calm your mate. Jonas is rather good at inciting his anger."

Megan's shoulders dropped. "Yeah, I heard them."

Elyiana shot her a quiet, probing look before flattening her lips and heading to the door. "I'll leave you to him then," she said again. "If you need me, have Braden contact Jonas and I'll come out. Though I do encourage you to come to Sanctuary." She gripped the doorknob, glancing over her shoulder and spearing Megan with a disagreeable look.

"It could mean more than just your life, Megan. It could affect others as well."

"Elyiana" Megan kept her voice soft as the doctor paused in front of the door. "The potency of the hormone in the barb?'

"Yes?The doctor watched her with a quiet calm.

"Maybe" She cleared her throat. "Maybe it's different if it's delivered in a different way." She felt the flush rising in her face. Damn this was hard. "Rather than vaginally, I mean."

"Orally?'Elyiana's eyes narrowed as Megan nodded jerkily.

"For some reason," the doctor continued, "the reports we have from the mated pairs show that the males do not allow ejaculation during oral

sex."

Megan cleared her throat again. "Maybe Braden is just odd."

Talk about uncomfortable. Letting this woman know the pleasures she and Braden shared wasn't easy.

"Thank you, Megan." The doctor allowed a fleeting smile to cross her lips. "I'll add this into my own private notes to investigate further. But I will still need you at Sanctuary as soon as possible. For your own safety if nothing else."

With that oblique comment, she turned the doorknob and left the room. Now. Megan just had to get rid of her family.

The heli-jet lifted from the desert, its engines muted as it hovered for a second before heading back to the Virginia compound. Elyiana sat in the back, her case of blood, semen and saliva samples carefully locked into a storage compartment beside her. A dim light lit the interior from overhead, casting shadows across the floor as Jonas stepped from the cockpit and sat down lazily across from her.

"The hormonal changes are much more apparent with her. Braden has wasted no time in marking her."

Elyiana met Jonas's intent silver eyes. They were spooky. No, they were damned scary.

"I can't be certain without the proper tests." She sighed in resignation.

"But all evidence is leaning that way. The bites he has inflicted could have a lot to do with it. The bites were close enough to the jugular to ensure the hormone was delivered directly to the bloodstream. Her hearing is more acute, as is her ability to heal. I'll know more when I get the samples back to the labs, but I would guess the hormone Braden carries is much more potent than normal."

"Why?'' Even his voice was dangerous.

"He's one of the few whose lion DNA is stronger than the scientists anticipated." She shrugged. "It's one of the reasons he escaped the harsher punishments within the Labs and reached the higher assassin status, as you well know. I would guess that would explain why the hormone is more potent. It makes sense."

The growl that rumbled in Jonas's chest was terrifying to hear. It wasn't the normal sound of displeasure that a male lion would utter. But was he upset with her, or Braden?

Most likely her; he seemed particularly intent on her lately.

"Don't be deliberately obtuse, Elyiana," he growled, flashing his incisors

dangerously. "Why would he need to bite her in such a manner? He's acting on instinct; I can sense this myself. Now why?"

She stared back at him thoughtfully. "I don't know, unless the hormone and his own instincts are attempting to overcome the contraceptive. In the previous human mates the genetic differences in them after conception have led to advanced immunity and healing abilities. It could be a primal compensation of some sort. A way of ensuring either conception or the hormonal balance that would allow that healing and higher immunity. I suspect the latter. She's already showing advanced sensory sensitivity. Hearing, eyesight. I suspect it's one of nature's little tricks to ensure that his mate has every advantage to fight beside him."

And wouldn't others be very interested to know this.

Elyiana was very aware of the danger this could place Braden's mate in. The mated pairs so far stayed within Sanctuary for their own protection and to allow the vast array of tests needed to research the Mating phenomenon.

Braden and Megan would never stay within Sanctuary.

Braden was as wild as the wind, he always had been. And it seemed his mate was no different.

"We need her at Sanctuary. No matter the cost," Jonas informed her coldly, his anger obviously directed at Braden rather than her.

"She won't come." Elyiana was certain of that.

Some Breeds were like that. Confinement only made them more dangerous, more volatile. It was one of the reasons that some of their best fighters had died in the Labs.

The Council had been unable to control them.

Elyiana considered herself an able fighter, an intelligent, strong woman. But Jonas terrified the shit out of her.

"I want those test results quickly," he told her softly, his voice cold, demanding as he stared at her out of those eerie, silver eyes. "Very quickly, Elyiana. Is that understood?"

''Yes." She fought to keep her mind blank, her emotions under control. She had been doing it for years, for so long that no one had been able to rattle her until Jonas. "I understand."

"Very good."

She watched as he rose to his feet, a strong flow of movement, graceful and dangerous all at once as he moved back to the cockpit. As the thin

panel between the two areas slid shut, she took a deep, steadying breath. He wanted results, but no more than she did. It could mean the difference between her freedom and her own destruction.

The Mating Heat wouldn't be able to stay hidden much longer, which she knew was causing the Breed Ruling Cabinet to become concerned. Once information leaked of the advanced immunity and sensory abilities within the non-Breed mate. and the suspected aging delay, world opinion could turn against them with a violence Sanctuary might not survive.

As long as the Breeds portrayed themselves as weak, unable to fight the evil Council and the Purist societies, then the world would look favorably upon them. They weren't a risk, or a threat. But once the truth emerged, only God knew what would happen.

They were fighting a losing battle though. Already suspicion was gaining among journalists. In nearly ten years neither Callan Lyons nor his mate, Merinus, seemed to have aged a day. The Mating marks on the shoulders of the mates had been glimpsed several times, and various scientists were commenting on it. Several Council scientists, captured during the rescues of the Breeds when word first emerged, had revealed their suspicions of the Mating, though none knew the full extent of it.

At the moment, Sanctuary was their only secure base. The old genteel Southern mansion was surrounded by several hundred acres of forested

land and provided the Breeds there a stable, safe haven. They stayed within their own borders and, other than military or law enforcement assignments they were sought for, they rarely ventured among the populace. Though Elyiana knew this wouldn't last for much longer.

Once the Breeds there had adapted to freedom, and their bodies and minds had healed from the cruelties inflicted upon them within the Labs, then they would begin to roam. It was the nature of the beast. The need to further their horizons, to bond, to mate, to begin their own prides.

It would be then that the true battles would begin. And it was those battles Elyiana feared. The fight for survival would seem like child's play compared to what she feared was coming.

Chapter Seventeen

Braden had always considered himself more man than animal. Better able to think before reacting. Clear-headed. Calm. Concise. Until he met Megan. Instinct had ruled since the moment he had laid eyes on her. His body's awareness of her had been instantaneous. The hard-on that filled his jeans in that second had been alarming. The instincts rising inside

him now were primitive. And like the bite he had delivered to her neck after the wreck, uncontrollable. He had no desire to control them. When it came to Megan and his hunger for her, he found he had no will to resist.

He faced her across the living room, seeing the exhaustion, the weariness that dragged at her body. She needed to curl up in her bed beneath all those fluffy blankets and sleep for as long as he could allow her to. But he knew that sleep would have to come later.

"You should be resting." He growled. "You're pushing yourself too hard."

"Isn't that rather like the pot calling the kettle black?" she asked with false sweetness. "You could give a mule lessons in stubbornness, Braden."

Tonight he would be giving her lessons, but not in stubbornness. In submission. In learning the price to be paid in rousing the animal that lurked just beneath the thin veneer of humanity. In obeying him.

His stomach tightened, actually twisted in pain at the memory of her deliberate disobedience when he had ordered her to stay hidden within the boulders. He had meant to do no more than check the situation out, take out the soldiers if possible, if safety's sake allowed, then come back for her.

He had no idea how she would react in such a situation, or how accurate her Academy records were in her training.

The possibility of a fatal injury or capture had been highly probable if they had been off by so much as a second before reaching the safety of the Raider.

She had risked not just her life, but his sanity. That could not be allowed to happen again.

"Why are you staring at me like that? The defiance in her voice had the animal raging inside him.

"You disobeyed me today, Megan." There was a dangerous rumble in his voice. "Before I could gauge your strengths or your weaknesses, you disobeyed me, placing not just my life in jeopardy, but yours also."

"Are you still pissed off over that?" She stared back at him incredulously.

"Oh really, Braden. Isn't it time to get over it now? I knew what I was doing."

"But I didn't," he pointed out, his voice soft with the exception of the rough rumble just beneath the words. "I had no idea what you were doing or what you were capable of. I told you to stay put, mate."