AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Hell if I know. ” Cabal shook his head in irritation. “The hunger isn?
??t there, Tanner. I’m not in mating heat for your woman. But the scent is there, like it’s weeping from my pores. Let’s just see what the hell happens. ”
“We need Ely on this,” Tanner argued. “It could be important. ”
“Do you trust her with Scheme’s life?” Cabal asked. “That’s a question you better answer before you bring anyone into this. ”
“We have to get Callan up here,” Tanner decided. Damn, this was beginning to get complicated. “We can’t do any of this without his cooperation. And we have to make it work. ”
“We’ll make this work. ” Cabal’s voice was hard. Savage. “No matter what, Tanner, we will make this work. ”
CHAPTER 26
There were few times in her life that Scheme could say she had been warned about the hell she was getting ready to step into. Until she arrived at Sanctuary.
Tanner, Cabal and Callan had warned her about the examination she needed to allow. It was an examination. How freaking painful could a simple examination be? Some blood samples, some swabs, a poke and a prod here and there. No big deal.
Yet, something had warned her. She had declined eating until afterward. The sight of blood being drawn from her arm always had the power to make her slightly ill. It was much more comfortable without food lying heavy in her stomach.
But had she eaten, there would have been no way to keep it in her stomach. The pain didn’t make sense, even after the explanation. That the Breed mating hormone made her flesh so hypersensitive that no one other than her mate could touch her. Nature’s insurance, the Breed doctor theorized, to make certain that the mates were given time to bond emotionally while the hormone worked to make certain the small amount of human-compatible Breed sperm had a chance to fertilize the female eggs the hormone forced from the ovaries. Eggs whose DNA was altered by the hormone, which acted as a virus at the genetic level. The process was similar to the one used to change the human sperm during the genetic alterations to create the Breeds.
She had become one of nature’s experiments; unfortunately, her body was a defective testing ground.
Dry heaves still wracked her, long minutes after the doctor, formerly a Council-trained scientist, Elyiana Morrey, finished her exam.
Tanner stood to one side of the cot Scheme still sat on; Cabal lounged against the wall on the other side of the room. Both men were tense, dangerously so. It would have been hard to tell which was the supposed mate from the way the two men were acting.
“You need to go outside,” Scheme told Tanner, growing more nervous by the minute with the subtle rumbles of a growl in his chest. “Both of you. ” Cabal wasn’t much better.
“Get used to it. ” Ely’s smile was warm, if slightly uncomfortable, as she glanced at the two Breeds. “Breeds become slightly intense when they mate. ”
Scheme was so getting tired of that word. Mate. She might love that insane Breed, but she was on the cusp of killing him. The word mate just irked her that much worse. Because he hadn’t warned her. Because he had taken her, driven her insane with need and then decided to change all the rules on her and play her game without being willing to allow her to participate. She had gone through hell more than once in her efforts to find the identity of Cyrus’s spy. Now, Tanner and Cabal both wanted to wrap her in cotton and keep her from the final inning of the dangerous confrontation they all knew was coming.
“I don’t want to get used to it,” she grated as she forced back the dry heaves and gripped tighter the sheet that covered her breasts. “Is this finished yet? Can I get dressed?”
“You need a hormonal injection first,” Ely argued. “Tanner and Cabal are trained medics though, so I can allow one of them to give the injection. It won’t cause any pain that way. ”
She glanced up at Tanner, watching as his jaw flexed. When Ely turned back to him with the syringe, Cabal had paced to the door of the examination room, appearing to listen to something in the corridor.
“The door’s locked, Cabal,” Ely informed him, not for the first time.
Cabal continued to stand with his back to them, his head tilted as Tanner took the syringe.
“The upper arm works fine, Tanner,” Ely instructed him.
With two fingers, Tanner stretched the flesh tight; then he laid the auto-syringe against her skin. There was barely a sensation of heat before he was lifting it away and handing it back to Ely.
“And these hormones do what?” Scheme asked tiredly.
“They ease the mating heat. I’ll have the capsules prepared by morning. One each day, with food if you don’t mind,” Ely ordered. “The mating heat can leave you defenseless without it, unable to function under even the most peaceful circumstances, let alone the surprises we sometimes get at Sanctuary. ”
“The examination is finished now,” Ely announced. “You can dress and leave. ”
Scheme slid from the cot.
“Scheme. ” Ely stopped her as she moved to step away. Turning back to the other woman, Scheme watched as the doctor’s gaze flickered with indecision. “It was very brave of you, what you’ve done for the past ten years. ”
“Brave?” Scheme shook her head at the word. “It wasn’t bravery, Dr. Morrey, it was fear. He won’t stop until the world bows to its knees before the Genetics Council. That’s what I fear. Bravery had nothing to do with it. ”
