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Ria didn’t speak, but her eyes flared with possessiveness when she looked at Mercury. He stared back at her silently, daring her rather than reassuring her. If she wanted to claim him, he was hers to claim. But she would claim him before one more assurance passed his lips.
The crimson top she wore, the snug jeans and flat boots emphasized the shift of power inside her at that moment, and anticipation roared inside him.
“Alaiya doesn’t worry me.” She shrugged. And Mercury could tell she wasn’t lying. Alaiya didn’t worry her, but those mating tests sure as hell did.
“I’m ready.” She moved to him, hips swaying, tempting, her hair flowing around her, teasing him; tight, swollen breasts pressing against her top, making his hands itch.
His tongue pulsed with the mating hormone as he laid his hand at the small of her back and drew her to the door.
No one spoke behind them. They wouldn’t have been heard if they had. It was time to return to the cabin. It was time to see if the animal inside Ria was ready to fight for what was hers.
The private airfield Dane had acquired before arriving at Sanctuary was filled with activity. Three Vanderale heli-jets landed as Rye pulled the limo into the clearing.
The heli-jets were spilling the Leo’s security force, hard-eyed, hard-trained, vicious Breeds with only one purpose in life, except for the few who were mated. The protection of the Leo and his family.
Thirty Breed security personnel arranged themselves in close-quarter protection before the Leo stepped out. And as always, Dane stood in awe of the power his father presented as he stepped into view.
His tawny mane of hair was darker in some places, streaks of black and red thrown in as he had grown older. It blew back from an imposing face whose strong bones and angles weren’t for appearances only. The Leo was strong, he was imposing. He stood six-four, and the bone and muscle density in his body had made him nearly impossible to kill.
In comparison, the small, dark-haired woman that stepped from the heli-jet was incredibly fragile. Dane’s mother was still a quiet beauty. With her shoulder-length brunette hair and gentle eyes, she ran the Vanderale pride with strength and feminine softness.
Keeping her close to his powerful body, the Leo turned and reach into the jet, accepting two small bundles swaddled in ultralight, ultrastrong bulletproof carriers.
Dane lowered his head at that point. His parents had raced to Ria’s rescue, their infant twins secured in their arms, aware of the price of detection should they ever be revealed as who and what they were.
They had lost children before. Twin boys in infancy, murdered in an attack by Coyote Breeds that had managed to learn the location Leo and Elizabeth had been protecting their babes in.
His mother had nearly died in that attack, as had the Leo. Leo still carried the scars of the repeated rifle blasts to his chest, back and thighs as he covered his mate and children. And still the bullets had torn through his body, pierced his mate and his children before his then much smaller security force could rush to the rescue.
Years ago, Dane thought, wiping his hands over his face. So many years ago. Nearly a century. It had taken five decades before Elizabeth’s body and the mating heat could again produce eggs the Breed sperm could fertilize. And Dane was born. Now, after another fifty years, his parents were still in prime physical condition, and twins had once again been born.
Heavily armed, the security force surrounded Leo, Elizabeth and the babes and rushed them to Dane’s waiting limo, as the security force that had arrived with Dane finally arrived with vehicles to transport the Leo’s security force to the property Dane had rented for the winter.
Or until they could clear out Sanctuary. He would much prefer to have his sisters and his mother protected within Sanctuary’s walls.
“Dane.” The Leo neared as Dane opened the door to the car. His mother reached up and touched his face as he bent to her, and he felt her quick kiss to his cheek before she entered the vehicle and the babes were passed to her.
“Son.” Leo embraced him.
His father always embraced him, as though it had been years since he had seen him rather than a matter of a few weeks. “How’s our girl doing?”
Leo moved into the limo, followed by Dane and two of the Breed personnel, their eyes and faces savagely hard.
Two others piled in the front with Rye as the others rushed to the waiting Hummers that had pulled around the limo.
“They know she’s hybrid.” He met his father’s gaze worriedly. “We need tests done quickly, on the heat, Mercury’s feral displacement and a Breed known as Alaiya, lab number six oh point three seven, lab designation Alpha Three.”
Leo frowned. “She was thought to be a mate to Mercury,” he stated, his mind as quick, as competent as any computer running. “She was lost in a mission when she was fifteen, her and her trainer presumed dead.”
Dane nodded. “She arrived at the Bureau of Breed Affairs six months ago and turned herself in to Jonas. He ran the required tests on her and Mercury; they came back showing no sign of mating anomalies or possibilities, so he never informed Mercury she was alive. She showed up at Sanctuary the other night, claiming Mercury as her mate. According to tests conducted on Mercury’s blood last night, as well as hers, mating heat is showing in her and it matches Mercury’s.”
“But Mercury mated Ria,” Elizabeth injected. “I ran her tests myself before sending Sanctuary the blood and saliva that I cut the Breed genetics from. My tests were conclusive, Dane; there was indeed the viability of mating heat. Breeds mate only once.”
Ria’s hybrid status was the reason Sanctuary had been given altered samples of her blood.
“But Mercury showed mating signs before Alaiya’s disappearance,” Leo mused.
Elizabeth shook her head as she opened the protective carriers to allow the girls more freedom of movement as well as to keep them from getting too warm. “I warned you both, his tests from those labs were not conclusive. Mating signs and the hormone showing up independent of physical contact cannot be relied upon. The scien
