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If she hadn’t otherwise felt Mercury’s surprise, she would have smelled it as he glanced at
her quickly.
She almost bit her lip. There was that Breed attitude surging inside again. She hadn’t been this psyched by her Breed genetics since she was a teenager.
Alaiya froze when she saw her, though. Her gaze flicked over Ria’s body, her nostrils flared as she inhaled, and rage glittered in her eyes.
“Breed!” she hissed.
“My, do you think she’s referring to me?” Ria asked in false innocence as the feline in her rose to the challenge.
“Hell,” Mercury muttered. “Alaiya, stand down.”
The other woman took a classic challenging stance, feet spread apart, her fingers curling at her sides as though imitating claws.
Ria almost hissed, but it came out as a surprised squeak, as Mercury shoved her behind him, barked out into his mic an order for reinforcements and snarled back at Alaiya. “I gave you an order, Breed! Stand down.”
“Do you actually believe I need you to protect me against her?” Ria leaned against the wall, peeking around his shoulder and flashing the other woman a triumphant smile. “I can take her.”
She wrinkled her nose playfully back at Alaiya, though there was nothing playful rising inside her.
Mercury’s expression tightened in disbelief as he shot her a quick look.
“Our mating tests matched,” Alaiya hissed, pacing closer, her body tense, prepared. “You stink of her.”
“I thought you smelled kind of nice myself,” Ria felt compelled to point out to Mercury with a hint of laughter. “Eau de Ria goes well with your Breed scent.”
“Would you stop!” Mercury bit out as Alaiya growled again.
“Take up for her and I’ll kick your arse instead of hers.” Uh-oh. There was that accent again.
She lounged against the wall, her head turned, making certain Alaiya had a clear view of her expression as three Breeds turned the corner and Jonas stepped out of his office, behind Alaiya.
They all seemed to freeze at the scents assailing them. Ria could smell it herself. Mercury’s anger combined with her own, the scent of their mating, their hormones adjusting, the two of them blending into each other until they were nearly combined. And Alaiya. Pure rage and heat, a singular scent mixed with fury.
“What the hell is going on here?” Jonas asked carefully as Alaiya hissed again.
“Remove her from him!” Alaiya shoved her finger toward Ria. “I demand it. Until the mating tests come back, I demand she be separated from him.”
Jonas’s brows rose in surprise as Ria bared her teeth in a hiss and glared back at him. “Try it,” she snarled. “You won’t like the consequences, Jonas, and we both know it.”
Because Dane and Leo would come down on him like a ton of bricks. Him, Alaiya and anyone else who stood between her and her mate.
She didn’t bother snarling, growling or copying that continual asinine hiss coming from Alaiya’s lips. She merely narrowed her eyes back at the other woman in confident challenge.
“Alaiya, report to the female barracks,” Jonas barked. “Now.”
“You’re breaking Breed Law,” the bitch screeched. “You cannot separate mates.”
“It hasn’t been established that you’re anything to Mercury at this point besides a nuisance,” Jonas snapped as Mercury growled for Ria. She liked how he did that.
“I won’t leave her here, claiming what’s mine!”
Rage was a bitter, feral scent now, acrid, singeing the senses as Ria slowly straightened. She had trained with feral Breeds, fought with them and beside them; she knew the signs of a Breed reaching critical. And Alaiya was reaching critical rage. The animal would break inside her and attack—attempt to attack, anyway.
“You will return to the barracks now!” Jonas snarled, his expression turning savage as his enforcer Alaiya defied him, hissing in his face in challenge.
Ria watched in interest as the director of Breed Affairs turned into the fierce, coldly efficient enforcer he had once been. Alpha steel, Elizabeth called it.
