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If it weren’t careful, the animal knew it would be revealed. It couldn’t risk exposure. They might put it to sleep again, and it wasn’t strong enough yet to survive a second round of the horrific chains that bound it in a sleep that wracked it with agony.
It had to hide. Just a little while longer it had to hide. At least until no eyes watched, and no scientists took their hated samples to find it. Until it was alone with the sweet soft scent of its mate.
CHAPTER 6
“Everything okay, Doc?” Mercury pulled his black mission shirt back over his head and stared back at Elyiana Morrey as she stored another vial of his blood in her little carrier.
They called her the Vampire of Sanctuary. Every time a Breed turned around, she was standing there with her little blood-collecting necessities staring at them with those soft brown puppy-dog eyes. A Feline female shouldn’t have puppy-dog eyes, but this one did.
Too much emotion, Mercury had always thought. She was driving herself crazy trying to find answers to all the anomalies showing up in the Breeds since freedom had been achieved.
She had once been the star pupil of the Council scientists, a genius on a level that had never been attained within their ranks before. With the rescues, she had become the Breeds’ only hope of finding a way to learn the secrets of their own bodies.
“Hey, Doc, you’re not answering me.” He adjusted the shirt beneath the band of his uniform pants, watching her back carefully now.
“What did you say?” She turned back to him, her gaze slightly distant as she focused on him.
He restrained his smile. He liked Ely.
“I said, is everything okay?”
“Fine.” She nodded, turning back to the vials as she stored them in one of her contraptions.
“So why more tests? You just did this whole thing last week.” He stood to his feet, watching her carefully as he re-strapped the weapon holsters onto his body. They were a part of him now; he felt naked without them.
“You know how it goes.” She shrugged. “You’re in close-quarter contact with an unknown female. I like to keep an eye on your tests in that case. Just in case.”
Just in case. He breathed out heavily, silently.
“She’s not my mate.” He growled the word because for the first time since he had learned of the mating heat he was pissed off that there wasn’t a chance of it affecting him. He’d lost his mate before he’d ever had the chance to know what having one meant.
“I’ve never believed you truly mated, Merc,” she reminded him. “My experience with this is that it takes more than wanting or caring deeply for anyone.” She turned back to him, her gaze compassionate. “Have you been feeling any changes since Ms. Rodriquez showed up?”
She moved toward him, her bare hand, devoid of the gloves she normally wore, gripping his wrist to check his pulse. Then she rubbed his arm, almost like a comforting gesture, before patting it as she would a child’s.
At this point, he was watching her suspiciously.
“Do I get a sucker too?” he asked warily.
“You didn’t answer my question, Merc,” she reminded him. “Feeling anything unusual?”
“Well, Doc, there’s no enlarging of the glands under my tongue, but you checked those, so you know that. No funny taste in my mouth, and that little stroke and pat against my arm didn’t have me cringing in pain,” he reported with an edge of disgust. “Is there anything else I should be looking for?”
Her lips twitched. “You have the symptoms down, I see.”
“Pretty hard not to with the damned epidemic that seems to be going on,” he snorted. “Lawe and Rule are bitching constantly over it. I think they like their footloose and carefree ways.”
“And you don’t?” She leaned against the table, watching him carefully.
“You a psychiatrist now, Doc?” He grinned back at her. “Come on, put away the doctor stuff here. Tell me what you really want to know and we’ll work from there.”
Sh
e shook her head at that, a light laugh leaving her throat. “You caught me. Are you attracted to Ms. Rodriquez, Merc?”
“She’s a woman.” He arched his brows. “I’m a man, and I’m not mated. And Jonas has me on her butt twenty-four-seven. What do you think?”
She nodded at that, but something flickered in her eyes that had him frowning down at her. “Is something wrong here, Ely? Something I don’t know anything about?”
