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“Did you give him anything for it?”
“No. He’s already made certain his files were notated. At no time is he to be given hormonal treatments himself. He refuses. But, most male Breeds do.”
“They’d rather suffer?” She remembered the pain herself, the brutal, soul-suffering pain that stole control from the mind and made her a creature of lust and little more.
“It’s different for male Breeds than female mates,” Armani told her. “The females suffer the pain, the need for a hormone that isn’t natural to their body. Like a withdrawal from a narcotic, only worse. Male Breeds are more aggressive, more territorial. The constant lust isn’t as painful, but it has no cycle. Females go into mating heat, then it eases for periods of time, only to return. Rather like ovulation. For the males, that need never goes away. One of the males told me it’s like having a dagger continually stabbed into his balls, the need to release is so imperative. Masturbation only makes it worse. The scent or taste of another woman’s lust is so distasteful they can’t find release there either.”
“Another person’s touch is excruciating for female mates.” Anya remembered that well. “Is it the same for the male mates?”
“Not to the same extent as it is for the females. No Breed male mate that I know of has ever attempted to have sex away from his mate. Some have waited years. In some the mating heat finally eased. It’s almost as though each mating is individual, Anya. But the physical reactions in the male Breeds aren’t well understood simply because most of them refuse to discuss them or allow tests to control them. The mating heat is their affirmation somehow. A who-and-what-they-are type thing.” She shrugged, as though helpless to explain it.
“It gives me a soul.” Del-Rey’s rough, scratchy voice surprised them both.
Anya looked down at him, realizing she had been stroking his arm.
“You would have to get yourself hurt.” She had to force back a wave of emotion that threatened to overwhelm her. “So much for seducing you tonight, huh?”
Surprise was reflected in his eyes. “If I’d known you had that planned, I would have stayed with the limo.”
“Liar,” she laughed softly.
“Where’s Brim?” he asked then. “I need to make sure Base is secured and on lockdown.”
“Taken care of.”
He exhaled heavily. “I knew I could count on him.”
She pressed her lips together and clenched her teeth at the comment.
“Get a transport ready.” He turned to Armani then. “I’ll be ready to go back to Base in an hour.”
“I hate Breeds,” Armani muttered. “You need to be under observation. It’s the only way I can get any damned information to work on you again later, Del-Rey. You’re not helping me here.”
“I have a base to run,” he told her. “I promise, next wounded soldier, you can have him for a week.”
She snorted at that. “Yeah. Those berserkers? No, thank you.”
Anya stood silently. She ached to touch him again. To push his hair back from his forehead. To wrap her arms around him or something. She ached to do something.
“I need to see Brim,” he told her again. “Could you call him in here?”
Anya swallowed tightly and pushed back the hurt.
The seducer, the man who had kissed her and claimed his worth was tied to her, didn’t need her here. He needed his second-in-command, which is what Anya should have been. She was his coya, automatically second-in-command. Until she had denied the position.
She stepped back slowly. “Sure. I’ll get him.”
Anger surged inside her. Fear. Hurt. She pushed it back and tamped it down. She fought to keep her expression, her emotions, contained so he wouldn’t so much as scent the pain that bloomed inside her.
She had refused the title of coya while he was on base. She had no right, no right to be hurt and angry that he would want to talk to Brim rather than her. He was the alpha leader. There were things he had to do, assurances he needed that Base was operational and secure while he was outside of it and weak. It was those damned animal genetics. That was all it was. Security over emotion. All that good stuff.
She pushed through the doors as Brim straightened from the wall and gave her a piercing look.
“He’s waiting on you.” Her smile was tight. “I’m returning to Base. Please let me know when you return with him. Emma!” Her voice sharpened as she turned to her bodygaurds.
Emma and Ashley both stood watching her strangely.
