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There was the lightest thread of amusement in her voice, a teasing vein that he remembered often filled her eyes with impish delight. She had always teased him, flirted, made it damned near impossible to resist her.
“I could lie on your ass for a while,” he chuckled as he felt the knot anchoring him inside her finally begin easing.
He grimaced at the sensation, another lingering pleasure that he didn’t want to lose. He wanted to stay like this forever, buried inside his woman, his mate, knowing she was forever safe.
A long, low moan left her lips as the swelling finally eased, releasing them from the pleasure that seemed never ending.
Del-Rey lifted her from him, his body tightening as his semi-hard cock eased from her snug grip and she collapsed to the bed beside him.
Letting her go wasn’t an option though. He turned and pulled her to his chest, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close as he kissed the top of her head.
“Will the heat ease for you soon?” he asked her then, knowing that for Wolf and Feline mates after the initial four- to six-week cycle of the heat, it would then ease and come back for only seven to ten days per month. It was when the females were most fertile and the chances of conception greater.
She lifted her shoulder in a light shrug. “I dunno,” she mumbled. “I was different. Kinda.”
“How were you different?” he asked her as he eased back enough to stare into her drowsy expression.
Her brows creased thoughtfully. “Several years ago, the Coyote, Kiowa Bear, mated with the then U.S. president’s daughter. They learned then why the Wolves and Coyotes take so long to conceive. There’s an additional hormone the males carry that continues to attempt to block conception, even as the other hormones work to create it. Then with Aiden’s mate, Charity, they’ve only just been able to figure out why she conceived, based on the experiments the Council scientists did on her at the labs where she was held for a number of years. The hormone works to ready the ovaries and change the egg being prepared to drop, to ensure its compatibility with the Wolf or Coyote sperm. It gets complicated sometimes, the way the hormones work. That’s why each hormonal therapy has to be different. Dr. Armani begins with a base, a therapy that’s compatible across the board, then she has to add to it depending on the individual female and her heat.”
“So each mating is different?” he asked as she settled more comfortably against him.
“Very much so.” Anya nodded. “She has a lot of trouble keeping mine within an acceptable limit. For the first few months, the hormones she was giving me pretty much wiped out all emotion but kept me on the verge of panic. I couldn’t function. The same hormone didn’t affect the Wolf mates at all.”
His frown deepened. “When Dr. Armani came to the caves that first time, she said I was the first Coyote to mate. Kiowa Bear is Coyote as well, yet he was mating well before that.”
“Kiowa is what they call a hybrid. His mother was one of the women the Council kidnapped and tried to use for artificial insemination. It didn’t work on her. Before she left those labs, one of her Coyote guards mated her, then released her. Kiowa was conceived and born naturally, and as I understand it, that creates a shift in the DNA that doesn’t come about otherwise. But there are other anomalies with him as well. His genetics are actually closer to the Wolf than the Coyote.”
“Has Dr. Armani learned the differences in our mating yet?” he asked her.
Anya snorted at that as she pulled from him and rose from the bed. “Not hardly. Just as with repairing your wounded bodies, Coyote genetics and Wolf genetics are just separate enough to make it dangerous.” She glared down at him then. “We need our own medical personnel.”
“There’s some still living?” he asked, surprised. “What the Council hasn’t killed, I’m certain we must have. I told you, find one and I’ll consider it.” It had been a matter of pride for years to destroy those capable of creating more Coyote Breeds. If the Council left any for them to kill.
“If you can hide from the Council all those years, then I bet there are doctors as well as scientists that have managed to do the same,” she informed him. “I’ll find them.”
His brow arched. The tone of her voice was a warning itself.
“And how do you think you’ll do this?” he asked her silkily.
She was scheming. He had known Anya long enough to know when her brain was turning over a problem and working it out in a manner he was certain to disagree with.
“I have my own contacts.” She shrugged as she pulled his shirt from the floor and pushed her arms through the sleeves.
Why it gave him a surge of satisfaction to see her wrapping his clothing around her much smaller frame, he couldn’t say.
“You’ll not be making contacts, Anya,” he told her firmly. “I won’t have you risking your life in that manner. If there are any doctors left, then they aren’t ones we could trust anyway.”
“What about Dr. Armani?” She propped her hands on her hips as she stared at him, the light of battle waging in her eyes. “She’s human and she’s dedicated her life to the Breeds she cares for. What about the doctors that work under her? They could be in the general public, probably making a hell of a lot more money than they are here. But they’re here, and they’re loyal.”
“What about the two assistants—Breeds, Anya—who betrayed Sanctuary?” he asked her. “They drugged Dr. Morrey, nearly killed her, and were attempting to sell the secret of mating heat to a pharmaceutical and research facility that likely even now has doctors and scientists experimenting on Breeds to create a drug that controls us. Or, God forbid, something that can be used on humans. What about them?”
“What about Coyotes who have a code of honor?” she asked then. “Who have a soul when they were created to have none? What about them, Del-Rey?”
He frowned, knowing she was talking about his packs, but her point eluded him.
“What about them?”
“Others took a chance on you. There are good doctors, good scientists who have escaped the Council, who know the Coyote physiology and would give their eyeteeth to learn as much as they could within normal confines. To treat them, to heal them, and to protect their strengths and weaknesses. You find them, you choose the ones you have the best chance of trusting, and you use them. Keep up the way we’re going here at Base, and eventually, we’re going to lose our people because Dr. Armani can’t treat them properly.”
