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Would Del-Rey do that? She had to say at times, she simply didn’t know. Trust was an issue between them. She couldn’t be certain which way he would go in this. She hoped he would accept it, see the value of it and eventually trust that she was doing what was best for them, and any child they conceived.
“Why are you risking this?” Nikki asked her then.
Anya placed her hand against her stomach, feeling the twinges she knew to expect. “I’m still ovulating,” she whispered. “If I conceive now, or in the future, then I want my child safe, Nikki. I don’t want to risk losing Del-Rey’s child on the off chance that the genetics decide to go haywire or something unforeseen comes up. He’s an adult, an alpha. He can risk his life if that’s his choice. I’m not nearly as accepting of that risk to any children we’ll have together.”
“I can understand that.” Nikki nodded as a hard, sharp knock came to the examination room door.
Their heads jerked to it.
“Your alpha,” Nikki said. “I’ll talk to the lupina and contact you within the next twenty-four hours.”
Anya lowered her head, closing her eyes briefly as Nikki strode to the door and unlocked it before pulling it open.
He was standing there, wild, irritated, alpha. It was like a slam of lust surging inside her without the physical pain. Or was the emotional wound just too deep right now to allow her to feel the physical?
She stared back at him, seeing the disarray in his long hair. He must have raked his fingers through it more than once. He did that when he was frustrated or becoming angry. His dark eyes were narrowed, thick blond lashes framing the wicked black.
“What’s wrong?” He strode into the room. “Why have you decided you need the additional hormone shots?”
“I changed my mind.” She gave him a bright smile as she jumped off the examination table. “I guess I just needed someone to talk to.”
He stopped in the middle of the room, his gaze focused, intense on her now. “You have me and your bodyguards to talk to,” he growled. “Why do you need someone else?”
“The restrictions placed on me don’t bar me from talking, Alpha. Just from acting.”
He frowned. “I have a name, Anya.”
She paused and stared back at him silently for long moments. “And I have a brain, Alpha Delgado, regardless of what you think. Are you ready to go?”
She swept past him, moving from the examination room and rejoining the security detail waiting in the hall outside.
He turned to Nikki, staring back at her as though he could will her to give him the truth.
She shook her head, her somber expression giving him more to worry about than to find comfort in.
“You’re making a mistake,” she sighed. “But, with Breed males, I’ve learned, all you can do is let them beat their head against a wall. When it hurts enough or the blood gets thick enough, they stop.” She shrugged.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means you’re just as hardheaded as the rest of them.” She glanced to the door then. “She’s not as easy to manipulate as you think she is. And manipulating her is only going to hurt you worse. There.” She threw him a bright smile. “The advice was free. Do you need anything while you’re here? A shot of common sense perhaps?”
He clenched his teeth before turning on his heel, stalking from the examination room and moving to catch up with his coya.
She strode, shoulders straight, head high, pride draping her like an exquisite cloak as she moved through the underground steel-and-reinforced-concrete corridors to the ground level.
There was no dust here as there was at Base. It was brightly lit, functional, yet still there were areas of greenery built into the walls with growth lights. A small, miniature orange tree grew in one hallway; the controlled atmospheric settings around it kept it healthy and in its natural growth cycle.
Vines grew along one wall. There were glassed-in sunrooms with a complicated system of mirrors that opened along a wide tunnel to allow the sun’s rays inside. Unlike the mountain facility that housed the communications that the labs were networked into, Dr. Armani’s medical facility was warm, friendly. He could understand why Anya would want to visit. There were many things here that Base lacked.
But this wasn’t a military facility, he told himself. Coyotes didn’t care about a little dust and dirt, a few inconveniences. They had the bar, the kitchen, the television. Del-Rey had his mate.
His mate was human.
He nearly paused. When other Coyotes mated, their mates would in all probability be human as well. He pushed through the exit doors just behind Anya and her security detail, his frown darkening.
Dammit, he didn’t trust humans. He trusted Anya and Armani and that was pretty much the extent of it. He was wary even with the lupina, Hope, and the Felines’ prima, Merinus.
He didn’t like humans and he didn’t want them in his base. Except his coya.
