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Rachel flinched. She hadn't heard him curse like that in all the time she had worked for him. Her eyes widened as he turned on his heel and stalked from the office, the door slamming hard enough that her gaze shot to the room where Amber was sleeping, fully expecting to hear her disgruntled cries.
She slept on.
Breathing out hard, Rachel turned back to the door he'd just about slammed from its hinges.
Now, was that a Feline hissy fit or what?
Did she dare not pack to accompany him?
She grimaced. Hell, she had a feeling if she didn't pack, he would do just as he threatened and pack for her. Then he'd likely throw her over his shoulder and cart her to the heli-jet like a damned war prize or something.
Now wasn't that just what she didn't need: Jonas in a snit.
It looked like it was going to be a while before she was allowed to play with her new toys after all.
Jonas stalked from the cabin, his control shot, and he fully admitted if he had stayed in that office so much as a heartbeat longer, then he was going to jerk her from her chair and kiss those pretty lips like the hungry Lion he was turning into.
The glands beneath his tongue were swollen to capacity now. They throbbed like a son of a bitch and the taste of cinnamon and cloves filled his mouth like a particularly forbidden sweet.
Sweet Lord have mercy, she was making him crazy.
Jumping into the Raider he kept parked in the driveway, he signaled to the two hidden members of Ghost Team that he was riding out, started the vehicle and backed out of the smooth parking area.
It was time he had a talk with Merinus. The meddling she had done in his life was becoming dangerous. He was poised on a razor's edge here and it was going to begin affecting his job.
Even Brim Stone, the Coyote Breed he'd elected to cover for him in D.C., was becoming frustrated with Jonas's lack of tact, which was worse than normal.
According to Brim, he was like a Lion with a sore paw, and if someone didn't dig out the splinter, then he was going to do it himself, with a knife.
Jonas had dared him.
It was never a smart thing to dare a Coyote. God knew most of them didn't have the power to turn away from a dare. They were fucking insane like that.
Pulling the Raider into the circular drive in front of the estate house, Jonas jumped from the vehicle and strode quickly up the marble steps to the double doors.
A Breed guard opened the door for him. Jonas expected to come face-to-face with part of the Pride family, but instead came to a stop at the sight of Cassandra Sinclair as she sat at the bottom of the staircase, staring up at him.
The eerie blue of her eyes could be disconcerting, to Breed as well as human. Her innocent face was somber, the long, heavy curls of her hair flowing around her like a thick, black cape.
Dressed in jeans, a light sweater and sneakers, there was still no way to pass this particular Breed off as anything but what she was. A very preternatural woman-child.
"How is your mate?" Cassie propped her arms on her knees before laying her cheek against them and staring up at him inquisitively.
This was the same young woman that the year previously had stood in front of the Breed tribunal and argued, quite successfully, that the female mate of the Coyote leader had the right to deny her mate. That she could indeed live apart from him, as long as she submitted to close protective supervision. That Breed Law had no right to interfere in free will and a woman's right to choose, and that the Coyote leader, Del Rey Delgado, had unfairly and with deception mated the woman against her free will.
All of that might well be true, Jonas had argued. But the Coyote leader had rights as well. It was he who would have to know when his mate suffered. It was the male who would have to bear the burden as well as the guilt should anything happen to her once she left his care.
The Breed tribunal hadn't heeded his arguments. Hell no. Instead, they had stood fast and followed the very skillfully presented argument this child had presented.
At nineteen, most Breeds were considered so fully grown that the majority of them had been killing for more than four years. Breed children were sent for their first kill between the ages of ten and fifteen.
Cassie, barely nineteen, had yet to take a life. And with her mix of Coyote and Wolf DNA, she might possibly be more
dangerous than any of them.
Because Cassie sometimes saw ghosts, and because she often knew things she should never know.
"You're worried," she stated as she watched him too closely with those odd blue eyes. "What's wrong, Jonas?"
