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Mica hated this. There was nothing worse than allowing anyone at all to realize something as intimate as her arousal.
“There’s always something to argue over if mating heat affects you. And I can imagine Navarro, as quiet as he is, could be a force to be reckoned with if he became angry.” Merinus sighed as though she had no idea of the sudden flames of aroused heat that were beginning to burn inside Mica.
“Navarro wouldn’t hurt me.” Mica shook her head dismissively.
She just wanted to escape. She wanted to run to her room, or outside, get away from Merinus’s too perceptive gaze or her possibly too sensitive ability to smell.
“No, Navarro wouldn’t hurt you,” Merinus agreed. “But, in mating heat, even the most self-controlled Breed can become unpredictable.”
“Merinus, I really hate to be disrespectful, because I have the highest regard for you,” Mica stated as she struggled to hold on to her patience now. “But I don’t understand what you’re getting at, and I don’t understand why we’re having this little chat. So if you would be kind enough to either explain it to me, or excuse me, I would really appreciate it.”
Because she didn’t think she had the patience to be social much longer.
“Your father is threatening to arrive at Sanctuary,” Merinus said then. “I need to know, Mica, if he arrives, will you be able to suppress your own anger, or any emotions that would upset him, long enough to reassure him and keep him from feeling the need to take you from Navarro at the moment? We both know how dangerous that could be.”
Oh yes, she knew exactly how male Breeds could be where their mates were concerned. She’d seen it for years; each time one mated, the possessiveness, the dominance and the pure overprotectiveness.
They were more overprotective than her father.
Mica turned her head away before shaking it slowly. “You need to convince Dad to stay away,” she stated as she turned back to the other woman. “I don’t know if I can deal with his overprotectiveness as well as Navarro’s at the moment.”
And he was overprotective. So much so that Mica often felt smothered in his presence. Growing up around him had been almost impossible. If he could, he would have kept her a child for the rest of her life.
She wouldn’t have had her first lover, let alone a chance to allow a Breed to actually mate her, if her father had had his way. And if he arrived here and had to face Navarro sleeping in her bed without the benefit of marriage, then he was likely to do something stupid. As Merinus feared, there was a very high chance he would indeed attempt to force her back to the ranch, or to Haven.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love her. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her to be an adult.
He wanted her to marry a man he believed to be the kind of man she needed. He wanted her to settle down in a nice little house and have babies and be bored out of her mind.
He didn’t consider a Breed acceptable, and not because he disliked them, not because he was prejudiced. But because he knew the danger that came with being a Breed’s mate.
“Mica, I can help you.”
She paused at the kitchen doorway before turning back to Merinus. “Have you found a cure for mating heat?”
“You know we haven’t,” Merinus said softly. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t help you through this. I’m always here, Mica. All you have to do is tell me what you need. I’m your advocate here.”
“Until a cure is found to mating heat or male dominance, then I’m screwed, and we both know it,” she said bitterly.
“And is mating heat so abominable?” Merinus asked. “Is Navarro such an unworthy mate, or lover?”
“He would have been a perfect lover,” Mica answered truthfully. “But I wasn’t looking for a mate, Merinus. I wasn’t looking to confine myself to Sanctuary or Haven for a man that doesn’t even love me. One that doesn’t even want me but for mating heat.”
With those words she left the kitchen, unwilling to hear any more arguments for mating heat or Breeds as mates. She sure as hell didn’t want to see the acknowledgment in Merinus’s eyes that she was right.
The only reason Navarro would stay with her now was because of the heat, not because he was willing to fall in love with her. Not because he wanted to love her. But because of some biological reaction. Because something had matched in their hormones, their pheromones or some other bodily element that now bound them together.
She rather doubted though that it was as Cassie had always claimed, that their bodies knew what their hearts weren’t yet willing to accept.
She couldn’t accept that excuse, despite the arguments Cassie had to back up her theory. The fact that all Breed mates, all pairings had ended up being perfectly matched. That they loved. That they were devoted partners. That not once in all the years that mating heat and mates had been recorded had nature ever created a less than perfect couple.
There was always a first time for everything. And mating heat didn’t release the couple. It created a sexual pleasure that became addictive, as Mica understood it. An addict would never betray the addiction, especially if it was approved by the surgeon general, she thought sarcastically. And mating heat was definitely approved by both the Breeds as well as the humans who were aware of it. A much higher endorsement than the surgeon general’s, Cassie had once told her with a laugh.
Moving to the front entrance, Mica dragged a heavy jacket from inside the nearby closet and pulled it on quickly before leaving the house. She expected at any minute for the Breed watching silently to stop her, or for Merinus to come from the kitchen and call her back, which would have the guard moving to stop her.
Fortunately neither of them seemed to care, and Mica wasn’t in the mood to be told no.
Wrapping the overly large quilted jacket around her, Mica ducked her head against the chilly wind whipping from the mountains.
