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“How are the tests going?” he asked, his baritone voice a deep, almost Breed-like growl.
She gave a heavy sigh as she moved to the si
nk and washed her hands thoroughly before stepping over to the table and taking the seat he pulled out for her.
“That sigh isn’t exactly an answer,” he drawled, the Texas accent filled with concern.
“The tests aren’t exactly conclusive either,” she told him as she accepted the plate he lifted from the tray and set it in front of her. “It doesn’t matter how many tests I run, the final results remain inconclusive. There’s a mating, but they’re not mated.”
She hadn’t seen anything like it and still couldn’t make sense of it.
“You may have to explain that one to me, Ely.” He watched her expectantly as he bit into his sandwich with strong, white teeth.
“Who will explain it to me then?” she countered with the same frustration that had pricked at her for the past hours since beginning the tests.
“What’s the problem with the tests?” he probed further, obviously becoming impatient with her refusal to explain the situation.
She took another bite of the sandwich as she tried to figure out the best way to explain it.
“I’m not a moron, Ely,” he assured her, obviously reading her look, and he was very good at that actually.
“The tests are positive for mating,” she finally stated. “But I’ve never seen such weak results during an active mating. All the hormonal requirements are there, but they’re in such small quantities, that I wonder if Navarro couldn’t easily walk away from Mica without suffering for it. Once the hormone, weak as it is, reaches Mica’s system, it seems to grow stronger though.” She frowned again, still bothered by the hours she’d spent attempting to figure out the problem. “The test results are responding differently to different stimuli as well. Such as the weakened hormone, once introduced into Mica’s system, becoming stronger. The mating hormones in their blood are different, and in different levels than those in his semen and the natural lubrication in her vagina. Just as it was when we tested the saliva. But if I introduce other parameters to the tests, such as a variable of the hormones created during certain emotional responses, then the mating hormone in Navarro’s specimens explode.”
Jackal’s head tilted to the side as he frowned back at her questioningly. “It has to do with the emotional responses during mating heat then?”
Ely nodded again, chewing another bite before continuing. “Most Breeds are actually looking forward to finding their mates. They see it as a gift that God has arranged just for them, for their survival. So despite protestations or the levels of anger, fear or just sheer stubbornness, that need and that hunger are there to begin with, and the mated Breeds don’t have the subconscious desire to suppress those emotions. Once they find their mate, possessing her means everything. But I know Navarro and Mica well. Neither of them would have come within ten feet of the other if they had suspected this would happen, no matter how intense the attraction or the need. Mica, because she was already aware of the emotions that would build and grow within her and she feared the consequences of them. Navarro is a little different, and harder to define. Suffice to say, he has no intentions of loving her, and he just might have the training and the strength to suppress those emotions.”
“That doesn’t make sense. How can not wanting to mate, or a subconscious desire not to love, affect whether or not they do it? As I understood it, it’s supposed to be impossible to deny it.” There was a definite growl of suspicion in his voice, as well as a reluctance to believe what she was saying.
“Because Breeds were created to have no emotions. Our very genetics were altered to ensure the Council’s ability to train any chance of those emotions out of us,” she reminded him. “And we were trained to put aside any emotion that slipped past the creation process. We were lucky to maintain any feelings at all; still though, we were taught how to hide what we were feeling, to push it aside. Navarro, perhaps more than others, was taught this lesson with savage determination.”
Navarro Blaine was an Infiltration Level 5 Breed. He had been created for recessive Breed genetics. He was still stronger, faster, his senses more advanced than any human’s, but there was no way to detect those genetics.
He had been created to infiltrate the corporate and political world and to work it to the advantage of the Genetics Council.
“Then it’s Navarro’s ability to lock out those emotions, and the resulting hormones, that could allow him to walk away from this when no one else has been able to?” Jackal asked.
She gave a sharp nod. “And, until he or Mica or both acknowledge those emotions or they lose the battle to fight them, then they may never be fully mated.”
“Or fully free,” he said.
“Or fully free,” she agreed.
And she blamed this on Navarro. When she wrote up her statement later, she would be certain to include that.
“Poor Navarro,” Jackal finally grunted as he lifted his glass for a drink.
“No, poor Mica,” she argued. “She’ll receive the brunt of the pain if Navarro manages to walk away from her. She’ll be the one that suffers. And that leaves me in a very untenable position. Do I use this unique response to search for a way to ease mating heat, perhaps grow closer to curing it? Or do I instead attempt to convince Navarro to understand, before it’s too late, because Mica may never be free of him?”
And the suffering wasn’t easy. Mating heat demanded touch, it demanded a kiss. And now with Mica and Navarro it seemed to demand love and the mate.
“I should warn Mica,” she sighed. “She needs to know what the possible outcome to this can be.”
“No, don’t.”
She stared back at him in surprise. “This isn’t your call, Jackal.”
“And it’s not yours either, Ely,” he stated, his tone harsh as she stared back at him in disagreement. “Stick to the science of mating heat, and leave those two to figure out their emotions alone. They won’t thank you for interfering, and you’ll only end up hurting yourself if you don’t stay out of it, and blaming yourself if you don’t attempt to see what effect Navarro’s control of his emotions could have on future mates, or the world’s discovery of mating heat.”
