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Thankfully, the conversation ended, the vid-comm darkened, and then, uncomfortably, all eyes turned to him as the door to the conference room opened and Josiah walked into the room.
Anger spilled from the Breed in waves.
His eyes snapped with steel gray blue flames as he raked his fingers through his shaggy dark blond hair and glared at Navarro.
“Did you know the presence of the mating hormone in you is now negligible?”
Surprising. Hell, the day was just getting more interesting by the moment, wasn’t it? Negligible? That meant Mica would no longer be his mate soon. That had happened only once before with Callan’s pack sister Dawn and her mate, Seth Lawrence, but it had taken ten years and the complete removal of Seth from Dawn’s life during that time for it to happen, not ten fucking hours.
Should he regret it?
He could feel the need to claim her once again trying to rise inside him and he fought it. Mica didn’t need this. If the heat was receding, then it would be a blessing for her. She had dreams, plans, desires that he knew did not include a Breed. It didn’t include the hell their lives could beco
me if public sentiment turned against them.
“You’re acting as though it’s a crime,” he stated as the others continued to stare at him as though he had somehow deliberately caused this.
It felt like a crime against nature.
He hadn’t neglected her as the need burned between them. He’d taken her, satiated her, stilled the hunger raging inside her until last night, just before going to her, he’d realized he felt . . . normal.
He wasn’t iron-hard and hurting with a sexual pain he couldn’t make sense of. Oh, he wanted her, he hungered for her, but it was no longer that desperate, amplified lust that he couldn’t control. And that lack of control had been destroying him to the point he’d actually feared the animal he could feel crouched and waiting inside him.
Just waiting for Navarro to drop his guard, to relax his attention and give it a chance to jump free. And it would—straight in the direction of the petite, too stubborn, too independent woman he believed he had mated.
Even now, he could feel that snarl brewing in his chest, an unquenched fury threatening to spill from the tortured center of his soul that he only rarely acknowledged.
That didn’t mean he didn’t want an explanation.
Rising to his feet, he didn’t bother to excuse himself—rather he stalked to the door with every intention of leaving and garnering those explanations immediately from the doctor herself.
“Let her go.” Josiah was suddenly blocking his way, a snarl on his face, his gaze filled with his anger as Navarro stared back at him with a sudden, icy fury.
Behind him, Navarro could feel the others rising from their chairs, the tension in the room building to a smothering point as he faced off with the other Wolf.
“Back off, Josiah,” Navarro warned as he felt the adrenaline surging through him, a wild, burning hunger for action, to take out his enemy, to go for the throat and to taste blood.
The genetics of the Wolf. The animal was awakening again. If it awoke, if he allowed those instincts to rise inside him once again, then nothing, no one he cared for might ever be safe again.
“Back off?” Josiah sneered, his Wolf flashing in the snarl at his lips and the dilation of gaze. “Fuck you, Navarro. Stay the hell away from her. If she’s lucky, real fucking lucky, then rather than rising inside her and torturing the hell out of her as it did last night, maybe the heat will dissipate in her as well.”
“No.” Navarro gave his head a hard shake. “I would have smelled her pain, her arousal.”
It wasn’t possible. His senses rated off the charts. There was no way to even measure his ability to detect scents, to sense disturbances, and he hadn’t sensed Mica’s? That wasn’t possible. He refused to believe it.
Josiah scoffed. “As if you didn’t. Even I scented it, Navarro.” Rage clouded the Wolf’s voice, roughened and rasped it until it was more animal than human. “You’re not a worthy mate and you should be barred from approaching her.”
Navarro felt as though his brain were clouding for the briefest moment before he fought back. Instinct, hunger, rage and animal fury threatened to overwhelm him before he managed to get control of them. He forced them back, restrained them as he had all his life. Since birth. Since before birth.
Navarro turned slowly to Callan, Jonas, and Dane Vanderale.
So far, the current Vanderale heir and hybrid Breed had remained silent—watching and amused, but silent. But Navarro knew if Dane took a side, then that side would be sure to win, against all odds.
Navarro couldn’t take that chance. He wouldn’t take that chance. The very thought of any of them taking her from him had rage threatening to shake his control.
“Attempt to bar me from her and there will be a war,” Navarro promised them.
“Ely believes if he is barred from her, then there’s a chance Mica could mate with a Breed willing to take on the responsibility of loving her,” Josiah snapped. “I request he be barred from her long enough to learn if she’ll be compatible with me. I’ll claim her.” His gaze raked over Navarro with insulting emphasis. “And he can go to hell!”
