“What?”
“Get to the house, Kiowa. Now.” Dash’s voice was low, imperative. Kiowa didn’t bother answering, he just turned and shot into a dead run down the mountain. Altered genetics and his own athletic awareness gave him the speed and endurance he needed to make it to the main house where Dash waited at the door.
“Listen to me.” He pushed Kiowa against the entry wall before he could rush down the hall to the Lab entrance. “She’s in pain, Kiowa. And it’s bad. But she has to finish this. What’s going on right now is too important to stop.”
Dash was pale, his blue eyes dark with concern and bleak knowledge.
“What the fuck are you doing to her?” He fought the other man’s hold, and would have broken free if both Callan and Kane hadn’t lent their strength to holding him still.
“I’ll kill all of you,” he snarled then.
“And you’re welcome to my friend. Later,” Dash snapped back. “But right now, you have a mate determined to do what she needs to, and she needs you. We can’t hold her, Merinus or Elizabeth can’t either. You have to hold her, Kiowa. She can’t do this alone.”
“You’re crazy.” He could hear her now. The screams…
“Goddammit, let me go!”
“Kiowa, listen to me. They’ve found something, inside her.” Dash shook him furiously, his own eyes blazing. “She’s in full ovulation with the sperm attempting to fertilize. This is important, Kiowa. For God’s sake, for all of us, the hormone releasing from her womb now has never been detected before, Kiowa, and in such small amounts that Serena Grace needs the time to collect enough samples of the hormones building in her womb, while Martins follows the ovulation. Listen to me…” Dash was screaming, enraged, his eyes furious, desperate. “For all of us, Kiowa. Your mate is suffering for all of us, help us.”
“Kiowa…” He could hear her screaming his name, her voice a lash of agony as it penetrated the careful construction of the Labs.
“Kiowa. For our species. For all of us. If we could do something, anything to make this easier on our mates, then the world will be accepting when they learn of it. We’re walking a tightrope between life and hunting season. Help us.”
He snarled furiously, throwing his head back against the wall as her cry echoed around him again.
“Let me go to her.”
A surge of fury had him tearing from their grasps as he rushed to the opened steel door at the end of the hallway. He hit the stairs at a run, taking them five and six at a time until he vaulted to the steel floor and rushed into the main lab.
It was like a scene from a nightmare.
Amanda was restrained in a gynecological chair, her legs strapped to the stirrups, her arms and hands restrained at the side. Between her spread thighs, Dr. Grace worked slowly as Dr. Martins kept watch on a monitor attached to the camera that was obviously at the mouth of Amanda’s womb. He snarled, drawing their attention, causing Elizabeth and Merinus to rush between him and Dr. Grace.
“Amanda.” He moved to her, quickly releasing the straps on her arms as he bent to her. “Hold onto me,”
he pleaded at her ear as she cried out his name. “Hold onto me, baby. The minute you say the word it stops. I’ll make them stop.”
She was gasping for breath, her face streaked with tears as her arms wrapped around his shoulders with a desperate grip.
She screamed again, her back trying to bow, the straps across her waist and chest holding her firmly to the chair.
“She’s not in any danger.” Elizabeth was beside him now. “We’re monitoring all her vital signs. The minute her system shows any danger to her, we’ll stop.”
Kiowa shook his head. He didn’t want to hear it.
“The sperm is attempting to fertilize the egg that dropped. There’s a small hormonal barrier or shield blocking it. Protecting it from fertilization. But it’s weak. Other hormones are releasing into her blood, heightening the arousal. That’s what’s causing the pain. It’s not you touching her…” Elizabeth continued.
“It’s the mating heat’s demand for more sperm, a stronger force to break through the shield. Dr. Grace is attempting to get small quantities of the hormone at a time, to keep from weakening the shield too much to handle the stress against it. It weakens the sperm, Kiowa. Keeps it from getting to the egg. Only a minute amount of that sperm is viable anyway, because of the advanced genetics. That’s why the mating heat is demanding intercourse. A greater quantity of sperm to break that barrier. This is a breakthrough we can’t ignore. It was a miracle she came to the labs when she did. Dr. Grace detected the change in her blood immediately, just from the studies she’s done on mine and Merinus’s. This could be what we’ve waited for…”
Her voice droned on over Amanda’s gasps and strangled cries. Amanda was sweating profusely, her skin cold and pale as she shuddered in his grip then tried to arch in agony as a wail echoed around him.
“I love you,” he whispered in her ear then, unable to hold the words back, to stem the agony ripping inside his heart. “Let me stop this, Amanda. Let me take you out of here.”
“No.” She gasped, her nails digging into his shoulders as convulsive tremors shook her body. “Have to. Have to. For both of us, Kiowa.”
“We’re almost done, Amanda.” Dr. Grace’s voice was tear-roughened, and Kiowa hated realizing that.
“Just a little bit more.”
“The viable sperm have nearly exhausted themselves,” Dr. Martin reported. “As soon as you’re finished, extract the camera. If the rest break through, then it’s God’s will.”
God’s will. Nature’s curse.
Kiowa clenched his teeth as Amanda screamed out in agony again.
“Kiss me, Kiowa,” she cried out then. “Please I hate this. I hate sounding like this. Make me stop.”
“Ah God. Baby…” His lips covered hers, his tongue plunging inside her as she met him with a desperation that broke his heart.
Her lips sucked at his tongue and he tasted the release of the hormone, filled her mouth with it and gave her what she needed. He muffled her screams, held her to his chest and did all he could to comfort her when he wanted to do nothing more than kill those hurting her.
“My God…” Dr. Grace’s voice was ecstatic. “My God. Dr. Martin, look at that. Do you see the change? It’s a new hormone. My God, we’re going to crack this.”
Kiowa didn’t give a damn what they were doing. Amanda was kissing him as though both their lives depended it, and though she still flinched and shuddered with pain, at least those agonized cries had been smothered.
She was sleeping. Finally. Hours later, Kiowa carried Amanda into the cabin, laid her gently in the bed they had shared and pulled the blankets around her. She had finally escaped the pain the only way she could. She had passed out.
Sitting beside her, he smoothed her hair back from her face before leaning down to kiss her lips gently. He didn’t know what the hell had happened in that lab, but both scientists had begun shouting orders back and forth, babbling about additional samples, blood and new hormones. He didn’t give a damn. He just wanted her out of there, away from the pain she had deliberately inflicted on herself.
“I’m okay…” Her voice was hoarse as her eyes opened weakly, her lashes fluttering against her cheeks.
“Yeah. You are,” he whispered, his hand smoothing over her hair as he gazed down at her bleakly. What the hell was he going to do without her? If they created a hormonal block, or even a cure for the mating heat, how would he survive losing her?
“I had to do it, Kiowa,” she said then, her eyes reflecting her own inner turmoil. He could see the battle waging within her, though he had no idea what it was over.
He breathed in deeply.
“Dash managed to unearth the Council reports on my mother,” he said softly, staring down at her, knowing he couldn’t hold her forever. “She wasn’t just held and artificially inseminated. When it was realized she wouldn’t conceive, evidently one of her guards raped her…and mated her.” He swallowed tightly. “I never intended to force you into this. I kissed you because you were going to scream. I continued because I couldn’t stop. I would do it again.”
A weak smile tugged at the corner of her lips.
“No excuses, huh?” she asked then.
“None.” He didn’t believe in them.
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, Kiowa,” she said, her eyes drooping sleepily. “Now, I do want to go home…” The end of what she would have said slurred slowly until sleep took her. She fell asleep as she shattered his soul.
He leaned down, kissed her soft lips and breathed in roughly.
“I love you, Mate,” he whispered then. “I’ll always love you.”
Then he stood and walked to the dresser. Ovulation was over, there would be relief for her, at least for a while. Long enough he prayed, for her to forgive him, but he doubted it. There were few things to pack. He didn’t own a lot. His guns, his knives, the tools of his trade. A few changes of clothes, his jacket. He was packed within the hour and standing on the porch steps, once again staring back at Dash Sinclair.
“Did she conceive?” Kiowa asked, his voice controlled. Calm.
“There was no conception.” Dash crossed his arms over his chest and glanced at Kiowa’s duffel bag.
“The additional hormone is looking like a blocker,” he reported. “According to preliminary tests, it could be used to ease the effects of the mating heat. It could be years before we’re certain though. Dr. Grace doesn’t think she retrieved enough to actually make any headway.”
Kiowa nodded bleakly.
“Let her know if she needs me…whenever…I’ll come to her.”
“Why not just stay, Kiowa?” Dash asked him then. “She's your mate. You know you'll never be satisfied without her. And the threat against her may not be over. The blood supremacists somehow managed to blackmail one of the Secret Service agents protecting her. He drugged the others so no one could help her.”
“I can't force her.” He shook his head. “This wasn't her dream, Dash. It's not my life she wanted. I won't take that from her. But I'll make certain she's protected. I'll always protect her.”
He picked up his duffel bag and moved down the steps.
“Kiowa. Your mother didn’t remarry,” he said then. “The final report came in last night. Your grandfather lied to you. There was no marriage, no other family. From what the investigators found, she spent those years searching for you and her father. I don’t believe she willingly gave you up. The investigators say that for a period of a year and a half, both Joseph Mulligan and his daughter disappeared. When she resurfaced, she was searching for her father. I believe he kidnapped you after he learned what happened.”
“It doesn’t matter now.” Kiowa shrugged, careful to keep his expression blank, the pain inside. “It’s over now and they’re all dead, Dash. Every one of them. Tell Amanda I said goodbye.”
He walked away. Each step was a burden; every foot away from the cabin was another knife in his heart. He would come to her, if she needed him. But he wouldn’t force anymore from her than he already had. He would let her live her dream, and he would dream of what could have been.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Colorado Mountains
The cabin wasn’t as big as he remembered it being. Kiowa stepped into the dim light of the well-made log structure and stared at the small living room with a man’s vision rather than a child’s hatred.
The television was still mounted to the wall, the collection of movie discs stacked around it. There were dozens of movie discs. His grandfather, Joseph Mulligan, hadn’t scrimped in the education he had meant to give Kiowa. Books lined the walls, a layer of dust covering them, the dull, fine powder covered the entire room.
