Lion's Heat

CHAPTER 1

FOUR MONTHS LATER

For the first time in her life, Rachel Broen was terrified. It wasn't fear. It was soul-destroying, mind-numbing, silently screaming terror.

She couldn't scream aloud, it would draw notice. Notice that her tears and ragged sobs wouldn't draw, weren't drawing as she slid her unassuming little Civic into the deserted parking lot of the Bureau of Breed Affairs.

The night guard on duty at the gate had taken her pass without much notice. He knew her car, had seen enough of her to know who she was. It wasn't unusual for her to leave late, or to arrive early if she was commanded to do so by the autocratic Bureau director, Jonas Wyatt.

The guard had easily accepted her hasty excuse that she'd forgotten to update his memos and his morning schedule, and that it had to be done tonight.

He hadn't noticed her torn blouse or the jacket she wore that covered it. He hadn't seen the bruise she could feel spreading across the right side of her face, or the swollen condition of her right eye.

The blow had been carefully delivered.

Jumping from the car, she felt the rough asphalt bite into her bare feet as she stumbled before racing to the door. It took two attempts to get her electronic card pass to activate the doors and release the locks.

A thin sob tore from her chest as she nearly fell through the door and ran for the stairs that led to the third floor and the private offices of the director, Jonas Wyatt.

Jonas. The manipulating, calculating bastard. This was his fault. He'd played too many games. He'd pushed the wrong people and had so erroneously believed they would come after him.

She tripped, her knee slamming into a step, the skin breaking as a ragged scream of rage and pain tore from her lips.

She was paying for it.

Oh God. She was paying for it. She was paying for her stubbornness, her determination . . . No, she wasn't paying for it. The bruises, the agony tearing through her leg, the ragged pain in her side from the fist she had taken earlier, the bruises on her face, they were nothing. She would suffer that pain a thousand times over. She would suffer the fires of hell if only her child was safe.

Jonas. He was here.

A strangled scream tore from her lips as she fought to breathe, to race up the second flight of stairs. One more flight. Dear God, she was almost there.

Jonas was here. She knew he was. He had warned her that evening not to come to work tomorrow. He had known his enemies were tracking him. He'd known, the son of a bitch, he'd known and just as she'd warned him months ago, when they struck, it wouldn't be him they went after.

She had never believed they would come after her child.

"Jonas!" She tried to scream out his name as she fumbled with the electronic key at the door to the main offices.

Sliding it again, again, and still it wouldn't work.

"Jonas, please . . ." she screamed out again, terrified he would ignore her, knowing he had to hear her.

He was a Breed.

The lock released, the heavy steel door flew open, nearly pitching her to the floor as the door to Jonas's office jerked open across the room.

He was there, and he wasn't alone. She barely saw the others though. She saw his face, hated and yet adored. His eyes, alive in his bronzed face, swirls of silver mercury as he jumped to her, barely catching her before she fell to the floor.

"You bastard!" An openhanded slap to his shocked face as sobs tore from her, tears making her vision cloudy as terror choked her, ripping the breath from her body. "I warned you! I warned you they wouldn't strike you!"

"Rachel!" A horrible rumble of sound in fury, a muted roar left his lips as he gripped her arms, his fingers tight around her flesh as he gave her a firm shake.

"They have Amber!"

The strength left her legs, her body. Collapsing against his chest, she clawed at his arms, desperate for the strength she knew he possessed, fighting for sanity in a world that had suddenly exploded around her.

"They want those files. They'll kill her." Wild, terrified, she knew he would never do it. She knew he would never save her baby. "Please, Jonas. Give me the files. Save my baby. Oh God, save my baby."

Jonas felt the life leave his body. For the first time in his life, Jonas Wyatt felt pure, unadulterated terror washing through him.

His unflappable, cool paragon of a secretary, the mate he refused to claim, stared up at him with tear-drenched dark green eyes, her pale face so horribly bruised.

The scent of her terror and her injuries were an affront to his senses, the knowledge that the child he had claimed as his own so many months ago was in the line of fire, had the animal inside him screaming in rage.

"Chimera." His head jerked to the side as the Jaguar female stepped from her position in the office behind him, moving past the three men that were quickly pulling weapons from a once-hidden vault and strapping them on. "Take her."

He pushed Rachel to the female Enforcer, seeing in the other woman's clear, predatory gaze the need to fight rather than stand back.

"No! Jonas, no!" Rachel clutched at him, ripping his heart from his chest as the agonizing fury in her voice tore through his mind.

A scream of rage tore through his head, only years of patience, of strength, years of conditioning held back the instinctive response as his mate fought to be strong, fought to hold on to her sanity in the face of the danger her child now faced.

"Rachel, listen to me." He shook her again, gently, staring into her beautiful dark green, velvet eyes. "I'll get Amber. I swear to you."

Panic filled her eyes. He hadn't believed her face could become whiter, but it did. The scent of her terror tore through him like a ragged blade as her sobs ripped through his soul.

"They'll kill her," she tried to scream, but the hoarse desperation in her voice came out as a ragged plea. "I don't have time." She jerked at the hold he had on her. "Give me the files. Please. Oh God, please Jonas."

"Jonas, we have to move." Dane Vanderale, the son and heir of the Leo, the strongest Lion Breed ever created, moved to his side. "We have a location. Brandenmore's limo is parked at her house. I have a unit heading there now."

"Back off." Jonas jerked around, snarling at the man whom genetics tied him to as a brother, as the other man made plans--not to save Amber, but to take the enemy instead. "Call your team back. Too many will be dangerous." He turned to the men he knew he could trust. "Rule, have the Blazer brought around." The specially modified city SUV would hold the team, as well as weapons. "Lawe, Mordecai, go ahead, recon only."

The men moved out as Dane cursed behind him.

Jonas held Rachel as she pleaded. Her rejection of a team moving out was a ragged litany of desperation as she begged him to just give her the files.

"Chimera, the files are on my desk."

He'd been waiting for Brandenmore's men. The files had been in place, the information the bastard wanted lying in clear view as they'd laid the trap for him. A trap Brandenmore thought he could use a child to escape.

"Rachel, enough." Her sobs were destroying him as she tried to pull away, to gain the files and escape with them, even though she knew he would never allow it.

"No, Jonas." Her tear-drenched, bruised face destroyed him as her gentle voice, so often cool and yet tinged with amusement was now filled with rage. "You won't play games with my child's life."

So many months she had worked for him, with him. Still, she hadn't seen beyond what others called the games.

Releasing one of her arms, he let his fingers trail down her unbruised cheek. His throat was tight with the agony that this one person, whom he had been slowly allowing into that inner core of himself, still saw only his outer surface.

"Give me the files," she begged, though he saw the fury in her eyes, the knowledge that he could never do that.

"Jonas, the files." Chimera stopped at his side as Dane, Rule and Mordecai moved into place at the door, fully prepared, weapons stowed carefully under jackets and in the duffel bags they carried.

"Come on." He made the decision quickly, his hard gaze connecting with Chimera's in a silent order that he knew the other woman would understand.

She had sole responsibility for Rachel's life once they arrived at the small home where the baby was being held. Jonas would move in with Dane and the others to secure the baby, to ensure that those who threatened her never threatened another living soul.

"Jonas?" Rachel stumbled again, only to find herself lifted into his arms, his broad, muscled chest beneath her, his hard, savagely hewn expression more animal than man at the moment.

There was rage swirling in the living depths of those quicksilver eyes. Like a beast, separate from the man, raged inside him now.

"The files won't save the child." His voice was a hard, rasping growl. "You know it as well as I, Rachel. They'll kill her, and they'll kill you. I won't allow it."

She knew it. In her mother's heart, she had seen it in Phillip Brandenmore's eyes each time he struck her, his fist brutal, his gaze reflecting pleasure--and anticipation.

"He doesn't know you were waiting on him." She forced the words past her lips. "I didn't tell him, Jonas."

But she had known. Jonas hadn't told her either, but she had gotten to know the man she worked for over the months. She'd learned to anticipate not just his needs, but also his actions, and to prepare accordingly.

"I know you didn't tell him, Rachel." They moved along the hall to a side door, inaccessible except for the highest level of security.

"We need to know what we're driving into." Dane Vanderale's normally mocking, amused voice was now steel hard, icy with death. Rachel could almost believe he was a Breed as well, as those eerie emerald eyes of his narrowed on her. "What happened?"

The nightmare of the night thickened her voice as she told him.

She had gone home. Her babysitter wasn't there. Amber had been crying. She was only three months old. She was hungry, she was wet and she was frightened. Rachel had heard the baby's screams the second her feet hit the small back porch.

She hadn't thought; she had reacted. She had rushed to get to her baby, and she had met the merciless eyes of the men who had been awaiting her instead.

"Is the baby unharmed?" Jonas questioned when she finished relating that evening's horror, rushing from the elevator as it deposited them inside an underground garage she hadn't even known existed.

"She was when I left." Her voice quivered.

Jonas had never said Amber's name. It was always "the child," or "the baby."

"She's hungry," she whispered, staring up at him. "And cold. They took her blankets. I know she hasn't been changed."

She was dying inside. Amber was such a good baby. She never cried unless she was cold or hungry. She loved to watch the world; she loved to watch her mother. The few times Rachel had defied Jonas's orders and brought Amber to the office, the baby had always seemed mesmerized by his voice. She listened. She watched. And now she was alone, without warmth or comfort.

"I can't stand it, Jonas." Her stomach cramped with pain, both from the blow she had received earlier, as well as the knowledge that her child was hungry and cold. Confused. Frightened. "Please, Jonas, don't let them hurt her."

"No one is going to hurt her." He stepped to the SUV and deposited her in the backseat.

Chimera jumped in the other side as Jonas slid in beside Rachel, cushioning her between them as Dane took the wheel and Lawe rode shotgun.

"Weapons." Lawe turned, an opened bag at his feet as he pushed the weapons to Jonas.

Rachel watched, terror building inside her as she saw more than the lethal laser and explosive ammo-contained weapons Jonas strapped on.

She saw a small army preparing for battle, and her child, her three-month-old baby, so defenseless, so tiny, was going to be smack in the middle of the war.

"Jonas, please." She couldn't breathe. Her chest tightened with panic, with a sense of terror so overwhelming it threatened to cut the air from her lungs.

His head turned, those eerie silver eyes flashing with living rage as he stared back at her.

"I put that child's life above my own," he suddenly stated, the growl in his voice a horrible thing to hear now. This was the animal she had heard whispers of: the Breed, whom so many feared.

Looking down, she watched as he quickly checked his weapon, his statement reverberating through her head. Jonas placed too many people above himself, she had often thought. He was a manipulator, he was calculating, but there was nothing cold, nothing cruel about him other than his demeanor.

"How many are there?" Dane Vanderale's tone was harder, if possible, and colder. Rachel hadn't imagined anyone could be harder and colder than Jonas, but Dane had him beat.

"There are four. Phillip Brandenmore is with them."

Silence filled the vehicle for long moments.

"Lawe is in place," Rule stated into the silence. "There are four men inside. Brandenmore has the child in a carrier next to him."

"He's prepared to take the baby with him," Dane stated.

"Shut the fuck up, Dane," Jonas snarled, and Rachel knew Jonas understood the implications of the report.

Rachel felt herself shaking from the inside out. She knew enough of the Breed history, the labs and the scientists to know that her baby would become no more than a research project.

Pain tore through her abdomen at the thought. A sob tightened in her throat, nearly choking her.

"Look at me." The harsh sound of Jonas's voice had her gaze lifting to him. "No one will hurt that child. Do you hear me?"

"Jonas." Dane's voice was warning. "Let's concentrate on doing what we can."

Don't make promises that couldn't be kept. She heard the underlying message as Jonas held her gaze, his eyes terrifying as the color shifted and swirled.

"No one will hurt that child." His eyes raked over her, his expression turning savage as he reached out, a single finger whispering over the bruise on her face. "And they'll die for this."

The bruises on her face were an affront to the animal crouched and snarling within him. He could feel the beast, the savage wildness that he had always fought threatened to rise to the fore.

This was his mate. No matter that he hadn't claimed her. No matter that he had no intentions of taking her. She was his, and God help the ones who had dared to lay a hand on her.

He could smell the scent of her blood, her pain. Even now, her body was drawn tight with the physical agony that raced through her system.

"Call Sanctuary," he ordered Chimera. "Have the heli-jet waiting close to fly us home. I want Ely and the medical staff prepared and ready for us to fly in."

Chimera gave a quick nod of her head.

"Lawe, Dane, give the order." Dane glanced back at Jonas in the rearview mirror. "The child's life is priority," he ordered them. "Nothing else matters."

Surprise flickered in Dane's gaze before he turned back, just as Jonas felt it emanating from Chimera and Lawe.

He had been attempting the capture of Brandenmore and his cohorts for years now, before they had ever been aware who, or what, was stealing information from Sanctuary or why. For the past year, nothing had mattered but capturing the bastard, alive, in the act of attempting to steal the information he wanted.

They needed him alive. They needed the chance, the opportunity, as well as the reason to place him under Breed Law during interrogation.

The interrogation mattered little in the face of the child's life.

His child.

God, how he wished that child was his rather than another's. How he wished he had been the one to sire the babe, to hold Rachel, to bring her pleasure.

If the world were a different place, if he were a different man. If there wasn't more risk in taking what was his than there was to maintaining a distance from it.

"We're moving in," Dane stated quietly.

"Jonas, please." Rachel's voice was ragged, her fingers gripping his arm, nails biting into the black sleeves of the black combat uniform he wore. "Please, Jonas, don't let them hurt Amber. Please."

Amber. The babe. His soul ripped apart at the thought of that child in danger.

"Stay in the vehicle, Rachel." He glanced at Chimera once again and received a quick nod in reply.

Rachel's life was in her hands. Her only responsibility was the protection of his mate.

The SUV drew to a stop, and Jonas let the animal free where he normally kept it leashed.

To every Breed there were two sides, alternate parts of their psyche that often worked together. But in certain instances, one became more dominant than the other.

The Lion that raged inside him now demanded dominance. His mate had been attacked, harmed. The child the animal and the man had claimed so many months ago was now in danger.

Not a single man would walk from that house without spilling precious life blood for his part in the bruises that marred his mate's flesh. For his part in the fear that even now, Jonas could scent raging from the child.

Moving into the small yard, he used the shadows that reached out from the houses surrounding it. The block Rachel's home sat on was small, quiet. Families lived and worked here. Children laughed, and parents watched after them.

Sliding in along the window that looked into the living room, Jonas caught a glimpse of Phillip Brandenmore, the owner of Brandenmore Research. The man who was determined to use the Breeds to create a drug that could decrease aging and could be sold for millions per user sat in front of the flat-screen television, a frown on his face as the babe whimpered at his side.

Amber was tired. The animal scented her weariness. She had cried until she had exhausted herself. She was cold and hungry. No one had fed her. No one had changed her. No one had placed a blanket over her fragile body to block the slight chill in the room.

Her mother kept the house warm. The first thing these strangers had done was turn the heat down, taking away the warmth. Then they had stripped her comfort, her security.

The animal inside Jonas sensed Amber's fear, and crouched with predatory intent inside him.

"They have a Coyote with them." Rule spoke through the communications link at Jonas's ear. "He's currently in the kitchen with a pot of coffee. Stupid bastard."

Coyotes could be lazy. They were savage in battle, merciless in a pack, but those that stayed with the council or moved into the less acceptable areas of the world were downright lazy.

"Take him out first," Dane ordered as Jonas eased along the window, checking Brandenmore and the child's position before pulling back.

"I'm going through the window," he told the others. "Brandenmore is alone in the living room."

"Coyote's in the kitchen, we have a sentry on the front porch, we have one in the bedroom upstairs," Rule reported. "They're not expecting trouble."

They hadn't expected anyone at the office tonight. They had thought they could send Rachel back, force her to do their dirty work, then kill her. And only God knew what they had planned for the child.

"Jonas, he'll use the baby." Dane's voice was matter-of-fact, regretful, but realistic.

"The child is priority," Jonas repeated.

"There's no way to get to Brandenmore before he gets to the baby," Dane stated. "Think about it, Jonas."

Jonas glanced in the window again. Brandenmore's gun hand was within inches of Amber's head, the small, snub-nosed laser elite in his hand.

The animal inside him was screaming. From the first moment that Jonas had realized Rachel was his mate, he'd had a connection to the child. Defenseless, and yet confident of her place in her mother's world. She'd known no danger, no fear--until now.

Now she was experiencing sensations she should have never known. Exhaustion. Hunger. Drugs.

Jonas inhaled slowly. The baby was tired, but she was quiet because she had been drugged as well.

She was frightened.

He heard the tiny mewls, little squeaks of sound as her fists clenched and released. She wanted to cry, but she didn't have the strength.

"Dane, if this child is harmed, we're going to have problems." Jonas heard the growl in his own voice, felt the hidden claws as they parted the tips of his fingers, shifting beneath the regular nail beds and tearing forth.

Blood tipped, curved and sharp. His fingers flexed, his senses became sharper, edged with the hunger for blood and vengeance.

The problem had already arrived. The Lion, always kept so carefully leashed, had slipped free. In a moment of weakness, an awareness of the danger the child--his child--faced and it was there.

A snarl molded his lips, canines flashed in the darkness, a growl rumbled in his chest, deep-throated, predatory.

"Boss, we're in position." Rule knew the sound. "I have the Coyote, Lawe has the sentry in front."

"Dane converged on Brandenmore," Mordecai, the Coyote team member, gave the final order as Jonas, man and animal, moved into action.

The Genetics Council that had created the Breeds had one purpose in mind: the ultimate killing machine. The Breeds were created, enhanced, and trained for any and every situation that could be conceived.

They hadn't been created to save lives. They hadn't been trained to care, to mate or to love. But what they hadn't been trained for had made them better, faster, stronger.

It had made them the most dangerous creatures on the face of the earth.

The ultimate weapon.

Glass crashed, shattered.

It had taken precious minutes, patience Rachel had never believed she could have before she had the chance to tear open the door and fling herself from the SUV.

She made it to the side of the house, no farther. Hard, restraining fingers latched onto her arm, dragging her back as she watched the dark, snarling figure throw itself into the living room window.

The sound of glass breaking and an animal's snarl were the only sounds in the night. A shadow moved on the front porch, and silhouettes twisted and churned against the curtains covering the kitchen window.

It was the broken glass that held her horrified attention.

Shards, dark tipped with blood, were jagged in the frame. There were no sounds, not even so much as a child's whimper.

"Let me go." Her voice was reed thin, hoarse as she felt the tears falling once again.

"He'll kill me." Chimera's tone was regretful. "I've risked enough letting you this close."

Rachel's head jerked back to the other woman. "This close?"

Eerie green eyes glanced toward the house before coming back to rest on Rachel. Chimera's shadowed features tightened with some unnamed emotion. "She's your daughter. You have the right."

As the final word passed Chimera's lips, all hell seemed to break loose.

A roar, unlike anything Rachel had heard in her life, shattered the silence of the night.

Jonas went through the window. He felt the glass biting across his shoulders, felt the animal rage that surged through his body, and went for the enemy.

Brandenmore hadn't expected an attack. Rather than thinking to grab the child, he came to his feet instead. The weapon aimed and fired, the minute burst of explosive energy barely missing Jonas's head before Brandenmore jumped for the door.

A roar tore from his throat. A sound Jonas knew had never escaped his body as the full scent of the child hit him then.

Jumping between the babe and the door, Jonas faced the other man, his own weapon ready, held firmly in claw-tipped fingers as he snarled back at Brandenmore.

His faced creased with cruelty and age, Brandenmore smiled, a cold, mocking sneer that had Jonas's finger tightening on the trigger. Brandenmore held his weapon aimed in the direction of the babe.

"So much information." Brandenmore shook his head with a cluck of his tongue. "So many experiments. We've learned a lot since you escaped, Alpha One."

His eyes narrowed on the other man.

"That baby." Brandenmore nodded to the too-silent babe. "She's a test, no more than you were a test. No more than any other has been. It doesn't take a lab to create an experiment, now does it, Alpha One?"

He'd shoot him, but the slightest movement of Brandenmore's finger on that trigger and the laser burst would destroy Amber despite Jonas's attempt to protect her.

"I'll kill you," Jonas promised him, staring into the cold, merciless cruelty of the other man's gaze.

Brandenmore smiled again. "You've been trying for a while now, Alpha One. You haven't succeeded yet." He glanced to the cradle, which held the child. "And you won't succeed now."

Before Jonas could jump for him, Brandenmore dove through the doorway.

A roar of rage tore from Jonas's lips. Adrenaline and pure animal fury had him starting for the door before he stopped, turned and went for the child instead.

Pulling the tiny body from the cradle, Jonas tucked her close against his chest. He launched himself through the window seconds before fire and heat exploded behind him, catapulting him through the air as the night seemed to go to hell around him.