Lawe's Justice - Lora Leigh [105]
Feeling that hopelessness coming from her had his fingers clenching into fists of need unlike anything he’d known before her. His own helplessness rose like a demon inside him as he realized there was no way to stem the pain she was feeling. There was no way to ease it.
“Commander Justice, Director Wyatt and Pride Leader Lyons and his prima request that you meet with them when you arrive. A meal is being prepared as are reports for your arrival.”
“Please inform them that as soon as we’ve settled into our room we’ll contact them,” he replied as he kept watch on Diane from the corner of his eye.
Neither her expression nor her emotions changed. She didn’t react in any way that he would have imagined she would. She simply stared out the window, a light frown on her face as she watched the small city from the confines of the vehicle.
What was she thinking? Sometimes it was impossible to decipher her thoughts. Other people Lawe found easy to read, even Breeds. Diane, though, he’d never been able to accurately predict and that had the power to irritate the hell out of him.
She wasn’t angry, and she should be, he admitted. Had she admitted to him that she had worked him so easily, or that she had attempted to interfere in one of his missions then he would have been furious. With himself as well as her.
It hadn’t been easy to do, but he had given her just enough rope to hang herself, Gideon and the three individuals they were searching for.
Did she realize they were even working toward the same end? The survival of a child too small and too vulnerable to understand the changes going on inside her or to explain to anyone what those changes were?
He couldn’t allow his feelings or his pain for her to become involved in his decisions. If he allowed himself to sympathize or to understand how the three from the Brandenmore Labs would feel about being dragged into this war, then it could alter his ability to do the job Jonas had entrusted to him. And it could affect the survival of the Breeds as a whole. There were too many changes evolving in mating heat, too many children who were displaying unexpected anomalies and changes as they matured, to allow emotion to sway what had to be done.
His loyalty was to his mate, to his Pride leader and to the Breeds. In that order. He couldn’t allow anything or anyone to change that.
God knew he wished there had been no victims to the Council’s madness or to Phillip Brandenmore’s insanity. But there had been. Thousands of them. Every child kidnapped as genetic material, every woman taken as a vessel to grow the creations they envisioned and every Breed created had been a victim.
For more than a century research had evolved. Jonas actually believed the research had been going on for over a hundred and fifty years. One hundred and fifty years of the horror that had evolved to the lives they now lived.
He couldn’t allow himself to turn his back on it, or on those depending upon the decisions made now to preserve the future.
“Josiah, is the director’s mate with him?” Diane directed the question to the Enforcer driving.
“Yes, Ms. Broen. Mrs. Wyatt is traveling with the director, as is your niece, Amber. Your sister hopes you’ll attend the coming meeting this evening as well.”
Lawe watched as she lifted her hand and rubbed at her forehead wearily.
The scent of her hopelessness had slowly eased away, but it hadn’t been replaced by other emotions as it would with anyone else. There was only the scent of the woman, a fresh, summery scent that had altered only the slightest with his own and the mating hormone. The scent of the mating heat was there, but that altered mated scent hadn’t evolved as it should have.
He controlled his frown, his confusion. Each couple developed a unique scent, a combination of both of them that they carried after mating heat began. Its habit was to completely change