Navarro's Promise - Lora Leigh [51]
He knew just enough about it to get himself into trouble as the old saying went. Because he was damned sure nature wasn’t finished playing with them yet.
What he did have was more than twenty years in the Omega lab, watching, listening, waiting. He’d spent his time there wisely once he’d matured into adulthood. He’d worked, along with his men, to contact those who could help them, who could provide the needed backup for escape. He’d gathered information, stolen as many files as possible, and fought to help those who mated within his own pack, of which thankfully there were few, to escape.
And through those years he’d listened to the agonized screams of those suffering the research that merciless scientists had conducted without guilt or compassion. Because he hadn’t been able to help those that the Council brought in from other labs. There hadn’t been a damned thing he could do to rescue them or to ease their plight.
He’d done whatever was possible to save those men and women he could, who were a part of the group he commanded. In the year before the rescues, the entire team had fought to protect one too small young woman and Navarro’s second in command, the brother whose blood he shared. Nothing had mattered but hiding the truth of what had happened from the scientists, trainers and Coyote jailors.
He’d raised the girl, and his brother—
For a brief second his eyes closed in agony. He’d raised his brother alongside her, and now both were gone.
Opening his eyes, Navarro punched the button for entry to the secured elevator and waited until control identified him and the doors slid open slowly.
Stepping inside, he clenched his teeth until his jaw ached, suddenly so fucking impatient to find Mica he could barely stand it.
He got like this whenever she was around.
He knew when she arrived at Haven, whether he was told or not. It was as though his body became too sensitive, too aware of her. His response to her had always been confusing, uncertain. Even as a woman/child Mica had had an effect on him that had made him highly uncomfortable. An effect no woman could inspire.
It was the reason he had stayed away from Haven as much as possible, and the reason why he tried to remain indifferent now. When a man realized what he was doing to a woman as gentle as Mica, then it was time to fix it. Or it was time to mate her. And for whatever reason, the remnants of the animal inside him hadn’t made the move to claim, and to mark, her as his alone.
Not that he wanted a mate, he assured himself as the elevator dropped him off on the second floor, just around the corner from Mica’s suite. He hadn’t gone out looking for what other Breeds considered the only consolation to be found for the suffering they’d endured.
And perhaps he even understood it now, because when he was with Mica, a part of him seemed to ease, to find a small measure of peace.
Mating heat. As Ely had said, it was changing, becoming harder to detect, harder to match and harder to treat the females with the hormonal therapy that had been created by the doctor that had helped Callan’s pride survive outside the labs all those years.
And Navarro couldn’t say that what he was beginning to sense himself wasn’t mating heat, because she drew him as no other woman ever had.
And she was there, waiting for him.
He’d wondered if she would be.
She had friends in Sanctuary. She could have been anywhere on the property if she wished.
But she was waiting on him.
His stride slowed until he was pausing at the corner before turning up the hallway.
He closed his eyes. He didn’t have a choice. The soft, subtle scent of her, heated and sweet, sent pure silken hunger piercing his senses and hardening his dick in a split second.
He rubbed his tongue against his teeth as he checked the glands beneath his tongue quickly once again.
The mating hormone that all Breed mates created instilled a hunger, a need for the taste, the touch, the very presence of their mate until the time to conceive had passed.