Navarro's Promise - Lora Leigh [72]
In his hands he carried a heavy tray filled with what was obviously lunch.
Her favorite.
Ham and cheese sandwiches made with the homemade bread Sanctuary’s cooks had prepared.
How amazing it had turned out to be that Breeds who were trained to kill, to stain their hands with blood, could also cook and bake with such perfection as to bring tears to the eye.
The sandwiches were piled high with ham, several different kinds of cheeses and with them were a variety of vegetables, along with roast beef, turkey and chicken luncheon slices.
Chips and pickles completed the meal along with frosted glasses of sweet, sweet iced tea.
Strong and muscular, Jackal should have looked out of place as he carried the tray of food dressed in his black heavy-metal-band T-shirt and worn jeans, his dark hair cut close to his scalp.
He didn’t though. She’d determined over the past years that nothing could make Jackal look out of place, and few things could make him feel out of place.
“How are the tests going?” he asked, his baritone voice a deep, almost Breed-like growl.
She gave a heavy sigh as she moved to the sink and washed her hands thoroughly before stepping over to the table and taking the seat he pulled out for her.
“That sigh isn’t exactly an answer,” he drawled, the Texas accent filled with concern.
“The tests aren’t exactly conclusive either,” she told him as she accepted the plate he lifted from the tray and set it in front of her. “It doesn’t matter how many tests I run, the final results remain inconclusive. There’s a mating, but they’re not mated.”
She hadn’t seen anything like it and still couldn’t make sense of it.
“You may have to explain that one to me, Ely.” He watched her expectantly as he bit into his sandwich with strong, white teeth.
“Who will explain it to me then?” she countered with the same frustration that had pricked at her for the past hours since beginning the tests.
“What’s the problem with the tests?” he probed further, obviously becoming impatient with her refusal to explain the situation.
She took another bite of the sandwich as she tried to figure out the best way to explain it.
“I’m not a moron, Ely,” he assured her, obviously reading her look, and he was very good at that actually.
“The tests are positive for mating,” she finally stated. “But I’ve never seen such weak results during an active mating. All the hormonal requirements are there, but they’re in such small quantities, that I wonder if Navarro couldn’t easily walk away from Mica without suffering for it. Once the hormone, weak as it is, reaches Mica’s system, it seems to grow stronger though.” She frowned again, still bothered by the hours she’d spent attempting to figure out the problem. “The test results are responding differently to different stimuli as well. Such as the weakened hormone, once introduced into Mica’s system, becoming stronger. The mating hormones in their blood are different, and in different levels than those in his semen and the natural lubrication in her vagina. Just as it was when we tested the saliva. But if I introduce other parameters to the tests, such as a variable of the hormones created during certain emotional responses, then the mating hormone in Navarro’s specimens explode.”
Jackal’s head tilted to the side as he frowned back at her questioningly. “It has to do with the emotional responses during mating heat then?”
Ely nodded again, chewing another bite before continuing. “Most Breeds are actually looking forward to finding their mates. They see it as a gift that God has arranged just for them, for their survival. So despite protestations or the levels of anger, fear or just sheer stubbornness, that need and that hunger are there to begin with, and the mated Breeds don’t have the subconscious desire to suppress those emotions. Once they find their mate, possessing her means everything. But I know Navarro and Mica well. Neither of them would have come within