“Depo doesn’t work.” The doctor stuck a swab in her mouth, swirling it around quickly as she nearly gagged.
She pushed her hands through her hair as he moved away, fighting back the rising panic welling inside her and the pain blooming through her body. Every bone and muscle felt as though it were on fire, blistering her insides with heat. Perspiration dotted her skin and no matter how she fought it she couldn’t hold back the small wracking trembles that attacked her body.
“I need a vaginal sample.” The doctor’s voice lowered, filling with regret. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t easy.”
Taber paced closer.
“Get back, Taber!” She was amazed at the fury that echoed in her demand. “If you come near me I’ll shove one of those damned needles into that black heart of yours.”
“Dammit, Roni, you can’t do this alone,” he retorted. “I’m only trying to help you.”
“You’ve helped enough,” she sneered, dragging several deep, strengthening breaths before turning back to the doctor. “Why is this so hard?” she demanded of the other man. “Tell me what the hell’s wrong with me before you do anything. I feel like fire ants are eating away at my insides and I’m getting damned sick of it.”
She could handle it, she assured herself as she watched the doctor, keeping her expression fierce. It seemed neither he, nor Taber, responded to anything other than complete determination and more than one threat of physical violence.
Doc Martin heaved an impatient breath. “Young woman, let’s get these tests completed first…”
“You touch me and you may not be walking straight for days.” She cocked her leg back as he watched it warily. “I want answers before you stick another needle, swab or whatever the latest device of torture is at the moment.” She sure as hell didn’t like the looks of that damned speculum he was holding in his hand.
“Roni, I told you what was wrong.” Taber stepped closer.
Roni turned her head slowly, watching him with all the pent up violence raging through her system. He stopped again, only feet from the gurney this time.
“A mating does not a relationship make,” she told him with false sweetness before turning back to the doctor. “Answers, if you please. In English would be nice, too,” she ventured, unwilling to try to understand whatever doctor’s jargon he used.
“In a nutshell,” he sighed. “For the time being, your body is addicted to the hormone contained in Taber’s saliva as well as his semen. The effects are intense, bringing violent illness and pain, which only goes away after, uuhh…relations are attained.” He flushed before her shocked gaze. “The best we’ve been able to figure is that it’s nature’s way of ensuring the species.Normally, the minute amount of normal sperm the Feline Breed males possess makes them virtually impotent. But the hormone infecting you forces your body to ovulate every three days. To further ensure procreation, it strengthens normal arousal to the point that it cannot be denied.”
Roni cursed her own stubbornness. She could feel the blood draining from her face as her stomach pitched and her mind fought to reject the diagnosis.
“It ends with conception?” Her voice was thready as she fought to speak.
“The symptoms left Merinus upon conception,” he agreed. Sympathy filled his voice. “It is something that, so far, seems to occur only with a woman with whom the emotions of the Feline Breed are involved.
A natural mate, in Callan and Merinus’ case. It has never occurred before.” She pressed her hands to her stomach, swallowing tightly, refusing to allow herself to be sick.
“Prevent conception.” Her voice was shaking.
“Roni…” Taber’s protest was ignored.
She stared up at the doctor, fighting the rage rising sharply within her. She would not allow this. She couldn’t.
“I don’t care what you have to do, or how you do it, but stop it.”
* * * * *
Taber stood still, refusing to speak despite the pain lodging in his chest. He could hear the terror shaking in her voice, the pain rocking through her and would have given his own life then and there if it would save her from this. He couldn’t bear the stark agony resonating through her voice. God help him, he would give anything to go back, to take back the mark, to make this easier on her somehow.
“I’m sorry, Roni.” Martin’s voice echoed his own regret. “If I could do this for you, I would. IUD won’t work. The body will reject it. The hormone is affecting every organ, working to ensure conception. The same for the Depo shot and the birth control pills. We’ve found no way to prevent this. Not yet.” It was then she turned to Taber. His soul shattered with pain as he glimpsed her eyes. They were deep, shadowed wells of misery that had every animal instinct inside him demanding that he protect her. She was terrified and he had no idea how to help her.
He stepped to her before she could speak, his hand weaving through the tangled strands of her hair as the other caught her close. And in that second he damned his own soul. His lips took hers, his tongue plunging into her mouth, forcing her to accept him despite her instinctive cry of rejection.
She would never make it through this while everything inside her clamored for him, the hormone attacking not just her mind, but her body as well. Her hands caught his shoulders as a whimpering cry whispered from her throat. But her tongue stroked his, her lips drawing on him as her breath hitched on a sob.
He held her tightly, easing her, stilling the instinctive rejection of the tests the doctor needed to perform.
When he pulled back, her eyes were nearly black with emotion, tear-filled and hazy with arousal.
“With my life, Roni,” he pledged to her. “With everything I am, I swear to you, I will protect you and any child that comes of this. Whatever you want I will give you, baby, as God is my witness. Anything to make up for what I have done to you.”