Jonas jerked as though in pain before rubbing his hand along the back of his head. She'd seen him do that often over the past months she'd worked for him. The gesture normally indicated a sense of frustration.
"He believes it reacted as a sedative," he related. "If so, then in a few hours, she should awaken her normal self."
"If so, then we're leaving . . ."
"Dream on." The look he turned on her was almost terrifying. Or would have been, if she hadn't already faced such an influx of fear in the past hours. Her system now seemed immune to his fierceness.
"I won't stay here." She shook her head fiercely.
"You won't be leaving until I know for a fact that you and that child are safe." He paced closer, his head lowering until her vision centered on the roiling mercury of his eyes. "Understand that, Rachel. If I have to place you under twenty-four-hour guard, you will go no place, make no move, not take so much as a breath that I don't know about first."
She stared back at him, shock winding through her system first before pure rage took over. Before she could stop herself, her hand lifted, flew, smacking open-palmed against the hard contours of his face.
Everything in the room seemed to freeze.
Elizabeth and Ely stared at them in shock, their expressions wary as they watched Jonas.
He could have stopped her. He was fast enough, instinctive enough that he could have prevented the blow. Instead, he stood still for it. He took it, his expression never changing, his eyes boiling with currents of emotion she couldn't make sense of.
"That changes nothing," he rasped. "Where it comes to you and that child, my word is law, sweetheart. Trust me on that. There's not a man or a woman in Sanctuary who would dare defy me on this."
"Kane . . ."
"Won't risk his life for it." His smile was tight, confident.
"Merinus won't let you . . ."
"Merinus wouldn't dare interfere," he snarled.
"They won't let you hold me here." She shook her head, certain they would never betray her to that depth.
"Tell me, Rachel, the mating tests that were ran--who do you think they were run with?"
She couldn't breathe now. She could feel her chest tightening with panic at the knowledge she hadn't wanted to face.
"It doesn't matter--"
"Oh, but it does," he cut her off again. "It does matter, Rachel. Those tests were run against my samples. They wouldn't dare interfere because they know the hell they'll face. You're my mate, Rachel. And I will protect you and my child with every last ounce of blood I possess. No one, but no one will do anything to harm either of you again. If I have to lock you in these labs to assure you don't leave, then I swear to you on all I hold dear that is exactly what I'll do."
Hours later, Jonas glanced at Rachel where she sat in the small chair beside the baby's bed.
She hadn't spoken since the promise he had made to her, since he'd revealed exactly whose mate she was. She'd backed slowly away from him, her expression never changing, the scent of her fury never abating.
At least he hadn't scented her fear of him, he thought mockingly. That was the last thing the beast prowling inside him needed to sense.
The animal.
He rubbed at the back of his head, where his lab number and birth ranking had been tattooed into his skull. He hadn't been branded as many of the other Breeds had been. He'd been tattooed instead while the woman who claimed t
o be his mother had looked on in pride.
His mother. What a job that bitch had been. Madame LaRue had carried him to term, but it hadn't been her egg or the sperm of the male scientist that had created him, as she and the lab reports had claimed.
According to those reports his DNA had been enhanced with that of the first Leo, but that wasn't entirely true. Just as it wasn't true that Callan Lyons was more the son of Elizabeth and Leo than he was.
He let them believe it. Callan, Leo, Elizabeth. Dane. He let them exist in that comfort zone they had that the bogeyman of the Breeds wasn't really related by blood to any of them.
Not that they would believe it without proof. He didn't carry their familial scent. His DNA had been fucked with too many times; his scent was unique, with few of the markers that other Breeds possessed.