He hadn't assembled Ghost Team since the first months out of the labs during the worst of the protests against the Breeds. Separately, the Breeds in Ghost Team were highly effective and lethal. Together, they were a nightmare against the enemy.
"The Prime family are primary concern, Jonas," Kane reminded him as Jonas's gaze met Callan's.
Callan knew the truth, and he understood the order.
"No, Kane," Callan murmured. "Not in this case. If Jonas doesn't control mating heat, and I fully suspect he won't, if Ms. Broen conceives, then nothing else matters but that child."
Because that child could destroy them all.
"Rachel, I believe Amburg was right. Your baby has only been sedated." Elizabeth Vanderale sat on a stool on the other side of the incubator as Rachel held Amber and gave her the bottled formula that had been provided for her.
Amber's gaze was still drowsy, but she wasn't pale any longer, or lifeless. She stared up at Rachel with those bright blue eyes as she gripped the bottle with tiny fists and sucked hungrily.
"He escaped." She stared down at Amber, somehow sensing her daughter would never be safe until Phillip Brandenmore was dead.
"He'll be found." Elizabeth didn't seem concerned. "Trust me, Jonas won't allow him to remain free for long."
No, there was a hungry volcano waiting for Brandenmore, she thought. She had seen the obscurely worded reports on other missing Breed enemies, just as she knew the private flight plans Jonas had logged with the Breed Council just after their disappearances. Those flights had gone right by a very active, stone-melting pit of pure lava that had once welcomed human sacrifices with a greedy embrace.
"Brandenmore believes Jonas has information on the Breeds that involves an aging phenomena." She lifted her gaze back to Elizabeth. "Mating heat changes the aging process, doesn't it?"
Elizabeth's lips firmed.
"You're Callan Lyons's mother," Rachel stated. She knew the other woman was also the wife to the man they called the first Leo. The first Lion Breed ever created.
"Elizabeth can't answer your questions, Rachel, but I can." Rachel whirled around to find Jonas entering the room.
Rachel felt her heart leap, as it always did during that first moment when he entered a room. It was all she could do to maintain her composure, to be certain her body fell in line with the emotions she wanted to project rather than what she felt.
He wore the same clothes he had worn when he went after Amber. Black. Black mission pants, a long-sleeved shirt that was torn and bloody, and combat boots, which laced over his calves. The string of one boot was fraying. The left knee of the mission pants was torn, exposing reddened and bloodied flesh.
"Jonas, have you been checked for your injuries yet?" Elizabeth moved to the tray of digital and sterilized instruments next to the incubator.
"Ely takes care of me, Dr. Vanderale," he answered coolly. "If I need it."
"And of course, you don't need it," Elizabeth murmured. "How like the Leo you can be."
"And I'm certain the Leo is just as tired of hearing that as I am," he responded mockingly. "As the whelp he barely claims, I can tell you, it gets old."
Rachel heard the thinnest vein of some underlying emotion in those words. Resentment? Hurt? She couldn't imagine the steel-edged Jonas hurting over anything. But she had learned over the past months that there was a lot Jonas hid from the world and the people around him.
Elizabeth chuckled. "Why do you believe he calls you a 'whelp,' young man? Could it be because you're so like him that he's not certain whether to feel pride or to shoot you and put the world out of its misery?"
"I think he's just as happy over the fact that his DNA was used against him as I am." Jonas shrugged and turned back to Rachel. "We have a cabin ready for you. I'm sure you'd like to eat and get some rest now that Elizabeth has finished her examination of you."
Merinus had warned her when she first agreed to work for Jonas about the Breeds' incredible sense of smell and intuition. She had warned Rachel that the least weakness would be perceived by Jonas as a weapon, nothing more. That he would use it against her, would poke and dig until he managed to find a way to get her out of the office.
"I'd like to finish feeding Amber first," she stated with a calm composure she didn't feel. "I rather doubt Phillip Brandenmore had the consideration to do so."
The small rumble of danger that sounded in his throat would have been worrying if Amber hadn't chosen that moment to emit a small, distressed whimper.
"Calm yourself, Jonas." Elizabeth moved across the room to one of the myriad machines that lined a counter. "I've warned you that children sense emotions much better than adults do. You'll upset the child."
Rachel was surprised to see the grimace that tightened Jonas's face, but within seconds Amber calmed down once more and proceeded to finish her bottle.
He did that a lot, she realized: backed off when at other times she was certain he would have pushed for dominance in a given situation.
Setting the bottle aside, she lifted the baby against her chest. Patting the baby's back, she smiled softly when a loud, definitely unladylike burp came from the perfect, cupid's bow lips.