She strode quickly across the room, smiled down at her little angel, then picked her up gently and cuddled her as she begun to hum.
Jonas rubbed at the back of his neck, the ache there irritating him. Tension activated it. It bred an ache rather like a head
ache. There were times in the labs when the pain had been excruciating.
"I'm going to shower," he told her, fighting back the lust. He would wait on her as long as he could. "We need to return to the labs as soon as we can. Get some breakfast, and we'll leave once I'm ready."
She turned to him, frowning. "We were just there last night, Jonas. Why do we have to go back?"
"The mating heat is different enough from others that Ely will need more samples now that we've completed the mating," he informed her. He glanced at Amber, wondering how much to tell Rachel, fearing upsetting her. Hell, she'd been through enough, he didn't want to see her worry more. "And I'd like to have Amber checked once again as well."
She stilled. He could smell that edge of fear now.
"Why, Jonas? And don't bother lying to me."
He grimaced. Yeah, it was just his luck that he had a mate with an overdeveloped sense of women's intuition.
Sighing, he explained the scent, and the time line for the changes in the child. She asked few questions, merely watching him, her green eyes large in her suddenly pale face as her hold tightened on her child.
"It's nothing dangerous," he assured her. "If it was, Rachel, I'd know." He prayed he would. As a primal, his sense of smell was off the charts when compared to other Breeds. That didn't make him infallible though, and he knew it.
Rachel licked her lips nervously. "And they'll be able to figure out what's causing that change?" she asked him.
"That's the idea." He nodded. "If nothing else, they can rule out any problems."
"If she were sick, you'd know, wouldn't you, Jonas?" she suddenly asked fearfully. "If she were really sick."
He moved to her then. He couldn't bear to see the fear in her eyes.
Reaching her, he touched her cheek with his fingers before bending his head to kiss her gently. "I would know," he promised, his lips moving against hers. "Any human or Breed disease, both Ely and I can detect, sweetheart, I promise you. And I smell no disease, no sickness, simply a change I want to have checked out."
There was nothing more that he could tell her, but for the first time in his life he wanted to be able to pull the answers out of his ass to ease the fear traveling through her.
Instead, he turned and headed to the shower. There was nothing he could do but take her to those who could find the answers. And pray that he was right.
Rachel watched as he left the room, slowly rocking Amber and trying to still the panic that threatened. She was a wuss, she thought, just as Diana had always accused her of being.
She wasn't an adrenaline junkie, and she worried. Rachel was the worrywart, Diana was the daredevil. But the thought that something could be wrong with Amber, that Phillip Brandenmore had harmed her child, was enough to make her stomach roil with fear and rage.
Laying a kiss to Amber's brow, Rachel laid her back in her crib before pacing to the fireplace and staring into the low, comforting warmth of the fire.
She lived for the day Jonas managed to get that bastard out of the Middle East and into Breed custody. She wanted to be there. She wanted to make certain he felt the same fear, the same lack of security and terror her daughter had felt.
She wanted his blood, slowly. She wanted to hear him scream in pain, watch as he begged--the way she had begged while Amber cried and cried for her.
She could still hear Amber's screams as the baby heard her mother's voice, knowing her momma was near, yet a stranger held her without tenderness or care.
Rachel could still remember the way he held her. His hand to the back of her neck braced against his chest.
He had hurt her baby. He had terrified both of them, and she wanted him dead. Rachel had a very bad feeling that once the truth was revealed, she would have no compunction whatsoever about pulling the trigger to take his life. Her female intuition was making her sick now. It had been ever since Jonas had mentioned the change in Amber's scent. As though the very thought of some unknown illness had triggered a knowledge inside her that she couldn't fully decipher.
Moving back to the crib, she quickly undressed her baby, turning her, checking her for any outward signs of problems. She knew Brandenmore had injected Amber with something. Elizabeth Vanderale and Jeffrey Amburg had been certain it had only been a sedative. That had made sense. Amber had been screaming, the sound of it raking across her own nerves because of the fear in her daughter's voice. It would have irritated Brandenmore. He would have wanted her quiet.
So why hadn't he killed her?
Rachel pressed her hand against her stomach at the thought. Brandenmore didn't care about one small child, and he had meant to kill Rachel when she returned anyway. If he hadn't had plans for Amber, then why leave her alive? And if he did have plans for her, then it would be nothing that a mother could find but nightmares within.
Brandenmore was a scientist. He could have created something that hid itself within the sedative. Something that would have begun working long after initial tests were run. That was how he worked, according to the file she had read on him. He was subtle, vicious. Completely and totally deceptive.