Lion's Heat

EPILOGUE

It was snowing.

Hours after their return to Sanctuary, Jonas stared out at the snowy landscape through the barred windows of the interrogation center, which sat above an entrance to the underground labs. There were three inches of snow on the ground, and two feet predicted to head their way. Big, wet, fluffy flakes that piled on the ground, the trees, the roofs of the cabins, had turned Sanctuary into a snow-covered wonderland.

How had he never noticed the beauty, the pristine innocence in a snowfall before?

He had never taken the time to see the wonderland, the almost fairy-tale promise that nature lay upon the ground each time it snowed, just as he had never truly realized the beauty in a child's laugher, a mate's smile, or the word "family." He'd never realized what he was fighting for until he had faced losing it that first night Brandenmore had struck against Rachel.

"You don't want to keep me here, Wyatt." Brandenmore's voice was hoarse, choked with terror, as he spoke from his position across the room.

Elizabeth Vanderale, Ely and Amburg, all masked, their identities hidden, had extracted the vials of blood samples needed. Swabs had been taken of the inside of his mouth, as well as from other areas of his body. Urine samples had been forced from him, and an array of tests were taken as he screamed and fought each procedure.

The Leo and Dane stood in a shadowed corner, black masks covering their faces as the scientists completed their work. The air was heavy with Breed rage and human fear.

When the scientists left the room, Jonas turned to him slowly and nodded to Jag, who was masked as well.

Electrodes were connected to Brandenmore's head, above his heart and along the pulsing veins at his temples. The electrical impulses that would surge through them weren't lost on the other man.

"Jonas, please," he screamed. "This is wrong. You have to arrest me. I want to see my lawyer."

"There are no lawyers here," Jonas promised him, his voice steady, cold. "This is Sanctuary, Brandenmore. Here, my word is law. Here, I decide if you live or if you die."

"You can't," the older man cried desperately. "That's not right, Jonas. You're already against me. She's your mate, your child. You can't make this decision."

"You have been tried and deemed guilty of crimes against Breeds so heinous, so lacking in mercy, Phillip Brandenmore, that only death can come close to atoning for your crimes. It is by word, by Breed Law, that you're sentenced to death."

"No." Brandenmore wheezed, his eyes bulging with the knowledge that there would be no mercy to be found, no loop-hole, no way to escape the pain coming.

"Yes." Jonas crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the Breed behind Brandenmore. "Do you have any last words?" He lifted his hand as though to give the order to electrocute the bastard.

"If you kill me, you'll never know what I did to your daughter."

It was a good thing Brandenmore wasn't a Breed, since otherwise he would have scented the pure triumph that spilled from the Breeds in the room.

"Nothing is wrong with my daughter," Jonas assured him. "She's been tested completely. Games are over. It's time to die."

"Delayed reaction." Brandenmore's voice was hoarse, desperate. "I know what I'm doing. I knew you'd run every test in the world on her; I hid it. The only way to know how to save her later is if I tell you. If I live."

"You're lying . . ."

"You can smell a lie." Tears poured from Brandenmore's eyes. "You know I'm not lying, Jonas. You know I'm not. And I promise you, without me, she will die. I've ensured it. I made certain I had that ace against you."

He wasn't lying.

"What guarantee do I have you'll tell me anything?" Jonas sneered. "You'll play games, just as you always do."

"I'll be here. Keep me. Just let me live," he cried out.

"Live long enough to see if you're getting younger? Live long enough to see if your aging serum works?" His body was younger than it should be, and Jonas knew his face wasn't nearly as lined as he last remembered it.

"Everything," Brandenmore swore. "I'll tell you everything."

"Yes, you will," Jonas crooned. "Or you'll suffer. Far worse than you would have suffered tonight. Far worse than any Breed ever suffered under you, Brandenmore. I promise you that. You'll cooperate fully, or suffering won't come close to the hell you'll glimpse."

Nodding to Lawe and Rule, Jonas turned and left the room, followed by Leo and Dane. Walking up the short hall to the observation room where Callan and the other members of the Pride family, along with Ely and Elizabeth, waited. Rachel was with Amber at the cabin, the one place Jonas wanted to be more than anyplace on earth.

"Son of a bitch," Callan cursed as the door closed behind them. "What did he do to that baby?"

Jonas rubbed his hand along the back of his neck, the ache there intensifying as he fought against himself. He wanted to go to Brandenmore and rip his heart from his chest.

"Ely, place him on the truth serum you've been working on," Jonas ordered her.

The serum was designed for human as well as Breed biology. It took weeks, sometimes months, to fully integrate into the system and let it begin working. It would work though, and the truth would come from Brandenmore's lips whether he wanted to tell it or not.

"It may need to be refined," Elizabeth stated. "If what we suspect is true, and he's found a serum to reduce aging, then it could change how the serum works with his particular biology."

"It looks like we'll be staying awhile longer then." Leo gave a short nod, his golden gaze locked on Jonas, a message in them that Jonas wasn't certain of.

"I'm beginning to wonder if we'll ever make it back to Africa," Dane stated. "It's a damned good thing I enjoy America."

Jonas rubbed at his neck again. He needed to be with his mate, with their child.

"We'll begin questioning him once the serum has time to initially react," Jonas told them, concern weighing heavily on him now. "I'm heading home now."

Home. He had a home now. It wasn't simply a cabin or a house. It was a place where warmth lived, thrived. A place where peace could be found.

"Jonas, a moment of your time, please." Leo stepped in front of him as he headed for the door. "In private."

"Leo, I don't want to deal with you tonight," Jonas stated wearily. "Let's try later."

"Let's try now." The door opened as Leo gave him a stony look and stepped from the interrogation room.

The room next to interrogation was a file room. Lined with heavy steel filing cabinets, it was cold and silent as the light flipped on and Jonas stepped inside to face the first of their kind. The first Feline Breed to live past the age of five. He had made a way for them all. His genetics had provided a base for every Breed living.

He was the Breeds' Adam, Elizabeth their Eve.

"What do you want, Leo?" Crossing his arms over his chest, Jonas watched the other Breed with weary curiosity.

Leo's chest swelled as he breathed in deeply, his gaze heavy with something--sorrow? What?

"It was years before I knew of the French labs," he finally began.

"I don't want to hear this." Jonas turned to leave.

The hard, furious snarl behind him had him pausing, the animal inside blinking warily as Jonas grimaced and turned slowly.

The animal genetics were too fucking ingrained. Leo wasn't his Pride leader, but he may as well have been. He was the first; he was the strongest. He was his father.

"You'll hear it whether you want to or not," Leo informed him. "By the time I learned of you, you were full grown. Your genetics proclaimed you the child of Madame Scientist LaRue and her consort, with a few of my genetics tossed in. I had other matters more pressing. My son was in danger, my mate was ill, and the Council had hunters in the Congo searching for all of us. I concentrated on rescuing the Breeds I could reach rather than branching out any farther than I had to."

"Unless a child created from both you and Elizabeth was found," Jonas bit out, his voice cold. "You went out of your way, then, didn't you, Leo?"

Leo's head lifted. "I did. Those Breeds are the most dangerous, besides being my children. My God, they were our children." He breathed out roughly. "Once I learned your true genetics, it was too late. The rescues had already begun. You were already free and Harmony was safe. When we received your message that Harmony was in danger, I sent Dane for her immediately. Almost too late, but we got to her."

Jonas tilted his head. "You received the message?" He had been unaware of that.

Leo gave him a hard smile. "Even Dane doesn't know I got the message you managed to send to Africa. I arranged it so he would be there for her, that he would bring her to me. She wasn't my child, but she was a Breed, one far too young for what she faced, and one I had hoped would be Dane's mate."

When Jonas had sent that message so long ago, he had also sent the encrypted, coded file on Harmony that only the Leo could have understood. It had been a test, as well as an attempt to save his sister.

"You never told her you were trying to get her out of there, did you, Jonas?" Leo questioned him.

"I never told her." He shrugged. "It never mattered. She escaped, and she survived."

"She would have died if not for Dane and Rye," Leo stated as Jonas tried to distance himself from the past and the regrets that lay there.

Jonas nodded. "He saved her. I've thanked him."

"And you found her mate for her, and took her from him," Leo said. "There were several times Dane nearly stole her back."

Jonas shook his head. "She wouldn't have stayed."

"No." Leo sighed. "And now, I must find a way other than the one I've used to find the son I fear I lost in the years I remained hidden rather than revealing myself to him. He would never accept the proof that I was watching over him with pride. Nor would he accept the explanation that I'm often simply too arrogant for my own good, and that my sons come by their stubbornness and manipulating ways honestly."

"I never denied that." Jonas stared back at him. "Look, are you seeking forgiveness? Fine, I forgive you."

Leo's gaze was heavy. "Forgiveness? No, Jonas, I'm searching for my son. Emotion comes easy with my mate, with the children I raised, but I've found it's harder with the sons that are grown, who have not been influenced by me or made to understand my ways. I'm searching for the son that is more like me than even those that my mate bore me. One so like me, that even at the best of times, I wonder when he'll challenge me."

"Never," Jonas answered easily as he read Leo's surprise. "I have no desire to challenge you, Leo. Not you, nor Callan, nor Dane, unless you threaten what's mine. Then, I won't challenge you; I'll kill you."

"You could easily claim Sanctuary or my own base," Leo stated suspiciously. "You're strong enough, manipulative enough."

"There's no challenge to it." Jonas faced his father, knowing it was the truth. Knowing that being Pride leader was a far easier job than controlling the Bureau, the humans that were a part of it, as well as the Breeds that served as Enforcers.

"You're joking." Leo grunted. "There is nothing more challenging than assuming leadership of hundreds of Breeds."

Jonas shook his head. "Each to their own, Leo."

Leo shook his head. "And Elizabeth? She's your mother. She weeps for you."

Jonas's eyes widened in surprise now. "She knows?"

Leo watched him curiously. "She's your mother. She's always claimed you. Even when I believed you weren't our child, Elizabeth knew. She knew, and cried for you, just as she left my bed for months when it was proven. She hasn't yet forgiven me, Jonas, no more than I suspect you will ever forgive me."

Hell, he simply didn't have time for this.

He jerked the door open, ignored Leo's suddenly furious growl and stomped back to the observation room. As he pushed through the door, Leo on his heels, he faced Elizabeth as she turned from something Ely was saying.

He gripped her shoulders, bent and kissed her forehead gently. "I'm heading home, Mother. Please get Father off my back and out of my life for a day or so if you don't mind. I do have family matters to take care of now."

Ignoring her surprise, he turned and stalked past Leo, back to the hall, and out of the small building that served as Sanctuary's pre-detaining building.

Calling Leo "father" didn't sit well, but he was a Breed, created, not born, trained rather than raised. He wasn't Jonas. After tonight, he would never call Leo "father" again perhaps, but he wouldn't deny him any longer.

Mordecai was waiting with the Raider and made the trip home quickly. Jonas needed his mate and his child. He needed to tell his mate the battle they may face, as well as the one their child might face. And he needed to hold her.

She was waiting on him when he walked in the door. Snow swirled inside before he closed the door, locked it, then strode to his mate.

"Where is Amber?" His fingers went to the belt of her robe.

"Asleep." Her breath instantly became harder, her voice breathy and low as he stripped the material from her shoulders.

"I need you." His lips moved to hers. "I love you."

"I love you." Her lips parted for him, his tongue slipped past them, the glands beneath aching, needing the touch of her tongue.

She was there for him. The hormone spilled into her and was taken eagerly as he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bedroom.

Stripping them both of the clothes separating them took little time. Her gown tore as he jerked at the small buttons at her waist. It pooled at her feet as he worked his pants loose and toed his shoes from his feet. Shedding the pants and shirt, he pulled her to the bed, his lips slanting over hers, his tongue thrusting into her mouth, retreating, filling it again as he moved between her thighs, desperate to have her.

As the touch of her, the taste of her, filled his senses, the ache at the back of his neck began to recede and the heaviness that had filled his soul began to ease.

As he gripped his cock and pressed it against the soft heat of her pussy, he felt renewed. As he began working inside her, he felt the hunger to simply live begin to ease. She was his life, his heart, his soul.

Lifting his head, he stared into her eyes as he took her. Inch by inch, slowly working his erection inside the tight grip of her pussy as he felt her filling his soul.

Never had pleasure been so great. Never had anything in his life brought him peace until this woman--until he looked into her eyes and sensed the woman created for him.

"My heart," he growled as he slid in to the hilt, felt her heated muscles rippling around his cock as her arms tightened around his shoulders and a gasp of pleasure whispered around him. She was burning in his arms now, and nothing mattered but throwing himself into the flames with her.

Gripping her hip with one hand, he began to move inside her. Deep and hard, he fucked her with a desperate, blinding hunger, a need to hold himself inside her forever, to fly with her, to feel her coming apart in his arms.

When the explosion came, it was more than flying. It was floating, surrounded by a sea of such incredible sensation that nothing else mattered. Locked inside her, the barb pulsing, heating, driving her pleasure higher as he watched her shudder, watched her eyes become unseeing and heard her cry his name with such satisfaction that it vibrated through his soul.

This was home.

Where the heart was.

Later, as she slept, Jonas pulled on his sweatpants and padded silently to their daughter's room. He had thought to catch her sleeping. She was a baby; if she wasn't eating, then she normally wanted her mother, and voiced that desire loudly.

She wasn't sleeping. She was staring up at the mobile above her crib, her gaze almost thoughtful as the little fairies that Cassie had gifted her with twirled in the slight breeze created by the central air system.

Her green eyes were dark like her mother's, while the shape of her face was more similar to her aunt's. The curve of her nose was pure Rachel.

Reaching in, he picked her up and placed her against his chest before moving to the living room and standing in front of the window. Turning the baby, he let her watch the snow as it piled high beyond the window.

"I'll protect you," he promised as he cuddled her close in his arms. "With my last breath, I'll protect your mother and you, Amber."

He felt her then. Her mother. Rachel moved from the bedroom and joined them, watching the snow as it fell in fat, lazy flakes, piling on the ground.

"Brandenmore did something, didn't he?" she asked softly as he curved an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

"I'll find out what he did," he swore as he watched her expression in the window, saw the fear that flashed in her eyes.

"She'll be okay," she stated. "Cassie's certain of it." She lifted her face to him. "Is she ever wrong?"

Jonas shook his head. "She's never wrong." But sometimes, she wasn't exactly right.

One thing was certain: The future, and their child's happiness, was now in the hands of one of their greatest enemies. And Jonas was damned if that sat well with him.

"Jonas?" Rachel turned in his hold and stared up at him, her hand settling against her daughter's small arm. "Whatever happens, we're together and I love you. Forever."

And suddenly the world was that much brighter.

"You're my treasure," he touched her lips gently, "forever, Rachel."

Catching her hand, he drew her with him as he laid Amber in the crib and took his mate back to bed.

No one heard the small sound that was made after their bedroom door closed: a soft, sweet, kittenish little purr.