Styx's Storm

CHAPTER 10

Lips thin, Styx stalked to the guest house Jonas and his mate had taken while in Haven. The heli-jet had landed within the secured gates of the Wolf Breed community, which was rare. Normally, unless medical care was required, the heli-jet landed just outside the gates, on the three-story-high helipad, which housed a secured entrance into Haven.

Enforcers had reported that the heli-jet had arrived with Jonas and Rachel's infant daughter, Amber.

The child was human, she wasn't Jonas's child by blood, but Styx knew that sometimes blood wasn't all that mattered. Jonas would be more protective now, most likely even more determined to force Storme into giving up the information she had. Unfortunately, Styx had a bad feeling Storme would fight to the death, or the last measure of strength, to hold on to whatever her father had given her to hide.

Stepping to the wide front porch, Styx laid his knuckles to the wood door and waited.

Jonas didn't make him wait long.

The door opened to the hard, savage expression of the director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs.

"We need to talk," Styx informed the other man.

Jonas blinked once before stepping back and allowing Styx to move into the house.

"I've already received Dr. Armani's report." Jonas's voice was graveled, hard. "I've requested a second set of tests to be run."

Styx gave a short nod.

He knew the results as well. Just as he knew Nikki was presently in her lab scratching her head, cussing and trying to figure out how a Breed could be an "almost" mate.

The hormone was in his system, there were minute amounts in Storme's system, and the mating compatibility had been established between the two of them. Nikki had pulled off the impossible and gotten him just enough evidence to ensure that Jonas couldn't move to pull Storme from Haven without the express permission of the alpha.

Mating compatibility was high. The hormone in Styx's and Storme's blood was even higher. Saliva and semen were showing a marked increase in the mating hormone, and the glands beneath his tongue were enflamed just enough to make him aware of it.

All the proof was there, but something held back the full, burning effects of the biological bonding between mates.

"I need you to back off, Jonas." Styx got straight to the point as the director led him into the modest office off the large living room.

"I'm sure you do." Jonas moved to his wide, old-fashioned wood desk and sat down in the leather chair behind it.

"There's enough evidence to support the request for examination that I've submitted with Wolfe," Styx informed the director.

Because the other man was his director, Styx felt he deserved the warning that Styx wasn't going to stand back and allow Jonas to run over his mate.

"A request for examination is not a mating, Styx," Jonas said and sighed. "All this will grant you is, at best, six weeks. If mating heat hasn't been established yet, then it isn't going to be. You're wasting your time, and your emotions, my friend."

There was an edge of weariness in Jonas's voice that sliced at Styx's feelings of guilt.

"How is the babe?" he asked, knowing Jonas's desperation to find a way to neutralize the threat Brandenmore had brought to the baby.

"She's all smiles and wonder." Jonas sighed as he shook his head. "But there's a difference to the baby scent of her. Something no one within Sanctuary can put a finger on. I've brought her here with Amburg and Dr. Morrey to consult with Nikki and the Coyote Breed specialist Del Rey has in the mountain. Hopefully, tighter, they can figure it out."

"And Brandenmore still isn't talking?"

"He still isn't talking," Jonas agreed. "Half the time he's not even in his right mind. Whatever he injected himself with has begun affecting logic and memory. He's currently confined to one of the cells the scientists had built in Sanctuary for Breeds suspected of having feral fever."

A small, padded cell reinforced to ensure the captives held there couldn't hurt themselves.

"There have to be files, Jonas," Styx urged him. "Like Montague, he wouldn't have destroyed them."

"Unlike Montague, Brandenmore was a paranoid nut-case before we ever managed to capture him," Jonas cursed. "Whatever he's been taking to mimic the hormone that slows down aging in mating heat has literally begun rotting his brain."

"I believe Storme will give up the information she has, Jonas," Styx stated, as he wished he could give Jonas more to believe in. "I don't believe Storme is holding the data chip back out of malice. Fear perhaps, but not any true desire to bring harm."

"Whatever the reason, she is endangering Amber," Jonas growled, his silver eyes flashing in momentary rage before it was hidden once again. "How much longer do you believe I will tolerate this, Styx?"

Styx fought back the challenging snarl he would have emitted with any other Breed making such a statement of intent.

"Do you believe I'll tolerate a threat to her, Jonas?" Styx asked, his tone smooth, dark. "Never doubt, I will not. But I am willing to work with you on this. If you can work with another refusing to obey your every command that is." The last words were mocking, doubtful.

There wasn't a Breed or human that knew Jonas who wasn't well aware of his penchant for insisting on giving the orders.

Jonas stared back at him silently for long moments before saying, "What do you have in mind?"

What he had in mind might not be possible. He could be counting too much on a heart Storme might well not possess.

"She's stubborn," he finally said and sighed. "It's her loyalty and her fear that are making her hold on to this. She has heart, Jonas. I want to find that heart. If I can convince her to accept the need to give us the location of the data chip, then I think it may solve the problem of a mating that isn't."

It was only a thought, a feeling. Styx was well aware he could be grasping at straws here, but he was willing to try anything at this point.

Jonas narrowed his gaze back at him. "Explain," he commanded, his voice low.

"Storme is fighting a battle within herself, Jonas," he said. "I gave her something she never believed she could find with a Breed. Safety, and warmth. Storme is a woman who fears the very thing she craves."

"You," Jonas stated.

Styx gave an abrupt nod. "Me. What she's finding with me is something I believe she is fighting even as she's drawn to it. If I'm right, until she accepts it, then the mating heat won't fully begin."

Jonas stared back at him almost blankly for long moments before his gaze flickered with a sense of recognition. "Your hypothesis is that mating heat begins with love, not the other way around?"

Styx nodded. "Hormones, pheromones and chemical reactions have been proven to contribute heavily to the state of love. All the ingredients for it are there, Jonas. I believe fear is holding her back. Fear and whatever emotion keeps her holding on to something so dangerous as that damned information."

"You could be wrong," Jonas warned him.

Styx blew out a hard, heavy breath. "And I could die tomorrow, but she's worth it."

"Is she?" Jonas leaned forward slowly. "She hates Breeds, Styx. We're animals to her, nothing more. As far as she's concerned, we have no right to our freedoms and no right to our lives."

Styx shook his head as he allowed a small smile to tug at his lips. "No, Jonas, that's what comes from the fear and the anger that fills her. That's not what Storme feels. If she felt it, then I would never hold her in my bed each night."

"You're setting yourself up, Styx." Jonas sighed then. "The steps you're taking will place your status here at Haven, as well as your life, in jeopardy when she betrays you. If a single Breed dies from her actions, then you'll be under Breed Law along with her."

The laws listed in the public archives and law books were discreet, not easily discernible. Those that every Breed and human signed before entering to work in Haven or in Sanctuary were clear-cut and concise.

In this area, mating law ruled every Breed that had mated, especially those who had mated a human. If that human was proven to have deliberately betrayed either community or a Breed of the human's own free will, then punishment could be severe. That punishment extended to the Breed who had mated that human. If the mated pair had produced children, then those children could be taken by the community they were aligned with and raised within that community rather than by the parents they were born to.

The laws were strict, although the harsher punishments were used only in the most extreme circumstances and were at the discretion of the full twelve-member Breed Ruling Cabinet.

Styx found himself staring in the face of the knowledge that if Storme betrayed Breed Law, then he too could be, at the very least, exiled.

For a Wolf Breed especially, that could be hell. In many ways Haven was more social, more interactive than the Feline Breed Sanctuary. Felines were by nature more self-sufficient and less inclined to interact on a more personal basis.

"She's my mate." The animal part of him refused to accept anything less than his mate, and the human side could do nothing but long for that bond, that connection that he would never know with another woman.

Jonas breathed out heavily. "Hell, Styx." He rubbed wearily at the back of his neck. "I hate losing you as an Enforcer, and I know you, if she betrays the Breeds, then being exiled would kill you."

It would kill a part of him, he admitted. The fury he would feel at his mate would likely destroy them both, but she was his. He had to believe in the innate justice he sensed within her.

"Give me the six weeks I require, Jonas," he demanded. "I believe once Storme sees us as we are, versus what she's seen and what she's been taught, then she'll give us the research. If we force it from her, she will never forgive the Breeds, and she could become an enemy none of us can control."

"I'd hate to have to kill her, Styx." Jonas's voice hardened at the thought of Storme becoming an enemy.

"That's not a duty that would fall to your shoulders," Styx reminded him.

It was a duty Styx would have to carry out.

"Do you think I would allow that?" Jonas came slowly to his feet, his hands flat on the desk as he glared back at Styx. "I would not allow that any more than I would allow Dash to kill that precious child, Cassie, that we all had a hand in raising. Fuck Breed Law in that instance, Styx. Have no doubt, no fear, that measures are already in place to have this taken care of if Storme decides to betray us, or if the Council manages to take Cassie with no hope of rescuing her. I won't allow that."

"So you take it on your shoulders?" Styx narrowed his eyes back at the other man, suddenly seeing another side of Jonas that was kept well hidden. "Don't you worry that one day you'll stumble and drop the weights you hold?"

For a second, those eerie silver eyes flashed with a strength, a hidden core of pure titanium that Styx hadn't suspected.

"There is nothing I wouldn't do to ensure the survival of the Breeds," Jonas growled. "There's nothing I wouldn't do to make damned fucking certain my mate and my children live in a world where they won't experience the atrocities, the pure hell we suffered in our creation. Have no doubt, Styx, I would never allow a mate or a father to hesitate in such duties, as I know you would. Our people will not be destroyed because of one woman's or one man's prejudice any more than I would allow a child such as Cassie to suffer the hell I know she would suffer if she were taken. And if I stumble, then there are safeguards in place to ensure my orders are carried out."

Ghost Team. Styx had heard a vague rumor of the specially trained, select team of Breeds Jonas had put together well before he had been elected as director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs.

Like most Breeds, Styx had believed it was no more than a fable. But that fable was the only thing he could think of that could possibly carry out such an order.

"If your hand or your order takes the life of my mate, then watch your back, Jonas," Styx warned him as he felt the animal genetics that created him kicking in place at the thought of any risk to Storme. "Be damned sure you watch your back."

Turning, Styx stalked from the office and back to the front door. He ignored Rachel's questioning voice as she stepped from the kitchen and saw him leave. He didn't slam the door, not a sound was made as it closed. A clear indication to Jonas as he watched from the office door that the Wolf, the warrior Breed Styx was created to be, was fully dominant.

He fought back a smile, slid his hands in the pockets of his slacks and glanced back at his mate as she frowned at him suspiciously.

"What are you up to, Jonas?" Ah, how well she knew him. She was the other half of him just as he had always known she would be.

"Sometimes, human and Breed alike need a subtle little push to do what I feel they should do," he told her as he leaned against the door frame and allowed his gaze to rove over her slowly.

Her body was nearing the "heat" again. He could sense it, scent it as she watched him with those beautiful, suspicious blue eyes.

"What you feel they should do." Her brows lifted at the statement. "Jonas, do you ever worry that one day one of these Breeds you maneuver may decide to kill you rather than tolerate your interference any longer?"

It was a question she posed to him often.

Jonas grinned, as he always did. "They like you too much, mate. They wouldn't see you suffer for my sins."

And there were days he suspected that was much too close to the truth. His Enforcers went to her to complain, to rail, to rage and to threaten him. She soothed their ruffled fur, commiserated with them and generally kept him alive from one day to the next, he had no doubt.

Rachel crossed her arms over her breasts, cocked her curvy little hip and arched a brow mockingly. "One of these days, I just might help them."