So many years since the revelation of their existence, and still they were fighting that battle.
It was a battle Navarro feared they would never win. A battle he feared would end up seeing them once again in hiding and fighting to simply survive.
Now he was showered and dressing in the fine cotton khaki pants, dress shirt and the comfortable leather boots he preferred when not on mission.
Stylish.
He brushed back the thick, straight black strands of his hair before striding from the large bathroom and through the bedroom, coming to a slow, cautious stop.
His head lifted, his nostrils flaring, as the scent of her reached him, sliding across his senses like the softest caress. Like the stroke of her fingers.
His cock hardened, and damn, just that fast he was so hard it was fucking painful.
He smothered a groan, his hands running through his hair as a hard grimace tightened his lips. This wasn’t his day. It wasn’t his week, that was obvious. That today—he gave his head a hard shake before quickly running his tongue over his lower teeth.
Okay, no swollen glands.
He wasn’t snarling for sex, just on the verge of growling for it.
Not mating. Yet.
Gripping the back of his neck, he wondered what the hell was going on here, but he couldn’t seem to stop hungering for her. His ability to take another woman had even dimmed. All interest in having any female but Mica in his bed had deserted him since the night he’d kissed her at Haven more than a month before.
She was out there. She was waiting on him.
His lips quirked, almost in a grin. And she was certain she was going to surprise him. Because she believed his recessed genetics included his sense of smell.
He almost shook his head. He was going to have to tell her the truth soon, but damn if it hadn’t been nice, the moment she had relaxed, believing she could be herself with him. That she didn’t have to stress out over him sensing her little exaggerations of the truth. Over her body’s hot little reaction to him.
Like how hot and wet her pussy got whenever he was around.
How hot it was now.
He wasn’t a Breed to ignore such need either.
Continuing his journey through the bedroom, he stepped through the doorway into the comfortable sitting room of the suite, then came to a quick stop, as though surprised.
She wasn’t going to be happy when she learned the truth of that supposed recessed sense.
“Now, I’m fairly certain I locked the door.” His brow arched as he stared back at her, rather impressed at how comfortable she looked as she lounged in the high-backed chair that sat across from him.
Mica smiled demurely. “I’m really quite adept at picking locks. Did Jonas forget to mention that?”
“He did,” he admitted as he tilted his head slightly to the side and watched her with a curious sense of amusement and felt those tendrils of emotion reaching out to him once again.
“I hear you’re the big bad bodyguard here.” Her smile, though tentative, was just charming as hell. The Cupid’s bow curve of her lips and the gleam of laughter that brightened the green in her golden green eyes transformed her face from incredibly pretty to completely sensual.
“I heard I was your big bad bodyguard,” he amended, watching her closely as she moved stiffly to her feet, his senses catching the stiffness and pain in her ribs that she refused to give in to.
“That’s what I heard too.” She tossed him a flirty little smile that had his balls tightening. “And I was told I had to come find you before I could leave the main house. So let’s get going, bodyguard of mine.”
“And where exactly would we be going?” he asked, moving behind her as he picked up the jacket she had thrown over the chair just inside the door.
Collecting the black leather overcoat he’d retrieved from the locker he maintained in Sanctuary’s enforcer quarters, he followed her through the door, closed it and locked it securely as she stood back and watched him.
“Where are we going then?” he asked.
“Dr. Morrey has ordered me to the labs for a checkup,” she told him, not in the least pleased by that fact. “Jonas seems to think I should have X-rays, and my parents are having conniptions because I didn’t want to. To keep Mom from sobbing on the phone, I promised I’d do it immediately.” She headed for the stairs.
“We could take the elevator.” Reaching out, he caught her wrist before she could take the first step. “It would be easier on your ribs.”
“They’re sore, not broken,” she informed him, that displeasure turning on him now.
“Sore enough that you willingly took the elevator when we arrived yesterday morning,” he reminded her. “The only reason you didn’t end up with a broken rib was sheer luck, Mica.”
Her lips thinned as she tucked her hair behind her left ear and glanced at the stairs uncomfortably. “If I give in, then it’s like admitting they hurt me,” she muttered. “I hate that feeling.”
It was a feeling he and more than a thousand Breed males could fully relate to. The Council had had enough power over them that even the thought of showing their pain could fill them with fury.
“They’re not here to see it,” he assured her as he drew her back from the elegant curved staircase of the historic old Southern mansion and led her to the end of the hall where the private elevator was located. “No one is here to see it but me.”
He pressed the down button, then waited as the doors slid smoothly open with a soft hiss before he stepped inside. He almost grinned at the encouraging tug he had to give to her wrist.
Once they were closed within the small cubicle, he pushed the button for the medical labs, and restrained the tension that suddenly wanted to enfold him.
Even as it began to whip around him though, he felt those wisps of warmth that were already becoming much too familiar, as they seemed to reach out to him unconsciously, wrapping around him, and he swore, blocking the rising wariness he felt as the elevator began to slide far below the main floor of the house.
She was staring at the elevator doors with a frown, her expression still mutinous. As Navarro watched her through her reflection in the shiny steel of the doors in front of her, he knew those tendrils of emotion, of warmth, radiating from her had to be subconscious.
Was this the reason Dash rushed this young woman to his daughter’s side whenever Cassie’s life seemed to be spinning out of control? Because the empathy that seemed to be such a natural part of her reached out instinctively to those she cared for?
“I hate elevators,” she sighed. “And this one has always been so slow. When is Callan going to update it to one of those nice fast little models that doesn’t take all day to reach the labs?”
“I believe he may have mentioned something about hell freezing over the last time Jonas asked that question,” Navarro answered ruefully. “You know Callan. He hates changing the interior of the house any more than he has to. He knows all its quirks and all its faults. Says he doesn’t want to learn new tricks.”
“That is just so wrong.” She moved to cross her arms over her breasts, then dropped them to her sides once again with a careful sigh.
“How did they catch you?” It was a question he had avoided asking, uncertain if he really wanted to know the truth of who to begin the killing with.
“A weasel,” she finally answered with an edge of self-disgust. “I was working on a story with one of the reporters at the newspaper. The contact I’d been working with left me a message to meet him, said he had some information.” She looked up at him with an edge of anger. “I should have known better. They were waiting on me when I stepped into the hall that led to the back exit where I was supposed to meet him.”