Styx's Storm (Breeds 16)

One damned thing was certain, he'd not be bored.

Not that he was often bored. There'd been a whole world out there to investigate and to enjoy before he found her. He had a feeling she would challenge him far more than the world ever had though.

Moving into the bedroom, he checked her temperature, tucked the blankets around her again and gazed down at her sleeping face.

She looked at peace for a change.

The tranquilizer she had been shot with hadn't been a powerful one, but the exhaustion and physical weakness had taken their toll on her.

He was betting this was this first decent sleep she'd had in years.

"She's damned pretty."

Styx swung around, his weapon clearing the holster on instinct even as he realized who spoke behind him. He cursed his apparent absorption with his mate, and accepted it at the same time, and blamed it for the fact that he hadn't heard his "grandfather" slip into the cabin.

"You're gonna get yourself killed, my friend," he informed him as he holstered the weapon just as quickly.

A single gray brow lifted as mocking amusement filled Dougal Mackenzie's expression. "I hear there's some question of the mating?" he asked as he entered the bedroom. "I met Nikki outside. She seems to think the mating heat is reacting to a distrust you have of the girl?"

Hell, the old man was going to nosy. That was just what he needed.

"Don't you have your own mate to worry about?" Styx grunted. He was still damned uncomfortable with the fact that his biological grandfather had mated one of the older Wolf Breed females.

Not that there were many of them. Animera had been in her forties when the lab she had been created in, in France, had been liberated. The small facility had housed four Breeds, all females, that were once trained and used as whores for the Council.

Animera was as beautiful as any Breed, though harder than many. Once she had met Dougal, that stony outer shell had cracked though, and the woman hiding within had emerged.

They were a good match, yet watching the man who called himself Styx's "grandfather" becoming younger as the years wore on was damned uncomfortable.

The mating phenomenon was complicated, confusing and had the potential to destroy the Breeds, especially if Dougal's unique reaction to it were ever learned.

"You're staring at me as though I'm a freak again," Dougal snapped. "Don't let's turn this into yelling match, boy."

Styx grunted. "I don't have time for you today." He moved to the door and motioned Dougal to the living room.

"Doesn't surprise me," Dougal grunted. "Ye've not had time for me since Animera and I mated."

Styx grimaced as he headed for the kitchen and the coffee. This man who had created him, called himself his grandfather and insisted on interfering in his life had the ability to make him damned nervous.

"I've been busy," he lied without so much as a twinge of guilt.

Dougal snorted at the excuse. "Ye've been runnin'. What makes ye so damned uncomfortable around me now, boy? The fact that I'm happy for a change?"

"The fact that in the past eight years you seem to have regressed in age a good ten?" Styx questioned him mockingly. "Sorry, Pops, I guess I'm just not used to it. It throws a mon off just a wee bit." Dougal ignored the comment. This was the way of every argument they had. Styx couldn't explain why he was having problems with it, he just knew he was. Give it another six to ten years and his grandfather would look more like his brother.

"I'm sending after the equipment we hid in Scotland," Dougal said then, changing the subject. "Animera and I will be settin' a lab up here to aid Dr. Armani. The equipment we hid is more specialized, some of the technology more advanced than what Vanderale and Lawrence Industries have been providing. I'd like to see if we can't do more to figure out the problem of conception with the Wolf Breeds."

"Perhaps we weren't meant to conceive," Styx growled as he turned to glare at the other man. "The Feline mates conceive fine without help. Hell, they need birth control rather than conception aids. Let nature figure it out herself."

"You don't have the luxury of time, Styx," Dougal retorted, as he had in the past.

"Then we'll make the luxury."

Styx shrugged. Hell, he didn't want to argue over this. He wanted to curl up in the bed with his mate and warm her, to ensure she was never cold again.

"That may not be possible," Dougal warned him, his tone far too somber now. "My contacts within the Council Directorate's ranks called this morning. The Coyote they had chasing her was found in his hotel room this morning, dead. He'd been shot in the back of the head. The weapon used was the same the Montague girl used last month when she wounded one of their soldiers. They're assembling a team to find her."

The bastard had been executed. It served Farce right, and Styx was pretty certain Dog had been the executioner.