Styx's Storm (Breeds 16)

"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 wi

ll, 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."