Rule Breaker (Breeds 20)

“I’ll be damned if it makes sense.” He shook his head, careful to keep his voice low as he spoke.

“What doesn’t make sense?” she asked, frowning back at Rule and Gypsy. “At first thought, there’s not a chance they would suit each other. A good-time party

girl? Who knew she was such an excellent social image developer?”

“She’s not his mate,” Lawe stated softly, sadly even.

Diane stilled, then turned back to him in shock. “Are you certain?”

Lawe continued to watch his brother and the woman resting in his arms as they swayed to the music.

“She carries his scent,” he frowned, trying to make sense of it. “But it could be because they’re lovers, nothing more. There are no similar scents of lust. With mates, there’s a scent they share, whether its lust, love or some other emotion that develops into love. They don’t share it.”

Diane turned back and watched the couple as well. “If she’s not in love with him, then she’s falling.”

Was she? There was definitely something there, but Lawe couldn’t make sense of what it was.

He’d drawn their scents in countless times, and each time he’d done so he’d sworn he’d sensed Rule’s senses drawing further away from him. As though the animal part of him were hiding.

But why do that? What would it serve Rule or his senses to weaken themselves in such a way? What could be so important that the animal felt the need to hide it?

A sudden suspicion slipped into his mind, causing his eyes to widen.

“What?” His lovely mate turned back to him, frowning as she stared up at him. “You’ve thought of something?”

He shook his head slowly. Son of a bitch, why hadn’t he figured it out sooner? “I know my brother.”

“Meaning?”

She knew him, his lovely mate, and she knew how it bothered him when he’d felt Rule drawing so far away from him when they’d first arrived in Window Rock, and then especially so when Rule had offered to trade mates with him, when there was no mating scent on him.

“She has a very subtle, barely there, unique scent that I can’t place. Rule’s senses are suddenly shuttered, as though the animal part of his genetics is hiding from me. Or perhaps from any Breed senses, period.”

“I’m getting impatient, Lawe.” She sighed and he had to grin. She was dying to know if Gypsy McQuade was Rule’s mate.

“She’s his mate, but he’s not mating her,” he explained, wanting to laugh at the chances that Rule’s animal could actually act in a manner so separate from the man it inhabited.

“You’re not making sense.” She shook her head.

“Rule’s determined he’ll never risk a woman as Elder risked our mother,” he explained, sobering at the thought of Morningstar Martinez’s horrific death. “The thought of ever facing even the chance of losing someone so important as a mate has him stubbornly determined to ensure that if he ever senses her, he has the option of running as fast and as far from her as possible.”

“I know all this, Lawe,” she drawled. “Get to the punch line already.”

“The punch line?” He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her to his chest as he danced her onto the dance floor, carefully staying clear of Rule as he spoke. “Rule’s animal senses his mate. The animal is determined to possess her, to own her heart, but knows that should Rule consciously realize what she is to him, he’s going to run.”

“So basically, the animal, or his subconscious instincts, is hiding the fact that she’s his mate?” she asked, disbelief coloring her voice.

“Exactly.” It was simply all he could do not to laugh at the position his brother had managed to find himself in. “No one can convince Rule she’s his mate, because the animal is holding the mating back until there’s no way Rule can run from her. Only then, only when he has no other choice, will his animal instincts snap back into place and initiate the Mating Heat.”

“Mind over matter,” she breathed out, shocked far deeper than Lawe himself was.

“Pure stubborn will,” Lawe amended, stroking his hand down his mate’s back, feeling the heat, the warmth of her, and knowing that if he lost her, he’d follow her as soon as he sought vengeance for her.

There was no way he would be able to survive the never-ending hell of existing without her.

“So, how do you intend to make him realize he can’t run from her, or deny her any longer?” Pure anticipation filled her voice.

“Bloodthirsty wench,” he chuckled, bending his head to brush a kiss against the mating mark, which a wide collar-style necklace of gleaming silver hid. When his head rose, he knew that his own satisfaction filled his gaze. “For the moment, I’m just going to watch him bury himself in the hole he’s making. Once he’s realized what he’s done, I want to sit back and enjoy the show.”