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were barely human. The implications were a nightmare.
    She released him slowly. Rachel pressed her hands to her stomach as it cramped with a spasm of horror, threatening to heave what little contents she had taken in that day.
    Her gaze flew to the unconscious form of her child as she began shuddering, shaking with such fear now that she wondered how she managed to stay on her feet.
    Amber looked so tiny in the incubator. She'd been born underweight, not sickly but her slight weight had given Rachel months of worry.
    Now she lay pale and unmoving, her mop of red-gold curls laying limp along her tiny head as Rachel slowly released Jonas's arm and backed away from him.
    "Amburg is testing the syringe," Kane reported, a finger pressed against the small communications bud at his ear. "He expects an initial report within thirty minutes."
    "Five minutes or he dies." Jonas turned on Kane, his dark face so much more savage than normal and filled with predatory mercilessness. Rachel had no doubt he meant what he said.
    Coldly, Kane repeated the order.
    Evidently, Amburg didn't argue.
    "Why?" Rachel turned to the only man willing to give answers, the man who had called Jonas his son. Rachel had no idea that Leo Vanderale was a Breed until this moment--until she had seen the wicked incisors at the side of his mouth that he normally kept hidden. "Why would he want to kill Amber?"
    Leo shook his head. "I doubt seriously what he's done was done with the intent to kill her. Anything Brandenmore does is done with the intent to experiment, nothing more. He simply doesn't care if she lives."
    Jonas snarled at Leo again.
    "Why?" Rachel cried again, her voice rising as terror began to steal her senses. "Why would he do it?"
    "Because certain tests have proven that you, as well as your daughter, are viable Breed mates." It was Callan Lyons who answered her, despite the rumble of fury that came from Jonas. "Brandenmore managed to steal certain information from Sanctuary last month, Ms. Broen. That information contained the results of several tests done for Breed mating. Your tests."
    Rachel shook her head. Breed mating was supposed to be nothing more than a rumor, though she had wondered at the truth of it often enough.
    She stared at Callan. Neither he nor Merinus appeared to have aged in the twelve years they had been together. And Kane. She had once worked for Kane. He was in his mid-forties, but appeared to be a decade younger.
    Good genetics; she had heard that given as an excuse.
    There had been a multitude of reasons thrown at the press, as well as scientists who had questioned the phenomenon. No Breed had ever admitted to mating heat though.
    "Tests," she whispered as she tried to control the nausea welling inside her. "I was tested?"
    "The blood, saliva and vaginal samples you were asked to give were to test for your viability as a mate with any Breed that you would come in contact with." Callan nodded shortly as Jonas snarled silently before turning his back on them all. "You tested positive in that viability, which led us to suspect that Amber would be viable as well as she grew older. It was a precaution we had to take, Rachel."
    She shook her head slowly, denying the truth. Merinus hadn't warned her of this. Surely she would have warned her if anything like this were possible.
    "I need all of you out of here," Elizabeth snapped, as she was forced to move around Jonas.
    Blue eyes flashing with ire, she glared up at Jonas. "You and the mother can stay, but get the hell out of my way. The rest of you, clear out. That means you too, Leo." Her tone brooked no refusal.
    Rachel turned her head, stared at Jonas and suddenly the implication of those tests hit her.
    "They think we're somehow mated?" she asked as he kept his back to her.
    "If you have questions, then get out with the rest of them," Elizabeth ordered as she attached electrodes to Amber. "I can't save this child if I have to listen to you berate Jonas at the moment."
    Rachel