Forever Is Not Enough [Council Enforcers 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) (14 page)

Mitch continued. “If any of the rogues make it past that, then they will have Ken and me waiting for them in shifted form.”

Ben felt sorry for any rogue that made it that far. There would only be little pieces to scrape up by the time Mitch and Ken were done with them.

“What about Tessa and me? What are we supposed to do?” Jacqi asked quietly.

Ben felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up at the thought of his mate putting herself in danger. “You won’t be doing anything. You’ll be in the safe room, along with Tessa and Nico.”

“Surely there is something I can do. I want to help. The only reason my father is coming here is because of me and what I did. I just can’t sit back and let you all risk your lives for me.”

Ben turned to Ken. “Have you found anything on Jacqi’s mother?”

“No,” Ken rumbled. “It’s like the woman never existed. I need more information if I’m going to continue to search. What I have now just isn’t enough.”

“Then that’s what you can do, little mate. While you’re working on finding the cure, you can be thinking of anything that can help Ken find out who your mother was. I know you were young, but anything you can remember, no matter how silly it seems, could help.”

“I can do that, but that isn’t the kind of help I was offering and you know it.”Jacqi frowned at him. “I can’t just sit back and watch while you guys risk your lives for me.”

Ben looked over at Mitch, who nodded, signaling the meeting was over. Lifting Jacqi in his arms, he carried her out of the office and straight up the stairs to the room they had been sharing. He needed to have a talk with his little mate about her idea that she could put herself in unnecessary danger. Once in the room, he sat on the bed with her in his lap, not ready to let her go just yet.

“I already know what you’re going to say,” Jacqi said, her face determined. “Could you at least listen to my idea?”

“No.”

“But—”

“No buts, little mate.”

His mate sighed and laid her head on his shoulder. “You have a bad habit of cutting me off.”

“I only do it when I’m right.” Ben laughed. “Which is usually most of the time.” He turned Jacqi so he could see her face. “None of this is your fault. Your father knew we were after him. How could he not? We actually blew up the man’s house, so it was only a matter of time before he came after us here.

“As far as you helping out, the best way you can help is by being in that safe room when the attack comes. If I know you’re anywhere close to the danger, then I won’t be able to concentrate. My focus would be on you and not on my job. It’s the fastest way to get myself or one of the guys killed. I can’t let that happen. Please tell me you understand,” Ben pleaded with his mate. He couldn’t stand her being angry with him or hurt, but making sure she was in that safe room was something he wasn’t budging on.

Finally, Jacqi nodded, and Ben felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. “Thank you,” he said and kissed her. His mate moaned against his mouth when he slid his tongue against hers. The sound sent shivers down his spine and straight to his cock, which had been rock hard since the moment he’d pulled her onto his lap. It seemed he couldn’t get enough of Jacqi, and he had a feeling it would always be that way. Walking around with a constant hard-on was something he was willing to endure as long as he had his mate by his side.

Grabbing Jacqi’s hips, he turned her so that she straddled his lap and pressed her down against the erection tenting his jeans. He moaned at the feel of her against him. Ben trailed kisses down her neck, and his mate craned her head back, giving him room. He grinned when he got close to his mating bite on her shoulder and paused. When he had explained the benefits of mating to her, Ben had purposely left out one detail. He wanted it to be a surprise when she found out. Now, he looked up at his mate. She had her head thrown back and her eyes closed with a look of bliss on her face. Keeping his eyes trained up at her, Ben leaned down and gently grazed his teeth across the mark.

His mate’s reaction was instant as she yelled out. Her eyes shot wide open, and her knees clamped tightly around his waist. “What was that?” she asked, panting for breath.

Ben grinned at her and rubbed his finger over the mark, drawing a whimper from her. “That’s my mating mark. The redness and swelling will go away, but the scar will never fade. When I bit you, it became an erogenous zone, but only in response to me. Any time I touch you here”—he rubbed the spot again to make his point—“it will be a turn-on for you. If any other male were to touch you there, you would feel uncomfortable, almost like you were sick to your stomach.”

Jacqi moaned and pressed her shoulder harder against his finger. “I knew I mated you for a reason.”

Ben laughed at his mate and tossed her to the bed. “I hope that’s not the only reason,” he said, hovering over her.

Jacqi looked up at him through half-closed eyes and grinned wickedly. “At the moment, it’s the only reason I can think of.” She squealed and laughed when Ben dove on top of her.

“That wasn’t nice, little mate,” he said then tsked. “I think you deserve to be punished for that. I wonder how many times I can make you come by just touching my mark.”

Jacqi’s voice was husky when she spoke. “Do your worst.”

Ben grinned. That was a challenge he wasn’t willing to pass up.

Jacqueline lay in bed next to Ben, wide-awake. The man had proven his point about her mating mark until she had lost count and finally passed out. She should have still been asleep, but her brain wouldn’t stop working. An idea was right on the edge of her mind, and the scientist in her wouldn’t let her go back to sleep until she explored the thought thoroughly.

Giving up on getting back to sleep, she eased out of the bed, careful not to wake Ben, and slipped on her clothes. Jacqueline tiptoed out of the room and headed down to her lab in the basement. On the way, she heard sound coming from the kitchen and saw Tessa sitting at the table eating ice cream.

“I didn’t wake you, did I?” Tessa asked as Jacqueline walked into the kitchen.

“No. I couldn’t sleep.”

“As much screaming as you did, I figured you would be out for the night.” Tessa winked.

Jacqueline felt the heat creeping up her neck as she blushed. She opened her mouth a few times, but nothing came out.

Tessa patted her on the hand. “Don’t worry about it.” She tapped her ears. “It’s the hearing. You get used to it after a while. The only downside is that nothing is really private anymore.”

“Oh God. Did Nico hear us?” She could only wonder how much she had probably traumatized the boy.

“No, he was in his room. A few days after Mitch and I mated, I was in the kitchen fixing lunch when Nico came and stood in front of me just staring. When I asked him what was wrong, he wanted to know where my “boo boo” was because he thought I had hurt myself with all the screaming I had been doing. After that, I refused to let my mate touch me again until he had Nico’s room soundproofed. It was one thing for other shifters to hear me having sex, but I was mortified to know that my baby could as well.”

Jacqueline laughed. She couldn’t imagine how embarrassed Tessa had been. “Do I even want to know the explanation you gave him?”

“I was so shocked I couldn’t think of anything to say.” Tessa covered her mouth and giggled. “There was no way I was explaining sex to my two-year-old son, so I did the first thing that came to mind. I stood and limped out of the room pretending I had twisted my ankle. Once I was out of sight, I took off running, screaming for Mitch.”

Jacqueline busted out laughing and slapped her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. She shook her head when Tessa tilted the ice cream carton toward, her offering her some. “No thanks. I was actually headed down to the lab.”

“Would you like some company? I’m not very sleepy myself.”

Jacqueline paused. Growing up with her father, she had never had the opportunity to have any friends. Tessa was the closest thing she ever had to one, and she didn’t know how to handle it. In the lab, she was normally in her own zone, tuning everything out, and she didn’t want to offend the woman by ignoring her. In the end, she decided to take a chance. “Sure, you can come on down. I’ll warn you though. You’ll probably be bored to tears.” Tessa waved her comment away and followed her toward the stairs.

In the lab, Jacqueline thought over everything Ben had told her about mating and the changes she would go through. The first thing she wanted to do was get a blood sample from herself. She already had samples from Ben and the other shifters and one from herself before she mated. At the time, she had taken the sample because she had wanted to compare her human blood to theirs to see the differences. She had hoped it gave her some new ideas for the antidote because she was grasping at straws. Now she was a little curious to see the changes to her blood, if there were any, since she had mated.

Gathering the supplies she needed, Jacqueline set them all on the table and grabbed the tourniquet. Without even being asked, Tessa took it from her and tied it on her arm. She decided that maybe having Tessa in the lab with her wasn’t so bad.

“What are you doing?” Tessa asked.

Jacqueline inserted the needle into her arm and connected vial before answering. “Ben explained the mating process, and I already drew my blood before we mated, so I just wanted to look at the two samples and compare them. Maybe if I can see the difference in the before and after, then I will understand the shifter blood better.”

“Do you think that will help you with the antidote?”

She nodded as Tessa bandaged her arm for her when she removed the needle. “I hope so. At this point, I’ll do just about anything.” She looked up at Tessa. “I can’t lose him.”

Tessa rubbed her shoulder. “I know, honey. I don’t want to lose him either. He was the one who taught me to fight. If it hadn’t been for him, I would have never had the guts to stand up to the rogue that attacked me and Mitch. We would both be dead. For that, Ben will always hold a special place in my heart.”

Jacqueline couldn’t say anything past the lump in her throat. Instead, she got to work, placing a drop of her mated blood on a slide. She set up two microscopes and placed her human slide on one and the mated slide on the other. Once she had the microscopes focused correctly, she looked at her human slide first. There was nothing out of the ordinary with the slide. Her blood cells looked like normal healthy human cells. It was exactly what Jacqueline had expected. When she looked at the slide with her mated blood, she gasped.

“What? What do you see?” Tessa hovered over her anxiously.

“I expected there to be some changes, but I didn’t expect them to be that drastic.” The blood cells in her mated blood looked to be about three times the size of the human ones. They were a bright shade of red, so bright it looked almost as if they were glowing. There was also about ten times as many cells in her mated blood as there were in her human sample. “This is incredible,” Jacqueline said, awed at what she was seeing.

Moving the slide over a little to see more of the sample, she frowned. “That’s odd.” Jacqueline stood and blinked. She rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn’t seeing things before she peered back into the microscope. Mixed in with the red cells, there were a few cells that looked almost black, like they were dead or diseased. She watched, mesmerized as her healthy cells surrounded the black ones. Once they had each cell surrounded, the dead cell seemed to get absorbed until there was nothing left of it. Jacqueline watched this happen several times until there was nothing but healthy red blood cells left in the sample.

She sat back and stared into space. She was aware of Tessa hovering behind her, but Jacqueline’s mind was spinning too much to say anything to her. She kept going over everything she had just seen. What she didn’t understand was where the black cells had come from. She knew she wasn’t sick, and her human sample had proven that. There were only healthy blood cells in that sample. Between the time she had mated and taken the new sample, Jacqueline had somehow been contaminated with something. She just had to figure out with what.

“I bit him!” Jacqueline shouted. She sat forward and grabbed Tessa’s hand. The woman had jumped when she yelled.

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Jacqueline ignored Tessa and jumped up. She grabbed Ben’s blood sample. “When we mated, and Ben bit me, I bit him as well.” She was too excited to be embarrassed to explain. “It wasn’t intentional, but when I came, it was so strong that I clamped down on his shoulder hard enough to draw blood. I swallowed some of that blood. I contaminated myself and didn’t even realize it.”

“Is that a good thing? The way you’re smiling I’m hoping it’s a good thing.”

“Let’s find out.” Jacqueline took a drop of Ben’s blood and placed it on the slide. She then took a drop of her blood and put it on top of Ben’s. She put the slide on the microscope and took a breath to calm herself before peering down into it. Afraid to move in case her eyes were playing tricks on her, she watched as her blood repeated the same process with Ben’s unhealthy blood cells over and over again until there was nothing left but bright red blood cells.

Jacqueline looked up at Tessa and grinned. Her heart was pounding at what she discovered. “I need your blood.”