she could handle it, she assured herself as she watched the doctor, keeping her expression fierce. it seemed neither he, nor taber, responded to anything other than complete determination and more than one threat of physical violence.

doc martin heaved an impatient breath. "young woman, let's get these tests completed first..."

"you touch me and you may not be walking straight for days." she cocked her leg back as he watched it warily. "i want answers before you stick another needle, swab or whatever the latest device of torture is at the moment." she sure as hell didn't like the looks of that damned speculum he was holding in his

"roni, i told you what was wrong." taber stepped closer.

roni turned her head slowly, watching him with all the pent up violence raging through her system. he stopped again, only feet from the gurney this time.

"a mating does not a relationship make," she told him with false sweetness before turning back to the doctor. "answers, if you please. in english would be nice, too," she ventured, unwilling to try to understand whatever doctor's jargon he used.

"in a nutshell," he sighed. "for the time being, your body is addicted to the hormone contained in taber's saliva as well as his semen. the effects are intense, bringing violent illness and pain, which only goes away after, uuhh...relations are attained." he flushed before her shocked gaze. "the best we've been able to figure is that it's nature's way of ensuring the species.normally, the minute amount of normal sperm the feline breed males possess makes them virtually impotent. but the hormone infecting you forces your body to ovulate every three days. to further ensure procreation, it strengthens normal arousal to the point that it cannot be denied."

roni cursed her own stubbornness. she could feel the blood draining from her face as her stomach pitched and her mind fought to reject the diagnosis.

"it ends with conception?" her voice was thready as she fought to speak.

"the symptoms left merinus upon conception," he agreed. sympathy filled his voice. "it is something that, so far, seems to occur only with a woman with whom the emotions of the feline breed are involved. a natural mate, in callan and merinus' case. it has never occurred before."

she pressed her hands to her stomach, swallowing tightly, refusing to allow herself to be sick.

"prevent conception." her voice was shaking.

"roni..." taber's protest was ignored.

she stared up at the doctor, fighting the rage rising sharply within her. she would not allow this. she couldn't.

"i don't care what you have to do, or how you do it, but stop it."

taber stood still, refusing to speak despite the pain lodging in his chest. he could hear the terror shaking in her voice, the pain rocking through her and would have given his own life then and there if it would save her from this.

he couldn't bear the stark agony resonating through her voice. god help him, he would give anything to go back, to take back the mark, to make this easier on her somehow.

"i'm sorry, roni." martin's voice echoed his own regret. "if i could do this for you, i would. iud won't

work. the body will reject it. the hormone is affecting every organ, working to ensure conception. the same for the depo shot and the birth control pills. we've found no way to prevent this. not yet."

it was then she turned to taber. his soul shattered with pain as he glimpsed her eyes. they were deep, shadowed wells of misery that had every animal instinct inside him demanding that he protect her. she was terrified and he had no idea how to help her.

he stepped to her before she could speak, his hand weaving through the tangled strands of her hair as the other caught her close. and in that second he damned his own soul. his lips took hers, his tongue plunging into her mouth, forcing her to accept him despite her instinctive cry of rejection. she would never make it through this while everything inside her clamored for him, the hormone attacking not just her mind, but her body as well. her hands caught his shoulders as a whimpering cry whispered from her throat. but her tongue stroked his, her lips drawing on him as her breath hitched on a sob.

he held her tightly, easing her, stilling the instinctive rejection of the tests the doctor needed to perform. when he pulled back, her eyes were nearly black with emotion, tear-filled and hazy with arousal.

"with my life, roni," he pledged to her. "with everything i am, i swear to you, i will protect you and any child that comes of this. whatever you want i will give you, baby, as god is my witness. anything to make up for what i have done to you."

he could barely hold back his own tears. he who had never cried, who had fought emotion since he had first learned of its effect on him. he would give her anything she desired, if only it could ease the pain he knew was flaying her soul.

her arms tightened around him, her face pressing against his chest, her shoulders quivering as she fought her own sobs. he tightened his hold on her, bending protectively over her, rocking her, hating himself with every cell in his body.

finally, she drew in a deep, hard breath. her nails clenched at his back and he felt the dampness of her tears on his shirt.

"no more tests," she whispered.

"taber, i need those tests. all we've had to go on were merinus' samples..."

taber snarled in fury. his head turned, his gaze locking on the doctor's as he fought to protect her from any further pain.

"a swab only," martin demanded. "for god's sake. this isn't just her, taber. it's the future."

he tensed, intending to pull her from the table and stalk from the room.

"no. he's right." her arms tightened around him as shudders quaked through her. "he's right. i can do this. i can." but she didn't release her hold of him.

"i'll hold you, baby." he lowered her slowly to the gurney, remembering sherra relating how callan had been forced to do the same for merinus. "just hold onto me, roni. i won't let you go."

it was hell. roni forced back her screams as everything inside her protested the doctor's touch, his tests, his soothing voice. she knew she was leaving deep marks in taber's back from the grip her fingers had on him, but couldn't seem to care. it was that or scream. that, or fight to be free. she breathed in hard and deep. she could do this. she wasn't a quitter. she could fight. she had forgotten that in the past year since taber's desertion. she knew how to hold herself together when the fear was like a beast clawing at her stomach.

one second at a time. one minute at a time. one hour at a time. it had saved her before. she could think later, when the pain had eased, when the terror had lessened and her mind had absorbed the rushing change that had fallen into her life. then she could find safe ground. then she would think.

"you leave me again and i'll kill you!" she jerked violently as the doctor used his demon's tools to examine her. "i swear to god, taber. i may not be woman enough for you, but if you leave me after this, i'll make you pay. i'll cut your black heart from your chest myself and then i'll carve your cock into so many tiny pieces you'll never find them all."

and she would, she promised herself as she throttled the scream wanting to break free from her throat. she could feel the tension in taber as well, the furious growls coming from his chest, his protective, fierce hold on her body. he was hers for now. she would deal with the future when she had to.

chapter seventeen

"i will assume you're pregnant." roni fought to keep her voice calm as she came to a stop at the small glass table merinus sat next to on the back deck of the house. "what's next? what do i have to look forward to?"

she had slipped from the bedroom after taber left, after another insane, lust-filled hour in his bed. she had showered, changed into her borrowed jeans and another of taber's shirts and come in search of the only other known feline mate.

the other woman was watching the construction of a high fence an acre from the sheltered porch, her expression pensive. the men worked on the twelve-foot high barricade being stretched from post to post with an almost fanatical vigor, as though nothing were more important than getting the steel-linked barrier in place.

"you know," merinus said softly, sighing with aching regret, "this estate was so beautiful when we first saw it. stately, graceful, despite the horrible experiments that were practiced in the buildings that once stood where those men are working. everything was peaceful, as though its very elegance distanced it from the horror those who owned it practiced."

merinus tapped a perfectly manicured nail on the glass top restlessly. "now look at it. fences everywhere. wild animals turned loose for protection, and nightly attempts to break the security callan is trying to enforce. the bastards will never stop until they're put out of their insane misery, like rabid dogs."

with each word, anger pulsed and throbbed in the other woman's voice as she turned her head, her gaze meeting roni's fiercely. "yes, i'm pregnant, by a man i would have gladly given my life to save, roni. a man who has faced more horror than you can ever imagine in your life. daily, he faces his worse nightmare. nightly, he awakens in a sweat after having dreamed the child and i were taken. who is suffering more? me, who he protects? or callan, who knows the consequences should it happen?"

awareness pulsed like a hidden ache in merinus' voice. her love for callan throbbed in every syllable. her fear for him and her unborn child was like a living fire in her eyes.

"it would seem to me both of you are suffering. you don't sound unaware of the dangers or the consequences, merinus." roni tilted her head to the side as the brown eyes watching her warmed only marginally.

"no, i'm not, but you are." she waved her hand to the vacant seat across from her. "share some coffee with me. decaf, unfortunately." her lips twisted with a hint of self-mockery. "i so miss the caffeine." the last words were drawn out, dripping with an almost palatable thirst for something that didn't even have a taste.

"decaf doesn't stress you." roni shrugged as she took her seat. "and whatever the hell those men do to your body, the caffeine only makes it worse. i found that out after taber decided to do the marking thing on me."

"the marking thing?" merinus laughed in delight, a bit of the strain easing from her face. "that's as good a word for it as anything. but damn if it can't be fun."

roni glimpsed the remembered fire in merinus' gaze. her eyes were soft with the memories, her lips curved as though they brought her comfort.

"you don't...burn anymore?" roni asked her hesitantly, wondering if she would ever sit outside taber's presence again and not ache for him.

"oh, i burn." merinus sat back in her chair, her gaze flickering to the men working once again. "but it's natural now, roni. i wanted callan when he was no more than a picture, a story, a man who had suffered. i wanted him like nothing i had known before in my life. a compulsion. a need i wasn't about to deny. the hormone only kept me from denying it. when i conceived, it was done after i had admitted and realized how much we were a part of each other. it wasn't something i felt was forced on me."

roni looked away. hadn't she wanted taber just as well? from the time she had been eleven to the minute her soul had shattered with that letter he sent her, hadn't she dreamed, longed, loved?

"i was at dayan's funeral," she whispered, remembering how desperately she wanted to go to taber at the time, to ease the grief that lined his face. "it was after taber marked me. but i remember how desperately i hurt for him, not sexually, but because i could see his pain."