“I’ve managed to dull the mating heat for the time being,” Ely spoke. “But it’s only going to work if you two try to keep a handle on yourselves here.”

It was then that Scheme noticed the machines she was tied to. She recognized most of them, but the one her right index finger was attached to had her brows drawing into a frown.

“Hormonal indicator,” Ely explained. “I had to readjust the hormones and trick your body into thinking Tanner had been doing the nasty with you.” She waggled her brows suggestively.

Scheme stared back at her suspiciously before turning back to Tanner.

“This isn’t the doctor who checked me earlier. Someone should look for the real one.”

Ely’s smile was self-deprecating. “I was wrong about you,” she said simply.

Scheme snorted. “I’m really not willing to go through this every time someone here gets in a snit. And put a leash on that kid; he’s dangerous.” Her eyes drifted closed. “You guys need to learn how to avoid conflict,” she muttered. “Go to school.”

“Do what?” Tanner chuckled.

“Go to school. Teaches you all kinds of neat stuff. Public school, hell of an invention.”

She drifted, aided no doubt by the drugs dripping into that IV in her arm. She liked drugs, she decided. She really liked them.

“I’m gonna sleep,” she mumbled, frowning. She had done something really bad; she knew it. “Tell David mum.”

“Mum?” Tanner’s voice sounded far away.

“Mums thaword,” she slurred. “Tell David mum.”

And the curtain swept over her. It wasn’t dark, frightening or smothering. Just a gentle silken veil that covered her and eased her from the pain and the worry.

She would deal with David later.

“Ely?” Tanner whispered as he smoothed Scheme’s long hair back from her forehead and watched her worriedly.

“A week, she’ll be good as new.” Ely shrugged. “The hormones will rush to heal her body first. It will delay the symptoms of the mating heat to allow the body enough time to strengthen for it. Ain’t Mother Nature great?”

Tanner sighed in relief. He couldn’t bear to have to take her in the shape she was in. It would have destroyed him.

“She’s strong,” Ely said. “I was listening to Jonas debrief David as the nurse checked him out. He said she fought to get him out of there, to get him away from Tamber. Then she traded herself for him, claiming she had information no one else had.”

Tanner narrowed his eyes on her. “And Tamber believed her?”

Ely shrugged, but Tanner could detect the scent of her concern. She was bothered by this, more than she should have been.

“And David didn’t know what it was about?” Tanner asked her.

She shook her head. “He said he didn’t.” The scent of nervous fear was a subtle fragrance now. She didn’t believe him, and neither did Tanner.

If Scheme was still holding secrets, then she would never be safe from Cyrus Tallant. Not that she was anyway.

“How long will she be out like this?” he asked, staring at her face, his chest aching with the bruises that marred her creamy flesh.

“She’ll be in and out for a few days,” Ely told him. “She’s hurt, Tanner, not dying.”

“I want her in her own bed.” He smoothed her hair back, feeling the silkiness of it even as he pulled free several more twigs. “I want her comfortable.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Ely said softly. “She’s going to be okay, Tanner. I promise.”

“This time,” he whispered. “This time.”

He wiped his hands over his face, breathing out wearily. Tallant wouldn’t stop. He would never let Scheme go. Not until she was dead.

“Once the mating heat stills, Tanner, we need to do a CAT on her ovaries and fallopian tubes. She has the same concentrations of an unknown hormone in her system that Sherra showed when her body was repairing the tubal. We need to check on that.” Ely’s voice was still soft, compassionate.

A child. Her body could be preparing to conceive. It most likely was preparing to conceive. Many of the hormones associated with Breed mating heat hadn’t been completely identified. The research into it was slower due to the extreme need to keep the facts of the heat hidden from the world.

God help him, another attack like this, during pregnancy, would be disastrous. He couldn’t let it happen again. But God help him if he knew how to stop it.

Shaking his head, he looked around the small medical room. On the other side of a curtain was Jolian Brandeau. She hadn’t survived the surge of electricity Tamber had slammed into her brain with the tazer. She had died instantly, no doubt as Tamber had intended.

Cabal was behind the curtain with her, and the scent of his regret and pain washed over Tanner. They hadn’t trusted Scheme where the girl was concerned, and now they would all pay for that. Cabal more so than others, Tanner suspected. They had all known Jolian fancied herself in love with Cabal. She was pathetically shy around him, yet the scent of her pleasure when he was near was like summer itself. But the smell of deception that centered around her had always thrown them off. The deception was the love she believed she had kept secret.

Ely’s gaze followed Tanner’s to that curtain, grief twisting her expression as she turned back to him.

“She was a good kid,” she whispered.

“Yes.” Tanner breathed out roughly. “She was a good kid. Take care of Cabal for me, Doc.”

Ely looked at him in surprise. “He’ll be fine, Tanner. The two of you have your mate—”

“Scheme isn’t Cabal’s mate,” he revealed, staring down at the woman he loved beyond life. “She’s mine. Just completely, all mine.”

Ely blinked at him in shock. “We can smell the scent on him, Tanner,” she suddenly whispered. “Is it possible—” She looked back to the curtain. “Dear God. Was she his mate?”

Tanner shook his head. “It wasn’t her, Ely. And it’s not Scheme.”

“Then what?”

“Twins.” Tanner’s smile was sad. “He was almost Scheme’s mate. Trust me, that’s a hell of a place to be. It’s hell, period. Now, help me get her to our room. I need to hold my mate.”

Cabal heard the door close, felt the absence of others and slowly sat down beside the cot that held Jolian’s pale, lifeless form. The vibrancy, hope and shy quest for happiness that had always bloomed in her face was gone now. It now held frozen regret, as though she had known the moment she felt that shock hit her head that she would never awaken again.

I wouldn’t hurt your mate, Cabal, she had told him tearfully as he interrogated her the day before. Don’t you know, I would die for your mate. I would give my life to make certain you never suffered again.

Or would you destroy her out of jealousy? he had questioned her coldly, then watched as a tear trailed down her cheek.

But I’m not jealous. Her voice had been rough, aching with longing. Envious maybe, but not jealous. Your happiness is too important for me to ever feel jealousy—

His throat tightened now as he reached out, his fingertips smoothing back a lock of silky black hair from her forehead.

“I’m sorry, Joley,” he whispered, using the name he had given her rather than the name she had chosen. “I’m so sorry.”

And there he sat, his soul aching with the sudden knowledge that now he was truly alone. Tanner had Scheme, and for a while he had entertained the idea of giving little Jolian a few weeks, maybe a few months in his bed. She was soft. Sweet. And she loved him.

The selfishness of that thought slammed into his head now. She had loved him. He knew she had loved him, and he had waited, waited to see if Tanner’s mate was his as well. Waited because he knew Jolian wasn’t a woman that would ever take to the sexual antics he and Tanner played. Waited to see if his own future was connected to Tanner’s, and if not, then he had Jolian.

And now he no longer had Jolian. He no longer had anyone.

CHAPTER 31

ONE WEEK LATER

Scheme stared in silence at the image on the television screen, her heart aching with regret and a sense of things that had never been. Jonas had offered to let her be a part of the team paired with government authorities sent to arrest her father for crimes against Breed Law, multiple charges of murder against non-Breeds and charges of conspiracy to incite civil unrest.

Cassa Hawkins had been chosen to cover the arrest and been given an exclusive interview with Jonas, Tanner and Scheme on the charges.

One of Cassa’s questions to her had been about closure. Would she receive any closure with her father’s certain conviction and death sentence for the charges against him? Closure, Scheme had realized, had come with her mating with Tanner and her acceptance in Sanctuary. There was no need for closure with a man who had never truly been a father. There was only a sense of sadness, of relief. The monster had been conquered.

“I love you, Princess.” Cyrus Tallant looked tearfully into the camera after he was charged. “Always remember I loved you.”

Tanner growled in fury at the declaration. “Do you have to watch this?”

He paced the floor behind her, his hands shoved into his slacks, his expression creased into a scowl.

“It doesn’t hurt, Tanner,” she told him, not for the first time.

“I hate it when you lie to me, Scheme,” he rasped angrily. “So stop.”

Was she lying? Maybe she was, not just to him but to herself.

“General Tallant, do you have a comment on the allegations by your daughter that you forced an abortion of the child she carried eight years ago?” Cassa asked the general as they stood in his opulent foyer and the officers snapped restraints on his wrists. “Doctors, both Breed as well as conventional, have verified the evidence of abortion as well as a procedure to ensure no future conception. Did you destroy your own grandchild?”

He gazed into the camera, grief-stricken, his eyes filled with tears. “I love you, Princess,” he repeated.

“Guilt,” Scheme said softly. “He thinks he can inspire guilt. He’s already working his defense. Does he know yet that his lawyers have refused to handle the case?”

“I didn’t ask him,” Tanner snarled.

“He’s breaking,” she mused. “He won’t live to see a trial.”

Tanner paused behind her chair. “What makes you think that?”

“He knows too much about the inner council.” She watched Cyrus’s shoulders slump as he was led from his mansion. Behind him, his second in command and heir apparent stood stoically in the background.

“I never guessed he was working with Jonas,” Scheme commented in regards to John Bollen. “He’s a cold bastard.”

“Yes, he is,” Tanner agreed. “He and Jonas must get along famously.”

He still hadn’t forgiven Jonas for allowing her to do the job she had set for herself eight years before.

“I make my own choices,” she reminded him, not for the first time.

“Wrong. You and I make the choices now. Remember that.”

“And if I don’t?” She glanced over her shoulder. Tanner’s tension was so thick now it wrapped around her, tingling across her flesh as she picked up the remote and flipped off the interview. Some things, her mate couldn’t handle. The regrets that filled her at times were perfect examples.

“Then I’ll spank you!”

She leaned into the corner of the chair, aware that the position loosened the front of her robe that had only been quickly tied after her shower, and bared her lotioned legs. Tanner didn’t miss the sight. His gaze sparked with lust as he moved around the chair.

Scheme didn’t give him time to pin her in her seat. She rose to her feet, gripped his shoulders as she turned and pushed him back into the chair.