Lion's Heat by Lora Leigh

well as human. Her innocent face was somber, the long, heavy curls of her hair flowing around her like a thick, black cape.
    Dressed in jeans, a light sweater and sneakers, there was still no way to pass this particular Breed off as anything but what she was. A very preternatural woman-child.
    "How is your mate?" Cassie propped her arms on her knees before laying her cheek against them and staring up at him inquisitively.
    This was the same young woman that the year previously had stood in front of the Breed tribunal and argued, quite successfully, that the female mate of the Coyote leader had the right to deny her mate. That she could indeed live apart from him, as long as she submitted to close protective supervision. That Breed Law had no right to interfere in free will and a woman's right to choose, and that the Coyote leader, Del Rey Delgado, had unfairly and with deception mated the woman against her free will.
    All of that might well be true, Jonas had argued. But the Coyote leader had rights as well. It was he who would have to know when his mate suffered. It was the male who would have to bear the burden as well as the guilt should anything happen to her once she left his care.
    The Breed tribunal hadn't heeded his arguments. Hell no. Instead, they had stood fast and followed the very skillfully presented argument this child had presented.
    At nineteen, most Breeds were considered so fully grown that the majority of them had been killing for more than four years. Breed children were sent for their first kill between the ages of ten and fifteen.
    Cassie, barely nineteen, had yet to take a life. And with her mix of Coyote and Wolf DNA, she might possibly be more dangerous than any of them.
    Because Cassie sometimes saw ghosts, and because she often knew things she should never know.
    "You're worried," she stated as she watched him too closely with those odd blue eyes. "What's wrong, Jonas?"
    Unfortunately for him, Cassie was one of the few people he was fond of. She had practically been raised in Sanctuary. Her Wolf Breed stepfather had come to the Felines for help while trying to save her and her mother's lives. Because of that initial call for help, Cassie was now a part of them.
    "I rarely worry, Cassie," he assured her with a slight grin as he took a seat next to her on the stairs. "Let's just say this hasn't been one of my better days."
    "Because your mate is still denying you?" Playful humor glinted in her gaze as her lips quirked with a charming smile.
    "Because my mate is a stubborn woman," he argued.
    Cassie leaned back to rest against the step behind her. "Perhaps it's not stubbornness so much as it is fear," she stated then. "You would be a very hard man to walk into a mating with, I think."
    "Ah, Cass, I thought you loved me." He chuckled.
    She didn't smile back. Instead, she turned and gazed thoughtfully at the door for a long moment before turning back to him.
    "Do you ever hate your life, Jonas?" she asked.
    "No." He shook his head decisively. "I don't hate my life at all, Cassie. Though sometimes I must admit I hate those who attempt to destroy the life I and those like us have the right to live."
    She nodded slowly again. "That's why you fight so hard for us. It's why some of us love you so much that we would do anything to see you happy and to see that you never regret your life."
    Jonas frowned back at her. "Okay kid, you were waiting here for a reason. What was it?"
    She nibbled at her lip for a moment as she considered her next words.
    "Many Breeds don't like me. Do you know that, Jonas?"
    He reached out and mussed the top of her hair a bit. "I love you, squirt."
    The gesture didn't bring the usual smile from Cassie.
    "I frighten them," she said softly. "I'm not one of them, yet I am. I know things I shouldn't. And they fear what I could mean to their lives. Do you fear what I could mean to your life, Jonas?"
    He tilted his head and stared back at her with a sense of understanding. Cassie wanted to