Hopefully he was so deep in meditation he wouldn’t notice she’d escaped until she was long gone.
Jordana turned her attention away from him and took a step forward.
“Good morning.” The golden man from the terrace now stood directly in front of her.
A startled cry caught in her throat. Jordana threw a wild glance over her shoulder to the balcony outside, just to confirm what she was seeing.
He wasn’t there anymore.
No, he’d vanished from his position several dozen feet away and had materialized barely an inch from where she stood. Shoulder-length blond hair shot with burnished shades of copper haloed a face blessed with perfect angles, flawless bronzed skin, and arresting, tropical blue eyes.
So the psycho who kidnapped her was not only gentlemanly and an art connoisseur but gorgeous besides. That didn’t make him any less of a threat.
He reached for her, and Jordana screamed in earnest now. Fear and fury swelled inside her like a rising fire until it exploded out of her on a sharp, terrified yell. At the same time, she gave her abductor’s massive body a hard shove and tried to dodge left to get around him.
To her amazement, he stumbled backward half a pace before righting himself and catching her around her upper arms. He actually seemed pleased.
“Impressive. Your powers are still young, of course, but they’re already strong. They’re manifesting quickly now.”
Jordana’s hands tingled with the pricks of a thousand tiny needles. She’d felt the odd sensation before—most recently while making love with Nathan, a memory, and a longing, that made her heart ache sharply in her breast.
Now she glanced down at her palms and was astonished to find them imbued with warm, glowing light. Faint, but unmistakable.
And not a little disturbing.
“Oh, my God,” she gasped at her captor. “What’s going on? Who are you? What have you done to me?”
“Shit.” He let go of her and gave a mild shake of his head. “I’m scaring you. I’m sorry, Jordana.”>Something still wasn’t making sense. Nathan failed to find the logic in Cass’s plan.
And deep down, a possessive, protective brand of fury sparked to life in him when he thought of Jordana with any male other than him.
“Why not let her choose who she wants to take as her mate? The blood bond is sacred. It’s unbreakable.” Nathan nearly spat the words, recalling how easily Gates would have pushed Jordana onto his crony, Elliott Bentley-Squire. A decent man, maybe, but a man who didn’t love her.
Not like Nathan did, fiercely and with his whole heart.
“You would’ve locked her into an irrevocable union, all for the sake of a promise made without her consent?” Nathan blew out a violent curse. “Jordana is an extraordinary woman. You raised her; you ought to know that. She deserves more than you or anyone else of your choosing could give her as her mate. God knows she sure as hell deserves more than I could ever give her.”
Gates lifted his chin, understanding flickering across his features. “You really do love her.”
Nathan gave a firm nod, his chest heaving with the intensity of everything he felt for Jordana. “I do,” he answered solemnly. “But even if I didn’t—even if I’d never met her—I would tell you that no Breedmate should be forced into a bond she doesn’t want. Not for any reason.”
Gates stared at him. “I never said Jordana was a Breedmate.”
A sound of disbelief went up, though whether it came from Chase or one of Nathan’s team members in the room, he wasn’t sure.
Nathan could count on one hand the number of times he’d been struck silent for any reason. Never like this. Never with the sense that the floor had opened up beneath him and left him dangling over an abyss of uncharted terrain.
Chase spoke where Nathan was unable. “What do you mean, she’s not a Breedmate?”
“Jordana’s mother wasn’t human,” Gates said. “She was one of Cass’s kind.”
“Are you saying Jordana is fully immortal?” Chase pressed.
Gates nodded. “She is Atlantean, as were both her parents.”
Finally, Nathan found his voice. “She has the Breedmate mark.” He could see the small, scarlet-colored teardrop and crescent moon symbol in his mind. He’d stroked it more than once as they’d made love. “It’s on the inside of Jordana’s left wrist.”
“A tattoo in the shape of the mark,” Gates clarified. “Cass inked it on her himself when she was an infant, soon after he took her out of the Atlantean realm.”