Free Cooper by Nhys Glover Page B

be activated. I thought there was something wrong with me. Then I looked over at you tonight and something sparked inside me. At the time, I didn't recognise what was happening, but as we sat over coffee my emotions were roiling. The intensity of them terrified me. That's why I had to get away from you, fast.
    "I went back to my brothers and told them what was happening. Caleb found you and your family and discovered you were Guild. I was devastated. I was supposed to be hot-wired to loath Guild on sight. Instead, I looked at you and saw the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen."
    The awe and reverence, as he said those last words, not only embarrassed her but ignited something deep inside. Not her cat, because obviously the bite had done that. But something else. Now it made sense why everyone else thought she was ugly and he saw her as beautiful. She was part of his sub-species; he was programmed to find her attractive. That was both a relieving and depressing thought, so she dismissed it.
    "So we threw around some ideas about what was going on with me, and in the end they decided I needed to stay away from you. And you can see how well that worked out." He gave a little self-deprecating grunt of amusement.
    For a long time, they lay in each other's arms contemplating the enormity of what had happened. For Amy, her world had just turned upside down. She couldn’t reconcile her view of the world to the one he presented to her. It felt right, though, in a way her father’s version never had. Yet her ability to choose was flawed, she knew, so how could she be certain Cooper was telling her was the truth?
    Everything she'd been taught to believe in now appeared to be false, if Cooper was to be believed. She wasn't part of a super-race; an insignificant female member of that race, who hadn't shaped up. She was… Wait, actually, she was part of a super-race. It was just a different super-race, which included panther DNA. That part she couldn’t deny. The evidence was plain to see. And that was still a big problem because she couldn't go home if her eyes stayed the way they were.
    Did she even want to go home, now she'd found out her parents weren’t really her parents? It was almost a relief to know that there was a reason why they didn't love her and why she didn't really love them. This innate loathing might explain her previously inexplicable sense of wrongness when she was around them. Unfortunately, her whole life had been filled with Guild, so she'd come to think that the wrongness was inside her, not in them.
    What if she wasn’t wrong? What if they were?
    "So Amy, I know this is a lot to take in. And it sounds stranger than fiction, as they say, but it's all true, I promise you."
    "I know it is,” she said slowly, feeling her way to what she was coming to accept as the truth. “It feels right. I feel right for the first time in my life. But how do you feel about having me foisted on you as your mate, so our race can go on? I know you're programmed to find me attractive. It probably explains why you got an erection. But being attracted, and wanting to be attracted, are two different things."
    "I guess it's going to take a while to deprogram you, Amy Hays. So let me just say that I couldn't be happier that you turned out to be my mate. I'm drawn to everything about you, inside and out.” He kissed the top of her head and sighed.
    "But I'm not breeding babies with you to continue this war. First of all, I don't think I can. I might have gotten a full erection, but that's a long way from being able to ejaculate fertile sperm. Secondly, I'm not fathering children as cannon fodder for a war without an end."
    He must have sensed her horror at the clinical way he talked. "Sorry if this sounds unromantic. I’m a medical researcher for the Sons. Everything is clinical to me. And sometimes I go too far. When Alice healed Connor's bullet wound a week ago I wanted to carry out some tests on the mates to see the extent of their