Forever Is Not Enough [Council Enforcers 2] (Siren Publishing Classic)

the night.” Tessa winked.
    Jacqueline felt the heat creeping up her neck as she blushed. She opened her mouth a few times, but nothing came out.
    Tessa patted her on the hand. “Don’t worry about it.” She tapped her ears. “It’s the hearing. You get used to it after a while. The only downside is that nothing is really private anymore.”
    “Oh God. Did Nico hear us?” She could only wonder how much she had probably traumatized the boy.
    “No, he was in his room. A few days after Mitch and I mated, I was in the kitchen fixing lunch when Nico came and stood in front of me just staring. When I asked him what was wrong, he wanted to know where my “boo boo” was because he thought I had hurt myself with all the screaming I had been doing. After that, I refused to let my mate touch me again until he had Nico’s room soundproofed. It was one thing for other shifters to hear me having sex, but I was mortified to know that my baby could as well.”
    Jacqueline laughed. She couldn’t imagine how embarrassed Tessa had been. “Do I even want to know the explanation you gave him?”
    “I was so shocked I couldn’t think of anything to say.” Tessa covered her mouth and giggled. “There was no way I was explaining sex to my two-year-old son, so I did the first thing that came to mind. I stood and limped out of the room pretending I had twisted my ankle. Once I was out of sight, I took off running, screaming for Mitch.”
    Jacqueline busted out laughing and slapped her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. She shook her head when Tessa tilted the ice cream carton toward, her offering her some. “No thanks. I was actually headed down to the lab.”
    “Would you like some company? I’m not very sleepy myself.”
    Jacqueline paused. Growing up with her father, she had never had the opportunity to have any friends. Tessa was the closest thing she ever had to one, and she didn’t know how to handle it. In the lab, she was normally in her own zone, tuning everything out, and she didn’t want to offend the woman by ignoring her. In the end, she decided to take a chance. “Sure, you can come on down. I’ll warn you though. You’ll probably be bored to tears.” Tessa waved her comment away and followed her toward the stairs.
    In the lab, Jacqueline thought over everything Ben had told her about mating and the changes she would go through. The first thing she wanted to do was get a blood sample from herself. She already had samples from Ben and the other shifters and one from herself before she mated. At the time, she had taken the sample because she had wanted to compare her human blood to theirs to see the differences. She had hoped it gave her some new ideas for the antidote because she was grasping at straws. Now she was a little curious to see the changes to her blood, if there were any, since she had mated.
    Gathering the supplies she needed, Jacqueline set them all on the table and grabbed the tourniquet. Without even being asked, Tessa took it from her and tied it on her arm. She decided that maybe having Tessa in the lab with her wasn’t so bad.
    “What are you doing?” Tessa asked.
    Jacqueline inserted the needle into her arm and connected vial before answering. “Ben explained the mating process, and I already drew my blood before we mated, so I just wanted to look at the two samples and compare them. Maybe if I can see the difference in the before and after, then I will understand the shifter blood better.”
    “Do you think that will help you with the antidote?”
    She nodded as Tessa bandaged her arm for her when she removed the needle. “I hope so. At this point, I’ll do just about anything.” She looked up at Tessa. “I can’t lose him.”
    Tessa rubbed her shoulder. “I know, honey. I don’t want to lose him either. He was the one who taught me to fight. If it hadn’t been for him, I would have never had the guts to stand up to the rogue that attacked me and Mitch. We would both be dead. For that, Ben will always hold a special place in my heart.”
    Jacqueline couldn’t say anything past the lump in her throat. Instead, she got to work, placing a drop of her mated blood on a slide. She set up two microscopes and placed her human slide on one and the mated slide on the other. Once she had the microscopes focused correctly, she looked at her human slide first. There was nothing out of the ordinary with the slide. Her blood cells looked like normal healthy human cells. It was