His mother was the only exception to that. Once she found out the male Hauks carried the mutation, it’d pissed her off that she’d never been able to induce that kind of devotion from his father. Some of their fights over it while Hauk had lived in their house had been quite nuclear, which probably had a lot to do with his father’s inability to feel that kind of love and devotion for her.

How could anyone love someone who constantly nagged at them and derided them for something they couldn’t help?

He took another sip of water before he answered. “It’s an exceedingly rare condition for the males of my breed. A genetic defect where we overproduce vasopressin once we fall in love with someone. Whenever an Andarion male has it, it’s said that no other female will ever please him – that he can never stray from the one female who causes him to experience it. It’s the ultimate in pair-bonding.”

She drew her knees up to her chin and he saw the fear in her eyes as she watched him closely. But he had no idea why she’d feel such with him. “Does it do anything else?”

“Like?”

“Make you violent?”

His heart wrenched at her question as he finally understood the fear he saw in her gaze. How could she think that of him? “No, mia. It just makes us extremely loyal and protective of the one who makes us feel it.”

“Violently so?”

That sent a wave of anger through him. Not at her, but at the bastard who’d put such terror in her kind heart. “I’m not your ex-boyfriend, Sumi. I would never strike you. Not for any reason. And it doesn’t work that way. It drives us to protect our mate and our children – to the point of suicide. Like today when I saw you bleeding and I went after them with no regard for myself, because they had caused you harm. That rage is part of it, but it’s never directed at the one we love. Only to the ones who threaten her. They’re the ones we beat into the ground. Not our females.”

“Really?”

“Really. It was that surge of fierce adrenaline and protectiveness that allowed my family to hold off the Oksanans when they attacked Andaria.” Sinking his hand in her soft hair that fascinated him, he stared into her eyes so that she could see his sincerity. “I am yours alone, mia. You own a part of me no other will ever have. And this” – he pointed to his eyes–“is only for you.” He glanced over to Darice and sighed. “And now he knows it, too. I can’t hide this. Not that I want to.”

Her hand trembling, she picked up a piece of meat and carefully fed it to him. “I love you, Dancer.”

He nipped at her fingers. “And I, you.”