The Mating Project Read Online Free PDF Page A

fertility rate of them
all, yet he had managed to father a cub with his very human mate. It had caused
somewhat of an uproar in council chambers. De Souza had been the most vocal,
followed by her own father, and if Maria never had to endure another lecture
about the sanctity of blood lines and her solemn duty to mate with a true blood
herself, it wouldn't be a moment too soon.
    The pressure was
on to find her own mate and to produce cubs of her own, and Maria didn't think it was a coincidence that Anton de Souza had been a
frequent visitor at her father's dinner parties again. Her father might have
agreed to give her time to find her own mate, after she had been kidnapped, but
that had been ten years ago.
    Anton De Souza
was a pure blood cougar like her, and an original, and whilst his first wife
had died in mysterious circumstances, no blame had ever been attached to him.
Even her mum had once again started up her campaign of you could do a lot
worse than Anton.   Mum seemed to find
the fact that Anton hadn’t taken another mate as a sign of his romantic side.
Maria had other ideas, and her cougar still shrank away from him every time she
was in the man's presence. If she had learnt one thing from past events then it
was to trust in her animal's instincts. Her beast didn't like Anton, and therefore
neither did Maria.
    She knew at this
point her father would be happy to accept anyone, as long as they were Maria's
true mate. Cole and her brothers' mating success had seen to that. The only
problem was Maria's one true mate was a wolf called Malachi.
    It was too
infuriating, and at this point, should the damn shifter turn up back in her
life, Maria might kill him herself. He had ruined her for anyone else. She
didn't want to simply settle. She wanted her mate, damn it. She wanted it all,
and she might as well just wish for the stars.
    "Say, are
you all right, Maria?"
    Natasha's
concerned question shook Maria out of her maudlin thoughts.
    "As
right as rain, sweet thing. Just got a lot on my
mind. Tell me what do you think my chances are of convincing Silas
Deacon to sign up with Cole's trial?"
    "Slim to
none, I reckon," Natasha said.   "I've tried to approach the subject myself several times, but he's
shut me down every time. For a human he isn't half stubborn, and he seems to
have a completely unreasonable dislike of the council."
    Natasha brushed
her silvery blonde hair out of her eyes, and Maria paused to admire the way the
sun caught the highlights. The girl would be stunning, if she didn’t hide her
body under baggy clothes and lost the thick rimmed glasses. Not that her
appearance mattered one bit. She was a genius in her own right, and there was
nothing and no one Natasha Dubrowski couldn't find
out or track down, given enough time and the right resources. In her final year
in criminology she was research assistant to Professor Silas Deacon.
    Another genius,
the staunch supporter of animal rights, Deacon was the recognized authority on
animal behavior and fertility. Maria had been granted exclusive access to the
man due to her position on the Zoological Society of London's big cat mating
project. They could do with his expertise, as could the council. However, that
part of her mission only Natasha knew about. It was rumored that Silas Deacon
had a weakness for busty blondes, and as Maria fitted that criteria, and his picture showed him to be quite a cute geek, she'd been only too glad to
accept the assignment. Anything to keep her mind off cubs
playing in the sun.
    "Well, lead
on, Macbeth." Maria adopted her most superior voice, and pulled the
hemline of her clingy top lower to show off her impressive cleavage to its best
advantage. She had teamed the sheer top with a pencil skirt that ended just
above her knee. The slit at the back gave tantalizing glimpses of her stockinged thighs. Add to that her pair of killer heels, and
Maria was out to get her man.
    Natasha giggled
and clasped the bundle of files she carried