Stygian's Honor

CHAPTER 15

Stygian’s arms surrounded her, holding her close to his chest, the even beat of his heart a comforting sound beneath her ear after he’d carried her to the bed and tucked her in against him.

With her hand resting against the hard, corded strength of his abdomen, Liza tried to force her emotions, her need to be a part of him, at bay.

It had started the moment she had met him, she realized. This need to share every part of herself, to be with him what she had never been with anyone else.

No one knew her, not even Claire or Chelsea or Isabelle—not fully. She’d never wanted anyone to know her either, until now.

Until Stygian.

Oh, she had friends. Friends who knew parts of her, who cared for her, those who trusted her with their lives. The person they saw was a far cry from the person she was inside. The person she was, inside, seemed to come together in ways it never had, right here, in Stygian’s arms.

“Sometimes, I feel as though I’ve never been real,” she whispered, unable to still the need to share what she had never shared with anyone else. “It wasn’t so bad before the wreck Claire and I were in. When it began, I thought it was involuntary, because I couldn’t make it stop. But, in the past week, I’ve realized that maybe it wasn’t involuntary, that maybe it was me all along.” And the knowledge of that weighed on her heart like a massive stone, threatening to crush it.

“You’re very real, Liza. Warm, living, breathing. How could you not feel real?” he asked her, his fingers caressing her bare shoulder, brushing against the mating mark and reminding her in a way nothing else could that she finally belonged somewhere.

She belonged to somebody.

“Am I? Was I?” Tilting her head back, she stared up at him, feeling the misery welling inside her. “Sometimes, it’s like there’s this other person that’s just waiting inside me, biding her time, knowing she’ll be free.” Her eyes filled with tears as she admitted to him what she knew she could never admit to anyone else. And there was so much more. So many secrets she felt waiting to be free, and a knowledge that she could be—

“Trust me, baby,” he whispered, the blue of his eyes holding her gaze, binding her to him as she swore she could feel him even into her soul. “I wouldn’t betray you. Not for anyone. Not for anything. You understand that, don’t you?”

Did he suspect what she suspected herself? What she was beginning to believe? That somehow the impossible had happened.

“I remember when I was five,” she cried out, misery echoing in the low tone of her voice “I remember Dad teaching me to ride my bike. I remember my first day of third grade. I remember always being friends with Isabelle, Chelsea and Claire. I remember it, Stygian.”

Those memories were so much a part of her that she knew those events had occurred.

Stygian tensed beneath her, his fingers pausing in their caressing motions for just a moment as Liza silently prayed for an answer. Any answer other than the one she knew they had to begin discussing.

A subject that had her chest tightening in such panic that she felt as though she had to struggle to breathe, to live, because the dark terror rising in her mind was something she feared more than she feared the truth.

“I’ll protect you,” he swore quietly, his tone rumbling with sincerity and his belief that he could do so.

“At what cost?” A bitter laugh escaped her. “What if there is no protection, Stygian? What if I’m really not who you and Jonas hope I am, but I’m just crazy instead? That’s always a possibility. That’s more a possibility than some miracle that I suddenly acquired a dead girl’s memories and her life. Don’t you see that?”

“I see a lot of possibilities, sweetheart.” He sighed. “But your insanity, or any possibility of it, is not an option. If that were true, the animal instincts I possess would already have warned me of the possibility.”

Liza stared up at the ceiling miserably, uncertain what to feel or how to deal with the suspicions rising within her mind.

She couldn’t ignore them, nor could she avoid the truth any longer.

“What were the experiments Honor Roberts was a part of?” Her throat was so tight with fear she could barely swallow.

“The Omega Projects were research into using the unique development of age reduction and disease resistance and a cure that’s been found in those couples who had mated.”

Age reduction? Disease resistance and a cure?

Fear, panic, a certainty that this information would destroy her, began to invade her.

“And mating heat does that?” she whispered painfully.

His arms tightened around her. “Callan and Merinus Lyons have aged physically by one full year since their mating more than fourteen years prior. Her father, John Tyler, was dying of heart disease until he mated one of our female enforcers last year. His body has actually begun repairing itself. In the space of the time he’s been mated, his organs have returned to prime condition, and his skin has lost ten percent of the aging damage.”

Chills were racing over her flesh. The implications of what others would consider miracles began racing through her mind. Because what some would consider miracles, others would consider a sign of evil instead.

“That’s what will happen to me?” she whispered.

“It already has if, somehow, you’re Honor Roberts. The research notes we found suggest that aging retards at twenty-five without mating in subjects that were given the serum as children suffering from fatal diseases. Unfortunately, Brandenmore had those subjects terminated before we could find them. Only Honor and Fawn were thought to have survived.”

Her fingers ached from being clenched on the comforter that covered them.

“Blood tests—” she began.

“Blood tests wouldn’t work,” Stygian injected. “The nature of the project changes not just blood type, but also genetics. Acts kind of like mating heat, which appears like a genetic virus to the body. The only way to prove inconclusively that you’re not Honor Roberts is a deep-level core genetic test on both you and your father for a match.”

“Why not just a DNA swab?” She couldn’t lie any longer. She felt as though she couldn’t breathe.

Sitting up, Liza clenched the blankets at her breasts and stared down at him.

“Because, with medical advances, even ten years ago, surface DNA could have been changed. All you would need is a scientist familiar with Clean Slate DNA, which is what Honor Roberts would have had at the time.”

“Clean Slate,” she murmured. “The Omega Project changed her genetic makeup to the point that it could have been so easily reprogrammed?”

Clean Slate DNA was a complicated process. It literally changed a person’s genetic typing from one type to another and allowed for scientists and doctors to identify key components of the genetic strands that could be altered. It required another subject, a Beta, whose blood or genetic makeup didn’t allow for certain diseases or health complications. So far, it had only actually been done on animals, as far as the world knew.

“The Omega Project simplified Clean Slate DNA,” he told her heavily. “But once the project phase ended, Brandenmore decided it was time to terminate Faith, Judd and Gideon. Honor’s father was part of the Genetics Council, which kept her out of the termination selection. Instead, once the other three disappeared and they learned there was more to the serum as the children matured, they decided to begin researching once again. Only Honor was left, and her father’s influence wasn’t great enough to save her from it. It was then her parents elected to aid her in disappearing.”

“Elected to aid her?” she asked as she imagined what it would have been like for the parents.

Honor’s father was military, he wouldn’t have cried, she thought. He would have kept his head held high, but his gaze would have been damp. His expression would have been laced with misery.

“Her father gambled to save her life when she was less than two years old, fighting against it until only weeks before she would have died. He joined the Genetics Council, contributed to it. Lied for them, cheated for them and watched the slaughter of innocent Breeds so she would live,” he stated, his voice filled with regret, but still the words sliced deep, their cruel imagery causing her to flinch. “It was nearly too late, but the scientists pulled it off. Ten years later she was home with her parents, happy, free of the leukemia and bargaining to get rid of the nanny she’d had in the labs.

“Her father thought the nanny was under his control only, but later learned that it was the Council that commanded her loyalty. She reported the signs of anomalies Honor was showing, that the girl was unable to hide, and the scientists were desperate to reacquire her.”

Liza stilled, her gaze on her hands as she picked at the comforter as it lay over her legs. “What sort of anomalies?”

Because she had anomalies as well, ones she and Claire both had been taught to keep hidden, to never reveal lest they endanger them. This explained why their families felt it would cause their lives to be so irrevocably damaged in an age when unique abilities were prized.

“Honor had a photographic memory, but the nanny noticed the girl could watch movements, in either dance or fight, and within days she could execute them perfectly. She didn’t just remember it perfectly, but how to apply it and when. Rather as Shiloh stated you were able to do the night Claire was attacked.”

Liza didn’t lift her gaze, but kept it on her hands, her nails, the quilt. Anything but Stygian, anywhere but on the fact that she was dying inside.

“And Fawn?” she asked.

“They weren’t certain about Fawn.” Reaching out, he pushed back the nearly hip-long wave of hair that had fallen over her face. “She showed signs of advanced code deciphering, even before the termination order went out. We need that ability to crack the code on the files Brandenmore had hidden. So far, even our best code breakers have only managed to decode a very minute amount of the files we found.”

“Then you think there’s something in the files there that will help Amber?” she asked quietly.

“At this point, we’re willing to try anything,” he admitted. “The few codes we’ve managed to break lead us to believe it’s possible. It’s very possible.”

Liza had a photographic memory. She could watch certain moves, not so much dancing, which had interested her as a young girl, but in fighting, it was as though her brain could telegraph the moves from her sight to her actions.

And Claire, oh God help them, Claire could figure out a puzzle in seconds. Jigsaw puzzles, even the most difficult, were child’s play for her.

She could feel herself trembling, shaking from the inside out.

Shaking her head, she looked up at him, uncertain, forcing back the fear. She had to force it back to be able to think, to make sense of everything.

“I can’t be either of them,” she whispered. “How could I be, Stygian? It’s not possible.”

But it was possible. It was possible enough that dreams, nightmares and memories that weren’t exactly memories, that weren’t exactly clear, came together in her mind.

Lifting his hand again, he brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek as he watched her with a quiet confidence she would do anything to be able to attain.

“I read an article before the rescues,” he said then. “Rumors of Breed creation had begun leaking, and some enterprising young reporter had written of the possibility. He stated unequivocally that the manipulation of human and animal genetics could never result in a living, breathing, intelligent being. Some things he stated seemed highly possible, but when in practical application, highly impossible. And I had to smile, because it was that very creature he had deemed impossible who was reading the article.”

“A deep-level core genetic test could reveal the truth,” she whispered. “The Clean Slate DNA manipulation can’t get past that.”

“Proving the truth won’t reveal the secrets,” he stated then. “And it’s the secrets Jonas needs to save Amber.”

It was the secrets they needed.

She stared back at him, seeing the long, ribbon-straight, soft strands of midnight black hair as they trailed around his strong face, the muscular column of his neck, the broad, broad shoulders and powerful chest. He was savagely handsome, and staring back at her with an intensity that made her feel as though she were the only woman in the world.

To him, she was the only woman in the world, she thought, astounded. Yet, she wondered how she could be so surprised.

She had waited for him.

She had waited for him to touch her, to bring her to life, to awaken her.

“We’ll go to the desert at daylight,” he told her then. “Just you and I, with Dog’s team watching over us. We’ll go to the crash site before going to the area where the sweat lodge was erected. Let’s go back, Liza. Let’s see if we can find anything you may have lost.”

“What if I don’t come back, Stygian?” Her lips trembled as tears darkened her soft gray eyes. Did she fear she would get sucked back into some never-ending reality where she could only watch the world go by, rather than experiencing it?

“I won’t let you go.” Tightening his fingers in her hair, he pulled her head back, staring through the darkness to the glitter of her gaze. “Never, Liza. You will never again be on the outside looking in. You’ll always be a part of me, and I’ll never let you go.”

She didn’t speak. As he loosened his grip on her hair, she laid her head on his chest again and, he knew, stared into the darkness.

“I couldn’t feel anything when I was there,” she said softly. “No remorse, no love or hate. No fear.”

“And now?” God, she was killing him. The emotions building inside her were like a blow to his heart.

If only he had been here to save her, to pull her from the darkness she’d been held in for so long.

“Now, I feel too much,” she said faintly. “I don’t know what I’m feeling, and I don’t know how to handle what I am feeling. I just wish, when I was younger, that I had known how to hold on to myself rather than allowing myself to fade.”

He would have held her to him, just as he was holding her now, until she was old enough to be his reality.

Or, would he have held the wrong girl, and eventually, the wrong woman?

The question raged in his mind as she fell silent and eventually fell asleep against his chest.

That wreck; everything had changed the night Claire Martinez had taken her father’s sports car, Liza with her, flying over a canyon and somehow missing the other side.

The two girls hadn’t been found for hours, and when they had been located, their fathers hadn’t called the EMS immediately. Instead, they had called together the chiefs of the Six Tribes, the medicine men of the Nation. Only after they had treated the girls had an ambulance been called and they had been taken to the hospital.

The accident report had been accessed by Diane Broen before she had arrived in Window Rock. Her suspicious nature had read something into those events that even the Breeds had been unable to decipher. Something even Stygian had been unable to figure out.

According to the blood tests and surface-level genetic testing, Liza wasn’t Honor Roberts. Her DNA was different, but the DNA used for those tests had been collected before the experiments conducted in the Brandenmore labs. The blood and tissue samples were those collected when she was a young girl, hospitalized for the wasting disease that had slowly been killing her.

Had a full-level DNA analysis been done? One that went to the very center of the genome, such as those done to detect recessive Breed genetics? After all, the serum used on the two girls had been derived from Breed hormones, while that used on the Breeds had been derived from both Breed and human hormones.

Barring that, had their DNA been compared to their parents’?

As he felt her slip into sleep, Stygian found his mind racing. There were too many questions, and far too many mysteries surrounding his mate and her friend Claire Martinez.

The fact, though, was that there was no evidence to even raise suspicion that Liza and Claire weren’t exactly who they claimed to be. Nothing but the fact that since they were children, no blood, tissue or saliva samples had been taken from either girl, even during their stay in the hospital after the wreck.

From the moment they left the hospital, their personalities had been different. Their looks had been altered from the plastic surgeries needed, supposedly because of damage caused from the vehicle crashing into the canyon.

The fact that no blood and tissue samples had been taken then was highly suspicious and riding the cusp of being illegal.

There were Diane Broen’s suspicions, there were Jonas’s suspicions and his own, but that wasn’t proof. There was no proof at all that she was anyone other than who she was supposed to be.

As he glared at the ceiling, he heard the faint hum of his sat-phone, which he’d set on the bedside table. Glancing over, the text message had him closing his eyes briefly.

Five minutes. Connecting suite.

The message was from Jonas.

Fuck, he didn’t need this.

Dealing with Jonas wasn’t something he wanted to do tonight, not while his own emotions were in such turmoil. Not while he was still trying to process the fact that his mate likely had no idea who she really was.

Not while he was still trying to get a grip on the suspicion that, somehow, the real Liza Johnson had ceased to exist somewhere around the time of that car accident.

In her place was Honor Roberts—but without Honor’s memories, or the knowledge of who she was or who she had been. And if Liza Johnson was actually Honor Roberts, then that meant Claire Martinez would most likely be Fawn Corrigan, the target Gideon Cross was rumored to be determined to kill.

With a tight grimace, he eased himself from the bed.

Liza was sleeping. Stygian tucked the blankets about her shoulders to ensure she didn’t get chilled.

Gathering his clothes, Stygian made his way to the connecting sitting room to dress quickly.

Once he pulled the low boots on and jerked the hem of his jeans over them, Stygian made his way to the door across the room, activated the digital keypad then punched in the code to disengage the locks.

Closing the door carefully behind him, he moved across the room to the entrance and opened the door to admit Jonas, Rule, Lawe and Mordecai.

Lawe Justice’s rumored recent refusal of the position of assistant director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs hadn’t changed the fact that he was still one of Jonas’s most trusted advisors. The fact that he was there for the meeting Jonas had demanded proved it.

“What do you want, Wyatt?” Stygian breathed out wearily as he closed the door quietly. “Liza’s asleep, but she may not be for long. So whatever you have to say that you don’t want her to hear, now’s the time to do it.”

He had no idea what the director wanted, but he could sense the fact that whatever it was, Liza would be offended by it. The fact that the director insisted on meeting after she would most likely have been asleep was the first indication.

The look on Jonas’s face wasn’t comforting either.

Looking around the room, the director turned back to him slowly. “You’re a lousy host, Stygian. There’s not a damned thing here to drink.”

“Yeah, well, I guess you taught me well then.” He snorted. “There hasn’t been a time I’ve come to the office that you’ve shared with me any of that whisky you’re so proud of.”

Jonas’s lips kicked up at one corner as he inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Perhaps I made a mistake there,” he stated, his voice remaining low. “I can get a drink when I return to my suite. What I can’t get is the information you were paired with Ms. Johnson to acquire. Are you any closer?”

Stygian crossed his arms over his chest and glared back at Jonas. “What do you think?”

Jonas’s nostrils flared as he obviously fought back his anger. “We don’t have much time left, Stygian. Not just because of Amber. The Council has begun transferring key scientists in both genetics as well as Breed physiology and mating heat to highly secured, secretive labs, while known high-ranking members of their elite guard have been making their way into the desert several miles from here.”

The Genetics Council’s Elite Guard had, through the decades, been tasked with the kidnapping of the higher-profile women whose genetics were deemed essential for various creation projects. They were the best. The most highly trained, elusive and competent abduction specialists in the world.

“There’s more going on here, and more players, than I can keep up with at one time.” Cavalier’s growl was rough, his voice almost ruined as he faced Stygian, his expression bland. “I’ve been tracking transmissions from the soldiers in the desert as well as between President Martinez and his head of security, Audi Johnson. Johnson and Martinez both are discussing the canyon where Liza and Claire went over. They’re talking about whether or not they ‘cleaned’ enough.”

Whether or not they cleaned enough.

Stygian grimaced as anger began to burn inside him. The Johnsons and the Martinezes knew exactly what had been done. They knew how their daughters had been brought back from the dead, and now Stygian wanted to know.

“Their fathers are lying to us,” Jonas gritted out, the silver eyes flashing with merciless fury. “You know it and I know it. With half-truths and carefully worded denials, they’re lying through their teeth. The only way we’re going to get the truth out of them is by forcing it out.”

Stygian gritted his teeth at the knowledge that regarding Liza and Claire’s fathers, Jonas was entirely right. “Where does that leave us?”

“With Liza,” Jonas stated softly, though his expression was determined. “I want to bring Ely and Cassie in, Stygian. Ely can run the samples just as she always does for mating heat, and Cassie can do whatever the hell it is she does. We could get the answers we need. And if we’re lucky, maybe Ely can come up with something using the new mating tests she’s developed.”

Dr. Elyiana Morrey, the Breeds’ head scientist and doctor, worked tirelessly on finding the answers on the why and the how of mating heat. She was certain the answers were in the deepest layers of the genetics strands, and had actually found a way to begin comparing DNA before and after mating heat. Now, she just needed the new mates to work with.

Because mating heat, like all things in nature, like all viruses that developed, never remained the same.

“I’ll discuss it with her…”

“Discussing it would defeat the purpose,” Jonas protested then. “If, as I suspect, a ritual took those memories and replaced them with someone else’s, then warning her warns the safeguards placed on it. Risking that is out of the question. Besides, if she’s aware of Cassie’s identity when she meets her, then she’ll be on guard. That will also steal any advantage we have.”

And it was entirely possible Liza had heard of Cassie. She was friends with Ashley, Emma and Shiloh, and Cassie wasn’t a taboo subject as mating heat was. She could well know Cassie’s abilities to look inside a person and see the secrets that haunted them. Whether they knew they were haunted by them or not.

“You’re asking me to do something no Breed has yet done,” he growled. “You want me to betray my mate by lying to her.”

“I want you to save her.” Jonas breathed out wearily as he pushed his fingers through his hair and grimaced with bitter anger. “Her and my child. If we don’t learn the truth, for certain, one way or the other, then the Genetics Council will take her and learn it for themselves. And if they take her, then you may never find her again.”

That was Stygian’s greatest fear. That somehow, the Coyote soldiers sent for her might actually manage to take her. If they took her, they could disappear with her in ways that Stygian could never find her.

Raking his fingers through his hair, he turned and paced away from the director, refusing to glance at the other Breeds there.

“Amber’s becoming more ill by the week, Stygian.” It was Rule who spoke as Stygian moved to the wide windows on the other side of the room. “The fevers are coming more often and they’re taxing her strength further each time.”

“Liza’s my mate,” he said bitterly.

She was his heart, his soul. They were asking him to betray every part of himself.

“And Amber is a child,” Jonas said softly. “Liza is a grown woman with the ability to make choices to determine her own fate. She suspects, Stygian, we both know she does. She’s doing nothing to learn the truth.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Stygian stared at the desert beyond the hotel, wishing to hell he’d find a way to keep this from happening.

“We’re going to the crash site at dawn,” he told them. “She wants to know.”

“She’ll fight it. She’s probably fighting it now,” Mordecai said behind him. “But I have a suggestion.”

Stygian turned back slowly. “And that would be?”

“She keeps a personal journal on her laptop. I’ve tried to access it, but she’s not powered it up since she’s been here.”

“And you know she has a journal how?” Stygian growled back at him.

“I was almost in when she shut it down the last time she had the computer online,” Mordecai admitted. “I managed to pull some key words, though, which I used to be certain she may have information there. ‘Dreams,’ ‘nightmares,’ ‘labs’ and ‘pain.’”

Stygian tensed further.

“All you have to do is plug it in, power it up and attach a flash drive, I’ll take care of the rest. You don’t have to steal a password or hack in yourself,” Jonas assured him.

Stygian threw the other Breed a hard look. “And you think that will excuse the fact that I betrayed her? In her eyes or any others’? I’ll always be the only Breed to deliberately break the trust his mate has given him.”

“A mate who refuses to trust you?” Rule growled back at him. “She suspects she’s Honor Roberts, Stygian, just as you do.”

Stygian turned back to them again, the look he shot each of them filled with the mockery rising inside him. “It doesn’t matter if she trusts me or not. That doesn’t excuse betraying her.”

“Distrust excuses many things, my friend,” Rule said, as though reminding him of something he didn’t already know. “But if there’s no trust, there’s no love. What loyalty should any of us have to a mate that refuses to love?”

“What loyalty should any of us have to a mate that refuses to love?”

At that point, Liza rose jerkily from the bed, pulled her gown over her head, collected her robe from the floor and put it on with a furious shrug of her shoulders.

She couldn’t believe what she had heard.

Belting the robe with a furious jerk, she swept from the bedroom and headed for the connecting room.

Where had they lost their minds?

Just to begin with, had they forgotten that the connecting suite was tied into the intercom on the room phone? Stygian had set it up himself, just in case someone, anyone, attempted to invade their suite.

They were listed as staying in the connecting suite, not the one they were actually in. The precaution had been taken to ensure he and Liza had a head start in escaping.

Instead, it had given Liza a heads-up.

A heads-up into the plans Jonas Wyatt had, and why.

Gripping the door to the connecting suite, she pushed it open hard enough that the sound of it slamming into the wall behind it had Jonas, Rule Breaker and Mordecai Savant swinging to the side, their weapons drawing and leveling on Stygian as he jumped in front of her.

Stepping around him, she faced the other three furiously before pinning Jonas Wyatt with her gaze.

“Have you once come to me and asked me to take a single blood test, or to allow you permission to access the database when you told me you needed it? You have lied to me continually, Jonas. To me and to the Navajo Council. But not once did you ever ask for help.” she said, her voice shaking with her anger as he and the others slowly holstered their weapons.

“Would it have done any good?” Jonas asked.

“If I thought for one minute it would be used for Amber only, then yes, it would have,” she snapped back at him, her fingers curling into fists, fury burning through her. “But as Stygian said, there wouldn’t be a chance, would there?”

“War isn’t pretty,” Rule growled.

“This isn’t war.” She hated this. She hated him. She hated the bleak fury tearing through her. “You would use anyone, anything, to get what you wanted, wouldn’t you, Wyatt? You want to know who I might be, but you still want that database. You still believe it will lead you to Gideon Cross, don’t you?

And the information was in her journal. The chiefs of the Six had actually suggested she keep the information written down somewhere safe, despite her protests. She’d never understood why, nor had she given it much thought in the past months either.

“I’d use anything or anyone to save my child,” he snarled back, the dangerous incisors at the side of his teeth flashing warningly. “Don’t doubt that for a second.”

“And pretending I’m Honor Roberts will do that for you? Ordering Stygian to betray the one person it would destroy him to betray would do that?”

“Is that why you rushed in here so quickly, rather than waiting to hear his answer?” Jonas asked her then, suddenly mocking rather than angry. “Afraid he’d agree to do as I asked, Ms. Roberts?”

“He wouldn’t have done it,” she sneered back at him. “If he were going to do it, he would have done it by now. He’s had weeks to help you betray me and he’s still refused. What more would it take to convince you? What more would it take to get you the hell out of Window Rock?”

“What would it take?” He took a step forward, only to pause at the sudden, fearsome snarl that sounded in Stygian’s chest at the inherent threat in Jonas’s move. “It would take you, Fawn Corrigan and that damned Breed you called Judd. The three of you, and I could draw Gideon in. Then, I would have what I needed to save my daughter.”

“And what do you need to save your daughter?” Liza crossed her arms over her breasts and stared back at him curiously. “Tell me, Mr. Wyatt, what do they have that she needs if you can’t access their memories?”

“Whatever’s left in their bodies of the serum Brandenmore used. The changes that took place in their bodies would be apparent in both you and Fawn, while Gideon and Judd would show the changes to the Breed physiology. That’s what I want.”

As he spoke, terror chased through her.

It was all she could do to keep her expression closed, to contain her emotions and her rage. To contain her fear.

Because as he spoke, she saw herself, but she wasn’t herself. Watching doctors, seeing the printouts lying beside them, reading the information. It made sense.

For only seconds, it was there. A formula, a child’s pain-filled cries and the knowledge that, once again, the tests were going to hurt. Once again, they were going to experience hell.

She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath.

She hadn’t realized that for the briefest second, the pain that radiated through her could be felt by every Breed in the room.

And each of them flinched.

“Enough!” Stygian’s arms were suddenly around her, pulling her against his chest a second before she was able to slip back into that distant, remote place she’d been unable to access since he’d taken her.

“I’m sorry.” She was almost wheezing again.

God, she hadn’t wheezed in so long.

“They can have the damned code,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’ll give them the damned thing. Just get them out of here.”

“The code isn’t what they needed,” he told her, his own voice thick with fury now. “It wasn’t the code. It was this, Liza. It was your pain he wanted to access, and you’re giving him exactly what he wanted.”

But was that it?

Staring back at Jonas, she saw a man tormented. His eyes flashed with enraged mercury, his expression becoming taut as he fought to wipe it free of emotion.

No, her pain wasn’t what Jonas wanted any more than he wanted to see his own daughter’s pain. He just wanted answers—answers and the key to save the child he loved as though she were created from his genetics rather than another man’s.

“Don’t you know I would help you if I could,” she suddenly cried out to Jonas, desperate, terrified of what she suddenly felt rising within herself. “Do you think I would deny her for the hell of it?”

“No,” he said, his voice stark. “Not for the hell of it,” he finally breathed out wearily. “But to avoid hell? Yes, I believe to avoid whatever hell may be awaiting you on the other side, you would gladly walk through the flames barefoot and with a smile.” He shook his dark head, turned to the two men watching them and jerked his head to the door before turning back to her. “I just pray you realize that whatever you’re fighting to escape could well be my daughter’s only hope of life.”

“If that’s true, if she’s dying because Brandenmore gave her whatever he gave the girls he had before, then how did they survive? If it’s killing Amber, Jonas, why didn’t it kill them?”

Her fingers were digging into Stygian’s arm as she demanded the answer, demanded to know the one thing no one seemed to be discussing.

To that, Jonas breathed out with weary helplessness, “I don’t know, Liza. All I know is that from day to day I watch her struggle to live. To breathe through the pain. And every day I see the same question in her eyes. ‘Why won’t you help me, Daddy?’ And it’s killing me as nothing those fucking scientists who created me could have. I promise you that. There’s no hell greater than seeing that in her eyes, hearing her cries, and knowing how helpless I am to save her if death is truly what she’s facing. And if it is.” His eyes suddenly flashed with an icy promise. “If I lose her because of your refusal to face whatever it is you’re trying to escape, then I swear to you, I’ll make damned sure you pay for it.”

Before the sudden, fierce growl that vibrated in Stygian’s chest could finish, Jonas was out the door and stalking back to his own suite.

As the door slammed behind him, it was Liza who flinched. Not from the sound of steel meeting steel, but the realization that there was the very real chance that he was right. If she was Honor Roberts, wouldn’t she be desperate, horribly desperate, to keep from returning to the memories of a hell that had pushed her to reach out for a dead girl’s identity?

Lifting her gaze to Stygian, she watched him, knowing the sacrifices he was making for her. He saw her as his mate. As the woman created for him and for him alone, and for her, he was willing to betray the vows he had made when he went into the Bureau of Breed Affairs as an enforcer. The vow to place all Breeds, their security and their safety, above his own.

Breaking a vow wouldn’t be easy for a man like Stygian.

“I want to go to the desert now,” she told him as she faced him. “I want to go to the crash site. And I want to see where the sweat lodge sat. Now.”

“Liza—” he began.

“No, I want to go now,” she demanded. “I want to know who I am, Stygian. I have to know who I am.”

She had a feeling, though, she already knew.