Breeds: Stygian's Honour Part 28

"Besides, he and her father both know Liza needs to concentrate on her safety now,"

Jane stated gently as she followed her daughter and rose to her feet from the couch across from Liza's desk.

Stygian had little doubt that the change of hours had been the mother's idea. She'd been nervous, antsy, each time the elevator pinged an arrival, and Stygian knew each 395/862.

time the doors slid open that Jane had braced herself for trouble.

She was terrified for her daughter's safety, even more so than her husband was.

"Very well." Stygian nodded, relieved at the decision. "I'll call down and have the car brought around."

"There's actually an elevator that goes dir- ectly to the underground parking area." Jane smiled back at him. "I've talked to Audi, and your driver can have his parking slot next to those elevators for the time being. That should eliminate any problems that could arise. The underground garage is used only for Ray, high-security visitors, and the tribal chiefs, and it's heavily secured. Everything's already been arranged and the guards on duty have been informed."

Stygian had been aware of the parking gar- age and had made a note to discuss parking arrangements before they left for the day.

Having it taken care of by Liza's mother was 396/862.

a relief. The primal anger the other man had roused inside him earlier still had yet to settle.

Stygian held back his surprise. Her mother had remained in the room with them, chat- ting with Liza whenever her daughter had time and keeping coffee in full supply.

"Thank you, Mrs. Johnson." He nodded cordially.

"No, thank you, Stygian. And you call me Jane." Moving to him, she took his hand between hers and stared up at him, her eyes damp with emotion. "Just take care of my baby. Anything you need to ensure her pro- tection, you have only to let me or her father know and it will be taken care of."

Stepping away, she turned back to her daughter, said her good-byes and returned Liza's hug fiercely. "I'll be here when you come in tomorrow," her mother promised.

"Mom, that's not necessary." Surprise filled her voice. And fear. She didn't want her 397/862 mother there. In case there was danger, she didn't want her parents anywhere near her.

"It's very necessary, Liza," her mother as- sured her firmly. "You're my daughter, and I will be here. Now, rest, and we'll talk tomorrow."

He knew now where Liza had gotten her stubbornness, he thought in amus.e.m.e.nt as Liza gathered her purse and briefcase and moved to him.

She was more distant than she had been earlier, though, as they made the ride to the lobby and walked toward the SUV parked outside the doors. Opening the back door, he helped her in before following her. Nodding at Flint as he glanced in the rearview mirror, he gave him the go-ahead to leave before reaching over and covering Liza's hands as they clasped in her lap.

She was fighting something, fighting some fear or uncertainty that perhaps even she didn't understand. He could feel her 398/862.

confusion, though, and that dark pain brew- ing brighter and hotter deep inside her and, he suspected, causing the silent retreat.

He hated the lack of emotion and sense of warmth that was always a part of her.

How the h.e.l.l did she do it? Was it volun- tary or subconscious? And where the h.e.l.l did she go?

Rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand, warming the cool flesh, he released the unusual, if quiet, sound of a primal question.

It was a sound he had never made before, one he'd never heard-somewhere between a half growl and a low questioning breath of a hum. As though the animal he carried inside him was calling out to her itself.

Her head whipped around as her heart gave a hard leap.

The animal he was raged inside him before that spark of her inner spirit showed itself in the surprise and eased his anger.

399/862.

Just a spark. Just a hint of the woman she was.

And what he sensed coming from her all but froze his soul in terror.

For a second, he didn't sense the woman he knew, in any way.

For the briefest moment, it was a stranger he felt, a stranger he touched.

With his gaze locked with hers, her entire being open as Stygian gave the primal animal he was free rein to call to her, he realized he had opened a door inside her that he had never imagined existed, and for one heart- stopping second he swore he was going to re- ceive an answer to he animalistic call.

And just that quickly, it was over.

Whoever, whatever, had nearly stepped forward, retreated just quickly.

"Is everything okay?" Liza asked, and he sensed her confusion, her uncertainty over what had just happened.

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He didn't know what it was. He had no idea how to identify or describe what he had just felt, what he had just glimpsed inside her.

But he was determined to find out. One way or the other he would learn exactly who or what he had found hiding so deep inside the psyche of the woman he loved.

The woman he was determined to mark as his mate.

CHAPTER 12.

Audi watched from the window as the SUV carrying the daughter Audi had traded his soul to protect twelve years before heading back to the hotel.

Fists clenched, his jaw aching from ten- sion, he nearly flinched at the knowledge that she was sharing a room with that Breed.

Stygian Black.

If he wasn't Liza's lover yet, he would be soon.

"What are we going to do?" he asked the friend that stood beside him, knowing they hadn't expected this.

402/862.

In all the years they had been protecting the girls they called their own, they had nev- er antic.i.p.ated this.

"They'll be protected." The same grief that twisted him filled Ray's voice as well.

"What are we going to do, Ray?" His ques- tion hadn't been answered. "Their protection at this moment in time isn't in doubt. Their protection, if our secrets are learned, is quite another thing."

Glaring at the man he had weathered a war, a prisoner of war camp and the politics of the Navajo Nation with, Audi realized they were finally facing the consequences of the choices they had made over the years.

Ray breathed out heavily. "Remember those articles we read on the Breeds and mating? And Father's suppositions that such rumors were true?" he finally asked.

Audi closed his eyes briefly.

G.o.d, no.

403/862.

If those stories were true, then no doubt he had lost his daughter forever.

"Isabelle," Ray said his niece's name roughly. "She no longer uses her own doctor, but a Breed doctor exclusively. She exhibits all the signs of a Breed mating, and when Terran questions Malachi, the Breed merely stares back at him silently. What more proof would a man need?"

Would Liza tell him if such a phenomenon had occurred within her where the dark Breed Stygian was concerned? She was in- credibly loyal to friends, he knew. If she mated with the Breed, then her emotions would be even more so involved.

Her loyalty would no longer be to her fam- ily first, but to the Breeds instead.

And if her loyalty was to her Breed first, then she could unknowingly end up betray- ing them all. And possibly destroying her.

Audi could handle the unintentional be- trayal, after all, she had no idea of the secrets 404/862.

she harbored. After all, he and Ray had com- mitted no crime, nor had they done anything that would betray their daughters. It was what it would do to her, it was the fact that the daughter he loved would no longer exist, that threatened to destroy him.

h.e.l.l, it would destroy him. He and Jane both. It would destroy them in ways that there was no way Ray and his wife could pos- sibly understand. Unlike Audi and Jane, they hadn't developed the closeness and the bonds with their daughter, Claire, that exis- ted between them and Liza.

Liza was his and Jane's life. They had worked tirelessly to protect her, to ensure her happiness, independence and well-being.

And now, it was all being threatened.

G.o.d help them if they lost her, because Audi knew, they would never survive it.

It wasn't going away.

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The involuntary separation of mind and body, of emotion and self. And she couldn't seem to find her way back.

As Stygian pulled into the driveway of her home, Liza stared as though she didn't re- cognize the place. As though it were someone else who had rented it. Someone else who had invited her best friends to share it.

Someone else who had dreamed of freedom as she moved her belongings into it.

After returning to the hotel, he'd had Flint and Rule take another vehicle to follow them.

She'd demanded to return here. She didn't like the confinement of the hotel or the room they shared. She didn't like the feeling of im-prisonment or of being watched every second.

Now, she was here, and she wondered where "here" was.

From the corner of her eye, Liza was aware of Stygian staring at her, his expression more 406/862 savage than normal, the dark bronze skin of his face stretched tight over the sharp planes and angles that made up his face.

He was furious at her decision.

He could have been Navajo if not for the darker color of his flesh.

Of course, she had no doubt there were Navajo genes in his DNA. Almost all Breeds held the DNA of the Navajo, or one of the tribes that had joined with the Nation in the early part of the century.

"Where do you go when you disappear, Liza?"

The question threw her off guard but not enough to eliminate the mental and emo- tional distance between them.

A brief shrug was all the answer she could come up with.

To be honest, she didn't know herself where she was at the moment. Was she hid- ing? Or was she finding something she only found in her nightmares?

407/862.

Strangely enough, though, she did feel something: the swollen sensitivity of her c.l.i.t, the engorged readiness of her nipples, the ache just beneath her skin for his touch. The need for his kiss.

That was odd. She'd never felt such arous- al for a man, especially not at a time when whatever emotions caused this distance pulled her back from reality.

h.e.l.l, she'd never ached like this for a man period.

"You won't do this." There was no anger in his tone.

That too was odd. Even her housemates were known to become angry when Liza let herself become lost, as Claire called it.

And what was it that he wasn't going to let her do?

She stared at the house. The pretty green, well-watered lawn. The blooms that sprang in abandon through the small flower beds and abundance of shrubs.

408/862.

The single-story adobe ranch house looked bright, welcoming. The windows and cur- tains thrown open, the sheers giving her house a slightly hazy, serene look.

She'd worked hard to make the rental a home. Of course, the owner, a good friend of her father's, had already told her the house was hers whenever she was ready to buy.

She hadn't bought but perhaps she should have.

"Liza." He touched her.

The touch was as simple as the calloused pads of his fingers stroking down her arm.

A shudder rippled over her flesh, then, as she fought to steel herself against the con- sequences, it began to quake through her in- ner, hidden emotions.

"I don't want to talk." Maintaining the s.h.i.+eld around her sensitive soul wasn't easy.