Breeds: Stygian's Honour Part 31

And it was all she could do to keep herself from agreeing with him.

The only thing that stopped her was the sudden fear that in this moment, she wasn't even herself.

The fear that after this moment, she would simply live for this. For his touch. His kiss.

For his possession.

For the certainty that this man, that this moment in time, had changed her in ways she would never be free of.

CHAPTER 13.

Stygian was silent as he rose from the bed, moved to the bathroom and soaked a cloth in heated water before moving back to the bed to clean the proof of his release from Liza's thighs.

She lay exhausted, nearly asleep, and only a mumbled protest left her lips as he parted her thighs and wiped the slick essence mixed with her virgin's blood from the soft folds of her s.e.x and her inner thighs.

His virgin mate. She had met him with a hunger and a need he could never have ex- pected from such innocence. She had taken him, held him in a grip that had rippled over 440/862.

his c.o.c.k and tightened around the mating knot as though she had been made for him and him alone.

Now, as she lay more asleep than awake, he could feel something more as well. The part of her that hid so deep, refusing to com- pletely emerge, but awakening.

The animal inside him was pacing rest- lessly now at the hint of suspicion rising in- side him.

No, it had been there all along, he realized.

Just waiting for this moment, for the proof that somewhere, someone had been deceiv- ing not just the Breeds, but also Liza.

Finis.h.i.+ng, he returned to the bathroom, proceeded to clean himself then returned to the bed and his mate, where it seemed she had struggled to make her way beneath the heavy quilt.

His lips quirked into an amused smile.

She'd managed to pull the blanket over her shoulders, but nothing more.

441/862.

"Come on, sugar." Lifting her into his arms, he pulled the blanket, quilt and sheet back from the bed before laying her in the middle of the mattress.

Moving in beside her, he felt his chest clench as she curled herself into a little ball, and her sudden sense of uncertainty reached him.

He pulled the sheet over them both before pulling her against him.

"Do you think I'll allow you to sleep in isol- ation now?" he asked as she lay stiffly beside him. "Come on, Liza, I know you need warmth. Come to me and I'll warm you."

She turned slowly. "So I lie against you or I can stay cold?" A hint of gray eyes showed between narrowed lashes.

"Would you prefer the quilts?" he asked as he ran his hand caressingly along her spine.

"I'll keep you much warmer."

"I have an electric quilt, Stygian," she told him, but she didn't move away from him.

442/862.

"You'll need it no longer," he promised, relis.h.i.+ng the feel of her silken back against the palm of his hand.

At the same time, he felt her hand, so soft he was amazed at the living warmth of it, in a fleeting caress against his chest before it stilled.

"Did I hurt you?" she asked then, her fin- gertips glancing across the vicious bite she'd bestowed to his chest.

It wasn't even throbbing. The bite was deep, yet there was no blood, no ache of muscle, as though the mating heat had been transferred to her saliva as well and be- stowed on the wound to ensure it caused no true pain, just that slight, "it was there" ache.

The feel of that sensation was one he wouldn't change.

"It would take a much harder bite to cause me to complain," he a.s.sured her as he brushed his cheek against her forehead.

443/862.

"And the feel of it will remind me of the pleasure I gave you."

She was silent then, but he could feel her thinking, feel the frown that creased her forehead before she tilted her head back once again to stare up at him in the dim light.

It wasn't dark yet, though it was close. The heavy curtains were pulled over the win- dows, and the darkening feature on the newly installed security windows had been activated.

"English isn't your first language, is it?"

She surprised him with the question.

"I have no first language, actually," he told her. "My training involved three language studies-English, Spanish and Russi- an-which began at birth and continued through my training."

"Why Russian?" The curiosity in her tone was a far cry from the nosiness of most who questioned him whenever they had a chance.

444/862.

"They believed it would be the one I picked up easiest, as my paternal and animal DNA came from Russia."

"Really?" Drowsy interest filled her voice.

"Where did your paternal genetics actually come from?"

Stygian grinned. "Attila the Hun. Straight from the source. When his burial site was found, they recovered enough DNA to actu- ally track his descendents. They used some of that DNA to create my genetics."

"Attila the Hun?" Surprise filled her voice now. "d.a.m.n. I think I'm impressed now."

She was actually laughing at him, and he couldn't help but grin.

"And your maternal genetics?" she queried then, her tone suggestive, teasing. "This one has got to be good."

No doubt she already knew, or had at least read the partial history that could have been attained if certain records had been hacked.

445/862.

Moving the pillows more comfortably be- hind him, he lifted her against his chest until she sat comfortably against him, the sheet and quilt pulled to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s now.

"Her name was Nera," he answered. "The Genetics Council chose her for her ties to one of the greatest voodoo priestesses to have been born in the Caribbean, and she was rumored to have been quite powerful herself.

They kept her twenty years but only man- aged to impregnate her twice. Just after her daughter was born, she disappeared from her cells and was never seen again."

"She escaped then?" Surprise colored her voice.

Stygian glanced down at her, his lips lifting in a slight grin. "Who the h.e.l.l knows. One minute she was showing up on their monit- ors and in the next breath she was nowhere to be found in her cell. Her infant daughter, barely six weeks old, disappeared as well.

They spent years searching for them, but 446/862.

each time a team was sent to the area where she had originally been abducted from, every soldier and Breed sent after her disappeared."

d.a.m.n, he was proud of her. However she had managed to escape, she'd done a d.a.m.ned good job of it.

"Where was she abducted from?"

"She was born in Haiti, but raised in the Jamaican rain forests. She was seventeen when she was abducted because of her rumored genetic ties to both an ancient priest and priestess of the religion. But ru- mors at the labs say she was so powerful her- self that she nearly walked out of the labs with me when I was an infant. After that, she was isolated with limited contact while they continued to attempt to impregnate her. It took twenty years before she conceived again. Each time she was impregnated with an embryo that wasn't from her eggs, her body immediately rejected it. Finally, they 447/862.

once again tried using her ova. She conceived a girl, gave birth and six weeks later just disappeared."

"Did you ever search for her?" Liza asked then, a hint of forlorn melancholy in her voice now.

"Once," he admitted. "I spent nearly two months in one of the darkest jungles I swear I ever entered. One night, I awoke to find myself surrounded by six of the biggest, baddest-looking jungle warriors I swear a man or Breed could encounter. The biggest moved to the fire I'd made before sleeping, sat down and proceeded to explain the threat I represented to Nera and her daughter. And despite her fondness for me, and her con- cern, she couldn't allow me to venture farther. Then, four dead Coyote soldiers were tossed into the camp from the darkness.

Their throats were slit; I hadn't even known they were following me. I left the next morn- ing and left her in peace."

448/862.

"How sad." Regret for him filled her, and Stygian realized he'd never sensed sympathy or an understanding of his loss from anyone else in his life.

"Not so sad," he told her, realizing that himself. "I found my own peace. She and my sister are alive and protected. That was what mattered to me."

"You didn't feel that her daughter was more important than her son?" She lifted against him, the outrage suddenly pouring from her touching him in ways he had no idea how to express.

"I was a grown man," he pointed out. "I was twenty when she and my sister left the labs. The child would barely have been ten by then. Her safety was more important."

"To have to choose to let a child go must have been heartbreaking." There was the slightest edge of an emotion in her voice that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

449/862.

"I was a grown man," he repeated. "I un- derstood her choice."

"And she never contacted you after that?"

He let his gaze rove over her, taking in the sheet that barely covered her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the long, dark blond hair that fell around her face and shoulders, a few heavy strands fall- ing over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, before he answered with a small smile. "No. And I didn't expect her to."

He could feel her sadness reaching him. It wasn't pity, something he wouldn't have tol- erated; rather, it was a sincere sorrow that such a choice had been demanded.

"I've watched all the doc.u.mentaries on the Breeds," she said softly. "The scientists and soldiers were monsters in their treatment. To take something so essential as parents and family and make a crime of wanting or need- ing them was inhumane."

"That was the point," he reminded her.

"We were led to believe we weren't human, 450/862.

Liza. That emotions, family, love, they were all things we had no capacity to feel, let alone ache for or hunger for. As though they could force us to be as unemotional and uncaring as the robots they wanted us to be."

It was no longer enraging.

At one time, talk of those dark, horrifying years would have led him quickly down a path of rage that would inevitably lead to snarling fury.

To allow such emotions to rip through him now would mean releasing the hold he had on the gentle warmth that filled his arms at the moment. It simply wasn't worth it. They were now days long gone, and if the Breeds were diligent, if Stygian was extremely care- ful, then they were days he would never be forced to repeat.

"I remember watching the video cast when Callan Lyons revealed the existence of the Breeds," Liza said then. "It was as though the world was holding its breath, certain it had 451/862.

to be some horrible farce. That there was no way humans could be so in human. That such monsters could exist. Only to learn it was much worse than we had ever imagined."

"Worse, yes," he agreed as he let his fin- gers thread into the heavy length of her hair.

"But freedom was much sweeter, the realiza- tions of the gifts that were actually given became more cherished. I would not trade who and what I am, because in doing so, I would have missed this night, and I would have missed loving you."

She was retreating.

Stygian felt it with a sense of shock.

Her reaction was so swift, so instantan- eous he nearly missed that critical point in pulling her back.

A snarl pulled at his lips as his hand wrapped around her neck, jerking her to him with a swiftness that had that internal at- tempt to disappear from him emotionally pausing.

452/862.

"You will not," he snarled, his lips nearly touching hers, his gaze holding hers, shock filling it as her lips parted on a gasp. "You will not go away from me in such a way, Liza.

Never again. Do you understand me?"

"Don't." Her fingers curled against his chest, as though she could force him to re- lease her with such a paltry resistance. "Let me go."

"Little coward," he bit out, feeling the strike of her anger as it began to burn inside her mind. "You run and hide like a child, terrified of the responsibility of being an adult.

Have I mated a woman or a child in a wo- man's body?"