Breeds: Stygian's Honour Part 36

With each hard thrust inside her, the sen- sations at her rear increased. The parting of her flesh, the tip of his finger rubbing against the puckered entrance, sliding lower to gather her juices and ease them back, rubbing, pressing, sliding. Pleasure built to a golden haze that obliterated everything but the driv- ing, uncontrolled race to release. To that mo- ment when ecstasy slammed through her 514/862.

body and, somehow, Stygian pierced her soul.

Liza dug her nails into the cus.h.i.+ons of the couch, panting for air as the overwhelming pleasure suffused every particle of her being.

The feel of Stygian against her back, sur- rounding her, holding her, taking her with a desperation and hunger that wrapped around her with such heat she felt seared by it, wrapped around her senses.

Heavily lubricated with her juices, the tip of his finger slid inside the snug entrance of her rear, adding to the fury of sensations spiraling through her body.

Her hips arched, driving the thick width of his c.o.c.k deeper, lodging his fingertip further inside her as she relished each flash of pleasure/pain, each ecstatic stroke of blinding ec- stasy. The sensations wrapped around her, burned over and through her nerve endings with each inward thrust, each pulse of the 515/862.

pre-c.u.m that filled her and each touch of Stygian's caressing hands.

With his c.o.c.k burrowing inside her p.u.s.s.y, his fingers, timing each stroke in rhythm with the other, the pleasure began to ride her with hard, electric pulses as a rising tension spiraled through her body.

With each hard stroke, she was pushed higher, thrown closer to the burning center of release.

It was building in her c.l.i.t, in the depths of her p.u.s.s.y. It was tightening in her muscles, sending chills and waves of heat racing across her flesh.

His teeth raked the bend of her shoulder, sc.r.a.ping over sensitive flesh as her nails un- locked from the back of the couch and reached back, latching onto his hair and holding tight.

She needed him closer. So close their flesh felt connected. So close that she knew she 516/862.

would never be without him, no matter the distance that separated them.

"Yes," she panted. "Oh G.o.d, Stygian, yes.

Right there. Don't stop-Don't stop-"

He didn't stop.

The thrusts increased in power.

The expert penetration of her rear went deeper, stroking, caressing naked nerve end- ings and finally sending her hurtling into the cataclysm of release.

The first white-hot flare of sensation erup- ted around her c.l.i.t before striking the depths of her p.u.s.s.y. A long, shattered wail of pleasure left her lips, smothered with breathless- ness, trapped against the cus.h.i.+ons she bur- ied her head in.

Stygian's incisors clamped on the bend of her shoulder, piercing the wound already there as his c.o.c.k sank inside her again.

The first spurt of s.e.m.e.n was followed by the intense swelling of his erection inside the heavy muscles clamped on it.

517/862.

Spreading her flesh apart, pus.h.i.+ng into it and locking his erection inside her, the force of the mating knot ensured there was no escaping his release as it filled her.

There was no escaping the man.

There was no escaping the emotions sud- denly racing through her with the same force of his s.e.m.e.n spilling into her.

Fear.

Hope.

Love.

She didn't want to feel any of the emotions she couldn't seem to hold back any longer.

Shuddering beneath him, her arm bent to maintain the hold she had on his hair as he covered her from behind, the feel of his teeth locked in her shoulder, the certainty that more than mating held them together, over- whelmed her. The well of emotion burning inside her now held her to him, opened a part of her she hadn't known she possessed, and she felt him move right in.

518/862.

He was locked to her body.

He was locked to her heart.

He had invaded her soul.

And Liza knew she would never be free of him.

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.

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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 in- side. 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 involun- tary, that maybe it was me all along." And 521/862.

the knowledge of that weighed on her heart like a ma.s.sive 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, brus.h.i.+ng 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 any- one 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 522/862.

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 an- swer. 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 523/862.

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, un- certain what to feel or how to deal with the suspicions rising within her mind.

524/862.

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 reduc- tion 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 informa- tion 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 525/862.

body has actually begun repairing itself. In the s.p.a.ce of the time he's been mated, his or- gans have returned to prime condition, and his skin has lost ten percent of the aging damage."

Chills were racing over her flesh. The im- plications of what others would consider miracles began racing through her mind. Be- cause 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 sug- gest that aging r.e.t.a.r.ds at twenty-five without mating in subjects that were given the serum as children suffering from fatal diseases. Un- fortunately, Brandenmore had those subjects terminated before we could find them. Only Honor and Fawn were thought to have survived."

526/862.

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

"Blood tests-" she began.

"Blood tests wouldn't work," Stygian injec- ted. "The nature of the project changes not just blood type, but also genetics. Acts kind of like mating heat, which appears like a ge- netic 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 fa- miliar with Clean Slate DNA, which is what Honor Roberts would have had at the time."

527/862.

"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 pro- cess. 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 complica- tions. 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 pro- ject phase ended, Brandenmore decided it was time to terminate Faith, Judd and Gideon. Honor's father was part of the Gen- etics Council, which kept her out of the ter- mination selection. Instead, once the other three disappeared and they learned there 528/862.

was more to the serum as the children ma- tured, 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 ima- gined 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 529/862.

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 reac- quire 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 530/862 damaged in an age when unique abilities were prized.

"Honor had a photographic memory, but the nanny noticed the girl could watch move- ments, 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 s.h.i.+loh 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 Sty- gian, anywhere but on the fact that she was dying inside.

"And Fawn?" she asked.

"They weren't certain about Fawn." Reach- ing out, he pushed back the nearly hip-long wave of hair that had fallen over her face.