Breeds: Stygian's Honour Part 38

And it was entirely possible Liza had heard of Ca.s.sie. She was friends with Ashley, Emma and s.h.i.+loh, and Ca.s.sie wasn't a taboo subject as mating heat was. She could well know Ca.s.sie's abilities to look inside a per- son and see the secrets that haunted them.

Whether they knew they were haunted by them or not.

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"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, re- fusing 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 548/862.

of the room. "The fevers are coming more of- ten and they're taxing her strength further each time."

"Liza's my mate," he said bitterly.

She was his heart, his soul. They were ask- ing 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, wish- ing to h.e.l.l 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?"

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"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," Mor- decai 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 pa.s.sword or hack in yourself," Jonas a.s.sured 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."

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"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.

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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 inter- com on the room phone? Stygian had set it up himself, just in case someone, anyone, at- tempted to invade their suite.

They were listed as staying in the connect- ing 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 Sav- ant swinging to the side, their weapons 552/862.

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?"

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"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, any- thing, 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 in- cisors at the side of his teeth flas.h.i.+ng warn- ingly. "Don't doubt that for a second."

"And pretending I'm Honor Roberts will do that for you? Ordering Stygian to betray 554/862.

the one person it would destroy him to be- tray would do that?"

"Is that why you rushed in here so quickly, rather than waiting to hear his answer?" Jo- nas 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 h.e.l.l out of Window Rock?"

"What would it take?" He took a step for- ward, 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 d.a.m.ned 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."

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"And what do you need to save your daughter?" Liza crossed her arms over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 ser- um 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 expres- sion 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 556/862.

that, once again, the tests were going to hurt.

Once again, they were going to experience h.e.l.l.

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.

G.o.d, she hadn't wheezed in so long.

"They can have the d.a.m.ned code," she whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "I'll give them the d.a.m.ned 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 557/862.

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 tor- mented. His eyes flashed with enraged mer- cury, 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 an- swers-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, des- perate, terrified of what she suddenly felt rising within herself. "Do you think I would deny her for the h.e.l.l of it?"

"No," he said, his voice stark. "Not for the h.e.l.l of it," he finally breathed out wearily.

"But to avoid h.e.l.l? Yes, I believe to avoid 558/862.

whatever h.e.l.l 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 sur- vive? 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 559/862.

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 f.u.c.king scientists who created me could have. I promise you that. There's no h.e.l.l 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 d.a.m.ned sure you pay for it."

Before the sudden, fierce growl that vi- brated 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 560/862.

from returning to the memories of a h.e.l.l that had pushed her to reach out for a dead girl's ident.i.ty?

Lifting her gaze to Stygian, she watched him, knowing the sacrifices he was making for her. He saw her as his mate. As the wo- man 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.