His mate"s safety, both physical and emo- tional, was far more important.
"Liza." Moving to where she had sat up on the bed, her gaze on the floor, Stygian knelt before her, one hand tucking beneath her chin to lift her gaze to his. "Are you okay, baby?"
She shook her head slowly, the tears con- tained in her eyes slowly falling.
"What"s wrong, baby?" Cupping her cheek, he felt fear tear through him. "Tell me where it hurts."
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She swallowed tightly, a whimper leaving her lips as more tears fell.
"Come on, Liza, tell me what"s wrong."
Keeping his voice low, he had to fight back a howl of pure rage at the pain he felt radiating through her.
It wasn"t physical pain.
There were no broken bones, no internal injuries, he would know if there were-the scent of them would have hit him within the first second of rushing back into their room.
Her lips trembled more as she parted them.
"Liza"s dead."
His heart seemed to still in his chest as a sob tore from her.
As she clapped her hand over her lips, he watched as she fought for control, won it, then swallowed again against the pain build- ing in her soul.
"No, sweetheart." He shook his head.
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"She"s dead," she whispered again, wrap- ping her arms across her stomach and bend- ing over, her head touching his shoulder as instinct had him wrapping his arms around her. "Oh G.o.d, Stygian. She"s dead. She died twelve years ago and now-" A shudder raced through her. "And now, they"ll find me, and she"ll die again."
Resignation filled her pain-threaded voice, trembled with it and sliced against the emo- tions he realized she alone was responsible for awakening.
"Look at me. Look at me, mate." Harden- ing his voice, he forced her to lift her head and stare back at him once again. "You brought me to life. You showed me all I have to live for, do you imagine for a second, for even a heartbeat that I would allow anyone to take you from me now?"
"You know who I am," she whispered, her voice so low he was reading her lips more than hearing her. "You know. They knew-"
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Her eyes flashed with terror. "I can"t hide anymore. If I can"t hide, they"ll find me."
"Who will find you? Tell me who will find you?" What enemies did she fear that she could ever imagine he wouldn"t destroy?
Her hand reached out, fragile fingers shak- ing as she laid them against his cheek. "The Genetics Council," she whispered. "You know who, and you know why."
"Why?"
"I have a photographic memory, Stygian. I have had it since birth, and the serum I was given only increased its power. That"s why I had to die. That"s why when Liza Johnson died, I was given her life. I know their weak- nesses and they"ll never allow me to live now."
The animal inside him rose, stretched and smiled in antic.i.p.ation.
"Oh, baby, I promise you, they won"t touch you. Not now, not ever."
She shook her head. "You can"t stop them."
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"I can"t, but sweetheart, trust me, you can." He knew she could and he knew exactly how she would do it.
"How? How, Stygian, can I stop them? I couldn"t even escape them." She was shaking in his arms and he hated it.
He hated her pain.
He hated the bottled rage.
And G.o.d help him, he hated the part he had played in it.
CHAPTER 24.
The terror chasing inside her was killing him, it was killing her, and he wouldn"t allow it.
"The same way Callan stopped them," he promised her, his hands cupping her face, drawing her lips to his for a precious, though far too short kiss. "The same way, Honor.
But instead of telling the world, you"ll tell the Breed Cabinet. Who you are. The experiments and the secrets the Council is so des- perate to hide. You"ll tell them all of it. And you"ll weaken them as they"ve never been weakened before."
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She shook her head again, slowly, the ter- ror only growing in her eyes. "It"s not that easy."
"It will be-"
"You don"t understand," she cried out, her agony searing his senses. "It"s not just me. I don"t have all the information. We were a team, Stygian. Me, Fawn, Judd and Gideon.
We were a team and you only have me. Fawn won"t remember until she dies," she sobbed as Stygian felt his soul freeze, felt fury tear through him. "And I won"t tell you where she is. I won"t, Stygian. I won"t trade her life for my own-or G.o.d help me, even for Amber"s.
I won"t do it."
"You can"t know this." Gripping her shoulders, he gave her a little shake, desper- ate to make her listen, to make her under- stand. "Sweetheart, listen to me. If we know who she is, where she is, we can and we will protect her. I swear to you-"
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"And Judd, can you find him? What about Gideon?" Anger was building in her now even as the pain kept her tears falling. "He"ll kill her, just as he swore he would kill me and Judd. He"ll see us all dead, Stygian, and trust me, Gideon is strong enough to do it.
And he"s crazy enough. He won"t stop until he steals our last breath."
"Why?" Stygian raged, fury tearing at him and enraging the animal inside him into a feral frenzy. "Why, Honor? Why would he want to see any of you dead?"
"Because Judd and Fawn forced him to live," she rasped desperately. "They wouldn"t let him escape into death and, without me, they didn"t have the key to take his pain away when they transfused him with Fawn"s blood that night. We"re a team. We made certain of it, believing the Genetics Council couldn"t kill us if they needed all of us. We destroyed ourselves and didn"t even know it." She stared up at him, tortured, the scent of her 813/862.
pain tearing at his soul. "We never imagined, Stygian, that one of us would ever want to kill another of us. Let alone, all of us."
Fighting back her tears, Liza fought to hold on to enough control not to collapse in- to complete, heartrending sobs.
She"d spent twelve years-she"d believed she"d spent her life-with a loving family, far away from the Genetics Council and the danger they represented.
She"d left a loving family, though. A father who risked his and his wife"s life to help her find Orrin Martinez. A mother who had risked forever losing the child she had dreamed of for so many years and the hus- band she loved with all her heart.
Her parents had been dedicated to each other and to her.
"I was two when I was diagnosed with leukemia." She couldn"t sit still. "It was a particularly resistant, fatal leukemia."
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Moving quickly to her feet, she pushed her fingers through her hair, wanting to rip the carefully highlighted, medicinally colored strands from her scalp.
Behind her, Stygian moved to his feet, watching her intently.
She could feel his gaze-feel the worry and concern directed toward her, wrapping around her.
Just as his arms would be around her if she allowed it.
She wanted it.
She needed him to hold her with an in- tensity akin to pure desperation-and she couldn"t allow it.
"You"re still here," he said behind her.
Yes, she was still here.
"My parents loved me." Her breathing hitched painfully as she turned back to him.
"They loved me so much that when my father was offered a place within the Genetics Council Experimental Genetics Division, he 815/862.
accepted eagerly. You see, he knew about Brandenmore. And he"d heard the rumors of the project he was working on." She could feel the rage, the pain, streaking through her, threatening to send her screaming into pure madness.
"He knew about the Omega Project?" His voice was carefully level.
Liza could feel the effort it took for him to hold back. A distant part of her realized she was sensing it, and realized why.
The why was tearing her apart.
"I was placed in Brandenmore"s labs two weeks before the doctors predicted my body would be consumed by the leukemia." She turned back to him, fighting and failing to hold back her tears. "I was there for ten years. Ten years so h.e.l.lish I prayed to die nearly every night that I existed in that h.e.l.l. I begged my parents to let me die and I begged every scientist, tech and soldier I could speak to."
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Crossing her arms desperately over her stomach, she bent over with the remembered horror of the h.e.l.l she"d existed within and fought to remain on her feet.
She didn"t have to fight for long. Within a heartbeat his arms were around her, his broad chest catching her tears as he held her to him.
"They tortured them," she sobbed, grief tearing through her as their screams echoed through her memories. "I would beg them to stop. I would scream and threaten and still I had to listen to their screams."
Fawn wouldn"t be able to talk for days after the treatments.
Gideon would growl like a feral cat while his eyes would glow that eerie, predatory amber.
Judd would stare up at the ceiling, refus- ing or unable to sleep until his body could function once again.
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"What did they do to you?" His broad, warm hand cupped the back of her head, holding her to him as she held on to his shoulders, her nails digging into the material of his shirt as she fought to just hold on to her sanity.
Her memory was so incredibly accurate that any moment she could pull the most minute detail from even the darkest, most agonizing second of those years there.
Shaking her head, her fingers clenching in his shirt, Honor felt as though she was sink- ing into a pool of pure emotional acid. There was nothing but pain in the past, and she had realized why each day of her life after she became Liza Johnson.
"Tell me."
The primal creature that helped create him echoed in his voice. Man and animal existed in such harmony inside him that there were times she could actually forget he was a Breed. If she wanted to. But, Honor realized, 818/862.
she wanted always to know exactly who and what he was.
"I would pray to die."
The growl that vibrated in his throat was so similar to those Gideon and Judd would emit whenever they were forced to care for her and Fawn after the treatments.
"I was the only one they showed any kind- ness to. Father couldn"t even force them to show Fawn mercy, and he tried. He tried so hard." She stared back at him, shaking her head as she fought and failed to hold back her sobs. "He did everything he could. He bribed them, he begged them, and still, they didn"t care when she screamed and screamed in pain."
Her father had raged at the scientists, he had even gone above their heads and peti- tioned the Council itself for mercy.
And they had refused.
"She was so tiny, Stygian." Her voice broke as she felt her heart breaking for the child 819/862.
Fawn had been. "She was so delicate that sometimes I wondered how she held her head on her shoulders. Yet she always did.
She would turn her back on us and I could see her shoulders shaking as she sobbed si- lently. As she wrapped her tiny arms across her stomach and rocked, silently begging for comfort. And it was only Gideon that could force the scientists to let him go to her. It was always Gideon that held her, that rocked her, and sometimes, he even sang to her."
And how envious she had been as she had watched the young man rock her friend. As she watched him lift his head and stare at the bars above the cages they were forced to exist within as the scientists watched the bonds growing between the four of them.
"Once the experiments drew to a close, I thought we were all being released. My par- ents came for me, took me home, and I tried so hard to acclimate to being free, even though a part of me knew I would never be 820/862.