He laughed, a low, feral sound lacking in amusement. The sound ripped over her nerves, shredding them further. It was animalistic, dangerous. There was no amusement in his voice, only savage acceptance of what he was and what he faced. The man she had fallen in love with before she ever met him would be taken from her as well. Not just her baby, but Dash would be gone. How would she ever manage to hold either of them to her now?
“If there’s one thing I know, Elizabeth,” he informed her harshly, “it’s about being a Breed and how to hide it. You can’t hide the marker, though. Nothing can erase it. It’s a genetic imprint created to keep just this from ever happening. To be certain if conception occurred, then a Breed child could be identified. The Council was fanatical about not mixing the animals in the general population.”
She swayed. God. This wasn’t happening. Please don’t let it be happening, she prayed. If she thought the past two years had been a nightmare, then this was hell and she was being plunged in head first. No chance to test the heat. No chance to accept the danger and the pain. No chance to plan a way out. She wouldn’t accept it.
“My daughter is not an animal.” She wanted to scream the words, needed to make certain he heard her, understood her. She didn’t care what he thought he was, but her daughter wasn’t an animal. And she sure as hell wasn’t an experiment. “And neither is she a Breed. She’s my baby.” Her hands knotted at her abdomen. “I had her. I carried her. She looks like me.”
Her baby. Elizabeth fought Dash. Fought the sudden, sickening realization that he could be right. She had always known how special her daughter was. So unique and so gifted in so many ways that she had convinced herself that it was only a mother’s pride that made her see it.
“She’s still your child, Elizabeth.” He tried to step closer to her, then stopped as she retreated in panic. She couldn’t let him touch her. If she did, she would break. Shatter into so many fragments she would never be able to find all the pieces again. “I smell your connection to her. It’s unmistakable. But Dane Colder is not her father.”
She was going to faint. Elizabeth could feel it and fought it. He could smell it? No. Motherhood wasn’t a smell. Or was it? Cassie had come from her body. Her womb. She trembled violently. How could he smell it?
“He is.” She shook her head desperately, suddenly remembering Dane’s desperation to convince her to have a child that first year. “He was desperate for a child. We went to the doctor’s office together. He did everything he was supposed to.”
She was fighting to deny him, to deny what he was telling her. Fighting to try to find a way out of this sudden, horrifying situation. She stared at Dash, silently pleading, begging him to take it back, to show just a small moment of weakness, a doubt that he could be right. If he would, then she could find a way to convince herself that none of this could be true. Instead, he gave her proof.
“Martaine was a high level Genetics Council scientist,” he said with chilling knowledge. Of course, he knew, she thought. He was a Breed. He knew the monsters who worked within those labs. “He worked in the initial phases of breeding, trying to reverse the coding that kept the males from fertilizing their females.” A low, painful whimper was her only protest. “When he failed to do what they wanted, he was quietly retired rather than killed, in case they needed him later,” Dash continued. “He went into fertility practice and evidently his experiments continued. Somehow, he figured out how to use the unique Breed sperm to fertilize the ova. Because I swear to you, Elizabeth, Cassie is a Wolf Breed child. That is why Grange won’t let her go. That is why he killed her father. And that was why Dane refused to accept the child. Because he knew.”
“No.” She shook her head desperately. “He wouldn’t have done that. He wouldn’t have.”
“He did, Elizabeth,” he snarled, the sound ricocheting through her body like a bullet. “Listen to me, damn you, because Cassie’s life is in more danger than you ever realized. She is the first. Do you hear me?” She flinched violently. “She is the first Breed child conceived outside a lab. The first created, in vitro, without first altering the ova to accept the unique DNA. Do you understand what I’m saying, Elizabeth? She’s unique. A bridge between human and Breeds, and a female in the bargain. Breedable, Elizabeth. Grange would know that. He knows it and he wants her for it. And if he doesn’t get her, his next step will be to sell this information to the bastards who created us to begin with.”
Breedable? She was a baby. You didn’t breed babies. You cuddled them and you loved them and you raised them to be happy and free and to love you in return. She couldn’t make sense of this. Couldn’t accept the information battering into her brain.
“She’s just a baby. You can’t do that with a baby.”
“Elizabeth.” He groaned her name with agonizing emotion. “Listen to me, honey. You have to listen to me now. You can’t protect Cassie from this. You can’t shelter her or run far enough away to hide her from this.”
Elizabeth stared back at him in shock. Couldn’t protect Cassie? She had to protect Cassie. She was her child. She couldn’t accept anything else.
“I won’t let my baby die,” she raged furiously. “You’re wrong. You have to be wrong.”
“You know I’m not wrong,” he snapped. “The sounds she makes while she’s sleeping. There wasn’t a Wolf Breed in the labs I lived in that didn’t make that sound as children. When she was playing with Mica and bit her. It’s instinct to use the teeth rather than the hands to gain freedom. Her canines are longer. Her intelligence is far advanced for her age…”
“Stop!” She screamed out at the pain radiating through her body now. She couldn’t bear to breathe; it hurt so badly. She had to escape him. Had to help Cassie survive this. “Get away from me. Just get the hell out away from me.”
She moved for the connecting bathroom. She had to get to Cassie. Had to make sure nothing or no one could ever hurt her child again. She tried to run, tried to rush past him and escape the pain he was bringing into her life.
He caught her just past the chairs, moving faster than she could. His arms, so hard and strong, wrapped around her, dragging her against his chest as she collapsed. One big hand held her head against him, his broad chest absorbing her sudden scream of agonizing denial.
“No,” she wailed against his chest, her fists slamming into him as hard as the truth slammed into her soul. “Oh God, no. He didn’t do this to my baby.”
She was shaking so hard in his arms she frightened herself. On one level, she was aware of the breakdown. The past two years had culminated in this. The fragile hold she held on her control crumpled and memories assailed her mind.
She hadn’t been comfortable with Martaine. Dane had had to fight, beg and plead with her to allow the doctor to perform the procedure. Elizabeth had wanted someone else. Had wanted a doctor she trusted, one who didn’t make her skin crawl. But Dane had been insistent. It would be private this way. No one would ever know that their child hadn’t been conceived naturally. No one would be aware that he wasn’t man enough to get his own wife pregnant.
The list of excuses had been long and the fights had almost been violent. Finally, Elizabeth had given in. Dane had been ecstatic until they had been told the procedure had been effective. Elizabeth had conceived.
He had been quiet. His excitement had slowly faded from that moment on. And she had never known why. Now she knew. It had gone from his wife and child to an experiment. Dane had been almost obsessively jealous. The realization that she wasn’t carrying his child must have eaten him alive. It had. It had destroyed their marriage, and eventually his greed had taken his life.
“Mike, see what you can find out about Colder and Martaine, privately, such as any money owed or paid. I need as much information as I can get. Put a call into Tyler for me. We have to talk again.”
She had been barely aware of the other man and his wife entering the room as she and Dash fought. Now she was in his arms as he held her tightly to his chest, crying. She didn’t know why she was crying. Tears weren’t going to help. But she couldn’t stop.
As Dash threw out hasty orders to the other man, his hands were stroking her hair, her back, holding her close to the heat and hardness of his body. Sheltering her the only way he knew how. She recognized it. Had done it often with Cassie.
Her baby had been betrayed again, just as Elizabeth had been. It all made sense now. So many things she hadn’t been able to explain: the sudden influx of money after she conceived, Dane’s distance from the child, Martaine’s interest in her. He had visited the house often before her divorce and had called her personally several times.
And Cassie. Elizabeth felt her heart stop. Her daughter knew. She knew and hadn’t told Elizabeth. She had to know. She was there when Dane was killed, had heard her father haggling over the price of selling her to Grange. She would have to be aware of her birthright.
The pieces started falling into place. How Cassie had known all the times someone had been in the apartments they had lived in. She had stopped, fear holding her body rigid as she breathed in deeply.
They’re here, Momma. The fairy says they’re here.
The fairy hadn’t shown up before the night Dane had been killed.
The fairy told her when danger was coming. Instinct. Animal awareness, as had been explained in the interviews she had seen with the Feline Breeds. It developed in the young and only grew stronger as they matured. The fairy told her when their enemies were close. Instinct. She could smell them, just as Dash could smell the proof of her parentage. The fairy always knew the things that Cassie was training herself to accept and strengthen.
She pushed against Dash’s chest, wiping at the tears on her face, fighting for control. He wouldn’t let her go. He held her to him, knowing she wanted to run, to hide not just from Grange and the truth, but from him as well.
He had claimed her. He had already informed her of that fact. He wouldn’t let her go. She remembered Callan Lyons’ interviews. His fierce protectiveness of his wife, Merinus. The determination to see her safe at all costs. His eyes had blazed when he spoke of her and she had seen a man who would kill to save his woman. As Dash had done. He had killed to protect her and Cassie. How many more would he be forced to kill now? The thought of that, the danger to not just her child but to Dash as well, was destroying her.
Chapter Thirteen
“Let me go.” She pushed against his chest again as Mike and Serena left the room. “I have to check on Cassie. Please, Dash. I have to check on her.”
He let her go slowly as she fought to dry her face, to stem the tears still rolling from her eyes. She couldn’t go in there like this. Cassie would wake up. She always knew when her mother was upset, when she was crying…
God, let her be asleep.
She rushed to the room, somehow knowing Cassie was awake.
She was. Sitting up in the bed, her own face wet with tears as she clutched the teddy bear Dash had bought her at the diner. Her frail shoulders were shaking with her tears as she rocked to and fro. Silent, heartbreaking sobs that destroyed Elizabeth. How much had her daughter heard?
“Cassie?” Elizabeth realized she was shaking, trembling from head to foot as her daughter raised her head, shame and fear contorting her little face.
“I’m not bad, Momma,” she whispered desperately. “I swear, Momma. I swear, I’m not an animal. I’m not.”
“Oh God.” She felt faint, in shock, seeing the truth in her daughter’s eyes as she huddled so miserably on the bed.
Elizabeth rushed to her, pulling her into her arms, feeling her daughter’s thin little arms wrap around her as sobs shook her body.
She couldn’t breathe. Elizabeth fought the dizziness wrapping around her as she rocked the little girl, fighting the hysteria edging into her mind as Cassie’s panicked voice echoed around her.
“I’m sorry,” she was screaming against her mother’s breast. “Momma, please. I’m sorry.”
“Cassie.” She fought her own tears as she pulled her daughter back, staring into the little face, seeing so much pain, so much realization of the cruelties of the world. “Why are you sorry, baby? Cassie, you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“He said you won’t love me.” Cassie was shaking so hard her teeth rattled. “Said I was an animal. Said I needed to be penned. That you wouldn’t want an animal. And you don’t like puppies. Or even cats. And he said you wouldn’t want me.”
Cassie’s hands were clawing at her neck as Elizabeth stared down at her in such overwhelming shock she feared she was losing her mind. Cassie was screaming, crying, so hysterical Elizabeth knew she would make herself sick soon.
“Enough.” Elizabeth shook her firmly. “Cassidy Paige Colder. That is enough.”
She used the voice Cassie called the ‘no chocolate’ voice. Firm, chastising, guaranteed to grab her daughter’s attention.
Cassie’s eyes widened, the tears still flowed, sobs still tore from her chest but she wasn’t screaming, wasn’t terrifying Elizabeth with her complete hysteria.
“Cassidy. Why are you crying?” She fought the need to cuddle her baby, to rock her, but she saw the complete shock filling her child’s eyes and knew Cassie would never hear the gentle words.
Cassie blinked. “I’m an animal, Momma.” The pain in her voice was hard to hear.
“Is Tanner Williams an animal, Cassidy Paige? Callan Lyons? Are they animals?”
Cassie’s breath hitched. “Is that little baby Callan’s wife is having an animal, Cassie?” she questioned her daughter fiercely. “Is this how you see them? Those men and women who fought for their lives and their hearts, so perfectly beautiful. Are they animals?”
Cassie stared up at her in surprise. “No, Momma.” She shook her head fiercely.
“Have I said they are animals, Cassie?” she snapped fiercely. “Haven’t I always cheered for them right along with you? What makes you think I would believe you are an animal? Young lady, you are very close to losing chocolate for a month.”
Cassie’s mouth gaped open, her eyes widening as Elizabeth stared down at her with a mother’s righteous anger.