“Maybe two months,” Elizabeth amended. “Because if you know anything in this world, you should have known how much I love you, Cassie.” Her voice broke then, tears filling her eyes, clogging her throat as she stared down at the vulnerable, almost broken child. Dear God, she could kill Dane herself for what he had done to Cassie.
“He said I was an animal.” She shook her head slowly, the tears finally easing.
“No, Cassie.” She gripped the girl’s face, staring down at her with an inner rage that seared her soul. “You are my baby. And whoever your natural father is, wherever he is, I can only thank him for giving me a child as precious, as smart and as loving as you are. Do you understand me, Cassie? Do you hear what I’m saying?”
Cassie blinked up at her. In a second the little girl was in her arms, clinging tightly to her neck, a hard, desperate kiss plastered to her cheek.
“I love you, Momma,” she whispered at her ear. “I love you.”
“I love you, Cassie.” She could rock her baby now. Could hold her in her arms and cuddle her, comfort her.
Elizabeth closed her eyes, fighting her own screams, her own sobs, as she held her daughter tightly to her breast. She pressed her lips to Cassie’s head, sheltered her in her arms and prayed to God that they could find a way, some way, to protect her now.
It didn’t matter that the Tolers were standing in the doorway. That Dash was watching them with hungry eyes. All that mattered now was Cassie. Her protection. Her safety. And Elizabeth knew that only Dash could assure it.
She raised her eyes to him, fighting her tears, knowing Cassie could never handle seeing her mother fall now. But Elizabeth knew she was damned close to doing just that. She was shaking on the inside, lightheaded, weak. Dear God, what were they going to do now?
Mike and his wife slowly left the room as Dash neared the bed, his eyes bleak and filled with pain as he stared down at Elizabeth.
“Cassie.” He sat down beside her. “You were eavesdropping, weren’t you?”
Cassie tensed in her mother’s arms, then nodded hesitantly.
“You heard what I am then, didn’t you?” he asked her softly.
Once again, Cassie nodded.
“When I was very young, Cassie, not much older than you, I escaped the labs and I ran as far and as hard from that place as I could. Because I knew I wasn’t an animal. I knew I deserved to live and to be free. Just as you do. You are a perfect, beautiful little girl. As beautiful as your momma is. But you have to believe that. Remember? You told me that in a letter. If you believe, then it’s as real as sunshine. Do you remember that, Cassie?”
“Momma told me that.” She hiccupped against Elizabeth’s chest.
“And does your momma lie to you, Cassie?” He touched her hair softly; at the same time Elizabeth felt his arm steal around her shoulders.
He was heat and strength. God, she needed that strength right now.
“Momma never lies,” Cassie finally sighed.
“No, she doesn’t.” He pulled them both into his arms, holding them, protecting them. “And neither will I, Cassie. Ever. Now I need you to tell me exactly what happened that night. Until I know what happened, I can’t protect you and your momma fully. You have to tell me everything.”
Elizabeth knew when he said the words that she wouldn’t be able to handle Cassie’s remembrances of that night. She was right. But she stayed silent, fighting to escape within herself, to pull that mantle of distance around her shoulders that would keep her strong for her daughter.
Dane had owed Grange a frightening amount of money. When the other man arrived at the house, Dane had been waiting. He had already informed Cassie of her parentage, had raged at her, telling her over and over what a little animal she was, how she needed to be caged, penned up like the other animals in the world. That her mother could never want her now. Never love her. Didn’t Cassie know how her mother refused to let her have a pet? He had told her cruelly. How did she think her mother would feel when she learned Cassie was nothing more than all the animals she had denied over the years?
Cassie had been crying when Grange showed up for his money. It was then Dane offered him something much more valuable. A Breed child. Conceived naturally, and without the genetic faults that kept the other Breeds from conceiving children. Trainable. Breedable. To convince the other man, he had ripped Cassie’s gown from her, showing him the genetic marker. The same marker notated in the Top Secret files Martaine had given him years before.
Grange had been ecstatic. But he had been smart enough to know Dane could never get away with selling his daughter. He had told Cassie to watch. To see how very easy it was to kill a man. That it would be the first of many lessons she would soon learn. In front of her eyes he had killed her father.
Cassie cried as she told them what happened, and Elizabeth didn’t stop her. The sobs were heartbreaking, cleansing. Finally, Cassie was being allowed to face the truth of that night, as was Elizabeth.
When she finished, Elizabeth rocked her, hummed a lullaby to her and didn’t protest as Dash sat, holding them both. Finally, the little girl slipped into an exhausted sleep in her mother’s arms.
Elizabeth laid her back in the bed and smoothed the dark curls away from her face with trembling fingers.
“I’ll wake up soon,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’ll wake up in my house, in my bed and realize it’s all been a horrible nightmare.”
Dash sighed behind her as he rose from the bed. “When you do, wake me up as well,” he sighed. “Then find an explanation for me being in that bed beside you. Because I won’t let you go, Elizabeth. Not now. Not ever.”
She stared down at her daughter, unable to turn and look at him.
“What do I do?” she asked him, fighting the feeling of helplessness suddenly overtaking her. “Tell me what to do, Dash. How do I protect her now?”
“You can’t, Elizabeth.” His voice was hard, cold. “But I can. And I will. Now lie down and try to rest. We’ll plan this out tomorrow. And I promise you, Cassie will be protected.”
Chapter Fourteen
Tomorrow came too soon. Elizabeth sat hollow-eyed and quiet in the study as Dash and Mike Toler faced her. The plans he had made, without her approval, were insane. Somehow, as night had turned to dawn, she had known this was coming. She had listened to Cassie’s soft little puppy sounds as she slept, and had known Dash would take her baby away from her.
It didn’t matter that she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wanted only to protect her. It didn’t matter that she knew protection would come with a price. All she knew was that the culmination of two years of fighting, fleeing and hiding had ended with this.
She sat on the worn couch and faced the two men, her hands tucked between her knees, feeling disjointed, disassociated from the world around her. Her baby, the child she had raised, had been no more than an experiment to others. She had been used and her daughter had been used, horribly. A little girl had been forced to grow up too soon. To see the horror of a life she should have never known. And now, they wanted to separate her from her mother.
“No.” She kept her voice quiet, reasonable. Dash didn’t look surprised.
He shouldn’t be surprised, she thought. He should have known she would never agree. He should have come up with another plan.
“Elizabeth.” He sighed deeply. The sound was filled with regret. “Listen to me, baby. If you go with her, then we’ll never draw Grange back to his estate at the right time. We get Cassie safe then we take care of the monster. It’s the only way we can do this.”
There had to be another way, because she wasn’t accepting this one.
“Cassie stays with me.” She rose to her feet, staring back at the men calmly, amazed at herself and the lack of fury, fear or rage inside her.
She should be screaming this morning. Her insides should be a shuddering wreck at the thought of what her daughter was facing. She shouldn’t have been able to function considering the state of shock she knew she had entered.
“Elizabeth.” Dash stepped in front of her as she moved to leave the room. “We don’t have a choice.”
She stopped before she could touch him. She couldn’t touch him. Couldn’t let his heat seep past the icy protection she had pulled around her heart. She stared at his chest for long moments, seeing how well the Army T-shirt hugged the broad muscles, stretching and conforming to a body she hungered for. A body she couldn’t touch. Had no right to desire.
“Of course we do.” She shrugged as she finally stared up at him. “We do the same thing the Felines do. We go to the media.”
She could almost feel the air humming around her now, charged with anger and volatile protest. It was a simple solution. The Felines had done it and were now so securely protected and autonomous that no one dared mess with them for fear of public outrage. Her daughter could be protected in the same way. Couldn’t she?
“The media,” Dash said carefully. “Think about that, Elizabeth. Cassie isn’t an adult and she doesn’t have a Pride backing her. What’s more, she wasn’t lab-created. She was conceived naturally, which raises the stakes in ways you can never imagine. You’re a woman alone and the scientists who will be eager to get their hands on Cassie for
studies
,” he sneered the word, “could contrive any manner of charges against you. You’ll go from a mother fighting to save her child, to a money-grubbing mercenary using her baby to make her own way. They could frame you for Dane’s murder. Make it appear you were in league with Grange…”
She shook her head desperately, panic flaring in her chest. “No…”
“They will, Elizabeth.” Dash kept his voice soft, almost sinister. “Listen to me. Hear what I’m saying because you know it’s true. They can do it. And they will. Cassie is exceptional. She’s also exploitable. Don’t think you can win with them. If you go to the media now, before she’s listed as a Breed and under their protection, then you’ve lost her forever.”
Elizabeth swallowed tightly as she stared into his eyes, seeing the total conviction there, the strength of his beliefs. She hadn’t considered it, that they would try to take her child away from her, to manipulate opinion in such a manner. She looked over at Mike Toler. His face was somber, his gaze concerned as he nodded in agreement.
They could do it
, his expression seemed to shout. They would do it.
And where did that leave her except without her child?
“But, she’ll be without me,” she whispered as she turned back to Dash, wrapping her arms protectively around her chest. “You have to make them let me go with her.”
She couldn’t imagine being separated from Cassie. Not being there when her daughter had nightmares, when she was frightened. If something happened. How else could she be sure her daughter was protected?
“Grange knows your habits, baby,” Dash continued. “He believes you would never let Cassie go anywhere alone. He won’t expect this. Then, when we’re ready, we’ll let him think he’s found you. If you disappear with Cassie, then he’ll go to ground, hide, until he gets his chance to take her. A chance you won’t be able to anticipate. We have to take him out, Elizabeth. It’s the only way.”
Take him out.
For a moment the memory of the news report flashed in her mind. Grange’s henchman found in a pool of blood, his throat slit open, an efficient killing, the reporter had concluded. Dash had taken him out, completely.
“Kill him?” she asked him weakly. She had never killed anyone. But, she had never been given the chance at Grange’s throat, either.
“Only if we have to,” he promised her, but she saw the naked fury in his eyes. She had a feeling he would make it a ‘have to’ case. “First we get Cassie protected. Then we see what we can do about Grange. We might get lucky and he’ll listen to reason.” He shrugged.
Elizabeth blinked. His eyes glittered savagely and his tone of voice clearly reflected his hope that Grange wasn’t inclined to listen to any kind of reason. In that moment, he looked like what he had been created to be. A savage, merciless hunter.
“So in essence, we go hunting?” she asked him slowly.
The smile that crossed Dash’s face was nearly a snarl. “That’s a good description.” He nodded. He seemed to like the idea.
Elizabeth watched him. As she did, she felt the blistering-hot fury creeping around the edges of the shield she had fought to put in place all through the night. Terrance Grange had hunted her and Cassie for two years. Killing anyone who would have helped them, standing in the way of any chance Cassie would have had at a normal life.
He had done it out of greed and a lust for power. To possess someone so unique, so special, and use her for his own twisted, depraved ends. He was a demon. A monster that wouldn’t stop until he destroyed Cassie.
She took a hard, steadying breath. “Teach me to hunt.” She gazed back at him, allowing the anger to strengthen, feeling the shield crumble. “I mean it, Dash. You teach me how.”
She wouldn’t sit on the sidelines. If she had to do this his way, then she would fight as well. And she knew he could teach her how to fight.
His eyes narrowed and what glowed there should have terrified her. It was lust. Hot. Hungry. As though the thought of her fighting him had ignited a flame he had no intentions of dampening.
“Train you?” he asked her carefully. “Are you sure that’s what you want, Elizabeth? You could do this the safe way. I don’t mind carrying the brunt of the work. I know how.”
Her lips thinned, nostrils flaring as her head raised and she met his look directly. She could tell he knew how. He was like that, willing to carry it all whether it was his fight or not.
“She’s my baby,” she said flatly. “It was our lives he destroyed. If I have to send my child away to protect her, then someone is going to have to pay for it. It’s his fault.”
So he should pay.
She left it unsaid.
Dash stared down at her for long, silent moments. In that time, the heat seemed to build in his eyes, in the very air around him. She expected any moment to feel the flames licking over her body. He looked like a man ready to give into all of his baser needs whether he had an audience or not.