“Did Dane have the mark?” he asked her slowly, somehow knowing that he didn’t.
“No.” Elizabeth shook her head. “No one in his family did. I teased Dane that the doctors must have gotten his sperm mixed up with someone else’s…”
She was talking. He saw her lips moving, bitterness lining her face, but it seemed everything inside him had shut down. He was watching her speak, hearing her, his brain processing the information while he seemed to shrink inside himself in horror.
Artificial insemination. Elizabeth had been unable to conceive because of Dane’s low sperm count. So they had contacted a friend of his, a fertility doctor. Marcus Martaine. He had performed the procedure secretively because of Dane’s pride. The other man hadn’t wanted anyone to know he couldn’t father a child. So they had gone another route.
Dane still hadn’t been happy, though. He had never cared for Cassie. Always saw her as his failure, Elizabeth said. Cassie was a girl but he wanted a son. She wasn’t conceived properly. Didn’t look enough like him. Dane’s list had gone on and one.
Cassie wasn’t Dane’s daughter, though. She was Elizabeth’s. He could smell it. He would have known it if she wasn’t. The differences in the scent would have been too vast if Elizabeth’s egg hadn’t been used. But Dane’s sperm hadn’t been.
“Dash?” She was watching him in concern now as he stared down at her, everything suddenly falling into place.
Dane had to have known Cassie wasn’t his child. That she was a Breed child. He had to have known because he had tried to bargain with her. The information of the marker wasn’t public knowledge. It was a very carefully kept secret for the time being. Dash had made it his business to study every piece of information being given on them. There was a specific marker in a specific location for each Breed. The Wolf Breeds carried theirs on their right shoulders.
“I have to see it.”
Suddenly, he had to be certain. Had to make sure Elizabeth wasn’t seeing a resemblance that was possibly not there.
“What?” She shook her head, bemused. “See what?”
“The mark, Elizabeth.” He gripped her shoulders, stilling her as she moved to turn away. “Show me the damned mark.”
“On Cassie?” She frowned, fear starting to shadow her eyes as she pulled her gown and robe closed.
“Why? What does it mean? It’s just a mark. We asked the doctor about it.”
And of course, Martaine would have lied to the doting mother. It was an experiment. A secretly conducted experiment. One Martaine had obviously told no one about except the father. He would have needed Dane’s help. Somehow, he had talked the other man into the dangerous experiment.
“Show it to me.” He gripped her wrist, dragging her from the bed and into the other bedroom, stopping beside the sleeping child.
“Dash, stop, you’ll wake her,” she whispered.
He ignored her, gently lifting the small strap of Cassie’s gown and baring her shoulder. It was there. A dark shadow just under the skin. A genetic marking of the Wolf Breeds. Had she been raised in the labs, she would have been branded, or tattooed, according to the lab in question, to hide the marker. But she hadn’t been. She had been born to a loving mother and a bastard father. Dash bent close, drawing in the scent of her skin and shaking with the knowledge his brain was finally accepting. It was faint, a bit darker than he remembered. The genetics were obviously recessed much as his were or he would have detected the scent of a Breed sooner. But it was there. She was a Wolf Breed child. But whose?
What had they done? Dash knew Martaine well. He remembered the doctor visiting the labs, checking results, deciding who lived and who died. Dash had been picked to die. He was the runt of the litter and still smaller, weaker, than the other Breeds of that pack. Martaine had been young then, not even in his thirties. A cold, brutal bastard.
Dash was breathing harshly, perspiration dotting his forehead as he fought the rage building inside him. They weren’t containing the experiments to the labs anymore? When had they brought the genetic mix into the general population?
He eased the strap back, glancing at Elizabeth’s tight, furious expression as he stalked from the room.
“God damn them.” He had no sooner cleared his bedroom than he turned, ramming his fist into the wall. Plaster cracked. A solid two by four split. Dash felt it as the sound echoed around him. He was aware of Elizabeth jumping back as she entered the room, a small cry smothered behind her hand as she stood staring at him, her eyes wide. Dash leaned his head against the wall, rolling it on the cool plaster as he fought to think.
“Was she na**d when you took her from Grange?” His voice was a hard, vicious growl.
“No.” Her voice was faint. Thin. “She was wearing her panties. But her nightgown had been ripped off her. Dash, what’s going on?”
Grange would have demanded proof. Dane would have given it to him. Files, of course. He had to have had files of the experiment in case they were needed. And the mark. A mark that could be validated.
“I should have known,” he muttered. Hell, he thought, he had known but had just refused to admit to it. The idea of it had been too extreme, too far-fetched to consider. How the hell had it happened?
Martaine must have lost his mind. “God damn. I should have known. No wonder he wanted her.” A short, bitter laugh escaped him. “Hell, sure he wanted her. She was a f**king gold mine.”
He pushed his fingers through his hair as he fought to beat down the fury pulsing through his body. Elizabeth and Cassie had been through hell. Hunted. A price on their heads. All because Dane Colder had allowed his wife to be impregnated by Breed sperm. How had they managed it? Why had Martaine not informed the Council that he had discovered the secret to breeding the species? He hadn’t, Dash knew. The experiments into the breeding were well documented.
“Dash.” Elizabeth’s voice was filled with fear. “Dash, what’s wrong with her?”
He shook his head desperately. He couldn’t tell her. Couldn’t let her know. Her voice was faint. “What does that mark mean?”