Elizabeth followed Dash into the bedroom, waiting until he closed then, strangely enough, locked the door behind him. He moved the straight-back chair from the side of the wall and propped it under the doorknob. She lifted her brow mockingly.
“Don’t trust him?” she asked softly.
Dash stared up at her in surprise. “I trust him well enough, I just know him too damned well.” He raked his fingers through his hair in a gesture of obvious irritation. “Damn, I wasn’t expecting this.” He seemed more than bemused by the turn of events.
“I thought you said you didn’t have friends.” She kept her voice low as she watched him curiously. Dash was frowning. He glanced to the door, then back at her.
“Simon’s an anomaly. Ignore him.” He glanced back at the door, appearing more confused by the second.
“What?” Elizabeth asked him.
He shook his head. “Damned man. I have no idea what the hell he thinks he’s doing here.”
“Sounds to me like he’s here to help you.” She sat down on the bed and began unlacing her boots. “For a man who claims he doesn’t have friends, you keep accumulating a bunch of them.”
He didn’t answer her, just stood watching her with a dark, wary expression.
“Dash, you’re worrying me.” She removed her boots before standing up and pulling her T-shirt over her head.
She hadn’t bothered with a bra that morning. The damned things were too restricting and uncomfortable when trying to move about the forest. Then she unsnapped her jeans, pulled the zipper and drew them from her body. When she looked up at Dash, he didn’t appear concerned anymore. He looked hungry.
“I don’t think so,” she snorted. “There’s no way you’re going to make me scream with all those women standing in there listening. They would attack you the minute you left the bedroom.”
Unfortunately, he didn’t deny it. Instead, he began to strip himself as she headed for the bathroom.
He caught up with her as she was adjusting the water, gloriously na**d and more than a little aroused.
“Elizabeth.” He caught her against him as she moved to step beneath the spray, staring down at her with those golden eyes that never failed to make her breath catch. “I love you because you hold my soul,” he told her simply. “I’ve always loved you. I just haven’t always known you.”
Damn him. Just when she thought she had one or two defenses left against him he pulled something like this on her.
She laid her head on his chest, because she knew if she continued to watch him she would end up crying again. He broke her heart sometimes. She had never been loved, been accepted so deeply, as Dash loved and accepted her.
“I love you for the same reasons, Dash.” She finally admitted what she had known when he was no more than a weekly letter, a ray of sunshine into her and Cassie’s dark life. “For the same reasons.”
* * * * *
“Okay. Here’s what we have.” Simon accepted a thick sheaf of papers from one of his Ladies as they sat at the kitchen table after dinner. “There are Wolf Breeds that escaped that lab. We estimate at least half a dozen. Maybe more if the young survived.” He spread out several official documents as he spoke.
“Soon as I learned what you were and what you were up against, I put the Ladies to the computers and told them to hack to their hearts’ content.” He cast smiles to the women arranged around him. “They’re good, too.”
Dash sighed. He had been doing that a lot lately. “What I want to know is how you found out,” he finally said. “The information was supposed to be contained within a small circle.”
Simon shrugged his broad shoulders. “I know a few of the Felines. Rumor has been circulating for months in the underground that Grange had him a Breed kid. When the little girl showed up at the compound last week while Dani was there, she let me know. She also overheard your name mentioned. Next day, your papers as a Breed were filed as well as your paternity statement with Breed Affairs in Washington. It was kind of a no-brainer from there, Dash.” He shook his head as though Dash hadn’t given him enough of a challenge.
“We’ve also met what we suspect to be Wolf Breeds.” Dani spoke up then as Simon seemed to beam in pride. “A young woman named Faith, no last name, and her brother, Aiden, in Colorado. A few months later we met up with a big guy named Jacob. Once again, no last name, this one in Texas meeting with a well-known Breed sympathizer with mega cash. All three have the same lack of histories, and none of them can be traced via computer or records. All three have definite agendas where the Breeds are concerned.”
“Aiden, Faith and Jacob were the names of three litter mates I was raised with,” Dash informed them.
“The Pack Leader, Wolfe, named them himself. We were given numbers in the labs rather than names. It sounds like they escaped after all.”
“They disappeared again, though,” Danica said sadly. “We haven’t been able to make further contact, though when the papers hit Washington and news started spreading of a naturally conceived Wolf Breed child contact was made in high-level offices within Breed Affairs. Word is being given that the child is currently on the move and in hiding. No definite place of residence was listed. You can bet Grange is tracking this one.”
“Grange has also beefed up security at his estate,” Stephanie said as she rifled through the papers.
“Three new guards were hired and rumor says he’s home next week. His young mistress has been reinstalled and everything is being prepared for his return.”
Elizabeth listened as the information was relayed at an almost furious rate for over an hour. They had everything. Locations, destinations, names, addresses and family members of the guards, and they were even certain they had several that could be bribed to allow them into the estate. Two of which were brothers of the young woman who had been forced to take the position of mistress in Grange’s bed. He liked his women young. This one was barely eighteen, and Simon’s reports stated she had been treated for a suicide attempt within months of going to the monster’s bed.