“I don’t understand,” she whispered, turning back, the wispy images of a past that made no sense rushing over her again.
The two girls, she and Claire, were laid out on one side of the fire. On the other side—she could feel herself trembling as the memory rushed over her—were two other girls.
Claire turned to look at her—the Claire that wasn’t broken and bloody—“I’ll never see him again,” she whispered as a tear fell down her cheek. Linking her fingers with her, Liza tried to give her friend comfort where only confusion and fear existed. “Perhaps it’s for the best,” Liza whispered. “Perhaps it’s the only thing that will keep us alive.”
The memories, hazy and fragile as they were, drifted away. But she wasn’t left with nothing to fill the place of where the memory had been. It remained there, a part of her now, pulled from the deepest reaches of her subconscious and now a part of her conscious memories.
She wasn’t Liza Johnson. Liza Johnson had died that night and Honor Roberts had taken her place.
She didn’t have the memories, yet. She had no idea how to help Jonas Wyatt, but what she did have was Orrin Martinez’s promise.
“One day, named for that which few men know—Honor—One day, you will realize, child, you have lived up to all the dreams your father had when he gave you a name of such distinction. Know now, your heart and your soul resonate with it, and into this new life you will take with you the knowledge that will ease the burden of loss for the parents who had such hope, and one day, you will fill the heart and the soul of one who never truly believed he had such.”
Stygian.
She filled his heart and soul, just as he filled hers. But there were so many other dreams, and so many others who were a part of her. And admitting to who, to what she was—
What she was—
Oh God, oh God—
“Liza!” Stygian caught her before her knees could collapse, before the shock could steal not just her strength but also her control. “Liza, are you okay?”
“Get me out of here.” She was going to be sick. “Get me out of here, Stygian.”
And he did just that. No questions, no demands. Lifting her into his arms and carrying her from the remnants of the sweat lodge, he took her away from the past and back into the present.
Nothing could steal the memory of those dark, terrifying days just before the ritual that had taken from her and Fawn the nightmares of their lies and had instead given them the peace and sheltered existence that Liza Johnson and Claire Martinez had been so determined to forsake.
And now, nothing could steal from her the realization of why they had been forced to make such a horrifying decision.
She could never again hide from what she was.
CHAPTER 17
But, it wasn’t as easy as Stygian had hoped it would be, and Liza wasn’t cooperating when it came to explaining exactly what had happened in that damned desert.
She shut down on him.
It wasn’t the distance he had experienced from her before. That complete emotional and spiritual distance, which assured his animal instincts that she was nothing more than a perfect, breathing shell.
This was different, but no less disconcerting. It was as though a part of her was so focused on something else to the point that there was no room for anything or anyone else.
That focus had completely eradicated the mating heat, and it was infuriating him.
The animal that lived under his skin was enraged by it.
His c**k was just tortured. He was so damned hard, so f**king hungry for the taste of her, the touch of her, that it was about to drive him insane.
Two days later, Stygian could feel his frustration level moving into overload and threatening his control to the point that it was becoming dangerous.
Where was the mating heat and how had she managed to dampen it when no other mate had managed to do so?
Heat, like in sex on a near-constant level?
Heat, like his mate dying for his touch twenty-four-seven.
Heat in the fact that they were supposed to f**k like minks and be unable to stay the hell away from each other?