Her hand reached out, fragile fingers shaking as she laid them against his cheek. “The Genetics Council,” she whispered. “You know who, and you know why.”
“Why?”
“I have a photographic memory, Stygian. I have had it since birth, and the serum I was given only increased its power. That’s why I had to die. That’s why when Liza Johnson died, I was given her life. I know their weaknesses and they’ll never allow me to live now.”
The animal inside him rose, stretched and smiled in anticipation.
“Oh, baby, I promise you, they won’t touch you. Not now, not ever.”
She shook her head. “You can’t stop them.”
“I can’t, but sweetheart, trust me, you can.” He knew she could and he knew exactly how she would do it.
“How? How, Stygian, can I stop them? I couldn’t even escape them.” She was shaking in his arms and he hated it.
He hated her pain.
He hated the bottled rage.
And God help him, he hated the part he had played in it.
CHAPTER 24
The terror chasing inside her was killing him, it was killing her, and he wouldn’t allow it.
“The same way Callan stopped them,” he promised her, his hands cupping her face, drawing her lips to his for a precious, though far too short kiss. “The same way, Honor. But instead of telling the world, you’ll tell the Breed Cabinet. Who you are. The experiments and the secrets the Council is so desperate to hide. You’ll tell them all of it. And you’ll weaken them as they’ve never been weakened before.”
She shook her head again, slowly, the terror only growing in her eyes. “It’s not that easy.”
“It will be—”
“You don’t understand,” she cried out, her agony searing his senses. “It’s not just me. I don’t have all the information. We were a team, Stygian. Me, Fawn, Judd and Gideon. We were a team and you only have me. Fawn won’t remember until she dies,” she sobbed as Stygian felt his soul freeze, felt fury tear through him. “And I won’t tell you where she is. I won’t, Stygian. I won’t trade her life for my own—or God help me, even for Amber’s. I won’t do it.”
“You can’t know this.” Gripping her shoulders, he gave her a little shake, desperate to make her listen, to make her understand. “Sweetheart, listen to me. If we know who she is, where she is, we can and we will protect her. I swear to you—”
“And Judd, can you find him? What about Gideon?” Anger was building in her now even as the pain kept her tears falling. “He’ll kill her, just as he swore he would kill me and Judd. He’ll see us all dead, Stygian, and trust me, Gideon is strong enough to do it. And he’s crazy enough. He won’t stop until he steals our last breath.”
“Why?” Stygian raged, fury tearing at him and enraging the animal inside him into a feral frenzy. “Why, Honor? Why would he want to see any of you dead?”
“Because Judd and Fawn forced him to live,” she rasped desperately. “They wouldn’t let him escape into death and, without me, they didn’t have the key to take his pain away when they transfused him with Fawn’s blood that night. We’re a team. We made certain of it, believing the Genetics Council couldn’t kill us if they needed all of us. We destroyed ourselves and didn’t even know it.” She stared up at him, tortured, the scent of her pain tearing at his soul. “We never imagined, Stygian, that one of us would ever want to kill another of us. Let alone, all of us.”
Fighting back her tears, Liza fought to hold on to enough control not to collapse into complete, heartrending sobs.
She’d spent twelve years—she’d believed she’d spent her life—with a loving family, far away from the Genetics Council and the danger they represented.
She’d left a loving family, though. A father who risked his and his wife’s life to help her find Orrin Martinez. A mother who had risked forever losing the child she had dreamed of for so many years and the husband she loved with all her heart.
Her parents had been dedicated to each other and to her.
“I was two when I was diagnosed with leukemia.” She couldn’t sit still. “It was a particularly resistant, fatal leukemia.”
Moving quickly to her feet, she pushed her fingers through her hair, wanting to rip the carefully highlighted, medicinally colored strands from her scalp.
Behind her, Stygian moved to his feet, watching her intently.
She could feel his gaze—feel the worry and concern directed toward her, wrapping around her.
Just as his arms would be around her if she allowed it.