Turning back to the arrogant director, determined to hide her interest in a Breed she wanted nothing to do with, Liza directed her attention to Jonas.
“From what I’ve seen, Director Wyatt, it’s all you can do to protect yourselves,” she suggested coolly. “What would make me believe you could do anything to protect me?”
His lips quirked with a hint of amusement, though his gaze flashed dangerously.
“We’ve done quite well, I believe,” he drawled. “We didn’t lose any of our men and managed to capture all that weren’t killed of those attacking us as well as you. Those are rather good odds, if you ask me.”
Great. That meant there was no one left for Cullen and Reever to question.
“But they keep attacking the Breeds,” she pointed out. “And the odds aren’t always so great, Director. I do listen to the news fairly often.”
“If you listen to the news, then you should be aware of the fact that not only Breeds are at risk from the Genetics Council and their loyalists,” he told her. “They do target others on occasion.”
“Unfairly so,” she agreed. “But they wouldn’t have attacked me if it hadn’t been for her.”
She nodded to Diane Broen, the human enforcer who worked for the Bureau of Breed Affairs. “She was the one they came for, not me.”
She knew better. He knew better. But she was supposed to be unaware of the fact that she had been targeted? Keeping that impression would be preferable.
“And there is where you’re wrong.” He smirked back at her, and Liza found herself gritting her teeth in return. So much for hoping she could appear to remain in the dark. “Diane just happened to have been there to distract their attention for a moment, nothing more. It was you they were after.”
He seemed entirely too satisfied to relay that information.
Once again, Liza let her attention stray to Stygian as he stood several feet to her side. With his arms crossed over his broad chest, the black enforcer uniform and heavy boots, his long black hair tied back at his nape, he could have been a warrior from more than two centuries before.
There was something about his stance, the straight shoulders, the ready preparedness in his muscular body. He wasn’t a Breed who would be easy to catch unaware.
“They have no reason to be after me,” she retorted as she forced herself to face the director once again.
Jonas was known as a master manipulator. Even his own enforcers were known to curse him to the pits of hell for his machinations.
“You wouldn’t think so,” he agreed. “I have to admit I can see no reason why they would target you. But the fact is, they have.”
Narrowing her eyes, Liza kept her arms crossed over her br**sts as she wished she had worn a light jacket. Something, anything she could have pushed her hands into, could have found a way to hide some part of herself.
“Then we’re in agreement that I’m not their target.” She shrugged as she fought the need to disappear. “Does that mean I can leave now?”
She was suddenly all too aware of the scantiness of her running pants and top. Her midriff was left bare, her legs growing cold in the air-conditioned chill of the room. As Stygian’s gaze flickered to the exposed flesh of her midriff, it suddenly heated, warming as though it were his hands touching her rather than just his gaze.
She did flush then.
Damn it.
Because her face and neck weren’t the only parts of her body flushing and heating.
Her ni**les were hardening, her clit becoming sensitive, moisture gathering between her thighs.
Her response to him wasn’t just shocking, it was frightening.
And she wanted no part of it.
“I said I couldn’t see the reason why, not that you weren’t being targeted,” he pointed out as though speaking to a child and patronizing her for her stupidity.
“I’m certain I don’t know why they would target me either,” she assured the director. “What I do know is that I’m not in the mood for the third-degree here. You guys have done nothing but cause trouble since you arrived. First Isabelle was kidnapped and nearly turned over to those deranged Coyotes Holden was trying to take her to, a friend is nearly murdered in front of her and now I’m being accosted during my morning run no more than weeks later. What’s next with the lot of you?”
With each accusation, Jonas’s expression turned stonier while Stygian eyed her with greater intensity.
“Your abduction could be next.”