If he wanted to claim her, then there were emotions. Ties were forming. Bonds could be building. She couldn't have that. Her future was too dark, too uncertain. There was no place in it for promises.
Struggling, pushing back, she tore from his arms and stared back at him in panic.
"This isn't a claiming, Styx. We didn't discuss that. That's not what this is supposed to be."
"Ah yes, how remiss of me," he drawled, his tone rougher, darker as she watched his gaze begin to burn with anger. "I guess I should have paid more attention to Jonas when he advised me that you would never see a Breed as anything more than a pet at best." Cold derision filled his expression. "I guess that's why he made certain I understood exactly how you felt about a Breed."
He didn't give her time to argue. He stalked from the house, the door slamming behind him and causing her to flinch at the violent sound.
"No, Styx," she whispered into the sudden silence that filled the house. "That's why Jonas told you how I should feel."
She wished he would tell her now, because she had no idea what she felt, or what she was supposed to do with the unfamiliar emotions and the raw, burning pain inside her chest.
Jonas should have kept his mouth shut. Nothing else mattered to Jonas but getting what he wanted though, just as reports suggested. Yes, he had kept Breeds on her ass for ten years. He had chased off Council Coyotes and soldiers, but the only reason he hadn't captured her before now was because he'd known he couldn't force that information from her.
Just as the only reason he had reminded Styx of how she felt about Breeds was to ensure that Styx felt no loyalty to her.
Breathing in deeply, she moved to the back door again, staring into the courtyard with narrowed eyes.
She had to get out of here before she lost her mind. Before this need, before these unfamiliar emotions, destroyed her.
But how did one escape from a highly secured Breed compound?
The front of the cabin was watched diligently. At any time day or night she could look out and see a Breed stalking the area.
Here though, in the courtyard where they all gathered to play and to socialize, security was much lighter. There had been two Enforcers conducting rounds in the past two nights. They had mostly spent their time beneath the wooden canopy where the food was laid out each evening. They were a little less on guard here, trusting the Breeds on perimeter patrol to alert them of any danger.
She could slip through the courtyard and out the other side. Getting past the sentries wouldn't be easy, but she could pull it off. If she took the last scent-neutralizing capsule hidden in her bag, then as long as they didn't see her, they would never know she was there.
Some of her stuff had been brought in that morning before the doctor arrived. Her jeans were in the bag she had been forced to leave in the hotel, and no doubt the Coyote soldiers who had trashed it had taken the bag just to be certain what they wanted wasn't there. But her car had still been in the parking lot, and the small duffel bag with her boots, socks and winter jacket was still stuffed in the trunk. The tiny compartment built into the hole of that boot still held her last scent neutralizer. She'd checked just to be certain.
It would last twelve hours. Long enough for her to get the hell out of Haven and halfway to the nearest town. If she were lucky, she might be able to contact the only friend she had ever been able to depend on and hitch a ride clear out of Colorado.
She was going to have to escape. She needed to figure out what to do with that data chip, and the best way to keep it out of both Breed and Council control.
She should just destroy it.
She played with the ring on her finger, her thumb rubbing over the sapphire set within the ring of diamonds. The gem looked real, the outer shell actually was real. What lay beneath it was the true value of the jewelry though. It was there that her father had hidden the chip filled with information on Project Omega.
Only God knew what it said, or what was actually in the files. She couldn't decrypt them, and she had tried countless times over the years.
One thing was for certain--she was going to have to do something. Getting out of here was imperative. Even more imperative was figuring out who to give that chip to.
She couldn't give it to the Council. They had killed her father and brother, given the order to the Coyote to rip her brother's throat out. Nothing on Earth or in hell could convince her to give them the information they wanted. She would destroy it first.
Giving it to the Breeds was just as dangerous. She had no idea what the information was or what her father's research entailed. She knew though that he considered it so dangerous, so lethal in the hands of the Council that he and her brother had died to protect it.
He had promised her someone would come for the chip, but no one had ever come to her to tell her that he was the one her father had sent.
The Council demanded it. Coyote soldiers fought to capture her and to force the information from her. Breeds shadowed her as though she would turn around and pass it to them in the shadows.
But no one had simply said, "Your father told me to come to you."
Running at fourteen hadn't been easy. There had been days, weeks at a time when she had hid in the deserts of the Southwest, trying to ensure no Breed caught her scent, trying to figure out how to survive.
It didn't matter where she hid though, she was always found.
On a snowy, frigidly cold night the year she turned eighteen, she had been at a breaking point. Dirty, sick, cold and hungry, she had huddled in an alley behind a loud, popular restaurant and nightclub. She couldn't have gone any farther. She couldn't have fought so much as one more battle.