She didn't believe that. Sometimes she felt as though that promise chained her, locked her into a world that she would have given anything to escape.
"Your da said you would know the one he sent for the information?" Styx asked.
Storme nodded in reply. "No one came, Styx." Her breathing hitched as she fought against the pain that began to radiate inside her. "I waited for so many years. I even answered Jonas Wyatt's phone calls each time he reached my cell phone. I always answered the Council, I never refused to talk to the former friends of my father's when they managed to reach me. But no one ever had the words that would even make me suspect they could have been the one my father meant."
She watched as he moved slowly to her, his arms circling her shoulders to pull her against his chest.
Closing her eyes tightly, Storme fought against the need to cry, to shed the aching pain that seemed to build by the day.
"I wish I had the words for ye, lass," he whispered as she felt him kiss the top of her head. "I wish I could ease that conscience that seems to torture ye far into the night.
Perhaps though, like your da, the one he thought would come to you may have died before he could complete his task. Remember, Storme, so many Breeds perished in the rescues. Perhaps the one to collect it was one of those Breeds."
And what should she say to that? In the past days as she sat in the cabin alone, she had considered it. She had fought to convince herself of it. The more she was with Styx, the less she cared if perhaps he was merely playing her, working her for the data chip.
This time at Haven had shown her that there could be peace. She could find a life somewhere. She could be safe. Without the data chip hampering her, there would be no reason to strike at her, would there?
Wrapped in his embrace now, she swore she could taste his kiss. That hint of cinnamon and chocolate she always tasted when they kissed. As his hands stroked over her back, her thighs tensed, her clit ached, and the need to have him take her almost overwhelmed her.
She hadn't wanted this. She hadn't wanted to need him, and that was what was happening. She wanted to hate him. She wanted to hate all Breeds, just as she had done for the past ten years. It made it easier to keep the promise she had given her father, the one he had feared she would break.
"Dad told James he couldn't trust me," she whispered as he continued to hold her.
"Once, Scheme Tallant came to Omega, and I caught her talking to several Breeds secretly. I told Dad and James she was up to something, and they didn't say anything then. Later, I heard them talking. Dad told my brother that I wasn't loyal enough."
She pulled back from him as she wrapped her arms across her br**sts and moved to the back door, where she gazed through the window into the courtyard.
"I was loyal," she whispered. "If I hadn't been, I wouldn't have told him about Scheme. I was loyal to my father and my brother. I wasn't old enough and didn't know enough to give my loyalty to anyone else."
And this was the battle she fought, Styx thought heavily. A battle that would be impossible for Storme to turn her back on. As the only daughter living in the Omega labs, facing the monsters the Council wanted to turn the Breeds into, seeing their savagery and their agony, she could have easily mistaken it for animal brutality.
The same type of animal that killed her family, the ones that shadowed her for years, pressuring her into giving up the information her father had made her swear she would protect.
She would protect it with her life, he thought. And it might very well come to her life.
"Your da loved you, Storme," he promised her softly. "He knew you were young, he knew you feared the Breeds and giving them your loyalty wouldn't be easy. Perhaps this was what he meant."
She turned back to him, a bitter smile curving her lips as she rubbed at her arms.
"Perhaps," she whispered, then fought to shake off the pain, and the past. "You didn't answer me, when are we leaving?"
Styx almost sighed in regret. For a moment, for just a moment, he had felt as though, at the least, she was prepared to discuss the possibility of giving him the data chip. Now he could feel, smell, the refusal in her.
She had pulled back with an inner strength and determination that was integral to woman she was.
"I'll give my life to protect you, Storme, whether against Breeds or against the Council."
Shock flashed in her eyes. He had heard his own voice, the animal inside him coming to the fore and revealing itself in the growl.
"What?" She shook her head as though what he were saying made no sense to her.
"My loyalty is to you," he stated, knowing he would not attempt to hide that from her any longer. She was his mate, and she might not have accepted him, but he had accepted her the moment he tasted her first kiss.
"Exactly what I said, lass. My loyalty is yours. I'd die to protect you, whether from Council soldiers, scientists or Breed Law and Jonas Wyatt. I'll no longer allow anyone or anything to steal the security I can give you. I'd prefer to make it easy." He gave her a soft smile. "I do rather enjoy my lazier side. For you though, I'll deal with whatever I must, unless you make the choice to give the information to anyone other than myself or Jonas."
The line was drawn, but it wasn't a line she had a problem with. Until she could decide the consequences to herself, and perhaps to the world, of breaking her promise, then it was all she had.
"We're not as bad as the pure blood societies would have you believe, love." He chided her as she continued to stare back at him.