Mary Kathleen O’Sullivan, Katie to friends and family, had no idea so many reporters could exist in one place.
Standing behind one of the protective filters that now covered each of her windows, she stared at the crowd of journalists vying for position, watching her home closely, microphones and notepads held ready.
“The guardians of the masses,” her father had once called journalists. He now called them “those sons of bitches,” despite the fact that they were doing no more now than they had been when he’d made the first comment.
“Katie, please come away from the window,” her mother requested, her soft, lilting voice heavy with concern.
Katie, her parents had always called her. She guessed it beat “Fido,” or “Precious,” as several tabloids’ writers had dubbed her.
Turning, she did as her mother asked, glancing at the other woman from beneath the veil of her lashes.
Kella O’Sullivan had aged a bit in the past weeks. There were fine worry lines now etched in her once smooth forehead, while her emerald green eyes reflected a fear that hadn’t been there before.
Her long, red gold ringlets were caught at her nape with a heavy silver clasp, displaying the family pearls she wore at her neck.
Katie had often reflected on how alike she and her mother looked. The high cheekbones and slightly tilted eyes. Small, though sensually curved lips and the thick, unusually long red gold lashes that framed their deep green eyes. Eyes that Katie had never seen so clouded with worry and fear.
Or had they been?
Katie had always sensed the well-hidden concern that rode her parents, though she’d never truly believed she was the root of it. She’d always assumed the stress came from her father’s job as assistant chief constable of Northern Ireland, rather than from the freak of science their daughter was.
Maintaining her poise, she returned to the wingback chair beside the gas fireplace her father had just installed in the three-story home she’d lived in all her life. That chair had been turned to face their “guests,” rather like an interviewee’s chair would face some emissary of power, such as the men sitting across from her.
Callan Lyons, the Feline Breed Pride leader, was accompanied by Jonas Wyatt, the director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs, Wolfe Gunnar and Dash Sinclair, the Wolf Breed Pack leaders, Del-Rey Delgado, the Coyote Breed Pack leader, as well as the often elusive Dylan Killato, the European Wolf Pack leader determined to pull the hidden Breeds on his side of the world together, watched her, as she imagined the scientists that created her most likely had watched her: with detached curiosity.
“Katie, I know you’re frightened.” Dylan leaned forward, the shifting silver and amber colors of his gaze cool and calculating as the heavy Scots brogue offered to wrap her in a false sense of security. “And I hope you know our only concerns at this time are for your safety and security.”
Katie could have rolled her eyes. Killato used his dark, savage good looks, the old-fashioned brogue and unusual color of his eyes to full advantage whenever he needed to.
The American emissaries still sat quiet, watchful, offering neither advice nor countering Killato’s claims.
“You’re becoming a sensation among the paparazzi as well as the scientists tasked by many countries to break the hidden genetic codes the Council scientists used to create us. You’re both a weakness as well as a possible answer for the Breed communities as a whole. This makes you a highly sought-after prize by many opponents as well as proponents of the Breed community.”
Katie turned her gaze to the still silent American group. “Do the Breeds have proponents?” she asked as her gaze connected with that of Jonas Wyatt.
One black brow lifted over a silver mercury eye. “Not in that group,” he assured her as he nodded to the door and the crowds outside.
Killato shot the director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs a chilling look that had Katie wondering at the animosity she could sense emanating from him.
“I can understand why you’re here, Mr. Killato,” she assured the European leader. “Building and pulling together the European Packs is a daunting task, I realize.” She turned back to his American counterparts. “But why are the rest of you here? How can I profit or aid the American Breeds?”
“Katie,” her father scolded her gently. “They could be concerned with your welfare, lass.”
Katie shook her head. “I find that very hard to believe, Da. Why risk their lives as well as their very busy schedules over just another Breed that the world has learned of?”
“But you’re not just another Breed, Mary Katherine,” Jonas assured her, a hint of mocking amusement filling his gaze as he leaned forward slightly, his arms crossing and bracing on the table between them. “Unlike Pack Leader Killato, I’m not going to assure you that nothing more than your safety matters. That’s not true of any Breed. We’re all a danger to ourselves as well as our Packs and Prides. But you are more so for the very fact that your genetics were so well hidden until this past year. With the surge of your Breed genetics coupled with the fact that your grandfather was one of the most notorious lab overseers in Europe, it makes you a sensation. Breed opponents want you silenced before scientists can use your genetics to possibly hide other Breeds among society, while proponents hope you can do the opposite; and both sides admit to the very high profitability of either answer. You are quite literally worth your weight in gold.”
“I wouldn’t be quite so extreme,” Killato argued.
“Dylan, you know damned good and well that her father’s position as Ireland’s assistant chief constable, her grandfather’s secrets into the Genetics Council, as well as her own genetics make her a prize that scientists from among the Breeds, as well as the more acceptable scientific societies assigned to research the Breed genetics, would kill to claim. Even if it meant killing her,” Dash Sinclair argued, the gleam of worry in his eyes as he glanced at her rather surprising.
“So then?” she asked Sinclair. “How do I profit the American Breeds?”
“You ensure that you’re not taken by the wrong groups and used against us.” It was Sinclair’s young daughter, Cassandra, who spoke from her position in the far corner of the room, rather than her father, who answered that question.
“That’s a bit harsh, Ms. Sinclair,” Killato growled, his gaze filled with a latent sexual intensity as he turned and glared at her.
Cassandra rose to her full height from the chair she sat in, a very false height of five-eight, thanks to the heels she wore. Elegantly graceful, dressed in white slacks and a white vest-style blouse that revealed a hint of cle**age, she moved closer to the group, entirely comfortable in the five-inch heels she wore.