Stygian's Honor (19 page)

She had to swallow tightly.

“Is Claire okay? Was she hurt?” she whispered. Her friend wasn’t a fighter, but she had learned how to handle a weapon like it was no one’s business.

Her training had paid off, but it had paid off with a price, and Liza wasn’t certain of the price Claire had finally paid.

Jonas nodded. “She did. Both shots were kill shots and both were meant to do damage. She knew what she was doing.”

“That’s the interesting part, Liza.” Terran stepped forward, his bronze face lined with not just the grief of the past, but also the concern that shimmered in his gaze. “My niece took out two highly trained killer Coyotes with a weapon that’s been outlawed for more than a decade. I’d like to know where she acquired it, considering the fact that neither you, nor Claire, should even have the contacts to acquire such dangerous weapons.”

Her lips parted before she quickly shut them.

Oh boy. Claire had used the Glock. And hadn’t she just forgotten they weren’t still fucking ten and answerable to guardians who had no idea who they were any longer?

Liza breathed in deeply, fighting to force back a fury that Terran really didn’t deserve. He was sincerely concerned and truly unaware of the life his niece had chosen to live. “I’d prefer she have an illegal Glock to kill them with than the alternative,” she snapped defensively, knowing there was no way in hell to cover the fact that Claire had had that weapon.

“We’re not debating that, Liza,” Stygian growled.

“No, we’re debating whether or not you’re going to be allowed to step in and take over my life,” she retorted combatively. “That seems to be the matter up for debate.” She flicked a look at Terran as he crossed his arms over his chest and watched her suspiciously.

He and Joe Martinez were her father’s best friends.

She also suspected that Terran had once been commander of a team of underground agents as well. He would suspect what she was doing, who she was working with, but he could never question it unless he went to her father. And if he did, then her father would never lie to him. But, knowing the truth could perhaps do more damage, considering Terran had lost his sister more than thirty years before to the Genetics Council.

No doubt, for what it was worth, Stygian and his Breed buddies were going to run right over her objections. Because if she didn’t follow their plan, her parents would return from New York. Her father’s eyes would be filled with concern. Her mother would stare at her with fear and worry.

Neither were looks that she wanted to see. Just because her father knew she was part of the Breed Underground Network didn’t mean he wouldn’t have nightmares where her safety was concerned. There was a reason she had been placed with a support team rather than rescue or relocation.

“What are you going to do, Liza?” Stygian asked, thinking fast and hard, trying to keep her from actually doing or saying something she would regret.

Trying to keep her safe.

The Breeds around them inhaled again, obviously detecting the scent that Stygian had only caught the slightest hint of moments before.

A scent he hadn’t expected, not without a kiss. A touch. Something more than the contact they’d had to this point.

She glared at them before turning to Stygian, furious. “Tell them to stop that.”

Stygian’s jaw bunched as his lashes lowered over his blue-black eyes and he stared back at her. “I can’t make them stop.”

“Why?” Deliberately, her lips tight, she asked the one question he truly didn’t want to answer.

Hell.

His scent was already on her.

Shit! How did that happen?

Mating heat. It was impossible to hide from a Breed’s
senses. Every Breed who came in contact with her would scent it and be warned by it.

Even he hadn’t detected it before he entered the room, but as Alpha Wolfe Gunnar, the Wolf Breed Alpha who had silently been awaiting their arrival, glanced between the two of them, his nostrils flaring, Stygian knew exactly what they were scenting.

“I hate Breeds!” she snarled.

God, just what he needed. The fury burning inside her was like throwing coal on a fire. It made the heat hotter, made it burn brighter, longer. And added to that now, was a resentment he couldn’t really blame her for.

Wolfe turned to Stygian, a quirk tugging at his lips.

“I have a feeling she doesn’t really hate Breeds,” he murmured in amusement.

And did his mate take to that comment easily?

“I used to like you.” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, cocked her hip and glared at the Alpha. “Where’s your wife, anyway? And why the hell did she let you out alone?”

Wolfe chuckled at the insult and gave his head a little shake.

“Liza?” Stygian drew her attention back to him before she could actually offend his Alpha. Which was exactly what she was considering. “What are you going to do once you walk out of here? Many of the Council’s Coyotes are indistinguishable from humans except by other Breeds. You’ll never know who they are. You’ll never know when they’ll strike. When they take you, they’ll use you to drain your father dry. He’ll lie. He’ll cheat. He’ll steal. He’ll do whatever it takes—give them whatever information they ask for, whatever he might think they want—to make them stop hurting you. And they
will
hurt you.”

Seeing the terror that flashed in her eyes was almost more than he could bear.

Dragging in a hard, deep breath, his gaze locked with hers, forcing himself to see and to feel the pain clenching at her.

She was his mate. From this moment on, his acceptance
of who and what she was to him would determine the love that would continue to grow between them.

He could damage her fragile female pride now, and watch the embers of love he had glimpsed heating between them wither to nothing; or he could slowly build those flames into the inferno that would see them through the decades to come. But now this moment, and how he handled it, would either stoke the embers or damage the fire forever.

Near immortality could be hell, he imagined, tied to a woman whose hatred stemmed from her mate’s refusal to respect and to honor her.

“Why?” There were no tears, only stoicism and a sense of reluctant resignation. “Tell me why they want me.”

She knew she couldn’t fight the protection, but as far as that was concerned, she didn’t have to accept it gracefully.

Or gratefully.

“It’s not you they want,” he promised her, his gaze sliding to Terran before returning to his mate’s. “As we told you, they want Honor Roberts, Fawn Corrigan and the two Bengal Breeds who were part of one of the most immoral experiments known to have been conducted in the history of Breed genetics. Like us, they followed Gideon, one of those Bengals. Here to Window Rock. They won’t leave until they’ve captured them, or we have them under Breed protection, as there is no evidence to be found that they’re dead.” He glanced at Terran Martinez.

The Navajo’s legal representative working to block the Breeds’ request to access the Navajo Genetic Database never outright lied to the Breeds, but the hint of deception was always there.

“This has nothing to do with me.” Liza clenched her teeth over the words, the anger and hurt clearly sensed by all the Breeds there.

Especially by Stygian.

“You, Claire and Chelsea now have everything to do with this, Liza.” Terran breathed out roughly, accepting the truth himself when before, he had fought it. “I’m sorry. If there was something I could do to stop this—”

She gave a hard shake of her head, obviously refusing to argue with Terran for some reason. “I understand.”

But did she?

Stygian could see her face, her eyes.

Understanding wasn’t there.

But neither was resentment. At least, not toward Terran.

“If we had the information we needed, if we had the genetic profiles in the database that matched Gideon’s, then we could find him. Find him, and we’ll find the others,” Stygian informed her. “Find them all, Liza, and this all goes away.”

The scent of Terran’s anger was unmistakable, just as the scent of Liza’s rejection of the solution swirled through the room. The energy tightened his chest.

She agreed with Terran’s decision.

Son of a bitch. She was agreeing to give in, to end this fight for her independence rather than see the Navajo open that Genetic Database to the Breeds. What the hell did those records hold that caused the Navajo to be so frightened?

He hadn’t met a single member of the Navajo Council or citizen of Window Rock who didn’t feel the same way. Every member in a position to aid the Breeds’ cause would die before giving up the information. Even for a cause as worthy as Amber’s.

“We have a message out to every member who has donated to the Genetic Database,” Terran stated roughly, “requesting any member willing to release their genetic information come forward. None have. Until the Breed in question makes that request, the database cannot be opened to match the profile.”

And only the requesting Breed could receive the information.

They could have made the idea work if they had known of a single Breed born of Gideon’s dam. Unfortunately, to their knowledge, those littermates had all been destroyed long ago.

The suspicion that Gideon would take refuge with blood relations was high. He would know the Breeds would encounter a roadblock in tracking him through bloodlines,
just as Gideon would know Jonas would use every means possible to do just that.

Liza’s lips parted in an irate, feminine grimace that was uniquely charming and yet filled with such emotional distress that it was all Stygian could do to hold back a snarl of fury.

Now he knew exactly why Breeds were so damned irritable when their mates were.

“I want to go home.” She inhaled wearily, and suddenly, Stygian could feel the exhaustion pulling at her.

Weariness and uncertainty and a sense of defeat.

Because she knew she couldn’t go home. She knew the place she had called home would be denied to her until Honor, Fawn, Judd and Gideon were together.

The weariness and uncertainty he could understand. He could even allow it. The defeat was another thing entirely.

“Not tonight. The damage to the house hasn’t been repaired yet, and we’re still trying to track down a few leads concerning the two Breeds Claire killed. A room has been reserved here for you. You can return to the house when it’s safe again,” Stygian assured her, his fists clenching at his sides with the need to go to her.

That need was a hunger that raged and tore at his guts, yet he could sense the knowledge that doing so right now would do more harm than good. Liza didn’t want his strength at the moment, she needed her own. And she would never be certain she had done all she could to escape the obstacles fate had placed in her path at the moment.

“He’s right, Liza.” Terran turned to her as Stygian watched her lips part and the gleam of battle enter her gaze. “Let us get the windows repaired and get some additional security to the house. Then we’ll rethink the matter.”

Once again, she bowed down to Terran’s request when she was ready and eager to fight Stygian’s.

His back teeth clenched to the point that he was amazed his teeth didn’t shatter with the pressure.

“What will it really matter, Terran?” Liza asked then, the bitter disillusionment in her gaze beginning to bother Stygian in ways he couldn’t explain, even to himself. “The only
difference between the Genetics Council and the Breeds is the manner in which they manage to extract the information from their victims.” She turned back to Jonas then. “It doesn’t matter how they hurt me, how they torture me or how much of it they make my father watch. There’s no way he can access that information, Mr. Wyatt. There’s no way
I
can access it.”

“Any information can be accessed, Ms. Johnson.” It was Rachel who stepped forward.

Somber. Her face pale from lack of sleep, the dark circles beneath her eyes attesting to her worry and concern for her daughter, she spoke with the heavy knowledge of certainty.

Liza shook her head. “Such information is too important to leave to chance, Rachel. The Navajo Genetic Database is the only one of its kind in the world. The only one that will allow the majority of the Breeds to find their place in the world. Just as their mothers, their grandmothers, their aunts and their cousins were taken from their home, their lands, their worlds.” The scent of her tears reached Stygian, as subtle as the first breeze of spring, as heated as summer’s kiss. “It’s the only way some families who lost relatives will ever learn what happened to them. Do you think the safeguards we have in place aren’t the best that could have been imagined or provided?”

Rachel clasped her hands in front of her as she hunched her shoulders defensively. An unconscious gesture toward the possibility that the plans her mate had put in place to find the answers to save her daughter could fail.

“It’s information,” Rachel said then. “Any time information is gathered, no matter where or by whom, when another knows of it, suspects it, then it’s in danger of discovery. The Navajo Genetic Database has been secure only because none knew of it outside a very small group and because those supplying their genetic information had a reason to remain quiet. But now, others who have no such loyalty to what you’ve gathered know of it, Liza. And unless it’s disbanded and all information destroyed, then it is at risk.”

It
was
at risk.

Liza stared back at the other woman and saw the tears
shimmering in her eyes, the agony that resonated in her soul as she faced her daughter’s possible fate.

Liza would give anything to help her save that perfect, sweet little girl.

The database wasn’t going to save her, though.

Finding Gideon wouldn’t save Amber.

And Honor Roberts and Fawn Corrigan did not exist within the database.

They did not exist within the Nation.

“My father wouldn’t betray what he’s pledged himself to, even for me.” She turned to Stygian, that knowledge wrapping around in a certainty that raked across her already scarred soul. “He can’t betray what he himself has no access to. If you don’t believe me, ask Terran.”