“Those pictures were taken more than a decade ago.” The obvious impatience in his voice was reflected in the darkening swirls of gray in his eyes.
“Then why would I know them?” She glanced around the room at the Breeds gathered there before turning her gaze back to the director. “Why don’t you just tell me what the hell is going on here, Director Wyatt? That would be a hell of a lot easier than the games you seem to so enjoy.”
If she wasn’t mistaken, he didn’t particularly care for the fact that she called him on his habit of deliberately manipulating anyone and everyone he came in contact with.
Megan Fields Arness stepped forward. “Liza, the point is that we’re searching for the two girls. Finding them is of the highest importance to the Breeds, to ensure the Genetics Council doesn’t acquire them for whatever research purposes they have in mind. There’s nothing nefarious in the least in the Breeds’ wish to find them.”
The knowledge that Megan would lie to her—probably was lying to her—had her fighting back the sting of tears.
She had known Megan most of her life.
Megan’s grandfather and Isabelle, Chelsea, and Claire’s were both part of the chiefs of the Six Tribes. Besides that, the Martinez family was a very close unit and socialized together often.
They were friends—or so she had thought. Friends weren’t supposed to lie to each other to this extent.
“Well, there’s nothing nefarious in the least about the fact that I haven’t seen or heard of them. But I would like to know what the hell they have to do with me?” Liza stared back at Megan, meeting her gaze and wishing she could find that sense of calm that Megan seemed to hold in her dark brown eyes.
“Those girls are currently the focus of a search by the Genetics Council as well as the Breeds,” Megan told her. “They were part of an experiment that lasted for more than a decade. The two girls and the two Breeds all survived but disappeared about ten years ago. We have to find them before the Genetics Council does.”
And if the four had disappeared and never come forward, then it was apparent they didn’t want to be found.
“Why?” Liza questioned her. “Why would you believe you have the right either to find them or to acquire them?”
Damn, she felt sorry for the former kids now being hunted by two such powerful, merciless forces.
“If we don’t,” Stygian said, stepping forward, his voice dark and rough, rasping over her senses like velvet, “then trust me, Ms. Johnson, the Genetics Council will make damned sure they regret the fact that the Council found them rather than the Breeds.”
She had to physically restrain the shiver that wanted to race across her flesh at the sound of his voice caressing her senses. It reminded her of dark, wicked sex.
Of sinning in the most pleasurable of ways.
Every cell in her body tingled at the sound. Her br**sts became swollen and heavy, her ni**les taut and eager for touch. And between her thighs, her clit throbbed in heightened alert as she suddenly became aware of the emptiness in her vagina.
Damn.
No man had the right to make a woman so aware of the fact that a male wasn’t possessing her.
“Well, if I could help you, I would,” she assured, stepping back carefully as he moved just behind Jonas Wyatt. “The fact is, though, that I can’t. As I stated, I don’t know them, nor do I know who they are.”
Jonas pulled another file free.
Opening it, he drew two photos free. The first was of one of the Breed boys in the former pictures. The second was obviously an “after” version.
Nothing could hold back the shudder that rushed up her spine at the changes in the boy to the man.
Stone-cold eyes the color of living amber stared out from the photo paper with a brilliance that was almost terrifying when added to the Bengal stripes that crossed his face from his forehead, across his right eye, over the bridge of his nose and across his left cheek, over his jaw then around to the nape of his neck.
Where it went from there she wasn’t certain.
The savagery of the mark, the primal quality of his gaze and the inherent predatory intent would have been terrifying if it were in person rather than in a photo.
“What does he have to do with this now?”
“Gideon Cross is searching for those women the two girls became. His intent isn’t to stop by and say hello, Ms. Johnson,” Jonas warned her. “If you’ve followed the stories of Breed creation and their weaknesses, then I’m certain you’ve heard of psychotic emergent feral fever.”
Liza nodded slowly.
“Gideon is suspected of having been thrown into level-five feral fever by the Genetics Council’s experiments. And he’s searching for those two women because he believes one of them is responsible for it. He won’t bother questioning them. He’ll strike out at both. He will kill them. And he won’t care that they had nothing to do with his illness.”
“Does one of them have anything to do with it?” she asked, her gaze lifting—not to Jonas but to the Breed behind him.
“Stygian?” Jonas spoke softly.
“Director?”
“Do you want to answer Ms. Johnson’s question?”
“She had nothing to do with it, Ms. Johnson,” Stygian answered. “Once feral fever has gone that far, nothing has any logic to it. She was there at the wrong place, at the wrong time, so he blames her for it. It’s that simple.”
She wanted him to keep talking. The sound of his voice was a caress to her senses, and she didn’t want it to stop.
Still, she shook her head, forcing her gaze back to Wyatt’s. “It doesn’t change the fact that I don’t know the girls, who they grew up to be or where they are. Neither do I have any information on the Breeds in those pictures. And even if I did, I doubt I would tell you, Mr. Wyatt.”
She made certain the smile she gave him was just as mocking and confident as she could possibly make it.
She didn’t trust him. She had no intention of attempting to trust him. She’d heard far too many stories of Wyatt’s games and attempts to interfere in the lives of those who came in contact with him.
“I can see your popularity precedes you, Jonas.” Megan gave a light, easy laugh as Jonas pinned her with that odd, silvery gaze.
“So it would seem,” Jonas drawled before turning back to Liza.