She could feel it. Her stomach was tight with dread, her chest clenched with panic.
“They’ve been after you since before the morning Diane Broen found you on that jogging trail,” he agreed. “We warned you of that, Liza. That morning, we warned you that you were a target.”
“But it doesn’t make sense,” she whispered. “Stygian, I can’t help them get whatever they want. I don’t even know what they want. Why come after me?”
Gripping her arm, Stygian moved her carefully into the living room, where Chelsea, Ashley, Emma and Shiloh were waiting.
Chelsea moved to join them, though after a quick, whispered comment from Ashley, hesitated before she stepped back to the other three girls.
“Stygian, what the hell is going on?” she demanded again, keeping her voice low, quiet.
“I’m not certain yet, Liza.” A quick shake of his head had her realizing how his hair flowed, like a warrior’s, around his face.
Falling to his broad shoulders, the raven black strands looked like living threads of coarse silk.
Even now, amidst a danger she hadn’t expected and had no idea how to deal with, all she wanted to do was touch him. Have him touch her.
She wanted his arms around her, because suddenly, she felt so damned alone and so adrift in a world she had no idea how to understand.
Nothing made sense any longer.
“Come here.” As though he had read her mind, sensed her need, as though somehow those incredible primal senses he possessed were able to see into the heart of the woman and the fear clogging her mind, his arms were around her and he was wrapping her close to the warmth of his body.
She hadn’t realized how chilled she had become, how cold she was. She hadn’t realized how much she needed his body heat to still the ice slowly moving through her system.
“Oh God, Stygian.” Holding her arms between their bodies, her fingers clenching onto the fabric of his shirt, over the reassuring beat of his heart, she let that shudder of terror have its way.
It tore through her, shaking her until she felt weak, pulling several tears from her eyes despite her attempt to hold them back.
“What’s happening to me?” she whispered, almost terrified to let the words free. “Please, tell me what’s happening.”
She felt as though she were tearing apart inside, twisting into so many directions that nothing made sense anymore.
The sparring match and the sudden release of the abilities she had been fighting so hard to hide.
Claire’s screams and her reaction, so outside the realm of what she had been trained for so far.
None of it made sense. None of it meshed with the world she knew and understood.
“We’ll figure it out, baby.” His head bent over hers, the endearment whispered against her ear as he all but rocked her, easing the terrible fears tearing through her. “I don’t know what’s going on yet, but I promise, we’re going to figure it out.”
Stygian held her as close to his own body as he could, trying to share his body heat, to warm the icy chill of her flesh as she shivered and shuddered in his arms.
Glancing over her head to Ashley, he mouthed the word blanket, concerned with the unusual cold attacking her.
No doubt it was her reaction to the shock tearing through her, but the severity was concerning him. And it was concerning Chelsea as well.
The other girl was on the phone; if he wasn’t mistaken, she was talking, if not to her uncle, the president of the Navajo Nation, then to her father, Terran Martinez. There would be no time to have the blood and saliva samples taken from Claire Martinez that Jonas wanted, in the hospital by certified technicians who could testify to having collected it, before the Navajo healers reached her.
It wouldn’t surprise Stygian to learn the healers were waiting at the hospital. There were forces definitely determined to stand between the Breeds, and Liza and Claire.
Fortunately, Rule had raced her straight to the heli-jet and would take the samples himself before arriving at the hospital, just to ensure they were collected.
It wouldn’t be exactly what was needed, as the supplies needed wouldn’t be in the heli-jet. But what was there might be enough for Jonas to collect those samples needed for the deep-level DNA testing.
As Ashley stepped forward with the blanket and helped Stygian wrap it around Liza, she quickly drew his attention.
“Unable to heli-jet,” Ashley whispered, her voice low enough that he doubted Liza heard her. “Navajo intercepted Rule. Transport is by Navajo Nation law enforcement with Rule and Dog following to ensure arrival.”
Stygian’s brows lifted.
Now that was damned unusual. So much for getting samples in the heli-jet.
But it wasn’t the first time it had happened.
Getting Breed doctors in to take care of Isabelle Martinez after her attempted abduction by Holden Mayhew had been nearly impossible.
Like Liza, he was beginning to wonder just what the f**k was going on.
Tightening his arms around the woman he knew in his soul was his mate, and swallowing the taste of the hormone easing from the glands beneath his tongue, Stygian lifted her gently into his arms and moved to the bedroom Chelsea had informed Emma was Liza’s.
He wanted her away from the commotion and the knowledge of the dead bodies being removed from Claire’s room. He wanted her calm and warm and able to talk.
He wanted to know why his mate was suddenly attracting Genetics Council Coyotes and soldiers when he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that for the first time in his life, someone was exactly as she seemed.
Faults.
A dark past.
Mistakes made that he knew caused her pain now.
It was all there.
And she would be all his.
Soon.
CHAPTER 9
She had to be dreaming.
Liza pinched the tender flesh on the inside of her arm.
Fuck, that hurt.
Looking down at the mark, she glared at the reddened area of skin the small wound had left.
Okay, so a pinch could actually hurt in a dream. She would go with that.
What else could prove it was a dream?
When she was younger, she had tricks she had used, just to assure herself that she was actually alive and not just a figment of someone’s imagination.
Or one of her parents’ nightmares.
She’d picked at her cuticles until they were raw.
That had always assured her she was actually a real person.
She looked at her nails.