The arousal that burned between them was another warning.
She’d warned him not to mate her without her knowledge.
He hadn’t kissed her. He hadn’t taken her.
But still, she swore she could smell the subtle intensity of the hunger burning between them.
She shouldn’t be able to smell any such thing. But the delicate, barely there scent of a man and a woman merging still seemed to pique her sense of smell.
And that knowledge terrified her in ways she didn’t want to face at the moment.
“Where is my room then?” she asked.
His hand lifted, rubbing at the back of his neck before his expression turned pure, predatory male.
“With me,” he answered.
The breath stilled in her chest, her heart constricting, the shame and rage burning inside her like a trail of lava seeping from her soul.
His room.
She so wasn’t surprised.
“I don’t think so.” If she sounded belligerent, it might be because she was.
“You’re going to hurt my feelings if you keep rejecting me, Liza.” His lashes lowered, the heat in the glitter of his gaze seared her senses.
“You would have to have feelings first,” she snapped, certain that wasn’t at this moment.
No man, or Breed, with any clue to what emotions were, could possibly stand and do what he had done to her tonight.
Steal her independence.
Take everything she was and not even allow her the chance to fight for it.
“So where exactly would that be?” It was all she could do to force the word past her lips.
She wasn’t going to bother to argue or to refuse to stay. They weren’t going to let her out of there tonight, and she was smart enough to know it.
“Come on.” He held his hand out to her.
Liza couldn’t force herself to take it. She couldn’t allow herself to touch him.
Because she wanted him.
She wanted him in spite of the fact that she felt manipulated as hell. She wanted him in spite of the knowledge that she was being used.
Used to catch a killer.
Used to save a child.
But she was being used all the same.
Slowly, his hand lowered.
“This way.” Turning, he led her from Jonas’s suite as she ignored Isabelle’s whisper of her name.
Once the door closed behind them, he moved up the hall, glancing back only once to see if she followed.
While she was breaking apart inside and didn’t know why.
While her own screams echoed inside her head and she didn’t know where those screams came from, or why.
While she ached for him as she had never ached for anything in her life.
Liza followed.
“Are you returning?”
The harsh tone pierced at Audi Johnson’s heart.
He sat in the back of the SUV as it raced for the airport so torn inside that his soul felt ragged and raw.
He held the phone with one hand, his wife’s hand with the other and stared out the window at the city lights while the driver battled traffic, pedestrians and time.
“I’m heading for the airport now,” he answered.
“Claire is being guarded,” he was told. “Liza is under the protection of the Breeds.”
Audi’s eyes closed briefly before he opened them once again.
“Have the Six come together yet?” he asked.
“Only two have received the vision to return,” he was told. “That time is nearing, but it isn’t here yet.”
He had to fight back his tears and fight back the knowledge that when it happened, he would lose more than he had ever imagined possible.
He had never believed he would be unable to save his child from this. That once again, he would lose her. God knew he had fought, he had manipulated and used every string he could pull to save her from this day, always believing it was possible. Always believing he could keep her from ever hurting again.
Beside him, his wife fought back a sob that escaped despite the battle.
“We’ll be there as soon as possible,” he told the other man.
“We’ll be awaiting you.”
The call disconnected.
The feel of Jane’s shoulders trembling had him releasing her hand to wrap his arms around her, pulling her close to his chest.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered tearfully, her fingers clenching the light jacket he wore as her tears dampened the cloth. “Please, Audi, don’t let me lose her again. Please.”
He had to fight back his own tears, his sense of failure.
“We have no choice.” The sound of his own voice, rough with the tears trapped inside him, scraped against his senses. “We agreed, Jane. For their lives, we agreed. And she’s our daughter. She needs us.”
Ah, God, it hurt.
His guts were shredding, his chest felt as though jagged nails were tearing across it with demonic satisfaction.
“She’s my baby,” Jane sobbed painfully, her pain another jagged tear into her heart. “This wasn’t supposed to happen, Audi. She wasn’t supposed to be taken from us again.”
“No one will take her. I’ll keep her safe,” he swore, yet he knew what he was facing. It was an empty promise at best, and Jane knew it.
“Why do they want her?” Her fists clenched against his chest as she trembled with her anger. “Why, Audi? Why would they come for her? Liza is nothing to them. There’s no way she can be of use to them. There’s no way anyone could know—” The last was barely a breath of sound.
Audi knew why, just as he knew the danger his daughter faced because of it.
“I’ll fix it, Jane,” he promised, closing his eyes and praying that he wasn’t lying to his wife for the second time in their marriage.
Just as he prayed this daughter didn’t pay for his failure to protect her as the first had. God help him, Liza was the child he and Jane had always dreamed of. She was a fighter, intelligent and adept, compassionate and loving. There wasn’t a manipulative bone in her body or a single death wish to torture her family.
She had given their lives purpose at a time when he had wondered if they would drift forever in a haze of guilt that never seemed to find relief.
Yet, from the moment she had opened her eyes and called him “Dad,” he had felt a healing begin. Just as Jane had.
She was a true mother to Liza.
Their daughter had learned to cook, to clean, to laugh and to tease. She had talked him into teaching her how to skate, how to rock climb, and finally, she had allowed him to teach her how to drive.