“What makes you think I deserve you?” she whispered then, her lips trembling with a sudden surge of impending panic.
“What could ever make you believe that you don’t?” He brushed her hair back, the gesture so tender, so gentle that her heart clenched in such emotion that it sent a shaft of agony radiating through her senses.
“Ah, Liza.” His expression softened, though still, the arrogance and dominant male power was still there. “You deserve better than I could be. But I’m such a selfish bastard. Completely and irrevocably unredeemable where my need for you is concerned. I’d die without your heart to warm me now. I’d cease to exist if I thought I’d never have your love. I told you, no matter the fear, no matter the secrets you have, nothing can change what I feel for you. Nothing can ever touch my determination to protect and hold you. You and your secrets, should you ever trust me with them. I’m yours, sweetheart. But I’m not the only one who belongs. You belong now as well. To me.”
She belonged, and she could feel it, whether she believed it was safe or not. Whether she believed, before him, she had even wanted it.
She belonged to him.
And she knew, somehow, someway, she knew—
“You’ll destroy me.”
CHAPTER 19
By the time Monday rolled around, Liza was more than ready for a break from the spiraling emotions converging on her.
The only thing that saved her was the ever-present sexual arousal that seemed to flame between them with just a look.
That didn’t help when she slept though.
When dreams invaded and further confused her.
Who was she?
As she dressed for work the question plagued her, just as it had plagued her since she had gone to the crash site five nights before.
“Do you know, young children, the choice you have made this night?” Joseph Redwolf, grandfather to the mate of Braden Arness, Megan Fields Arness, whispered through her mind.
Holding the mascara brush carefully and applying her makeup, Liza fought to ignore the memory that wasn’t really a memory.
It really was like a dream.
Just as her memories of her childhood were—until the day after that wreck, Liza really had no clear, concise memories.
Finishing the mascara, she picked up the lip gloss she normally wore before her gaze landed on the tube of color Stygian had packed.
He’d collected most of her additional clothes and accessories, including the makeup in her bathroom the day before. For the most part, he’d chosen things she preferred to use, with the exception of several tubes of colored lipstick.
She’d bought them to use at Halloween with the Goth costume she’d intended to wear on Trick or Treat night. Instead, she, Claire, Chelsea and Isabelle had been called out by the Navajo warriors who fought for the Breed Underground.
The job hadn’t been dangerous. It had been more a training mission; they provided distraction while the warriors spirited a young Breed they had helped escape years before, from beneath the noses of the Genetics Council agents sent to find her.
The Breeds and humans targeted by the Genetics Council needing rescue or aid were much fewer now than they had been in past decades. Those the warriors had hidden over the years though, sometimes needed additional help if the Bureau of Breed Affairs or the Genetics Council managed to track them down.
The young female they had moved in the fall had been such a Breed—one the Navajo warriors had hidden, along with her mother, when she was just a babe.
Where the girl had been taken, neither she, her friends nor the warriors who moved her would ever know. She was passed to another team and, Liza knew, would be passed several more times before she was relocated to ensure the secrecy of her final location.
Picking up the tube of lipstick and uncapping it, she stared at the berry-colored hue, like a fully ripe dark raspberry. Turning her gaze to the mirror, she applied the color, rubbed her lips together then stared back at herself.
The color made her eyes seem brighter, her complexion creamier. It brought a luster to the naturalizing effect of the makeup she wore and made her lips appear just a bit lusher, with a hint of sensual poutiness.
Taking a deep breath, she smoothed her hands over the snug fit of the apple green skirt and eyed it as well as the white silk shell she wore with it.
That was as good as it got, she told herself before turning and striding out of the bathroom.
Her briefcase sat next to the bed, her laptop securely zipped inside.
Grabbing it, she made a mental note to turn it over to her father when she arrived at the office. That flicker in the screen was about to drive her crazy. Not to mention what it was doing to her eyes. While she was there, she intended to get to the truth of her past as well.
Ray had all but fired her and Claire the last time she had seen him, but hell, he’d fired them before. At least once a year he disagreed with something they said or did, then after a day or so, he’d get over it. He’d never really fired them. He loved Claire. Her father loved her. They wouldn’t take their livelihood from them.
Walking from the bedroom, she met Stygian and Flint in the sitting room as they waited to escort her to the office.
“I’m going to be late,” she told them as she walked toward the door.
“You always think you’re going to be late,” Stygian growled, opening the door and escorting her into the hall as Flint followed.
The edge of tension that had existed between them over the weekend hadn’t abated, just as the edge of panic attempting to overtake her hadn’t abated.
She fought off the panic with the same single-minded determination with which she fought back the emotions that threatened to overtake her. And there lay the crux of the problem.
Stygian wanted the emotion. He wanted every part of her, because as he stated, she had every part of him.
And that was what mates did. They gave each other every part of themselves.
And Liza was terrified of it.
Because she had no idea who, or what, was every part of herself.
Flanked by the two Breeds as she left the hotel, Liza wondered what life would be like if the danger was ever over? Would it ever be possible to return to the life she had once had?
Did she want to?
Stepping into the back of the SUV while Flint took the driver’s seat and Stygian the front passenger, Liza sat back and closed her eyes.
She should have been on the sat-phone checking e-mail and messages. Her job didn’t begin when she clocked in. It often ran over well into the night as well as her weekends.