He glanced down at where her head lay against him, certain that the fierce throb in his chest at her softened voice couldn’t be a good thing. She was his weakness. He was only just realizing that but it was one he couldn’t let go.
“We have to leave here soon.” He sighed regretfully. “I wish we had longer. There’s a lot I have to teach you.”
“We’ll have time later.” He could hear the reflection in her voice now. But would they? There were so many possibilities, so many things that could go wrong. He found himself hesitating now, wishing he had forced her to go with Cassie to the Breed compound, to be safe while he took care of Grange. He could have trained her later. Could have seen how strong she was at another time. No matter how safe he thought he could make her on this mission, there would have been another, something else safer that he could have tested her on.
“You could be carrying my child, Elizabeth.” He stared at the ceiling as he spoke, feeling her stiffen against him.
His chest tightened further at the thought of that. God, what was he doing with her? Risking her in the same ways he risked his own life? There had to be a way to keep her safe.
“I’m protected, Dash.”
He hoped she was. At least for now. But he couldn’t discount the information the Feline Breed leader had given him.
“It didn’t help the Felines. No birth control worked with them. Their scientists suspect it would be the same with the Wolves. The hormone that produces the swelling also works to ensure conception. We could be risking another child.”
He couldn’t hold the truth back from her. He wouldn’t lie to her or hide any part of the dangers they faced.
“Then it’s better to rid ourselves of Grange now,” she said quietly, though he could hear the trepidation in her voice.
His hands smoothed over her back, relishing the feel of warm, silken flesh and well-toned muscle. She was like a young she-wolf. Lean and fit.
“I’m going to send you to the Breed compound before I go after Grange,” he finally decided. “You were right; separating you from Cassie wasn’t a good idea. We’ll let his men get a good look at you in town, then I’ll send you back…”
“The hell you will.” She sat up, her eyes sparkling in fury as she faced him, her nakedness all but forgotten as her gaze cut into him with lethal intent. “I won’t be pushed aside and protected, Dash. I deserve the chance to do this.”
“And if you are carrying our child?” he asked her softly. “Do you deserve the chance to risk that life?”
“If I conceive, then any child would be placed at risk by the very fact that it will be a naturally conceived Breed,” she reminded him angrily. “I’m not stupid, Dash. There are a lot of things I’ve taken into consideration. I haven’t made these decisions lightly.”
He stared up at her, frowning. “You don’t discuss anything you’ve considered with me, Elizabeth. How would I know what you anticipate?”
She rolled her eyes. He had never seen that particular expression of female exasperation from her before. It was endearing.
“You’re one to talk,” she snapped. “You weren’t even going to tell me you were a Breed, Dash. Wouldn’t I have been in for a hell of a surprise when you locked inside me if I hadn’t known?”
“Yeah, would have been nice to have had someone else as shocked as I was,” he growled. He watched her, seeing the anger, but seeing something more. A cool, quiet calm that was as much a part of her as the heat of her sensuality, the depth of her acceptance. As though the past two years had tempered a steel core of strength inside her soul. She was the most giving woman he had known, and the strongest. The years had been cruel, harder on her than he could have imagined, but her very survival had molded her into a warrior.
“I do have a mind, you know?” she finally told him with an air of amusement. “You’ve seen me as this soft little woman that needs to be protected and coddled. I don’t want to be protected. I don’t want to be coddled. I want to share the responsibilities, Dash.”
She should have been born a Breed. She was as tough as either of the two Feline females he had met.
“I know you have a mind,” he told her quietly. “I have nothing but the greatest respect, Elizabeth, for the very fact that you still live. Most women would have failed to even rescue Cassie, let alone run with her for two years.”
She shook her head, a sharp sigh emitting from between her lips as she moved from the bed.
“You sound very patronizing, Dash,” she told him softly as she pulled on her robe. “Any mother would have given her life to protect her baby. I got lucky.”
“You were smart.” He sat up in the bed, watching her curiously. “I’m not patronizing you, Elizabeth. If I didn’t think you had what it takes, you would be in Virginia with Cassie rather than here, training to go after those files and Grange. Never doubt I don’t have the highest respect for you. As a woman, a mother, and a mate.”
“A mate,” she murmured, shaking her head. “You found me less than two weeks ago, and you’ve already claimed me for life.” She pushed her fingers through her hair as she skirted the window and curled up in the large chair that sat on the far wall.
Distance. He saw the need to escape the intimacy that the bed afforded and he allowed her that. For now. The days they had spent together had been so rushed, so filled with the need to protect Cassie and then to complete the minimum amount of training he required. There had been little time to talk. What he knew in his soul had never been expressed to Elizabeth. Not that he had the words to do that now, but he saw in her a need to know more than she had learned so far.
“I found you over a year ago, Elizabeth,” he reminded her. “Through Cassie’s letters.”
“The letters.” She sighed deeply. “God, it was so dangerous putting her in school then. I don’t know how I let her talk me into that. I was completely against letting her go and allowing the pen pal thing,
Dash. I worried myself to exhaustion that year.”
“I know you did.” And he did know. Somehow, some way, he connected to both Elizabeth and her child. Seeing their pain. Their fear. “When the letters began, I had just been in an accident, Elizabeth. I lost men I had fought with for years. Good men. Friends. No one was expecting me to live. I was in a drug-induced coma the first three months of those letters. If it hadn’t been for my commanding officer’s belief that Cassie’s letters would penetrate it, I would be dead now.”