Page 99 of Stygian's Honor (Breeds 19)

“They weren’t certain about Fawn.” Reaching out, he pushed back the nearly hip-long wave of hair that had fallen over her face. “She showed signs of advanced code deciphering, even before the termination order went out. We need that ability to crack the code on the files Brandenmore had hidden. So far, even our best code breakers have only managed to decode a very minute amount of the files we found.”

“Then you think there’s something in the files there that will help Amber?” she asked quietly.

“At this point, we’re willing to try anything,” he admitted. “The few codes we’ve managed to break lead us to believe it’s possible. It’s very possible.”

Liza had a photographic memory. She could watch certain moves, not so much dancing, which had interested her as a young girl, but in fighting, it was as though her brain could telegraph the moves from her sight to her actions.

And Claire, oh God help them, Claire could figure out a puzzle in seconds. Jigsaw puzzles, even the most difficult, were child’s play for her.

She could feel herself trembling, shaking from the inside out.

Shaking her head, she looked up at him, uncertain, forcing back the fear. She had to force it back to be able to think, to make sense of everything.

“I can’t be either of them,” she whispered. “How could I be, Stygian? It’s not possible.”

But it was possible. It was possible enough that dreams, nightmares and memories that weren’t exactly memories, that weren’t exactly clear, came together in her mind.

Lifting his hand again, he brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek as he watched her with a quiet confidence she would do anything to be able to attain.

“I read an article before the rescues,” he said then. “Rumors of Breed creation had begun leaking, and some enterprising young reporter had written of the possibility. He stated unequivocally that the manipulation of human and animal genetics could never result in a living, breathing, intelligent being. Some things he stated seemed highly possible, but when in practical application, highly impossible. And I had to smile, because it was that very creature he had deemed impossible who was reading the article.”

“A deep-level core genetic test could reveal the truth,” she whispered. “The Clean Slate DNA manipulation can’t get past that.”

“Proving the truth won’t reveal the secrets,” he stated then. “And it’s the secrets Jonas needs to save Amber.”

It was the secrets they needed.

She stared back at him, seeing the long, ribbon-straight, soft strands of midnight black hair as they trailed around his strong face, the muscular column of his neck, the broad, broad shoulders and powerful chest. He was savagely handsome, and staring back at her with an intensity that made her feel as though she were the only woman in the world.

To him, she was the only woman in the world, she thought, astounded. Yet, she wondered how she could be so surprised.

She had waited for him.

She had waited for him to touch her, to bring her to life, to awaken her.

“We’ll go to the desert at daylight,” he told her then. “Just you and I, with Dog’s team watching over us. We’ll go to the crash site before going to the area where the sweat lodge was erected. Let’s go back, Liza. Let’s see if we can find anything you may have lost.”

“What if I don’t come back, Stygian?” Her lips trembled as tears darkened her soft gray eyes. Did she fear she would get sucked back into some never-ending reality where she could only watch the world go by, rather than experiencing it?

; “I won’t let you go.” Tightening his fingers in her hair, he pulled her head back, staring through the darkness to the glitter of her gaze. “Never, Liza. You will never again be on the outside looking in. You’ll always be a part of me, and I’ll never let you go.”

She didn’t speak. As he loosened his grip on her hair, she laid her head on his chest again and, he knew, stared into the darkness.

“I couldn’t feel anything when I was there,” she said softly. “No remorse, no love or hate. No fear.”

“And now?” God, she was killing him. The emotions building inside her were like a blow to his heart.

If only he had been here to save her, to pull her from the darkness she’d been held in for so long.

“Now, I feel too much,” she said faintly. “I don’t know what I’m feeling, and I don’t know how to handle what I am feeling. I just wish, when I was younger, that I had known how to hold on to myself rather than allowing myself to fade.”

He would have held her to him, just as he was holding her now, until she was old enough to be his reality.

Or, would he have held the wrong girl, and eventually, the wrong woman?

The question raged in his mind as she fell silent and eventually fell asleep against his chest.