Elizabeth's Wolf

by Lora Leigh

  led with lust and emotion.

  “Dash.” She whispered his name beseechingly, her nipples aching for the moist warmth of his mouth.

  “If I touch one of those hard little nipples I’ll never hold onto my control,” he sighed, watching her breasts as they rose and fell roughly. “Do you understand that, Elizabeth? I won’t stop.”

  She licked her dry lips, staring into the piercing depths of his eyes when his gaze returned to her.

  “Then don’t stop.”

  Dash felt flames sear his loins at her words. Quickly he turned, sat on the edge of the bed and began to remove his boots. If he didn’t undress before he touched her, then he’d have no more control than what it took to loosen his pants and pull his cock free before pushing it inside her.

  Lust raged through him now, nearly out of control as he fought to get the boots off his feet. Behind him, Elizabeth shifted, coming to her knees behind him, her fingers smoothing over his back before halting on his right shoulder.

  “How cute.” Elizabeth traced the little mark on the back of his shoulder. “Cassie has a mark just like that.”

  Dash stilled. She was tracing the genetic marker that shadowed his skin just below the curve of his shoulder. A particular identifying mark impossible to miss if anyone knew what it was. A paw print. It was a standing joke among the scientists who had coded it. Like a small strawberry birthmark impossible to be rid of.

  “It’s the same shape, too,” her voice was a bit amused. “Don’t let Cassie see it. She already claims Dane isn’t her daddy and that she’s certain her daddy has a mark just like hers.”

  The blood began to rush to his head, knowledge flooding his brain like a sudden icy drenching. Cassie had such a mark? There was only one way a child could carry a mark like his. Only one way that genetic marker could have been placed. If Dane was a Wolf Breed. But that couldn’t be possible. Could it? A Breed in such a prominent position as the renowned surgeon had been? No. No Breed would ever allow his child to be harmed, let alone attempt to sell her. What the hell was going on?

  He turned to face her.

  “Are you sure?” He fought to clear his mind. “Absolutely certain?”

  She was staring at him, her smile slowly faltering as she saw his expression.

  “Of course.” She frowned in confusion. “I raised her, didn’t I?”

  Elizabeth didn’t have the mark. Dash knew she didn’t. Her shoulders were a soft creamy shade of perfection, without flaw.

  “Did Dane have the mark?” he asked her slowly, somehow knowing that he didn’t.

  “No.” Elizabeth shook her head. “No one in his family did. I teased Dane that the doctors must have gotten his sperm mixed up with someone else’s…”

  She was talking. He saw her lips moving, bitterness lining her face, but it seemed everything inside him had shut down. He was watching her speak, hearing her, his brain processing the information while he seemed to shrink inside himself in horror.

  Artificial insemination. Elizabeth had been unable to conceive because of Dane’s low sperm count. So they had contacted a friend of his, a fertility doctor. Marcus Martaine. He had performed the procedure secretively because of Dane’s pride. The other man hadn’t wanted anyone to know he couldn’t father a child. So they had gone another route.

  Dane still hadn’t been happy, though. He had never cared for Cassie. Always saw her as his failure, Elizabeth said. Cassie was a girl but he wanted a son. She wasn’t conceived properly. Didn’t look enough like him. Dane’s list had gone on and one.

  Cassie wasn’t Dane’s daughter, though. She was Elizabeth’s. He could smell it. He would have known it if she wasn’t. The differences in the scent would have been too vast if Elizabeth’s egg hadn’t been used. But Dane’s sperm hadn’t been.

  “Dash?” She was watching him in concern now as he stared down at her, everything suddenly falling into place.

  Dane had to have known Cassie wasn’t his child. That she was a Breed child. He had to have known because he had tried to bargain with her. The information of the marker wasn’t public knowledge. It was a very carefully kept secret for the time being. Dash had made it his business to study every piece of information being given on them. There was a specific marker in a specific location for each Breed. The Wolf Breeds carried theirs on their right shoulders.

  “I have to see it.”

  Suddenly, he had to be certain. Had to make sure Elizabeth wasn’t seeing a resemblance that was possibly not there.

  “What?” She shook her head, bemused. “See what?”

  “The mark, Elizabeth.” He gripped her shoulders, stilling her as she moved to turn away. “Show me the damned mark.”

  “On Cassie?” She frowned, fear starting to shadow her eyes as she pulled her gown and robe closed. “Why? What does it mean? It’s just a mark. We asked the doctor about it.”

  And of course, Martaine would have lied to the doting mother. It was an experiment. A secretly conducted experiment. One Martaine had obviously told no one about except the father. He would have needed Dane’s help. Somehow, he had talked the other man into the dangerous experiment.

  “Show it to me.” He gripped her wrist, dragging her from the bed and into the other bedroom, stopping beside the sleeping child.

  “Dash, stop, you’ll wake her,” she whispered.

  He ignored her, gently lifting the small strap of Cassie’s gown and baring her shoulder. It was there. A dark shadow just under the skin. A genetic marking of the Wolf Breeds. Had she been raised in the labs, she would have been branded, or tattooed, according to the lab in question, to hide the marker. But she hadn’t been. She had been born to a loving mother and a bastard father.

  Dash bent close, drawing in the scent of her skin and shaking with the knowledge his brain was finally accepting. It was faint, a bit darker than he remembered. The genetics were obviously recessed much as his were or he would have detected the scent of a Breed sooner. But it was there. She was a Wolf Breed child. But whose?

  What had they done? Dash knew Martaine well. He remembered the doctor visiting the labs, checking results, deciding who lived and who died. Dash had been picked to die. He was the runt of the litter and still smaller, weaker, than the other Breeds of that pack. Martaine had been young then, not even in his thirties. A cold, brutal bastard.

  Dash was breathing harshly, perspiration dotting his forehead as he fought the rage building inside him. They weren’t containing the experiments to the labs anymore? When had they brought the genetic mix into the general population?

  He eased the strap back, glancing at Elizabeth’s tight, furious expression as he stalked from the room.

  “God damn them.” He had no sooner cleared his bedroom than he turned, ramming his fist into the wall. Plaster cracked. A solid two by four split. Dash felt it as the sound echoed around him.

  He was aware of Elizabeth jumping back as she entered the room, a small cry smothered behind her hand as she stood staring at him, her eyes wide. Dash leaned his head against the wall, rolling it on the cool plaster as he fought to think.

  “Was she naked when you took her from Grange?” His voice was a hard, vicious growl.

  “No.” Her voice was faint. Thin. “She was wearing her panties. But her nightgown had been ripped off her. Dash, what’s going on?”

  Grange would have demanded proof. Dane would have given it to him. Files, of course. He had to have had files of the experiment in case they were needed. And the mark. A mark that could be validated.

  “I should have known,” he muttered. Hell, he thought, he had known but had just refused to admit to it. The idea of it had been too extreme, too far-fetched to consider. How the hell had it happened? Martaine must have lost his mind. “God damn. I should have known. No wonder he wanted her.” A short, bitter laugh escaped him. “Hell, sure he wanted her. She was a fucking gold mine.”

  He pushed his fingers through his hair as he fought to beat down the fury pulsing through his body. Eliza
beth and Cassie had been through hell. Hunted. A price on their heads. All because Dane Colder had allowed his wife to be impregnated by Breed sperm. How had they managed it? Why had Martaine not informed the Council that he had discovered the secret to breeding the species? He hadn’t, Dash knew. The experiments into the breeding were well documented.

  “Dash.” Elizabeth’s voice was filled with fear. “Dash, what’s wrong with her?”

  He shook his head desperately. He couldn’t tell her. Couldn’t let her know.

  Her voice was faint. “What does that mark mean?”

  He looked at her, seeing her white face, her terrified eyes. How he had wanted to protect her. God help him, protect himself. Thinking he could be something to her, build a future and still hide what he was. Still know only her sweet passion and woman’s heart rather than her disgust.

  “I have to talk to Mike.”

  He had to figure this out. Had to inform Kane Tyler of the changing situation. This would assure Cassie’s acceptance into the compound rather than only the consideration of it. Dash had understood the Pride’s stand and had been praying for a positive response. He hadn’t expected his prayers to be answered in quite this way.

  “No. You have to talk to me.” She gripped his arm, her voice echoing with anger, filled with demand. “You talk to me first, damn you. What does that fucking mark mean?”

  “Not yet, Elizabeth. I have to talk to Mike.” He couldn’t tell her.

  “Like hell you do.” She shook his arm furiously, fear echoing in her voice. “You tell me what’s going on first, damn you. That’s my baby, Dash. Not Mike’s. What the hell is going on?”

  Dash closed his eyes, shaking his head roughly as he tore his arm from her grip.

  “Go to Cassie. Now,” he snapped. “I have to talk to Mike first.”

  He stormed from the room, knowing the lateness of the hour, the fact that Mike was comfortably in bed with his loving wife, likely dreaming dreams of bliss. A short bitter grunt sounded from his chest. Must be fucking nice.

  He found his friend’s room and rapped the door with hard knuckles. He heard a grunt, a curse, Serena’s drowsy voice. Seconds later, Mike opened the door, his eyes blurry with sleep.

  “What?” His eyes cleared when he saw Dash. Dash knew the fury raging inside him was clearly in evidence.

  “She’s a Breed.” His voice was flat with pain.

  “What?” Mike shook his head, clearly confused.

  Dash couldn’t blame him. He was having a hell of a time understanding himself.

  “Cassie,” he growled. “That’s why Grange wants her. She’s a Breed, Mike. A Wolf Breed. Just like me.”

  “No!” Elizabeth’s shocked, disbelieving voice had him turning slowly.

  She had followed him. Somehow, his mind consumed with rage and pain, he had been unaware of her behind him. He knew now. She was staring at him like the animal he was. Her eyes wide, disbelieving, as she watched him with heartbreaking horror, fighting to deny the truth of what she heard. The truth that the man she had nearly taken into her body, the man whose tongue had plunged into her mouth was an animal. Bitter acceptance filled his mind as he watched her. She looked like she was going to be sick.

  He growled, a low animalistic rumble that had Mike cursing and Elizabeth shaking in terror. He knew what his eyes looked like in the hall, the dim light overhead reflecting at just the right angle, turning them a demonic red without the sheltering protection of the contact lenses he wore when needed. An animal. An animal she had nearly fucked.

  He could see it in her eyes as she backed away from him. Saw it in the glazed need to escape as she turned and ran for her room. And he was behind her. She would try to take Cassie and escape him now. Run from the animal. From the beast. Escape a truth she didn’t want to accept. There wasn’t a chance in hell he would let her get away from him.

  He caught her at his bedroom door, his arm wrapping around her waist as she fought him, clawing at him as he dragged her against the wall, her fist nearly connecting with his jaw as she broke from his hold. Breathing hard, her eyes wild in her white face, she faced him.

  Chapter Twelve

  Elizabeth knew she shouldn’t have been so completely shocked. The past two years had been a series of betrayals and upheavals that she could have never imagined. But this. She didn’t know if she could survive this.

  “You’re wrong.” She pointed her finger at him, then lowered it as she realized how hard she was shaking. “It’s not possible.”

  “You saw the mark, Elizabeth.” His head was lowered. His eyes blazed back at her in fury, in determination.

  This couldn’t be happening. She wanted to slap herself, to tear herself out of this new, horrible nightmare suddenly exploding within her mind. She couldn’t be awake. This couldn’t be real. Her daughter wasn’t created in a damned lab. She had been conceived within her womb, carried to full term and delivered in a hospital under the eyes of a caring obstetrician. Tests. Immunizations. Every care had been taken to make certain Cassie was healthy, free of defects. A perfect baby girl.

  And now he was ripping what was left of her life apart. Telling her that Cassie was more than she had believed, that her baby now faced the danger of not just Grange, but a deranged Council who was even more powerful. If they found out. If they knew… The consequences slammed into her head, making her fight it instinctively. Not her child.

  “It’s a coincidence.” Her hands pressed against her stomach as she swallowed deeply, fighting the bile rising in her throat. It couldn’t be possible.

  He laughed, a low, feral sound lacking in amusement. The sound ripped over her nerves, shredding them further. It was animalistic, dangerous. There was no amusement in his voice, only savage acceptance of what he was and what he faced. The man she had fallen in love with before she ever met him would be taken from her as well. Not just her baby, but Dash would be gone. How would she ever manage to hold either of them to her now?

  “If there’s one thing I know, Elizabeth,” he informed her harshly, “it’s about being a Breed and how to hide it. You can’t hide the marker, though. Nothing can erase it. It’s a genetic imprint created to keep just this from ever happening. To be certain if conception occurred, then a Breed child could be identified. The Council was fanatical about not mixing the animals in the general population.”

  She swayed. God. This wasn’t happening. Please don’t let it be happening, she prayed. If she thought the past two years had been a nightmare, then this was hell and she was being plunged in head first. No chance to test the heat. No chance to accept the danger and the pain. No chance to plan a way out. She wouldn’t accept it.

  “My daughter is not an animal.” She wanted to scream the words, needed to make certain he heard her, understood her. She didn’t care what he thought he was, but her daughter wasn’t an animal. And she sure as hell wasn’t an experiment. “And neither is she a Breed. She’s my baby.” Her hands knotted at her abdomen. “I had her. I carried her. She looks like me.”

  Her baby. Elizabeth fought Dash. Fought the sudden, sickening realization that he could be right. She had always known how special her daughter was. So unique and so gifted in so many ways that she had convinced herself that it was only a mother’s pride that made her see it.

  “She’s still your child, Elizabeth.” He tried to step closer to her, then stopped as she retreated in panic. She couldn’t let him touch her. If she did, she would break. Shatter into so many fragments she would never be able to find all the pieces again. “I smell your connection to her. It’s unmistakable. But Dane Colder is not her father.”

  She was going to faint. Elizabeth could feel it and fought it. He could smell it? No. Motherhood wasn’t a smell. Or was it? Cassie had come from her body. Her womb. She trembled violently. How could he smell it?

  “He is.” She shook her head desperately, suddenly remembering Dane’s desperation to convince her to have a child that first year. “He was desperate for a child. We went to the d
octor’s office together. He did everything he was supposed to.”

  She was fighting to deny him, to deny what he was telling her. Fighting to try to find a way out of this sudden, horrifying situation. She stared at Dash, silently pleading, begging him to take it back, to show just a small moment of weakness, a doubt that he could be right. If he would, then she could find a way to convince herself that none of this could be true. Instead, he gave her proof.

  “Martaine was a high level Genetics Council scientist,” he said with chilling knowledge. Of course, he knew, she thought. He was a Breed. He knew the monsters who worked within those labs. “He worked in the initial phases of breeding, trying to reverse the coding that kept the males from fertilizing their females.” A low, painful whimper was her only protest. “When he failed to do what they wanted, he was quietly retired rather than killed, in case they needed him later,” Dash continued. “He went into fertility practice and evidently his experiments continued. Somehow, he figured out how to use the unique Breed sperm to fertilize the ova. Because I swear to you, Elizabeth, Cassie is a Wolf Breed child. That is why Grange won’t let her go. That is why he killed her father. And that was why Dane refused to accept the child. Because he knew.”

  “No.” She shook her head desperately. “He wouldn’t have done that. He wouldn’t have.”

  “He did, Elizabeth,” he snarled, the sound ricocheting through her body like a bullet. “Listen to me, damn you, because Cassie’s life is in more danger than you ever realized. She is the first. Do you hear me?” She flinched violently. “She is the first Breed child conceived outside a lab. The first created, in vitro, without first altering the ova to accept the unique DNA. Do you understand what I’m saying, Elizabeth? She’s unique. A bridge between human and Breeds, and a female in the bargain. Breedable, Elizabeth. Grange would know that. He knows it and he wants her for it. And if he doesn’t get her, his next step will be to sell this information to the bastards who created us to begin with.”

  Breedable? She was a baby. You didn’t breed babies. You cuddled them and you loved them and you raised them to be happy and free and to love you in return. She couldn’t make sense of this. Couldn’t accept the information battering into her brain.

  “She’s just a baby. You can’t do that with a baby.”

  “Elizabeth.” He groaned her name with agonizing emotion. “Listen to me, honey. You have to listen to me now. You can’t protect Cassie from this. You can’t shelter her or run far enough away to hide her from this.”

  Elizabeth stared back at him in shock. Couldn’t protect Cassie? She had to protect Cassie. She was her child. She couldn’t accept anything else.

  “I won’t let my baby die,” she raged furiously. “You’re wrong. You have to be wrong.”

  “You know I’m not wrong,” he snapped. “The sounds she makes while she’s sleeping. There wasn’t a Wolf Breed in the labs I lived in that didn’t make that sound as children. When she was playing with Mica and bit her. It’s instinct to use the teeth rather than the hands to gain freedom. Her canines are longer. Her intelligence is far advanced for her age…”

  “Stop!” She screamed out at the pain radiating through her body now. She couldn’t bear to breathe; it hurt so badly. She had to escape him. Had to help Cassie survive this. “Get away from me. Just get the hell out away from me.”

  She moved for the connecting bathroom. She had to get to Cassie. Had to make sure nothing or no one could ever hurt her child again. She tried to run, tried to rush past him and escape the pain he was bringing into her life.

  He caught her just past the chairs, moving faster than she could. His arms, so hard and strong, wrapped around her, dragging her against his chest as she collapsed. One big hand held her head against him, his broad chest absorbing her sudden scream of agonizing denial.

  “No,” she wailed against his chest, her fists slamming into him as hard as the truth slammed into her soul. “Oh God, no. He didn’t do this to my baby.”

  She was shaking so hard in his arms she frightened herself. On one level, she was aware of the breakdown. The past two years had culminated in this. The fragile hold she held on her control crumpled and memories assailed her mind.

  She hadn’t been comfortable with Martaine. Dane had had to fight, beg and plead with her to allow the doctor to perform the procedure. Elizabeth had wanted someone else. Had wanted a doctor she trusted, one who didn’t make her skin crawl. But Dane had been insistent. It would be private this way. No one would ever know that their child hadn’t been conceived naturally. No one would be aware that he wasn’t man enough to get his own wife pregnant.

  The list of excuses had been long and the fights had almost been violent. Finally, Elizabeth had given in. Dane had been ecstatic until they had been told the procedure had been effective. Elizabeth had conceived.

  He had been quiet. His excitement had slowly faded from that moment on. And she had never known why. Now she knew. It had gone from his wife and child to an experiment. Dane had been almost obsessively jealous. The realization that she wasn’t carrying his child must have eaten him alive. It had. It had destroyed their marriage, and eventually his greed had taken his life.

  “Mike, see what you can find out about Colder and Martaine, privately, such as any money owed or paid. I need as much information as I can get. Put a call into Tyler for me. We have to talk again.”

  She had been barely aware of the other man and his wife entering the room as she and Dash fought. Now she was in his arms as he held her tightly to his chest, crying. She didn’t know why she was crying. Tears weren’t going to help. But she couldn’t stop.

  As Dash threw out hasty orders to the other man, his hands were stroking her hair, her back, holding her close to the heat and hardness of his body. Sheltering her the only way he knew how. She recognized it. Had done it often with Cassie.

  Her baby had been betrayed again, just as Elizabeth had been. It all made sense now. So many things she hadn’t been able to explain: the sudden influx of money after she conceived, Dane’s distance from the child, Martaine’s interest in her. He had visited the house often before her divorce and had called her personally several times.

  And Cassie. Elizabeth felt her heart stop. Her daughter knew. She knew and hadn’t told Elizabeth. She had to know. She was there when Dane was killed, had heard her father haggling over the price of selling her to Grange. She would have to be aware of her birthright.

  The pieces started falling into place. How Cassie had known all the times someone had been in the apartments they had lived in. She had stopped, fear holding her body rigid as she breathed in deeply. They’re here, Momma. The fairy says they’re here. The fairy hadn’t shown up before the night Dane had been killed.

  The fairy told her when danger was coming. Instinct. Animal awareness, as had been explained in the interviews she had seen with the Feline Breeds. It developed in the young and only grew stronger as they matured. The fairy told her when their enemies were close. Instinct. She could smell them, just as Dash could smell the proof of her parentage. The fairy always knew the things that Cassie was training herself to accept and strengthen.

  She pushed against Dash’s chest, wiping at the tears on her face, fighting for control. He wouldn’t let her go. He held her to him, knowing she wanted to run, to hide not just from Grange and the truth, but from him as well.

  He had claimed her. He had already informed her of that fact. He wouldn’t let her go. She remembered Callan Lyons’ interviews. His fierce protectiveness of his wife, Merinus. The determination to see her safe at all costs. His eyes had blazed when he spoke of her and she had seen a man who would kill to save his woman. As Dash had done. He had killed to protect her and Cassie. How many more would he be forced to kill now? The thought of that, the danger to not just her child but to Dash as well, was destroying her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Let me go.” She pushed against his chest again as Mike and Serena left the room. “I have to check on
Cassie.