Styx's Storm (Breeds 16)

She hadn't wanted this. She hadn't wanted to need him, and that was what was happening. She wanted to hate him. She wanted to hate all Breeds, just as she had done for the past ten years. It made it easier to keep the promise she had given h

er father, the one he had feared she would break.

"Dad told James he couldn't trust me," she whispered as he continued to hold her. "Once, Scheme Tallant came to Omega, and I caught her talking to several Breeds secretly. I told Dad and James she was up to something, and they didn't say anything then. Later, I heard them talking. Dad told my brother that I wasn't loyal enough."

She pulled back from him as she wrapped her arms across her breasts and moved to the back door, where she gazed through the window into the courtyard.

"I was loyal," she whispered. "If I hadn't been, I wouldn't have told him about Scheme. I was loyal to my father and my brother. I wasn't old enough and didn't know enough to give my loyalty to anyone else."

And this was the battle she fought, Styx thought heavily. A battle that would be impossible for Storme to turn her back on. As the only daughter living in the Omega labs, facing the monsters the Council wanted to turn the Breeds into, seeing their savagery and their agony, she could have easily mistaken it for animal brutality.

The same type of animal that killed her family, the ones that shadowed her for years, pressuring her into giving up the information her father had made her swear she would protect.

She would protect it with her life, he thought. And it might very well come to her life.

"Your da loved you, Storme," he promised her softly. "He knew you were young, he knew you feared the Breeds and giving them your loyalty wouldn't be easy. Perhaps this was what he meant."

She turned back to him, a bitter smile curving her lips as she rubbed at her arms. "Perhaps," she whispered, then fought to shake off the pain, and the past. "You didn't answer me, when are we leaving?"

Styx almost sighed in regret. For a moment, for just a moment, he had felt as though, at the least, she was prepared to discuss the possibility of giving him the data chip. Now he could feel, smell, the refusal in her.

She had pulled back with an inner strength and determination that was integral to woman she was.

"I'll give my life to protect you, Storme, whether against Breeds or against the Council."

Shock flashed in her eyes. He had heard his own voice, the animal inside him coming to the fore and revealing itself in the growl.

"What?" She shook her head as though what he were saying made no sense to her.

"My loyalty is to you," he stated, knowing he would not attempt to hide that from her any longer. She was his mate, and she might not have accepted him, but he had accepted her the moment he tasted her first kiss.

"Exactly what I said, lass. My loyalty is yours. I'd die to protect you, whether from Council soldiers, scientists or Breed Law and Jonas Wyatt. I'll no longer allow anyone or anything to steal the security I can give you. I'd prefer to make it easy." He gave her a soft smile. "I do rather enjoy my lazier side. For you though, I'll deal with whatever I must, unless you make the choice to give the information to anyone other than myself or Jonas."

The line was drawn, but it wasn't a line she had a problem with. Until she could decide the consequences to herself, and perhaps to the world, of breaking her promise, then it was all she had.

"We're not as bad as the pure blood societies would have you believe, love." He chided her as she continued to stare back at him.

She smiled. Tentative, soft. A curve of her lips that blended with the soft scent of . . . His head tilted as he drew that scent in. It was darker than affection, but nowhere close to the scent of mates that he had known from what others experienced.

But it was a start, a sliver of hope. And he would take what he could get until he had the time to steal her heart fully.

CHAPTER 15

Styx gave Storme a reprieve. A few minutes to pull together the emotions raging through her as she fought the realizations he knew she was coming to.

He was making headway. There came a time in a man's, or a Breed's, life, when he had his own realizations. One of those was the knowledge that pushing Storme further could be more detrimental than simply walking away and allowing her to consider her options.

The first pig he and Navarro had placed in the fire pit had come out more than an hour before. That was the ceremonial roasted pig served to the mated couple's table, where the special guests of the couple sat.

The rest of the pork for the pig roast was ready to come off the spits now. It would be laid on the large banquet tables set up to hold bowls and platters of other contributions to the feast as well.

As he and several of the Enforcers extracted the roasted pork and laid each pig on one of the specially made wooden platters, Styx turned and caught sight of one of the Coyote Breeds currently working outside Haven.

"Marx, good to see you." Styx nodded to the Coyote as he strolled into the banquet area.

Marx Whitman was one of the rougher cut Coyote Breeds. As though the genetics for exceptional good looks and grace had somehow gone awry.

At five feet, eight inches, stocky, with a heavily muscular chest and arms, the quiet, normally antisocial Breed walked slowly to him.