Cross Breed (Breeds 23)

“I was surprised to learn you filed for Separation as well as a Disavowal from the woman you’d chosen as your mate,” Aaron commented, watching him closely. “I expected you to object to disavowing her.”

“Why did you expect that?” Let the bastard dig this hole a little deeper. If he was lucky, very lucky, then he might say something that would exonerate Dog when he cut his throat.

Aaron lowered his graying head and stared at the drink he held. Regret spilled from him. It didn’t overpower the scent of core evil, but it was regret.

“Your father,” he said before he tossed back the drink, then lifted his gaze to Dog once again. “He was a good son. A loyal son. Until your mother. Even after her death he refused to come home no matter my attempts to convince him.”

“Yeah, he could be a little stubborn,” Dog drawled coolly. “He might have blamed you for her death, though, feared for his son’s safety. Little things like that can make a man stubborn, I hear.”

It could make a man hate. His father had hated this man and Dog knew it. Not that he remembered his father saying it, but he’d known it, even as a child.

“Yes, it can.” That regret once again. The bastard. “Before he went into those labs to train the Breeds there, Carson, your father, was a hardened soldier. He knew the value of the program, understood the work they were doing there. All that changed with her, though.” He watched Dog for long moments, as though he expected him to say something. “She didn’t even have a name. He called her Angel, though.”

His mother was an angel, his father had told him more than once.

Dog could feel his skin prickling with the fury he held back, his head filled with so much rage it threatened the control he had a stranglehold on.

“Chet, get me another drink,” Aaron ordered the guard at the back of the room.

Dog let a smile curl his lips at the resentment that tore through the soldier, the feeling that he was better than some servant to take such orders.

“Chet doesn’t think much of playing bartender,” Dog warned Aaron, watching the surprise that filled his lined expression. “Thinks he’s too good for it.”

Aaron shook his head. “Chet’s a good boy. His father was on Carson’s team. SEALs. They don’t come any better.”

“Hmm,” Dog muttered before giving the man a mocking smile. “Keep thinking that. Now, my time’s rather limited. Would you like to tell me why you suddenly want to claim your Breed grandson when the order to find me and turn me over to the Council was the order that went out when I was a child?”

Aaron accepted the drink from the soldier, though Dog detected a sudden wariness that hadn’t been there before.

“Age brings a different perspective.” Aaron breathed out roughly. “Both my children are gone, the legacy I’d leave behind at my death is gone.” There was the faintest hint of a plea in those eyes as Dog stared back at him. “Carson haunts me.” He swallowed tightly. “Choices I made then haunt me.”

Dog wanted to laugh. What held the enraged bark of laughter back he wasn’t certain.

“And you think threatening me with Cassie’s safety, with revealing my bloodline to the Genetics Council without the benefit of your fortune to protect me, is the way to handle that? What makes you think I need your fortune to protect me?”

“It’s not the fortune.” Aaron watched him now with a calculating gleam in his eyes. “It’s information you want, isn’t it, Cain?”

“Dog,” he corrected him smoothly.

A frown snapped between Aaron’s gray brows. “Cain …”

“Cainis. I believe the translation is ‘dog,’” Dog corrected him. “My name is Dog.”

“You’ll take the name Cain,” the old man gritted out. “It’s a family name given to the oldest son in each generation stretching back over a hundred years. Your father was Carson Cain, my name is Aaron Cain.”

Yeah, yeah, good old family legacies, right? That hadn’t done his parents a lot of good. “And my name is Dog,” Dog finished for him.

“As I was saying,” Aaron continued with a disagreeable snap. “It’s information you want. Information I have and would be more than willing to provide you in exchange for your agreement to not only disavow your mate, but the Breeds as a whole. You’ll take your place here, as my heir, and take over the various businesses. If you conduct yourself as I wish, in one year, I’ll turn over the information I have on the Genetics Council. Extensive information.”

That bark of laughter escaped; Dog couldn’t help it. “And why should I trust you have information that the Breeds haven’t acquired?”

Aaron turned to Chet and nodded.

Oh, Chet wasn’t a happy littl

e soldier if the scent of malicious anger coming from him was any indication. But he was a good little soldier evidently. He collected a large envelope from a side table and stepped to Dog, extending it silently.

Keeping his eye on Aaron, Dog opened the file and extracted the pages within. There were three. Names were redacted, but there was no doubt it was a printout from a larger file detailing the identities of three of the Council members who sat on the Genetics Council.