Cassie tensed in her mother’s arms, then nodded hesitantly.
“You heard what I am then, didn’t you?” he asked her softly.
Once again, Cassie nodded.
“When I was very young, Cassie, not much older than you, I escaped the labs and I ran as far and as hard from that place as I could. Because I knew I wasn’t an animal. I knew I deserved to live and to be free. Just as you do. You are a perfect, beautiful little girl. As beautiful as your momma is. But you have to believe that. Remember? You told me that in a letter. If you believe, then it’s as real as sunshine. Do you remember that, Cassie?”
“Momma told me that.” She hiccupped against Elizabeth’s chest.
“And does your momma lie to you, Cassie?” He touched her hair softly; at the same time Elizabeth felt his arm steal around her shoulders.
He was heat and strength. God, she needed that strength right now.
“Momma never lies,” Cassie finally sighed.
“No, she doesn’t.” He pulled them both into his arms, holding them, protecting them. “And neither will I, Cassie. Ever. Now I need you to tell me exactly what happened that night. Until I know what happened, I can’t protect you and your momma fully. You have to tell me everything.”
Elizabeth knew when he said the words that she wouldn’t be able to handle Cassie’s remembrances of that night. She was right. But she stayed silent, fighting to escape within herself, to pull that mantle of distance around her shoulders that would keep her strong for her daughter.
Dane had owed Grange a frightening amount of money. When the other man arrived at the house, Dane had been waiting. He had already informed Cassie of her parentage, had raged at her, telling her over and over what a little animal she was, how she needed to be caged, penned up like the other animals in the world. That her mother could never want her now. Never love her. Didn’t Cassie know how her mother refused to let her have a pet? He had told her cruelly. How did she think her mother would feel when she learned Cassie was nothing more than all the animals she had denied over the years?
Cassie had been crying when Grange showed up for his money. It was then Dane offered him something much more valuable. A Breed child. Conceived naturally, and without the genetic faults that kept the other Breeds from conceiving children. Trainable. Breedable. To convince the other man, he had ripped Cassie’s gown from her, showing him the genetic marker. The same marker notated in the Top Secret files Martaine had given him years before.
Grange had been ecstatic. But he had been smart enough to know Dane could never get away with selling his daughter. He had told Cassie to watch. To see how very easy it was to kill a man. That it would be the first of many lessons she would soon learn. In front of her eyes he had killed her father.
Cassie cried as she told them what happened, and Elizabeth didn’t stop her. The sobs were heartbreaking, cleansing. Finally, Cassie was being allowed to face the truth of that night, as was Elizabeth.
When she finished, Elizabeth rocked her, hummed a lullaby to her and didn’t protest as Dash sat, holding them both. Finally, the little girl slipped into an exhausted sleep in her mother’s arms.
Elizabeth laid her back in the bed and smoothed the dark curls away from her face with trembling fingers.
“I’ll wake up soon,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’ll wake up in my house, in my bed and realize it’s all been a horrible nightmare.”
Dash sighed behind her as he rose from the bed. “When you do, wake me up as well,” he sighed. “Then find an explanation for me being in that bed beside you. Because I won’t let you go, Elizabeth. Not now. Not ever.”
She stared down at her daughter, unable to turn and look at him.
“What do I do?” she asked him, fighting the feeling of helplessness suddenly overtaking her. “Tell me what to do, Dash. How do I protect her now?”
“You can’t, Elizabeth.” His voice was hard, cold. “But I can. And I will. Now lie down and try to rest. We’ll plan this out tomorrow. And I promise you, Cassie will be protected.”
Chapter Fourteen
Tomorrow came too soon. Elizabeth sat hollow-eyed and quiet in the study as Dash and Mike Toler faced her. The plans he had made, without her approval, were insane. Somehow, as night had turned to dawn, she had known this was coming. She had listened to Cassie’s soft little puppy sounds as she slept, and had known Dash would take her baby away from her.
It didn’t matter that she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wanted only to protect her. It didn’t matter that she knew protection would come with a price. All she knew was that the culmination of two years of fighting, fleeing and hiding had ended with this.
She sat on the worn couch and faced the two men, her hands tucked between her knees, feeling disjointed, disassociated from the world around her. Her baby, the child she had raised, had been no more than an experiment to others. She had been used and her daughter had been used, horribly. A little girl had been forced to grow up too soon. To see the horror of a life she should have never known. And now, they wanted to separate her from her mother.
“No.” She kept her voice quiet, reasonable. Dash didn’t look surprised.
He shouldn’t be surprised, she thought. He should have known she would never agree. He should have come up with another plan.
“Elizabeth.” He sighed deeply. The sound was filled with regret. “Listen to me, baby. If you go with her, then we’ll never draw Grange back to his estate at the right time. We get Cassie safe then we take care of the monster. It’s the only way we can do this.”
There had to be another way, because she wasn’t accepting this one.
“Cassie stays with me.” She rose to her feet, staring back at the men calmly, amazed at herself and the lack of fury, fear or rage inside her.