AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Merinus jerked to her feet and pulled her son next to her, uncertain what this new threat was. As it materialized in front of the door, shock raced through her.
It couldn’t be.
She reached out, then pressed her hand to her lips as his gaze found hers. Beside him, another man and a slender woman were consulting with a doctor, but it was the first male that held her rapt attention.
It was Callan, and yet it wasn’t. The same imposing features. The same mane of hair falling to his shoulders, the same golden, piercing eyes as he found her.
It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be who she thought it was. Who she knew it was.
“That’s Grandpa.” David suddenly piped up. “He smells like Dad and Jonas. And that’s my uncle Dane. I told you he smelled like Dad.”
And David had told Callan many times that Dane Vanderale smelled like him. The problem was, no Breed but David had detected that scent. The Breed’s gaze slid to David, fierce, filled with pride before returning to Merinus.
“How’s my son?”
His son. Merinus stared back at him, as much in shock as every Breed standing in the room.
This was the first Breed to have ever been created. The fabled first Leo and the mate he had stolen from the Council lab he had been created within nearly a century before.
He was rumored to be more than a hundred and twenty years old, yet he looked in his prime, only a few years older than her beloved Callan.
He could have been Callan’s brother rather than his father, and now Merinus knew why Leo Vanderale was so rarely in the public eye. So rare that no one had detected the disguise he obviously used in public, yet hadn’t bothered to use here.
The photos Merinus had seen of him showed a much darker-haired Leo. Eyes more dark brown than golden amber shot with darker hues. The lines on his face in those photos weren’t present now, and the powerful, corded body was very much downplayed in public with what must have been an exceptional eye for clothes and artificial enhancements.
The Leo’s mate, the scientist that had been rumored to be a genius in the genetic workings of the Breeds at the time, still retained a glow of youth. And, like her husband, had drastically altered her appearance at the public events she had attended and in the photos she’d had taken over the past years.
Straight, long dark hair, gray eyes, pert features and clear, unblemished skin. This wasn’t the woman whose hair was shot with gray, whose face was lined to make her appear two decades older than she looked.
They had preserved their secrecy throughout the decades. There had never been so much as a hint that Leo Vanderale could be a Breed, nor that his son could be the first fully grown breed-human hybrid.
Her eyes flashed to Dane Vanderale. He barely looked thirty, but he had to be older. There was proof that Elizabeth Forteniare had conceived before she and the first Leo had escaped confinement in the labs so long ago. There were rumors that the child had survived birth. Dane had to be that child, and no one had ever known.
“So much shock.” His voice was well modulated, just a hint of a foreign accent present in his voice. “Did you think I wouldn’t arrive when my son lies so close to death?”
The first Leo. He was the first Leo and he had been so close for so long. Dane Vanderale stood, strong and sure beside him, and Merinus saw the resemblance then. The same proud features, piercing eyes. The same cocky, arrogant assurance.
Breeds stared at the vision as though staring upon a deity they hadn’t believed existed.
The first Leo. Alive. So close. And the father of the Breed that had made a way for his people, a place on earth that none had been able to steal.
“You took your time,” she whispered.
And he grimaced. Pain and longing filled his eyes as the small woman beside him turned to him. He lowered his head, listened and nodded before motioning Dane toward her.
“My wife, Elizabeth.” His lips quirked. “A strong name, I believe.” He glanced at Dash and a tearful Elizabeth. “She’ll oversee Callan’s surgery and go then to Cassie. Cassie is stable, I’m told, the shot was a surface wound, but the bruising to the brain is a concern.”
Merinus shook her head, shock still racing through her.
“She’s his…”
“Mother?” he asked. “Yes. Elizabeth’s ovum was extracted before our escape. Several, actually. She was the Council’s foremost authority on Breed genetics and physiology. He’s her son. She won’t lose him.”
“But she couldn’t come to him,” she cried. “Ten years they searched for you. Ten years they begged you to come out of hiding. His parents. David’s grandparents, and you didn’t give a fuck?”
“I gave enough of a fuck to care about whether the world knew our secrets and our weaknesses,” he growled, flashing his canines. Like Callan. Warning her back. Arrogant and certain of his power. “I gave enough of a fuck that I helped weed out your spies before I made my decision to reveal myself. Blame me if you must. But those secrets were more important than my personal needs or Callan’s. Let alone that arrogant by-blow Wyatt.” He sneered the name, though not with hatred, but with a challenging, brooding tone.
He looked like Callan, but Merinus knew to her soul which son carried his temperament.
