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Terrifying? No, it wasn’t terrifying.
Levering herself up enough to stare into the drowsy depths of his now dark blue eyes, Liza glimpsed the wild, dark, primal core of the man now.
He was like the earth itself: safe, strong and as unpredictable as the wildest storm.
And he wanted to belong to her?
He believed he did belong to her?
“What makes you think I deserve you?” she whispered then, her lips trembling with a sudden surge of impending panic.
“What could ever make you believe that you don’t?” He brushed her hair back, the gesture so tender, so gentle that her heart clenched in such emotion that it sent a shaft of agony radiating through her senses.
“Ah, Liza.” His expression softened, though still, the arrogance and dominant male power was still there. “You deserve better than I could be. But I’m such a selfish bastard. Completely and irrevocably unredeemable where my need for you is concerned. I’d die without your heart to warm me now. I’d cease to exist if I thought I’d never have your love. I told you, no matter the fear, no matter the secrets you have, nothing can change what I feel for you. Nothing can ever touch my determination to protect and hold you. You and your secrets, should you ever trust me with them. I’m yours, sweetheart. But I’m not the only one who belongs. You belong now as well. To me.”
She belonged, and she could feel it, whether she believed it was safe or not. Whether she believed, before him, she had even wanted it.
She belonged to him.
And she knew, somehow, someway, she knew—
“You’ll destroy me.”
CHAPTER 19
By the time Monday rolled around, Liza was more than ready for a break from the spiraling emotions converging on her.
The only thing that saved her was the ever-present sexual arousal that seemed to flame between them with just a look.
That didn’t help when she slept though.
When dreams invaded and further confused her.
Who was she?
As she dressed for work the question plagued her, just as it had plagued her since she had gone to the crash site five nights before.
“Do you know, young children, the choice you have made this night?” Joseph Redwolf, grandfather to the mate of Braden Arness, Megan Fields Arness, whispered through her mind.
Holding the mascara brush carefully and applying her makeup, Liza fought to ignore the memory that wasn’t really a memory.
It really was like a dream.
Just as her memories of her childhood were—until the day after that wreck, Liza really had no clear, concise memories.
Finishing the mascara, she picked up the lip gloss she normally wore before her gaze landed on the tube of color Stygian had packed.
He’d collected most of her additional clothes and accessories, including the makeup in her bathroom the day before. For the most part, he’d chosen things she pref
erred to use, with the exception of several tubes of colored lipstick.
She’d bought them to use at Halloween with the Goth costume she’d intended to wear on Trick or Treat night. Instead, she, Claire, Chelsea and Isabelle had been called out by the Navajo warriors who fought for the Breed Underground.
The job hadn’t been dangerous. It had been more a training mission; they provided distraction while the warriors spirited a young Breed they had helped escape years before, from beneath the noses of the Genetics Council agents sent to find her.
The Breeds and humans targeted by the Genetics Council needing rescue or aid were much fewer now than they had been in past decades. Those the warriors had hidden over the years though, sometimes needed additional help if the Bureau of Breed Affairs or the Genetics Council managed to track them down.
The young female they had moved in the fall had been such a Breed—one the Navajo warriors had hidden, along with her mother, when she was just a babe.
