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“You believe my father had my genetics tampered with?” she asked him. “That technology is only now a thing of science fiction, Director Wyatt.”
“And Breeds were only a part of science fiction one hundred years after the first one was created,” he said gently.
Liza clasped her hands together, her fingers holding to each other in a fierce grip as she fought to control fears that had no name and panic that had no reason.
“No DNA tests, Jonas.” It was Stygian who rejected the idea.
As Liza fought to hold control over the shadowed screams that had her lips trembling, Stygian gripped her hip as he stood behind her and faced his director.
A spasm of what Liza could only describe as agony crossed Jonas’s face before he glanced away from them for a moment. Turning back, he nodded slowly before focusing those strange eyes on her.
“Thank you for the help, Ms. Johnson.”
“Jonas, I need to discuss a few of your new security measures before you leave,” Stygian stated as he slowly released her.
“Talk on the way back to my suite,” Jonas breathed out roughly. “Amber had a difficult night and I’d like to get back so Rachel can rest.”
That hard knot of searing guilt gripped Liza’s chest as Stygian moved past her and followed Jonas out the door.
Left alone, Liza drew in a hard, deep breath before covering her face with her hands and fighting back the sobs rising in her chest. As she did, the memory of what she had told Stygian three nights before raced through her mind.
“You will destroy me—”
She had just given Jonas Wyatt the means to do just that, she feared, and she had done it for the man she had given her heart to.
As strong, as fearless and filled with honor as he was, she couldn’t allow him to see her as weak as she knew she was.
She was terrified.
“Why?” Jonas asked as they stepped into the hall and started moving toward the presidential suite.
“Contact Dash,” Stygian urged him as he caught the director’s arm to draw him to a stop. “I need Cassie here.”
He didn’t know why, he had no idea why his instincts were certain the DNA tests were the wrong answer, yet Cassie, the eerie little waif who saw ghosts, was the right one.
“Dash refuses to bring her out.” Jonas’s lips pulled back in a frustrated snarl. “Do you think I haven’t already tried that?”
“Try one more time, Jonas,” Stygian urged him. “You know how Dash and Cassie work. Dash will refuse at her request because she’s waiting on something. Tell him to tell her it’s time. Tell her I need her here, Jonas. My mate needs her.”
Once, when Cassie had been a little girl, she had stopped him as he moved across the backyard of the Ruling Pride’s home. She’d looked up at him, solemn and eerie, and told him the day would come when he would need her to help his mate—his mate would make a choice that would require her help. Cassie’d promised she would be there for him.
That time had come.
Staring back at him, Jonas sighed wearily as he nodded his assent. “I’ll contact Dash.” His expression turned questioning then. “Are you sure this is what you want, Stygian? If she sees Liza as anyone other than who she is, she won’t hold back, you know that.”
He knew it. He hated it, but he knew it was the only answer.
“A Core Level DNA test isn’t going to convince Liza of anything, and if her genetics were wiped and replaced, there will be no way to know for certain who she was before the wipe,” Stygian warned him. “Cassie will see more than DNA. She’ll see her fears, a memory, a nightmare or whatever the hell it is that Cassie sees that will pull those memories free if she is Honor or Fawn.”
“She’s Honor Roberts, Stygian,” Jonas said then, his gaze heavy. “I can sense it. I feel it. That woman is Honor Roberts, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt she can help us save Amber.”
Jonas stared back at Stygian, hating what he knew he was putting his enforcer through, hating what he knew that young woman he claimed as his mate would soon go through.
“I’ll protect her, Stygian,” he swore with a desperation that burned inside his soul. “I swear to you, if need be, I’ll give my own life to protect her if I’m right. I’ll do whatever it takes because I know together, she and Fawn Corrigan are all that can save Amber.”
“How?” Stygian snarled in frustration now, unaware until this moment that the question raged inside him. “How can they help her, Jonas? They were children. They would have no idea the makeup of that drug.”
“Honor Roberts had a photographic memory before she entered that lab,” Jonas hissed, hope suddenly burning in his eyes. “The reason the Genetics Council wanted her back after they released her to her father was because of the anomalies her Council-controlled nanny noticed. She’d developed a photographic memory and was often left with the coded notes and diagrams the scientists used while developing the serums they tested there. Judd and Gideon developed the photographic memories after the tests began. Each of the three would make certain, day by day, that they saw the notes and files on the tests and the serum used. Fawn Corrigan never saw the codes that we know of, but that nurse told us what she never told the scientists: Honor, Judd and Gideon would write out or draw what they saw, and Fawn would translate it. She could crack a code without a key, Stygian. She could decipher all the files we have, all the notes, everything we haven’t been able to crack where those experiments are concerned. With Honor’s memories of their particular serums and experiments, her memory of the co
