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“What did they do to you?” His broad, warm hand cupped the back of her head, holding her to him as she held on to his shoulders, her nails digging into the material of his shirt as she fought to just hold on to her sanity.
Her memory was so incredibly accurate that any moment she could pull the most minute detail from even the darkest, most agonizing second of those years there.
Shaking her head, her fingers clenching in his shirt, Honor felt as though she was sinking into a pool of pure emotional acid. There was nothing but pain in the past, and she had realized why each day of her life after she became Liza Johnson.
“Tell me.”
The primal creature that helped create him echoed in his voice. Man and animal existed in such harmony inside him that there were times she could actually forget he was a Breed. If she wanted to. But, Honor realized, she wanted always to know exactly who and what he was.
“I would pray to die.”
The growl that vibrated in his throat was so similar to those Gideon and Judd would emit whenever they were forced to care for her and Fawn after the treatments.
“I was the only one they showed any kindness to. Father couldn’t even force them to show Fawn mercy, and he tried. He tried so hard.” She stared back at him, shaking her head as she fought and failed to hold back her sobs. “He did everything he could. He bribed them, he begged them, and still, they didn’t care when she screamed and screamed in pain.”
Her father had raged at the scientists, he had even gone above their heads and petitioned the Council itself for mercy.
And they had refused.
“She was so tiny, Stygian.” Her voice broke as she felt her heart breaking for the child Fawn had been. “She was so delicate that sometimes I wondered how she held her head on her shoulders. Yet she always did. She would turn her back on us and I could see her shoulders shaking as she sobbed silently. As she wrapped her tiny arms across her stomach and rocked, silently begging for comfort. And it was only Gideon that could force the scientists to let him go to her. It was always Gideon that held her, that rocked her, and sometimes, he even sang to her.”
And how envious she had been as she had watched the young man rock her friend. As she watched him lift his head and stare at the bars above the cages they were forced to exist within as the scientists watched the bonds growing between the four of them.
“Once the experiments drew to a close, I thought we were all being released. My parents came for me, took me home, and I tried so hard to acclimate to being free, even though a part of me knew I would never be free. Two years later, someone from the Council arrived, though, and they demanded Father return me to the labs. I was the only one left, they told him. Judd, Gideon and Fawn had died in an escape attempt.”
Honor remembered the agony that had knifed through her when she’d heard her friends were gone, and with them the information that had been amassed over the years.
“But you knew better,” he encouraged her to continue.
Honor shook her head. “Not at first. The Council’s messenger was telling Father how they knew about our photographic memories, and how they needed whatever I had seen to begin the project once again because Gideon and Judd had destroyed the files and data in the escape attempt. That was when I knew that they were alive. Gideon would never have allowed Fawn to die. Just as Fawn wouldn’t have allowed Gideon to die. That night, Father put in place the escape plan he’d already mapped out for me. He managed to find someone he knew could hide me. This man contacted me within hours of Father telling the messenger he needed a few days to arrange everything. My father then made certain I was in a place where his contact could slip me away. A few weeks later I was reunited with Fawn and Judd. We ran continually.” She tried to dry the tears that continued to fall. “We never had any peace. Then, one night, they found us before we could run. They crashed into the room just like they did tonight. And before we could think, Fawn, Judd and I were shooting. We were shooting to kill rather than wound, fighting for our lives because we knew they would kill us with the tests if we had to suffer them again. We managed to get away just as the man that helped me escape arrived with another and drove us to where two girls were dying in the desert.”
“And then you became Liza Johnson,” he whispered.
He was dying inside with her. The pain searing her soul was ripping his to shreds as well. The agony of the blood she had been forced to shed that night, the lives she had been forced to take, no matter the reason, would always haunt her now. It would torment her, just as the knowledge that it had been another girl’s death that had been her only escape from certain hell.
Laying her head against his chest, concentrating on the steady beat of his heart, she nodded wearily. “And then I became Liza Johnson.”
“Claire Martinez is Fawn, isn’t she?” he asked her then. “Liza and Fawn both died in that wreck, didn’t they, Honor?”
She shook her head. “They took Fawn away.”
And they had.
She had to be careful. So very, very careful to keep him from sensing the lie she knew she had to tell.
“I’m your mate,” he said then, his lips at her ear, his voice so soft she had to strain to make out the words. “My first loyalty is to you, and let me tell you, you reek of that lie, sweetheart. If you want to hide her, protect her until those memories return, then you’re going to have to let me help you. Without your trust, mate, I can do nothing. I am nothing.”
She pulled back to stare into eyes the color of the darkest blue.
Could she trust him?
Did she dare?
God help her, did she really have a choice?
“It was a ritual,” she whispered. “The medicine chiefs did it. They gave us Liza and Claire’s lives and completely took the memories from us of who and what we were until the time came to remember. One would have their memories returned in a night filled with chaos, the other…” She swallowed tightly. “The other with her death.”
“And you don’t know which is which?”
