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Raking his fingers through his hair, he stared back at her, more irritated with himself than anyone, and just pure pissed off at the two men behind him.
Damn, and she loved her dad. Hell, he knew that look in her eyes. Daddy could do no wrong and he wasn’t going to disabuse her of the idea. Because he could do wrong. He was doing it right now, standing there demanding that Jonas Wyatt leave Window Rock before he knew there was no way in hell he could save his daughter.
“You would go to see Amber, wouldn’t you, Dad? If you knew anything that would save her, you would tell him.” She stood in the doorway, and for the first time since Stygian had met her, he saw complete trust in her eyes.
Son of a bitch. Why couldn’t she look at him like that?
She was his mate. His woman, and she stared at him with such suspicion that it ate into his soul.
Turning, he stared back at the bastard she put so much faith in and, before he could stop himself, he said, “I’m sure Director Wyatt would be more than happy to allow the visit, Mr. Johnson, should you and President Martinez have a mind to accept the invitation.”
Both men stared back at him with dark, hostile gazes.
“We can set that appointment up on our own,” the president said smoothly as he threw Liza a reassuring smile. “We’ll let you know once it’s been set, dear.”
“Of course, Uncle Ray,” she stated, her voice soft but with a glimmer of doubt that Stygian knew her father had to have heard.
Her gaze turned to his then, the soft gray filled with somber doubt.
“Can I go home now?”
She hadn’t asked her father or her boss. She wasn’t asking permission to leave, she was asking if it was okay to return to her home rather than the suite they had taken.
Stygian started to shake his head.
“I think it best you return to the house with your mother and me, Liza.” Audi moved from behind the Nation president’s desk, walking slowly to the door as Liza tensed.
“That wouldn’t work, Dad.” Her hands clasped in front of her as Stygian glimpsed the shaking in her fingers and the uncertainty in her gaze as she watched her father now.
Seeing it tore at his heart. For possibly the first time in her life, she was seeing the human her father was rather than the superhero he had always been to her.
“Liza, your life is in danger.” He paused several feet from her, suddenly aware of the distance she had placed around herself.
Stygian hated sensing it. He hated how she suddenly retreated within herself, watching, waiting, while another part of her seemed to be considering whatever it was that was suddenly so painful for her.
“Yes, I agree with you, Dad, it is.” She breathed in deeply as Stygian tried and failed to restrain the urge to go to her. “But as much as I love you and Mom—and as much as I respect your strength—even I know the Breeds are more qualified and better able to protect me.” And what he knew was left unsaid: that she would never be able to live with a reality where her father had died so she could live.
Going to her but not quite touching her, he could feel her fighting to maintain her distance even as she seemed to lean closer.
Stygian could feel the uncertainties in her, a determination slowly growing within her, and a fear and pain that she had buried so deep, buried so far within herself, that he wondered if she even knew the reason for it.
Johnson’s gaze narrowed on both of them, no doubt taking in the appearance of solidarity that mating always seemed to bring.
“Then your Breed force can come to the house as well.” Her father’s smile was tight, the hostility in his gaze barely hidden as he glanced at Stygian then.
Audi still saw his daughter, despite her place in the Breed underground or with the Navajo Law Enforcement Agency, as a vulnerable child rather than the woman he knew she was. He was a man fighting to deny that his daughter was a woman, which made little sense to Stygian.
Certainly, Liza was inexperienced where men were concerned, he could sense that, just as he could smell the untainted sexuality that assured him it had been quite a long while since she had had a lover. But as far as her father was concerned, she was as pure and unspoiled as a young virgin.
“No, Dad.” She shook her head again. “I know you’ll worry, but if I go home, leaving again will be harder on all of us than it was before. I’m safe. And as long as I stay where I am, under Breed protection, you’re safe as well.”
Taking those few steps to her father, she let him embrace her before reaching up and placing a kiss to his cheek. “I love you, Daddy, and I love Mom, but I have to do this the way I feel is best. I’ve been making my own decisions far too long to be able to give up that freedom now.” As she stepped back from her father, she turned to Stygian. “Are you nearly finished?”
“Nearly,” he agreed. “A few minutes longer.”
“I’ll be outside. Don’t start yelling at them again. It upsets Ray’s secretary, and I imagine she gets enough of that from Ray himself.” She tried to smile at her father and the man she called an “uncle” before her expression became so femininely stubborn and commanding that he knew what was coming before it left her lips. “And I’ll see you and Ray this evening at the hotel. We’re all going to visit with Amber.”
“Liza, if she’s that ill—” Audi’s nostrils flared, his gaze becoming shuttered as he began to protest while Ray Martinez stiffened and the sudden scent of deceit hit Stygian so hard it was all he could do not to react to it.
