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And noas ripping as left of her life apart Telling her that Cassie was er of not just Grange, but a deranged Council as even more powerful If they found out If they knew… The consequences slaht it instinctively Not her child
“It’s a coincidence” Her hands pressed against her sto in her throat It couldn’t be possible
He laughed, a low, feral sound lacking in a theerous There was no ae acceptance of what he was and what he faced The man she had fallen in love with before she ever met him would be taken froone Hoould she ever e to hold either of them to her now?
“If there’s one thing I know, Elizabeth,” he infor a Breed and how to hide it You can’t hide the enetic i To be certain if conception occurred, then a Breed child could be identified The Council was fanatical about not eneral population”
She swayed God This wasn’t happening Please don’t let it be happening, she prayed If she thought the past two years had been a nighted in head first No chance to test the heat No chance to accept the danger and the pain No chance to plan a way out She wouldn’t accept it
“My daughter is not an animal” She wanted to scream the words, needed to make certain he heard her, understood her She didn’t care what he thought he was, but her daughter wasn’t an animal And she sure as hell wasn’t an experiment “And neither is she a Breed She’s my baby” Her hands knotted at her abdomen “I had her I carried her She looks like me”
Her baby Elizabeth fought Dash Fought the sudden, sickening realization that he could be right She had always kno special her daughter was So unique and so gifted in so many ways that she had convinced herself that it was only a mother’s pride that made her see it
“She’s still your child, Elizabeth” He tried to step closer to her, then stopped as she retreated in panic She couldn’t let him touch her If she did, she would break Shatter into so ain “I smell your connection to her It’s unmistakable But Dane Colder is not her father”
She was going to faint Elizabeth could feel it and fought it He could smell it? No Motherhood wasn’t a smell Or was it? Cassie had come from her body Her womb She trembled violently How could he smell it?
“He is” She shook her head desperately, suddenly re Dane’s desperation to convince her to have a child that first year “He was desperate for a child We went to the d
octor’s office together He did everything he was supposed to”
She was fighting to deny hi to try to find a way out of this sudden, horrifying situation She stared at Dash, silently pleading, begging him to take it back, to show just a sht If he would, then she could find a way to convince herself that none of this could be true Instead, he gave her proof
“Martaine was a high level Genetics Council scientist,” he said with chilling knowledge Of course, he knew, she thought He was a Breed He knew the monsters orked within those labs “He worked in the initial phases of breeding, trying to reverse the coding that kept thetheir females” A low, painful whimper was her only protest “When he failed to do what they wanted, he was quietly retired rather than killed, in case they needed him later,” Dash continued “He went into fertility practice and evidently his experiured out how to use the unique Breed sperm to fertilize the ova Because I swear to you, Elizabeth, Cassie is a Wolf Breed child That is why Grange won’t let her go That is why he killed her father And that hy Dane refused to accept the child Because he knew”
“No” She shook her head desperately “He wouldn’t have done that He wouldn’t have”
“He did, Elizabeth,” he snarled, the sound ricocheting through her body like a bullet “Listen to er than you ever realized She is the first Do you hear me?” She flinched violently “She is the first Breed child conceived outside a lab The first created, in vitro, without first altering the ova to accept the unique DNA Do you understand what I’e between huain Breedable, Elizabeth Grange would know that He knows it and he wants her for it And if he doesn’t get her, his next step will be to sell this inforin with”