by Lora Leigh
ou know damned good and well he’ll have the kid eventually.”
The lazy drawl, the redneck attitude and sinfully good looks were a combination that could have been devastating if it weren’t for the fact her body and her heart belonged to Dash. Simon was the least likely-looking soldier she could have imagined. He looked like a good ole boy playing at being a warrior.
“Is he for real?” Elizabeth asked Dash.
“Unfortunately, he is.” Dash sighed. “Come on, you can meet Simon’s Ladies.”
“His Ladies?” she asked suspiciously.
Dash glanced down at her with something akin to resignation. “Yeah. His Ladies.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dash had some strange friends. Ex-C.I.A. agents as ranchers, Special Forces types who baited Feline Breeds, and a smooth-talking southern boy with a harem all his own. A very dangerous, lethal harem, if Elizabeth wasn’t wrong.
The small cabin was filled with estrogen and female hormones and it was all directed one way. Toward the soft-spoken fallen angel that very obviously enjoyed them all.
“This is Stephanie, my little lady of passion.” He drew the nearest woman into his arms as they entered the cabin. She was tall, slender and stacked. The woman showed an excessive amount of café au lait skin in the snug bra-type gray top and form-fitting black leggings. She had a gun strapped to her hips, a dagger sheathed on her thigh and a gleam of laughter in her dark, chocolate-brown eyes.
“Or so he likes to think.” She looked up at the man with a mocking smile. “It’s good to meet you.”
“This is my little Danica. She takes care of all our…uhh social engagements.” Long black hair and wearing form-fitting black, weapons in place and stacked. Her blue eyes glowed with adoration as she stared up at Simon.
“Nice to see you again, Dash.” Danica greeted him before nodding at Elizabeth. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
“Glori, baby.” He drew the smaller brunette into his arms. “This is my humble baby, Gloria.” He dropped a kiss to her lips as she snuggled against his side after Stephanie moved away.
“Hi, Dash.” She flashed Dash a wide smile. “You training her?” She nodded at Elizabeth. “You need to buy her some better clothes than jeans.” She ran her hand over the hip of her snug spandex leggings. “This is freer.”
Dash cleared his throat but didn’t say anything.
“Janette, Oleta and Kimberly.” Janette had a pair of handcuffs dangling from the wide belt that crossed her hips. She was a blonde siren. Stacked. Oleta was a vibrant brunette with subtle hints of dark blonde highlights and Kimberly was a redhead with a definite gleam in her eyes when she looked at Dash.
Elizabeth frowned as she glanced up at her lover. Dash looked down at her with a wry gleam of amusement, which only made her more suspicious. The women were just a little bit too familiar with Dash to suit her.
“We’ll have dinner soon,” Stephanie called from the open kitchen. “Coffee’s on now. Good thing we brought supplies with us. You guys actually think that stuff you called food was healthy?”
Elizabeth frowned. She rather liked the stews and chili that Dash had been putting together.
“My Steph is a whiz in the kitchen.” Simon beamed. “We’ll have a meal you’ll not soon forget.”
Elizabeth kept silent. The women were moving around the kitchen and living room now; a few were cleaning weapons, two were cooking and the other two had taken watchful positions at each window.
Dash sighed. “Elizabeth and I are going to go shower. Make yourselves at home, Simon. We’ll talk later.”
“That we will.” Simon leaned lazily against the wall, his arm going around one of the redheads that moved in against him. “You go on. I have some things to show you this evening and then we can plan.”
Elizabeth followed Dash into the bedroom, waiting until he closed then, strangely enough, locked the door behind him. He moved the straight-back chair from the side of the wall and propped it under the doorknob. She lifted her brow mockingly.
“Don’t trust him?” she asked softly.
Dash stared up at her in surprise. “I trust him well enough, I just know him too damned well.” He raked his fingers through his hair in a gesture of obvious irritation. “Damn, I wasn’t expecting this.” He seemed more than bemused by the turn of events.
“I thought you said you didn’t have friends.” She kept her voice low as she watched him curiously.
Dash was frowning. He glanced to the door, then back at her.
“Simon’s an anomaly. Ignore him.” He glanced back at the door, appearing more confused by the second.
“What?” Elizabeth asked him.
He shook his head. “Damned man. I have no idea what the hell he thinks he’s doing here.”
“Sounds to me like he’s here to help you.” She sat down on the bed and began unlacing her boots. “For a man who claims he doesn’t have friends, you keep accumulating a bunch of them.”
He didn’t answer her, just stood watching her with a dark, wary expression.
“Dash, you’re worrying me.” She removed her boots before standing up and pulling her T-shirt over her head.
She hadn’t bothered with a bra that morning. The damned things were too restricting and uncomfortable when trying to move about the forest. Then she unsnapped her jeans, pulled the zipper and drew them from her body. When she looked up at Dash, he didn’t appear concerned anymore. He looked hungry.
“I don’t think so,” she snorted. “There’s no way you’re going to make me scream with all those women standing in there listening. They would attack you the minute you left the bedroom.”
Unfortunately, he didn’t deny it. Instead, he began to strip himself as she headed for the bathroom.
He caught up with her as she was adjusting the water, gloriously naked and more than a little aroused.
“Elizabeth.” He caught her against him as she moved to step beneath the spray, staring down at her with those golden eyes that never failed to make her breath catch. “I love you because you hold my soul,” he told her simply. “I’ve always loved you. I just haven’t always known you.”
Damn him. Just when she thought she had one or two defenses left against him he pulled something like this on her.
She laid her head on his chest, because she knew if she continued to watch him she would end up crying again. He broke her heart sometimes. She had never been loved, been accepted so deeply, as Dash loved and accepted her.
“I love you for the same reasons, Dash.” She finally admitted what she had known when he was no more than a weekly letter, a ray of sunshine into her and Cassie’s dark life. “For the same reasons.”
* * * * *
“Okay. Here’s what we have.” Simon accepted a thick sheaf of papers from one of his Ladies as they sat at the kitchen table after dinner. “There are Wolf Breeds that escaped that lab. We estimate at least half a dozen. Maybe more if the young survived.” He spread out several official documents as he spoke. “Soon as I learned what you were and what you were up against, I put the Ladies to the computers and told them to hack to their hearts’ content.” He cast smiles to the women arranged around him. “They’re good, too.”
Dash sighed. He had been doing that a lot lately. “What I want to know is how you found out,” he finally said. “The information was supposed to be contained within a small circle.”
Simon shrugged his broad shoulders. “I know a few of the Felines. Rumor has been circulating for months in the underground that Grange had him a Breed kid. When the little girl showed up at the compound last week while Dani was there, she let me know. She also overheard your name mentioned. Next day, your papers as a Breed were filed as well as your paternity statement with Breed Affairs in Washington. It was kind of a no-brainer from there, Dash.” He shook his head as though Dash hadn’t given him enough of a challenge.
“We’ve also met what we suspect to be Wolf Breeds.” Dani spoke up then as Simon seemed to beam
in pride. “A young woman named Faith, no last name, and her brother, Aiden, in Colorado. A few months later we met up with a big guy named Jacob. Once again, no last name, this one in Texas meeting with a well-known Breed sympathizer with mega cash. All three have the same lack of histories, and none of them can be traced via computer or records. All three have definite agendas where the Breeds are concerned.”
“Aiden, Faith and Jacob were the names of three litter mates I was raised with,” Dash informed them. “The Pack Leader, Wolfe, named them himself. We were given numbers in the labs rather than names. It sounds like they escaped after all.”
“They disappeared again, though,” Danica said sadly. “We haven’t been able to make further contact, though when the papers hit Washington and news started spreading of a naturally conceived Wolf Breed child contact was made in high-level offices within Breed Affairs. Word is being given that the child is currently on the move and in hiding. No definite place of residence was listed. You can bet Grange is tracking this one.”
“Grange has also beefed up security at his estate,” Stephanie said as she rifled through the papers. “Three new guards were hired and rumor says he’s home next week. His young mistress has been reinstalled and everything is being prepared for his return.”
Elizabeth listened as the information was relayed at an almost furious rate for over an hour. They had everything. Locations, destinations, names, addresses and family members of the guards, and they were even certain they had several that could be bribed to allow them into the estate. Two of which were brothers of the young woman who had been forced to take the position of mistress in Grange’s bed. He liked his women young. This one was barely eighteen, and Simon’s reports stated she had been treated for a suicide attempt within months of going to the monster’s bed.
“I contacted Mike last night.” Simon was talking again. “I know you have a few of his boys out here, and I found out Callan has dispatched several Felines, as well as a couple of the Tyler brothers to help you. We have a small army going here, Dash. Let’s get this done fast and right and take the bastard out this time.” There was suddenly a dangerous flare of anticipation glowing in the other man’s eyes.
Elizabeth glanced at Dash again. He was fingering several of the papers, his gaze reflective as he pretended to read one.
“Look, Dash.” Simon leaned forward. “I know how you feel, man, after losing your unit. The more people involved the bigger the risk of losing more than just yourself. But you saved my ass and my girls too many times to count. I’m not letting you take your woman in there alone. I know she has to go. I understand that need, if nothing else, from her standpoint. But alone isn’t the way to do it.”
Dash stood up from the table and for the first time Elizabeth noticed the tense, wary set of his shoulders.
“I saved your ass and those girls because I didn’t want you dead, Simon,” he snapped. “This isn’t a job you were hired for and it’s not your fight. You have no business here.”
Simon turned to Elizabeth then. She watched the somber glint in his eye for a second before he hid it with cool laughter. “He’s a stubborn bastard,” he drawled. “Has he told you yet he doesn’t have friends?”
Elizabeth cleared her throat. “He mentioned that.”
“He likes to lie to himself.” Simon leaned back in his chair. “We’ve had more than a dozen calls regarding half that many units he’s fought with that have b made themselves available to join in. That boy has a load of friends chewing their fingernails to the quick worrying about his ‘John Wayne do-it-myself’ attitude. Thinks everyone needs help but him.”
“Shut up, Simon,” Dash growled. He didn’t sound amused. He sounded worried and pissed.
“‘Nother thing about Dash I’ve always noted.” Simon smiled a bit sadly. “He always thinks it’s his fault when one of those non-friends gets their ass in a sling or ends up resting eternally. Doesn’t matter to him if he was there, involved or knew what the hell was going on or not. Always thinks it’s his fault. Has he told you about Afghanistan yet? He lost his brothers there…”
“Goddammit, I said to shut the fuck up.” Elizabeth flinched in surprise and fear as Dash’s rough, desperate voice seemed to echo around the room.
Silence filled the small cabin as all eyes turned to Dash. He turned from them, raking his fingers through his hair, the muscles in his back rippling with tension.
“Yeah, sure Dash.” Simon’s voice was curiously gentle as he stood to his feet. “We have the cabin at the base of the mountain. We’ll head back now. Here’s my cell number.” He scribbled the numbers on one of the papers. “We’ll be back in the morning first thing for breakfast. Steph thinks the two of you might be undernourished or something. Come on, ladies.”
They gathered around the tall dark-haired man, all of them casting Dash quiet looks so filled with caring and pain, for his sake, that it broke Elizabeth’s heart.
“Thank you, Simon.” She moved to him, giving him a hard, brief hug as he opened his arms easily to her. He had grown on her in the space of a few short hours. Equal parts hard edged warrior and playful immaturity that endeared him to her.
“Take care of the stubborn ass,” he finally sighed. “Talk some sense into him maybe. He listens when he has to.”
Dash ignored them all until Simon and his Ladies left. No sooner had the door closed than he moved. Elizabeth gasped as she was pushed roughly against the wall, his eyes blazing down at her, his hands hard, almost hurting, as he held her pinned to the rough wall.
“Never,” he snarled, his eyes blazing furiously. “Never fucking touch another man in my presence, Elizabeth. Never, do you hear me?” His lips were drawn back, his expression so explosively enraged her heart jumped in fear for one hard minute.
Then anger filled her. Furious blinding anger that ripped through her stomach, her chest. Before she knew what she was doing her leg came up, her knee contacting hard and fast between his thighs as he suddenly paled and swayed.
Jerking away from him, shaking with her fury, she turned back to him.
“Don’t you ever manhandle me like that, Dash. Never again. And don’t you dare try to pretend to know anything about me when you can’t face your own truths. Now I’m going to bed. I’ve had about all I can stand of your churlishness and your refusal to accept yourself, let alone those around you.”
She stomped away from him, confident that he would recover from the blow that was, at best, light. She could have put him to the floor. She also knew he would follow her. Aware and waiting. By God, she’d put his balls in his throat the next time.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The lights were out and Elizabeth was lying stiffly in the bed an hour later when Dash finally slipped into the room. He removed his clothes in the dark then eased beneath the blankets.
“I’m sorry.” His voice wrapped around her, filled with regret. “I had no right to act that way.”
Elizabeth sighed wearily. “So why did you, Dash? Simon came to help you, and I appreciate that. Besides, he’s harmless…”
Dash snorted. “Elizabeth, Simon is the least harmless man I know. But I know he would never touch you with anything other than respect. The hug was harmless, a part of who you are, and I know that. I don’t have an excuse for what I did.”
She stared up at the ceiling, letting the scene replay in her mind once again. Dash had been on the edge of his control. Something had triggered a ragged fury inside him that she thought confused even him.
“Why don’t you admit to having friends, Dash?” She knew that had been the key to his anger. “Everyone has friends somewhere. Everyone accepts that. Why not you? Why does the thought of having them make you so angry?”
At first, she thought he wasn’t going to answer her. When he did, the ragged sound of his voice alone broke her heart.
“I was the runt of the litter I was created with,” he told her bleakly. “Half the size of the other Breeds, and scrawny as hell. One of the scientists se
emed to have taken me under his wing, though. Devroe. A cold-eyed bastard, but he seemed to like me well enough that it kept me alive for ten years. I endured tests that I cringe to think of now, because they were so painful, because he asked me to. I saw him as a father. Until the day I heard him planning to put me down.” He grunted mockingly. “‘Just like an animal. Bastard’s never going to grow into anything,’ he told his supervisor. ‘We’ll put him down next week.’”
Elizabeth closed her eyes in horror.
“I saw him as a friend. A mentor. All the things kids look up to, but that day, I saw the monster he really was. Two days later I found my chance, hid in one of the supply trucks and shipped out with it. I knew I’d have to hide. I’d have to be smart and careful, and keep my guard up unless I wanted to return to my own death. Friends make you weak. You want to trust them. You want to depend on them, let them depend on you. I saw all the hazards of that after I found foster care and began growing. “
He had been a child, she thought. Ten years old and alone. His voice washed over her as he told her about the life he found. Foster care hadn’t been easy for him, but he had excelled in school, and finally started growing. And he made sure no one else had the chance to betray him. He didn’t make friends. Stayed to himself. When he joined the Army and then the Special Forces, he had kept that determination.
But as he talked, Elizabeth realized that the honor and determination to save lives that filled Dash had run the course of his Army life. Men he had held at arm’s length owed him their lives, just as he owed several of them. His voice became softer, a bit amused as he spoke of those years and those men. And she saw how he had protected himself, never admitting to the bonds that had formed.
Finally, he came to the year he was sent to Afghanistan to weed out a new contingent of terrorists that were hiding in the mountains there. His voice changed then, becoming cooler, though she heard the pain beneath it.
“There were twelve of us,” he finally said softly. “We’d been fighting together for over a year. My longest unit assignment. I was usually moved around pretty regularly as I was needed. I’m a good tracker.” His voice was hoarse. “You get close when you fight that long together.” He sighed. “You learn each other’s dreams. You know who carries secrets and who doesn’t. You…” The silence surrounding them deepened for long minutes. “You become brothers,” he finally finished. “We were the Deadly Dozen. And for the first time in my life I was thinking, you know, maybe it wasn’t so hard having friends. I had hidden for so damned long, Elizabeth. Sometimes it was scary, how fucking alone I tried to make myself.”
She moved closer to him. He wasn’t alone. He never had been, but she couldn’t tell him that yet. Couldn’t say anything until he was ready to hear it. He had thought himself alone, and as she told Cassie, what you convinced your mind was all that mattered.
“We had just cleared up a killer mission. Son of a bitch, we pulled it off without a casualty. Those men were bruisers, and we covered each other’s asses like underwear. We’d just been airlifted and were heading home. I was thinking of putting in to take command of the unit. I was unofficial commander for a year. I thought maybe it was time, that maybe I could find a place for myself. Kind of a family.” He cleared his throat as his voice became thick, rough.
“Jack and Craig, they were damned good sharpshooters, were joking about going home to their girls for the weekend. There were a few nurses on base they had been seeing. Mac and Tim, the explosives experts, were divorced and were talking about getting drunk and calling the ex’s. The others were ribbing each other, flying high on adrenaline and success. And I was sitting there watching them. I kept pushing back that little warning in the back of mind. That something that kept telling me things weren’t right. The world went to hell two minutes later.”
She lay against him, desperate to hold him. Her arm went over his chest as she lay against his body, feeling his arms close convulsively around her.
“I was close to the door and was thrown clear as the helicopter went down. I don’t even know how that happened. The others were dead before they hit the ground. The impact of the explosive was damned precise. They knew what the hell they were doing that time, Elizabeth. They knew we would be there and they knew who they were hitting. And they killed every damned one of those men because I wasn’t on guard. Because I let their camaraderie and their friendship distract me. I got them all killed, Elizabeth, because I let them be friends.”
She heard the ragged edge of guilt, the torment he felt because he had been unable to control the events that happened. But she saw something more as well. She saw his fears of losing those he cared for, the scars it left on his soul because he couldn’t save everyone.
She rose up in the bed, turning so she could stare into his eyes. The dim light from the moon spearing into the window lent just enough of a glow to allow her to see the moist pain in his gaze.
“You can’t run from this one, Dash,” she told him gently. “You can deny the friendships until hell freezes over and it won’t change anything. Just like all the guilt in the world won’t change the fact that you couldn’t save those men, that you had no way of controlling what happened that night. You have no way of controlling Simon, his women or me. But you can still accept us, and you can still love us. And you can know, that if any of us die at any time, we died loving you and knowing that somewhere along the way, you enriched our lives. There’s no more you can do.”
“You, I can control,” he almost snarled. “Don’t think for a minute, Elizabeth, that I won’t have your ass covered. Simon…” He sighed. “That man is like a Texas whirlwind and refuses to listen to good sense. Those Ladies of his aren’t always as careful as they should be, either. They live for the adrenaline and for Simon. Just as Simon lives for them. It’s damned scary to watch them together.”
“Why?” She tilted her head as she watched him closely. “Because you know he loves them? Because you know if he lost just one of them, it would rip him to shreds? And he’s your friend, so you worry about that. And you feel helpless, because you know if he lost one of them, you couldn’t ease the pain.”
He was silent now.
“But Dash, I saw something you might have overlooked,” she said softly. “I saw six women who found in one man something to hold onto, to balance the ice inside them. Those women are dangerous. I could see that and I would prefer to face Grange than piss one of those women off. They could kill you without blinking. But Simon tempers them. He gives them someone to love, something to hold onto without fear. And he loves them back. Without each other, they would already be dead. And I think, at one time or another, without you, they would have been dead as well. They care for you too, Dash.”
He breathed in deeply. It was the sound of a man fighting to deny what he already knew was the truth.
“I would die without you,” he finally said. “I’d be crazy with terror if there were six of you to defend. Not to mention crazy, period.” There was a vein of amusement in the final sentence.
She took his hand and moved it to her abdomen. “Did I ever tell you, Dash, how much I dream of babies? Lots of babies. I wanted at least three, more if I could. And if what you say is true about your semen counteracting birth control, do you think you might not have plenty of little girls to protect and go crazy over? What will you do then? Stop having sex with me?”
She saw the pure terror that glittered in his eyes for just a second. Raw, blistering hot fear as his fingers flexed against her abdomen.
“God help me,” he groaned. “You will make me crazy, Elizabeth.” He moved, gripping her hand and drawing it down to his erection. “Just the thought of making babies with you drives me crazy.”
“That’s not crazy, Dash,” she murmured as her fingers gripped the steel-hard weight of his bulging cock. “That’s horny.”
“Yeah, does that to me too.” He lifted his hips for her, pushing his cock against her fingers. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth.” He drew her to him, his li
ps brushing against hers. “I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I shouldn’t have been an asshole. I don’t ever want to hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me.” She smirked, her fingers flexing on his cock. “I can see I didn’t hurt you, either.”
He grimaced. “Well, took a while to pull my balls out of my throat, but after I got them back in place I figu