My own little bitch, he had told the little girl as he looked over at her. What Elizabeth had been unaware of, another piece of information Cassie had held back from her mother, was that Grange wanted Elizabeth too. The best Dash could figure, the man had been testing her and Cassie. Pushing them to their limits to see how strong each was. He wanted more Breed children, and Elizabeth was a proven breeder.

That thought caused his chest to clench almost painfully. He turned to her, his hand moving softly to her belly, his eyes closing. Could she be carrying his child now? He knew from the information Callan had given him that no birth control had stopped his or Taber’s mates from conceiving. Did he somehow carry the hormone that would counteract those precautions as well? That thought had tormented him since the night he had first taken her. There was little chance that his semen wasn’t reaching her womb. Each time his release swelled in his cock, it locked him tight, forcing the opening of his cock against her flexing cervix. He could feel the little entrance there cupping over the spurting tip, soaking in his seed, greedily consuming the hard ejaculations.

Was he risking not just his mate but also his child in this mission? He was getting ready to take her from the protection of the cabin, allowing Grange’s spies to catch sight of her in town and draw him back to her. He was getting ready to place her in the worst sort of danger, all in the name of a prayer that she could survive.

He wasn’t a fool. He prided himself on facing reality at every opportunity. There was no way to keep the information of Cassie’s birth a secret, no way now for him to stay hidden from the Council’s knowledge. The public may not know the truth of him as they did the Breeds, but their enemies would. Elizabeth could be forced to fight, to defend herself and Cassie, and possibly another child if worse came to worse. He couldn’t protect her. She wouldn’t allow it if he tried, and he knew that. But realistically, no measures he took would safeguard her.

“I can hear you worrying.” She shifted against him, her hand smoothing over his abdomen, her lips whispering against his chest.

He glanced down at where her head lay against him, certain that the fierce throb in his chest at her softened voice couldn’t be a good thing. She was his weakness. He was only just realizing that but it was one he couldn’t let go.

“We have to leave here soon.” He sighed regretfully. “I wish we had longer. There’s a lot I have to teach you.”

“We’ll have time later.” He could hear the reflection in her voice now. But would they? There were so many possibilities, so many things that could go wrong. He found himself hesitating now, wishing he had forced her to go with Cassie to the Breed compound, to be safe while he took care of Grange. He could have trained her later. Could have seen how strong she was at another time. No matter how safe he thought he could make her on this mission, there would have been another, something else safer that he could have tested her on.

“You could be carrying my child, Elizabeth.” He stared at the ceiling as he spoke, feeling her stiffen against him.

His chest tightened further at the thought of that. God, what was he doing with her? Risking her in the same ways he risked his own life? There had to be a way to keep her safe.

“I’m protected, Dash.”

He hoped she was. At least for now. But he couldn’t discount the information the Feline Breed leader had given him.

“It didn’t help the Felines. No birth control worked with them. Their scientists suspect it would be the same with the Wolves. The hormone that produces the swelling also works to ensure conception. We could be risking another child.”

He couldn’t hold the truth back from her. He wouldn’t lie to her or hide any part of the dangers they faced.

“Then it’s better to rid ourselves of Grange now,” she said quietly, though he could hear the trepidation in her voice.

His hands smoothed over her back, relishing the feel of warm, silken flesh and well-toned muscle. She was like a young she-wolf. Lean and fit.

“I’m going to send you to the Breed compound before I go after Grange,” he finally decided. “You were right; separating you from Cassie wasn’t a good idea. We’ll let his men get a good look at you in town, then I’ll send you back…”

“The hell you will.” She sat up, her eyes sparkling in fury as she faced him, her nakedness all but forgotten as her gaze cut into him with lethal intent. “I won’t be pushed aside and protected, Dash. I deserve the chance to do this.”

“And if you are carrying our child?” he asked her softly. “Do you deserve the chance to risk that life?”

“If I conceive, then any child would be placed at risk by the very fact that it will be a naturally conceived Breed,” she reminded him angrily. “I’m not stupid, Dash. There are a lot of things I’ve taken into consideration. I haven’t made these decisions lightly.”

He stared up at her, frowning. “You don’t discuss anything you’ve considered with me, Elizabeth. How would I know what you anticipate?”

She rolled her eyes. He had never seen that particular expression of female exasperation from her before. It was endearing.

“You’re one to talk,” she snapped. “You weren’t even going to tell me you were a Breed, Dash. Wouldn’t I have been in for a hell of a surprise when you locked inside me if I hadn’t known?”

“Yeah, would have been nice to have had someone else as shocked as I was,” he growled. He watched her, seeing the anger, but seeing something more. A cool, quiet calm that was as much a part of her as the heat of her sensuality, the depth of her acceptance. As though the past two years had tempered a steel core of strength inside her soul. She was the most giving woman he had known, and the strongest. The years had been cruel, harder on her than he could have imagined, but her very survival had molded her into a warrior.

“I do have a mind, you know?” she finally told him with an air of amusement. “You’ve seen me as this soft little woman that needs to be protected and coddled. I don’t want to be protected. I don’t want to be coddled. I want to share the responsibilities, Dash.”

She should have been born a Breed. She was as tough as either of the two Feline females he had met.

“I know you have a mind,” he told her quietly. “I have nothing but the greatest respect, Elizabeth, for the very fact that you still live. Most women would have failed to even rescue Cassie, let alone run with her for two years.”

She shook her head, a sharp sigh emitting from between her lips as she moved from the bed.

“You sound very patronizing, Dash,” she told him softly as she pulled on her robe. “Any mother would have given her life to protect her baby. I got lucky.”

“You were smart.” He sat up in the bed, watching her curiously. “I’m not patronizing you, Elizabeth. If I didn’t think you had what it takes, you would be in Virginia with Cassie rather than here, training to go after those files and Grange. Never doubt I don’t have the highest respect for you. As a woman, a mother, and a mate.”

“A mate,” she murmured, shaking her head. “You found me less than two weeks ago, and you’ve already claimed me for life.” She pushed her fingers through her hair as she skirted the window and curled up in the large chair that sat on the far wall.

Distance. He saw the need to escape the intimacy that the bed afforded and he allowed her that. For now. The days they had spent together had been so rushed, so filled with the need to protect Cassie and then to complete the minimum amount of training he required. There had been little time to talk. What he knew in his soul had never been expressed to Elizabeth. Not that he had the words to do that now, but he saw in her a need to know more than she had learned so far.

“I found you over a year ago, Elizabeth,” he reminded her. “Through Cassie’s letters.”

“The letters.” She sighed deeply. “God, it was so dangerous putting her in school then. I don’t know how I let her talk me into that. I was completely against letting her go and allowing the pen pal thing,

Dash. I worried myself to exhaustion that year.”

“I know you did.” And he did know. Somehow, some way, he connected to both Elizabeth and her child. Seeing their pain. Their fear. “When the letters began, I had just been in an accident, Elizabeth. I lost men I had fought with for years. Good men. Friends. No one was expecting me to live. I was in a drug-induced coma the first three months of those letters. If it hadn’t been for my commanding officer’s belief that Cassie’s letters would penetrate it, I would be dead now.”

Her eyes widened slowly, flickering with pain, fear.

“I didn’t know.”

“I know you didn’t,” he said gently. “My CO wrote her back at first, until I could. But while I was in that haze…” He shook his head. “I wanted to die then. I was tired of hiding, of having no one. I had let myself get close to the men in that unit, and then they were gone as well. I was tired of fighting. Then he read that letter. And I saw you, Elizabeth. I saw you just as you are now. Your hair tangled around you, your eyes dark and haunted, and I knew I had to live. I knew you and Cassie needed me. Each letter only strengthened that impression.”

He watched her breathe out roughly, saw the shock, the bemusement in her eyes as he moved from the bed and walked to her.

Her gaze flickered to his straining erection, but at this moment, it wasn’t sex he needed. He knelt in front of her, staring back at her, his arms lying along the sides of the chair.

“I saw you crying, Elizabeth. I heard you whisper my name and ask God on a prayer to bring you a miracle. And in just that instant I woke up. I made myself wake up, because I knew to my soul you were my mate. My woman. And I knew I had to find you.”

Her eyes were filled with tears, brilliant sapphire gems that pierced his heart with beauty and her pain.

“I was,” she whispered before swallowing tightly, her voice hoarse. “I was standing there, and it was raining. Cassie had gone to bed whispering that you would save us. How did she know, Dash? How could she have known?”

“It doesn’t matter how she knew,” he told her firmly. “All that matters was that she did and it was right. You’re right, Elizabeth. I don’t know a lot of very important things about you, but I know your strength, and I know your heart. And nothing or no one short of death will take that from me. So never, ever doubt that I do know and respect the abilities you’ve shown to protect yourself and that child. I respect them, and I thank God for them daily. For them and for you.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

She was crying when he leaned forward, his lips touching hers, rubbing against them gently. As the small rivulets of moisture reached his mouth, his lips moved to her cheek. With infinite tenderness he kissed them away, drawing the moisture into his mouth as his hands cupped her head. Warmth rushed through her, piercing the shell she had fought so desperately to keep between her heart and this man’s total acceptance of her. From the first moment, in the diner, he had taken over, clearing her way, sheltering her and Cassie as she rested. He had paved the way for her daughter’s safety, given her a chance to once again regain control of her own life, and in the bargain, he had given her the very core of who and what he was.

Gentle words. Soft kisses. Like now, his lips moving over her face as he crooned gently to her.

“Don’t cry, baby. Your tears rip at my soul. Don’t you know that? I would move heaven and earth to wipe away any pain you would know, if I could.”

And he would. She saw it in the somber lines of his face, the golden glow of his eyes. The man couldn’t be real. It wasn’t possible. How had she ever deserved for God to answer her prayer in this manner, with this man? He was strong, too arrogant, and too sure of himself for her to be comfortable with, but a man whose voice rang with quiet honor, with acceptance of all he was. He never made excuses. He didn’t pretend to have all the answers. But he was like a boulder of strength beside her, clearly willing to shelter her however she needed. And he had come to her without expectations, knowing the danger she and Cassie faced. Knowing the risk to his own life. When he drew back, staring down at her with a flare of heat and a gaze filled with adoration, she didn’t know what to say. No one had ever accepted her so completely.