“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.

“’Another 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.