One black brow lifted over a silver mercury eye. “Not in that group,” he assured her as he nodded to the door and the crowds outside.
Killato shot the director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs a chilling look that had Katie wondering at the animosity she could sense emanating from him.
“I can understand why you’re here, Mr. Killato,” she assured the European leader. “Building and pulling together the European Packs is a daunting task, I realize.” She turned back to his American counterparts. “But why are the rest of you here? How can I profit or aid the American Breeds?”
“Katie,” her father scolded her gently. “They could be concerned with your welfare, lass.”
Katie shook her head. “I find that very hard to believe, Da. Why risk their lives as well as their very busy schedules over just another Breed that the world has learned of?”
“But you’re not just another Breed, Mary Katherine,” Jonas assured her, a hint of mocking amusement filling his gaze as he leaned forward slightly, his arms crossing and bracing on the table between them. “Unlike Pack Leader Killato, I’m not going to assure you that nothing more than your safety matters. That’s not true of any Breed. We’re all a danger to ourselves as well as our Packs and Prides. But you are more so for the very fact that your genetics were so well hidden until this past year. With the surge of your Breed genetics coupled with the fact that your grandfather was one of the most notorious lab overseers in Europe, it makes you a sensation. Breed opponents want you silenced before scientists can use your genetics to possibly hide other Breeds among society, while proponents hope you can do the opposite; and both sides admit to the very high profitability of either answer. You are quite literally worth your weight in gold.”
“I wouldn’t be quite so extreme,” Killato argued.
“Dylan, you know damned good and well that her father’s position as Ireland’s assistant chief constable, her grandfather’s secrets into the Genetics Council, as well as her own genetics make her a prize that scientists from among the Breeds, as well as the more acceptable scientific societies assigned to research the Breed genetics, would kill to claim. Even if it meant killing her,” Dash Sinclair argued, the gleam of worry in his eyes as he glanced at her rather surprising.
“So then?” she asked Sinclair. “How do I profit the American Breeds?”
“You ensure that you’re not taken by the wrong groups and used against us.” It was Sinclair’s young daughter, Cassandra, who spoke from her position in the far corner of the room, rather than her father, who answered that question.
“That’s a bit harsh, Ms. Sinclair,” Killato growled, his gaze filled with a latent sexual intensity as he turned and glared at her.
Cassandra rose to her full height from the chair she sat in, a very false height of five-eight, thanks to the heels she wore. Elegantly graceful, dressed in white slacks and a white vest-style blouse that revealed a hint of cleavage, she moved closer to the group, entirely comfortable in the five-inch heels she wore.
Cassandra gave a small, lilting laugh. “Your greed doesn’t become you, Dylan,” she murmured as she walked to stand beside her father. “Neither does your need to use Ms. O’Sullivan and her family to your own ends.”
“Something the lot of you have no intention of doing?” Killato bared his teeth at her in an obvious display of primal superiority.
That display gained him no less than three harsh warning glares in his direction.
“What would it gain us?” Cassandra shrugged her delicate shoulders. “As assistant chief constable, Mr. O’Sullivan has nothing that could benefit either Packs or Prides in America. His connections don’t affect us. Our teams were the ones responsible for capturing her grandfather, Walter O’Sullivan, the overseer responsible for many of the labs here in Europe, when he disappeared after the news broke of his true identity, so we have no need to use her to that end. And our laws forbid, in every way, the forced induction of any Breed into a scientific study, something your European laws do not ban. It’s no wonder the Breeds that have scattered across Britain, Scotland and Ireland refuse to heed your demands to reveal themselves.”
It was Katie’s nightmare. Already her father had had to file countless stays of the Breed scientific mandates that would have forced her into a facility of Breed study for a period not less than one year, but no more than five.
When Breeds disappeared behind the walls of those facilities, they were rarely the same once they exited, she’d read.
“How do I benefit you then?” Katie asked her, more inclined to believe this young woman than any of the men seated in front of her.
“By ensuring we’re not forced to rescue you from one of those facilities as we have been forced to rescue others,” she stated without hesitation, her brilliant blue eyes glowing in the peaches-and-cream complexion surrounding them. “The Bureau of Breed Affairs is already dealing with more than a dozen official demands of restitution as well as extradition of Breeds who have fled Europe or been rescued from scientific facilities whose inhumane experiments your country claims to have no knowledge of despite the fact that they fund them.”
It was no more than the truth. Her father, Barrett O’Sullivan, had closed down two such facilities and had been summarily berated publicly as well as professionally for not doing more to track down and identify Breeds hiding in Ireland, and enforcing the mandatory one year of research imposed on Breeds in Europe several years before.
Even Dylan couldn’t counter Cassandra’s statement, though Katie could glimpse his furious need to do so.
“Katie, they won’t let you alone,” Cassandra promised softly as she nodded to the door and the murmur of the journalists on the street beyond. “Your father’s position can’t save you from the mandatory testing, and no matter Dylan’s claims, he can’t hide you from the testing. In less than forty-eight hours you’ve become a worldwide sensation for the very fact that despite the advanced testing for Breeds, you passed each stage of that testing that the European countries have ordered conducted on all adopted children, no matter their age. You passed each test with not so much as a blip on the DNA screenings from the age of nine until your genetics kicked in last month.”
“Kicked in.” Now, there was a phrase.
Her genetics had kicked her ass. A fever of one hundred and seven should have killed her. She’d lain nearly comatose for twenty-four hours before she’d begun convulsing so violently that her fiancé had rushed her to the ER, where the doctors there realized they were dealing with a phenomenon only spoken of in the fifteen years since the revelation of the Breeds.
Genetic Flaming. A sudden, “flaming” awakening of once hidden Breed genetics after a lifetime of the Breed DNA she possessed lying dormant.
Well, they weren’t dormant any longer.
“The Feline Breed community of Sanctuary, as well as the Wolf Breed communities of Haven and Avalon, and Del-Rey’s Coyote Packs of the Citadel offer you haven, Ms. Sullivan,” Dash Sinclair spoke again, his gaze once again holding hers with the compassion and integrity all four of these men were known for.
“Their protection far exceeds what I can offer you, Katie,” Dylan sighed, frustration evident in his voice. “Until Europe’s Breeds become the force America’s have, then we simply don’t have the strength. But I offer what little we have, and I would protect you and your right to freedom with my life,” Killato swore sincerely.
In that moment, she knew he would do just that. For whatever reason, whether selfish or selfless, Dylan would have done all he could to hide her. If he couldn’t hide her, then he would have died to defend her.