Isabelle couldn’t understand why her family was standing in the middle of Malachi’s room, their too perceptive gazes raking over the barely made bed she and Malachi had just left.
“Dad?” She stared back at her father in confusion. “What’s going on here?”
Terran Martinez was younger than his brother, Ray, the chief of the Navajo Nation. Both men strongly resembled Orin Martinez, though, their father and medicine man of the Nation.
Her father crossed his arms over his broad chest, the dark denim shirt he wore straining over his biceps. “What are you doing here?” he asked, his tone dark with the anger she could read in his eyes.
“Terran, I warn you.” Her grandfather spoke up. “Don’t allow your anger to cloud your judgment. You can see before you the truth of this situation. Don’t shame her when no shame is needed.”
“No one will be shaming her,” Malachi informed them all, while Isabelle felt like just stalking out and leaving all of them to fight among themselves. All but Malachi. She would have to take him with her, of course.
“Do you know the man you’re consorting with?” Terran snapped at her then, shocking her with the lash of anger in his voice. “Did you even take a moment to pull up what little research exists on him?”
“Why would I?” Cocking her hip and propping her hands on each side, she confronted her father now. “Nothing else we read about the Breeds on the Internet has been the truth. Why would I believe whatever I read on one individual?”
And it was the truth. The propaganda that had been placed on the Internet had been proven false over and over again.
Her father’s lips flattened in disapproval, as if he was disappointed that she hadn’t done it anyway.
“He murdered his own,” Terran snapped furiously. “Ask him which lab he was created in, daughter. Ask him if he wasn’t there when your Aunt Morningstar was murdered.”
Isabelle swung around to Malachi. But it wasn’t he who responded.
“Malachi wasn’t in those labs.” It was Commander Breaker who spoke instead, his tone heavy, almost too soft to make out.
Her father had obviously heard him, though. “And how can you be so certain?” he demanded, disbelief clear in his expression. “You of all people should know how easily those records could be manipulated.”
Rule’s expression only darkened. “I know he wasn’t there, Terran. Malachi was created in Russia, far away from the labs your sister was in.”
The tension that began filling the room was strangling. Isabelle could feel Malachi all but holding his breath, holding in whatever he knew, or whatever he would say.
“And how the hell do you think you can be so sure of that?” Terran sneered. “And why would I believe you over someone I’ve known for most of his life?”
Who?
Isabelle stared at her father in surprise. Who could have told him anything and known what they were talking about?
“I was reported to have been created in that base because there was no one left alive but Breeds to deny it,” Malachi stated softly. “But I wasn’t there. And even if I had been, nothing could have changed the outcome of her fate, Mr. Martinez. Nothing could and no one could have saved her that night.”
The disappearance and death of his sister had haunted her father, she knew. So much so that he made certain he knew where his daughters were, at least their general vicinity, every second of the day.
“Even the dirty Coyote that reported the escape attempt another Breed was initiating to get her out of there?” Terran snapped back at him. “That Breed was you, Malachi Morgan. You were there, and you reported the attempt.”
“And I told you he wasn’t there,” Rule injected again.
“And you’re lying for him.”
Isabelle was shocked to hear her father raise his voice, to lose the calm that was always such a constant and steady part of him.
“Dad, please, don’t do this.” Isabelle stepped forward, shock and pain filling her at the fury in her father’s face. “I don’t know what Malachi did in those labs, but whatever he did, it was to survive. And I don’t believe he would have ever deliberately brought danger to an innocent.”
It didn’t matter that his gaze had swung to her, narrow-eyed and strong, as he stepped to her. She may not know the particulars of the circumstances or the story behind his escape or anyone else’s. What she did know was the man who held her in his arms and the fact that he couldn’t have, wouldn’t have, participated in her aunt’s death. Not in any way.
“Isabelle, if you’ve ever trusted me, come with me now.” Her father turned to her, the eyes she had grown up staring into whenever she’d needed answers, whenever she was frightened or confused, and that gaze was demanding she obey him. That she follow him. That she turn her back on the man she had already begun accepting into her heart.
“I trust you with my life, Dad,” she whispered painfully. “But I need you to trust me. Trust me to know the man I’ve fallen in love with.”
That was all she asked of him. Just for now, for this moment, trust her and allow her to make her own decisions. She couldn’t bear being controlled, being forced, without a choice. Neither Malachi nor Commander Breaker was doing that.
Malachi stood close behind her, not touching her, trying not to influence her. The commander had his back to her, but her father was glaring at her.
“Terran, watch what you say,” her uncle Ray advised him as it became obvious that her father’s anger was only growing.
She stared from her uncle to her grandfather then back to her father. They were obviously there only to ensure her father didn’t make a mistake he couldn’t take back.
“What does he intend to say, Uncle Ray?” she asked softly as she felt her throat tighten with tears. “What do you intend to do, Dad, when I tell you that I won’t walk away from Malachi without proof that he’s done something vile? A mistake I can forgive. Anything he was forced to do in those labs I would have to forgive. It would break my heart that he were forced to be something he wasn’t. That he carried the nightmares of it. But I wouldn’t turn my back on him.”
“Even if he killed your aunt?” her father yelled back at her, causing her to flinch. “You would forgive him for it?”
She was going to cry. Isabelle could feel the tears coming. She could feel her chest tightening, her lips trembling with the need to spill her tears, her pain.
“Even if he were forced to do that,” she whispered. “I’ve never lied to you, Dad. I won’t start now. I’m not saying it wouldn’t break me in half. That I wouldn’t live every day of my life knowing the unbearable weight of it, but what happened in those labs I won’t hold against him.”
“Then I dis—”
“No!” her grandfather yelled behind him as another voice broke over him.
Her father had been only a single word from disowning her.
“I was in that lab.” Commander Breaker stepped forward and spoke as Isabelle’s eyes began to widen in horror of what her father was about to say.
Her father swung around to the Breed. “What did you say?”
“I was there,” Breaker growled. “I was created there. I was trained there. And I knew your sister. I swear to you, Mr. Martinez, on the soul I hold as my dearest possession. I swear to you, Malachi wasn’t there. And I know he wasn’t there, because I was.”
Her father seemed to shrink before her eyes. His shoulders slumped, horrified remorse filling his gaze as he turned to Isabelle. He stepped back slowly, shaking his head in disbelief as his gaze swung back to the commander.
“I don’t believe you,” he whispered. “And you have nothing that will prove it.”
To that, the commander growled with primal, deepening anger.
“I have blood.”