That was a classic Cassie move. She was worried and fighting to make sense of whatever she was worrying over.
She turned to Mica again, her delicate, pretty face pulled into a confused expression. “Do you ever feel as though the world is simply spiraling out of your control?”
There was a hint of fear in her friend’s voice now, a haunted quality to her gaze that worried Mica. But, despite the worry, Mica couldn’t help but see the irony in her friend’s question.
Mica’s brows arched at the question. “Cassie, you are my best friend,” she stated with knowing emphasis. “I’m normally completely surrounded by Breeds and their hectic, dangerous lives. I’m at your beck and call at any time, whenever you need me, and often harassed by reporters anytime I’m in public. Do you think my world ever feels as though it’s already spiraled, crashed, burned and drifted into the far corners of the earth?”
It was the truth, though Mica often found it more amusing than anything else. She’d learned early to take the Breeds, their arrogance and often calculating, manipulative personalities, with a grain of salt.
She was stuck with them, plain and simple, so she may as well make the best of it.
The journalists were harder to deal with, and she thanked God daily that she had found a job with the National Journal , owned by the family of Merinus Tyler Lyons, the mate of the Feline pride leader, Callan Lyons.
The National Journal was one of the few papers left still in hard copy, as well as on e-feed and satellite upload. It was also one of the few that didn’t attempt to “reveal” gossip against the Breeds as truth.
Instead the paper reported and reminded the world of the hell the Breeds had endured.
Finally, Cassie’s lips twitched as Mica continued to stare back at her archly.
Then, she cleared her throat delicately. “Perhaps I’m asking the wrong person?” Thankfully, a hint of amusement gleamed in her unusual eyes.
“I’d guess you are.” Mica rolled her eyes, silently thankful that the tears had disappeared from Cassie’s gaze.
She couldn’t stand to see her friend cry. It rarely happened, but when it did, it destroyed those who loved her. And Mica did love her. Cassie was her best friend, her sister, her confidante and, sometimes, her partner in crime. Those crimes were few and far between these days.
They’d become women together, and Mica couldn’t think of anyone she’d rather have as a friend. She also couldn’t think of anyone she’d rather have watching her back than Cassie. The other girl was small, delicate, but the Breeds had taught her, and Mica also, some of the most advanced forms of martial arts.
They had met when Cassie’s stepfather, Dash Sinclair, had returned home from war to search for the little girl who had been his pen pal and her mother, both of whom supposedly had been killed in an apartment explosion.
Cassie and her mother, Elizabeth, had not been dead though. They had been running, fighting to survive and to escape the drug kingpin who had bought Cassie from her father. The father who had conspired with a Council scientist for money and had allowed his wife’s eggs to be used to create a unique, highly specialized Breed. A Wolf-Coyote mix. The scientist had hoped the hybrid genetics would create the killer the Genetics Council sought and hadn’t yet been able to reliably produce. And he’d wanted to further the experiment by having that child raised rather than trained, to see how reliable those killer genes would be.
Instead, Cassie had been born.
An inquisitive, precocious child who loved, not killed.
And one whose father feared her and her ability to betray him for the monster he was the first time she had to see a doctor after the scientist that created her disappeared.
He’d known he was about to be found out, and without the money the scientist had been providing, his gambling debts had been mounting.
So he’d sold her to the criminal he owed the money to. Fortunately, Elizabeth had been smart enough not to trust her husband after they split up. She’d rescued her daughter and gone on the run with her until Dash had found them and brought them to the Toler ranch until he could contact Sanctuary, which was at that time the only Breed community, and arrange protected status for her.
During the time Cassie had spent at the ranch Mica had become attached to her despite the few years difference in their ages. Cassie had needed a sister, and Mica had seen in the little girl a desperate hunger to be loved despite whatever haunted her.
Hands still shoved in her back pockets, Cassie paced over to Mica’s desk, breaking into her thoughts, sighed and let her gaze move to the reports scrolling over the e-pad.
“There’s the Germany reports,” she murmured.
Mica glanced at the screen. They were indeed there.
“Play file mark seven point six three,” Mica ordered the computer.
“File seven point six three,” the computerized voice authorized a second before the file flashed on the holoscreen on the other side of the room: “File seven point six three, Berlin, Germany. Breeds suspected in rescue of Prime Minister’s daughter kidnapped from her home; Feline Breed pride leader, Callan Lyons, to visit Luxembourg; suspected Genetics Council lab discovered by teens while hiking.” No mention of mating, hormones, phenomena, or blood irregularities. Each article title was read and a report given after each, as Mica and Cassie watched intently the words scrolling across the holographic screen.
Dozens of articles flashed through the automated program set to search specific words, phrases and information listings. Each came back with a negative response.