Not that Jonas wanted to see her harmed, unless it was for the greater good. He was just more concerned with that greater good.
“It would seem to me that decision should be Claire’s.” The new director of the Western Division of the Bureau of Breed Affairs—a hell of a mouthful there—Rule Breaker, the real Claire Martinez’s uncle, spoke up at that point.
Claire had a Lion Breed for an uncle. Whoopee, wasn’t she lucky?
Lifting her gaze from her hands where she’d folded them atop the table, she directed it to the black-haired, blue-eyed Rule and wondered how much he suspected, how much he knew.
Quite a bit, she was certain, though she doubted he’d been told everything.
“I agree.” Her grandfather, Orrin, spoke up. “She’s the one who would be confined for the period of time required. She should decide if this is what she wishes.”
Oh, this was about to get really good.
Orrin never agreed with a woman making her own decisions about her protection. Not since his teenage daughter had disappeared over three decades before.
If she had needed confirmation that she was silently being pushed out of the Martinez family, then Grandfather Orrin had just given it.
The ache in her chest grew sharper, the heavy weight of grief sinking deeper inside her.
“I think Claire knows the risks,” Jonas suggested as though he could read her mind.
Perhaps he could.
It was said he had some mad Breed powers going on. Who knew what he could actually do.
“And those risks would be?” The newcomer to the group, a Wolf Breed, Lobo Reever, asked the question with such arrogance she had to bite back a sneer. “Why don’t you explain them before we’re asked to lock a young woman away, a young woman who, it appears, has known nothing but restraint all her life, Director?”
This was so good, such a classic G—oh, excuse her, Graeme—maneuver, that she’d seen through it the moment Reever stepped into the meeting. As though she hadn’t known where the Bengal was for months now. That he was working right beneath Jonas Wyatt’s nose, posing as some Lion Breed security manager for Reever’s estates.
Graeme Parker, her ass.
A Lion Breed? Really?
How the hell had he managed to pull that scent off? To mask his Bengal scent with that of a Lion’s was such a stroke of biological and genetic genius that she could barely comprehend it. She’d always known he was too damned smart for his own good, but that one surpassed even her expectations of him.
Jonas wasn’t happy with the objections. His expression went from concerned to blank so fast Cat wondered if she’d blinked.
“Claire? It would seem your opinion is required here.” The subtle mockery in Jonas’s drawl made the decision for her.
He expected her to just agree. To do as Claire had always done and agree with the decisions made for her protection.
He was certain Claire still lived . . . No, he knew she wasn’t Claire. He’d known from the beginning and he’d simply been patronizing her, using her to draw out a Bengal he was determined to find.
She turned her gaze to the two men who had tried to protect her for the past thirteen years, Orrin and Terran. The men Claire had called Grandfather and Uncle. How she wished they were truly hers to claim.
How she wished someone, somewhere, was hers to claim.
The sensible thing to do, the smart thing to do, would be to agree with him. Breed protective custody wasn’t so bad. It was simply incredibly boring and impossible to slip away from. It was confining to the point of being smothering.
“She’s not a child, Jonas.” Lobo spoke up, his wild green eyes narrowed on the director. “I’m certain she doesn’t appreciate being spoken to as one either.”
Jonas slid his gaze to Lobo, a slight smirk to his lips before turning back to Claire. The arrogant confidence on his face had her teeth clenching. He actually thought she would be so easy to control, that he could force the truth from her. She’d already decided her course here, he could force nothing.
“Not a child, Lobo, but I’d say definitely tired of being under her father’s thumb.” Confidence gleamed in his odd gaze, so certain she’d fall into line, his line, and do as he wanted her to do. He knew who she was, what she was, and he believed she was weak. She’d allowed him to believe she was weak, just as she had allowed others to believe it.
The time for that was past.
It was time to stop pretending she was Claire, and be the person, the Breed, she’d grown into.
It sucked. She hated it. And it was going to cause her more trouble than she wanted to deal with at the moment, but this farce had gone on too long as it was.
“I’m neither Raymond’s puppet nor yours, Mr. Wyatt.” Standing to her feet, she faced the men, men, who had come together to decide on her protection, as well as her future, for her. As though she didn’t have the ability to do it for herself. She’d had enough of that before she’d turned eight.