Bengal's Heart (17 page)

Cassa didn’t doubt it, but neither could she blame him, in most cases. When compared to the world population of humans, Breeds were few. Little more than a thousand at the last count, with less than a half dozen children. Without Breed Law they would have been decimated by now.

Brandenmore and Engalls were already close to facing Breed Law. If evidence showed they had indeed conspired to steal information, were behind the drugging of Dr. Elyiana Morrey, and conspired to kill several Breeds within Sanctuary, then the panel convening to weigh the evidence could rule that they go to trial under that complex set of laws. And that they could be put to death without appeal or a waiting period.

So far, that extreme measure hadn’t been practiced on any of the Breeds’ enemies that had been put on trial, but Cassa knew for a fact that it was being considered now.

Cassa could imagine the protests against the Breeds, should that happen. Already Brandenmore and Engalls were being defended by many of the press, as well as many political figures. Enacting an execution based on Breed Law could do more harm than good. But not doing so could send just as destructive a message to others.

Either way this went, the damage that the Breed society faced would be harsh. Cassa ached with that knowledge. The Breeds had endured hell in ways most men and women couldn’t comprehend. She would hate to see their independence and freedom being limited any more than they already were, because of the evil of two men.

Pacing her room, she moved to the wide windows that looked out over the Gauley River. Frowning down at the winter gray choppy water stretching out below her, Cassa let herself remember, just for a second, the night she had realized the horrors the Breeds had actually faced.

In a little-known valley in Germany, in the middle of a storm, watching blood mix with mud and pour over the landscape, she remembered the battle to free the Breeds in that hidden lab.

The plans put in place to rescue that lab had been precise. There should have been no lives lost. But the Council soldiers and Coyotes had been waiting for the rescue forces. They had been warned that they were coming, from which direction, how many and the strength of their weapons.

She closed her eyes, trying to block out the memories, but they refused to dim. They refused to give her any peace. She had been the reason her husband had been allowed on that team. The trust the Breeds had placed in her had been extended to Douglas.

And her husband had betrayed her.

She remembered the blood and the death. The image flashed through her mind of the flight through the facility to the underground pit where the Bengals were being killed.

Douglas hadn’t let go of that camera even once. He had tracked every move, recorded it. Through the mic he’d worn at his cheek, he’d recorded his observations, and in his voice she’d heard his excitement and his pleasure.

“There’s no saving this batch of the bloody bastards,” he’d commented as they raced through steel-lined halls. “We can hear their screams even from here. The blood has to be ankle-deep in that pit if the reports are anything to go by. Hopefully there’ll be a way to get a shot.”

He’d wanted to see the blood, the death. The camera had been his proof that he’d ensured their deaths, as well as his own private adventure in the making.

She’d been desperate to save lives. He’d been desperate to watch and record the deaths.

She rubbed at her arms to chase away the chill that invaded her. Her husband had died that night, by Cabal’s hand. But so many Breeds, as well as the humans fighting to rescue them, had died as well. Within the heavily fortressed compound, the Breeds the scientists suspected would turn against them once the rescue began had been placed within a pit of churning blades.

Two dozen. Men and women that Cabal had led. His pride. His people. His family.

They had died. All except him, and his rage had been like a living flame within his eyes as he pushed past the slowly opening panel Cassa had managed to release.

Cassa had known the second she stared into Douglas’s eyes in that secured room that he had betrayed her and the Breeds. It had been there in his eyes, in the smirk at his lips and the knowledge he could no longer hide, that he intended to benefit from the blood shed that day.

How had she not known? How had he managed to fool her all those months that they were working with the Breeds?

A chill raced down her spine again, the cold invading her as she realized that this was why Cabal held himself from her. He’d always blamed her for those deaths. He’d never forgiven her, and she couldn’t blame him.

Why hadn’t she thought of that before she had allowed him to touch her? What had made her think that mating heat could ever dim his hatred over those deaths?

She’d been warned she couldn’t escape the past much longer. The anonymous killer in the first email he had sent of the first murder had said as much:
I know who you are. I know who you were. The past is never dead, my friend, it now haunts not just the prey, but the hunter as well. Beware you don’t become the hunted as well.

The words were impossible to forget, just as it was impossible to forget the pictures that had come in that first email. Dr. Ryan Damron, his expression contorted into lines of horror, his neck torn out, the ragged, bloody wounds attesting to his pain-filled death. Along with the pictures of the victim were the pictures of the dark figures removing him.

Two days later it was reported that Dr. Damron had died in a fiery crash as his vehicle plunged down the cliffs outside his California home.

More pictures, more messages, more assurances of death had come in over the months. Someone was working steadily, quickly to take out what he called the Deadly Dozen.

They were hunters who had tracked escaped Breeds and turned them over to Phillip Brandenmore for research, or returned them to the labs. At least, those that had lived through the hunts.

“Such morose thoughts reflected on such a pretty face.”

Cassa swung around, her heart tripping, pausing before racing in sudden fear and arousal as she found Cabal standing just inside the room, closing the bathroom door behind him.

How had he managed to slip up on her so easily? How had she not heard him?

Breed stealth, she thought. It was becoming legendary.

“I don’t recall my thoughts being very important to you at any other time,” she snapped, as she drew the belt of her robe tighter.

Suddenly, she felt underdressed, exposed to him. They’d had sex repeatedly, but being naked in front of him, or even half-clothed now, suddenly made her uncomfortable.

“You didn’t check the fine print in Breed Law.” His lips quirked, a sexy male smirk in his sun-darkened face as mockery reflected in his eyes. “You should be more careful in the future. I’m certain that particular stipulation is there.”

“I’ll be certain to do that and lodge my complaint at the same time,” she bit out, as her arms tightened across her swelling breasts. “I believe precedence for separations has already been established by the Coyote Breed alpha and his mate. I could sue for my own.”

He shook his head, the silken strands of his gold and black hair brushing against his shoulders. Her fingers itched to tunnel into the mass of oddly striped hair. To clench and pull, and drag his lips down to her own.

She swore she could taste him in her mouth. A taste of heated spice, a need, a hunger she fought to hide from.

“I wouldn’t try that if I were you,” he warned her, his voice dangerously soft now. “You’d not get out of bed for months, Cassa. I’d make certain of it. And I’d make certain there was no thought of separation once you did manage to actually rejoin the human race.”

She had no doubt she wouldn’t protest it either, she thought furiously. She’d probably help him keep her in that damned bed, if the sudden flurry of aroused sensations rushing through her body was any indication. He wasn’t helping matters by strutting around naked, and aroused.

Her gaze flickered to his erection before jerking back to his shoulders and the bite mark there. The mark she had left, similar to the one he had left on her shoulder.

Damn, he was making her as wild as he was.

“Come here,” he suddenly growled. “If you want to stare at me with those hungry eyes, then come to me, Cassa. Let me sate you.”

Did she look like a fool? On second thought, she didn’t want to answer that question.

“I think I prefer to keep a very careful distance between us at the moment,” she informed him. “I have things to do this evening, and being distracted by you isn’t one of those things.”

His eyes narrowed on her as he moved to his discarded clothing and pulled his jeans from the pile.

“What did you have planned?” he asked, as he pulled the denim over those spectacular legs. “I thought we’d have dinner together.”

She suddenly wished her evening was free after all.

She was too easy, she told herself. A wimp. A wuss. A horny fool.

“Regretfully, I have to decline.”

Actually, she was ready to dress and run home right now rather than face the pain she knew was coming. If it weren’t for her own past and the knowledge the killer evidently had, then she would do just that. Maybe.

Her gaze flickered over him again, from his muscular legs encased in denim to the dark bronzed flesh that stretched across his chest. He was one of the most handsome men she knew, and one of the most alluring Breeds she had ever met.

It was truly not fair that man had created such animalistic beauty in so many different forms. Breeds were known not just for their genetics, but for their intense good looks and superb physical condition.

“You’re aroused.” His sudden statement sent heat coursing through her face. “You’re always aroused around me, Cassa, yet you’ve never flirted, never given any other hint of interest. Why is that?” Suspicion darkened his eyes.

“Because I didn’t like the games you played?” She arched her brows. “You and your brother are known for more than your good looks, Cabal. Playing with your toys together is one of the nicer descriptions that I’ve heard of your little playdates.”

They had, at least at one time, been known for sharing their women.

A smile creased his lips then. “Tanner’s mated now, you know that. We no longer share our toys, as you call it.”

That smile was too knowing and too damned sexy. Cassa stared back at him with an impending sense of finality. The past was indeed catching up with her, in the worst possible way.

She breathed out roughly. “I don’t have the patience for Breed games this evening, Cabal. I have a job to do here. Maybe I’ll see you tonight.”

She moved for the change of clothes she had laid out on the dresser earlier.

His arms dropped from his chest as he advanced into the room, his head turning, his gaze roving over the small living area and the laptop.

When he stopped, he was only a few feet from her, his gaze pinning her as his expression turned dark and foreboding. “Stay out of the park area,” he told her, his voice chilly with warning. “It’s not safe right now.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” she answered firmly, when everything inside her was warning her to back down. “You don’t tell me what to do simply because you’ve mated me.”

His lips thinned. “Make it work that way, Cassa.”

“Then give me the information I need,” she told him. “Tell me what the hell is going on and why Breeds are cleaning up after a killer.”

He knew what she knew. He had been in that valley, he and Dog, possibly working together, had ensured that she made it nowhere near the area.

Cabal’s brows lowered heavily over the glitter of gold in his green eyes. Irritation marked his expression as well as his gaze.

“You don’t want to be a part of this,” he finally told her, his voice low. “The killer has targeted you, Cassa. I know you were contacted. Jonas has already talked to your editor concerning it. Go home, let me take care of this. That’s my job.”

At least he wasn’t lying to her anymore.

“You had no right to talk to my editor, and I’m already a part of it,” she argued. “Your killer made certain of it.”

“And haven’t you questioned why?” he snapped furiously. “You’re a target most likely because of that bastard Watts. He was involved with the Deadly Dozen up to his fucking eyeballs and you know it.”

Yes, she had suspected that much. One of the men in that grainy picture, the one more hidden than the others, the one she couldn’t quite place, resembled Douglas too closely.

“I’ve always been a voice for the Breeds, Cabal,” she informed him. “If Tanner is the face of the Breeds, then I’m the voice, you know that. I’ve made certain of it. The killer is obviously targeting the Breeds and their standing in society. If Douglas was part of the Dozen, then that would make it even sweeter for the killer. It discredits me if the world finds out. It would make it appear as if I were playing favorites to make up for his sins.”

He shook his head. “And the killer is targeting much more than Breed standing in society, we both know it. Now I’ll ask you again. Why are you involved in this?”

“Because I’m involved with you.” That was the truth. Not enough of the truth, but enough that he couldn’t smell a lie.

Cabal frowned at the answer. “We’re not involved. You’ve made certain of that.”

She shook her head. “I was there when your facility was rescued. I reported it. That story and the pictures taken of it rocked the world with the brutality of the Council, you know that, not to mention the airtime Douglas’s death received. You’re investigating these murders; you have been since the first. Naturally the killer would tie us together.”

It was logical, and the only reason she could come up with that didn’t truly terrify her.

He shook his head. “You’re reaching.”

His gaze flickered over her again. The caressing look had heat chasing away the chill of fear. This was the danger in being around Cabal. She forgot to beware of him. She forgot that he was as much a danger to her as an attraction. She forgot this wasn’t a love match, it was a hormonal phenomenon. That was the greatest danger, because forgetting that could destroy her.