Bengal's Heart (2 page)

“You damned, stupid bitch!”

Cruel hands latched onto her hair and jerked her to her feet.

Cassa didn’t bother to scream. There was no one to hear her cries, there would be no one to care. Her hands jerked to the hand gripping her hair as she began to claw at his fingers with her nails.

Struggling, she was only dimly aware of the enraged, horrific roar that sounded too close, too furious.

“You ignorant little whore!” Douglas yelled again, his expression twisted into lines of rage as he shook her by the hand in her hair. “Do you know what you’re doing? They’re abominations. Fucking animals pretending to be human.” His free hand slapped her across the face, causing her head to ring with explosions of light as another warning blared through the control room, followed by a roar of animalistic rage unlike anything she had ever heard.

Cassa cringed at the sound as Douglas suddenly stilled.

“You knew,” he snapped as he flung her away from him.

Her legs wouldn’t hold her up. Her head was filled with clashing cymbals reverberating with agony. She collapsed to the floor, shaking her head. “I didn’t know,” she cried out, forcing herself to stare up at him. “You’re a monster, Douglas.”

The smile that curved his lips was one of triumph. “You told me the plans to get in here, Cassa. You told me the animals they were going to free, and you told me, dear wife, of the repercussions to the Council if they were freed.” He kicked out at her, laughing as the toe of his boot connected with her side and sent her scrambling in an attempt to crawl from his reach.

“Ten million dollars, Cassa, in an overseas account. Who the fuck needs you or your connections now? You gave me the means to betray these crackpot idiots that want to suck up to animals. Now you can live with it.”

A piercing animal scream exploded through the room. Through the veil of her hair and the tears filling her eyes, Cassa watched as Douglas paled, glanced to the sealed doors to the pit, then turned to run.

It happened so fast and yet Cassa swore she watched each detail of movement as though in slow motion. She saw the only Bengal still standing, his enraged, demonic eyes spitting amber fire. Blood dripped along his body. His face, his shoulders, the stripes that extended from his buttocks around his thighs—blood flowed over the heavy muscle and lean lines of his golden body. He lifted a broken steel stake and hurled it past the slowly opening cage door, swashing through the control room windows with deadly force.

The wickedly sharp blade buried itself at the base of Douglas’s spine. He screamed as he went down and his head arched back on his shoulders as he screamed again.

The stake protruded from the base of his spine as blood spurted around the wound. He convulsed, agonizing sounds of horror and twisted pain escaping his lips, as Cassa watched the only Bengal to escape the pit.

He was the one the others had fought to save. She had seen that much. She had watched as they had sacrificed themselves to save this one.

A mechanical warning sounded through the room. “Alert! Alert! Enemy forces are now entering level zero corridor. You have fifteen seconds to evacuate. Fourteen. Thirteen.”

Cassa stared at the creature that turned on her now. Long, once golden hair was streaked black with blood. It hung limply to his shoulders as the golden flecks of rage gleamed in a backdrop of forest green eyes.

His lips drew back on a snarl, exposing the wicked canines at the sides of his teeth.

She shook her head. He would kill her now. He’d heard everything Douglas had said, every charge he had made. She had betrayed the very creatures she had fought so hard to save. It didn’t matter that she had done so unwittingly. It didn’t matter that she would have died to protect them.

“I’m sorry,” she cried hoarsely as he paced closer. “Oh God, I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry is a weak man’s excuse,” the creature growled, his voice filled with dark purpose.

Her shoulders shook with the sobs she fought to hold back, the terror that cascaded through her. Blood dripped to the floor in front of her, each small droplet a brilliant, enraged red, as he paced closer.

It dripped to the toe of her boot, the hem of her jeans. The next splattered on the jersey material of the T-shirt that covered her breasts.

She swore that small droplet seared her flesh as she stared up at him, grief and pain racing through every nerve in her body.

“Twenty-four Breeds dead,” he growled, the sound of his voice so rough, dark and rasping it scraped over her senses. “Bengals. Each one fought every second of their miserable existence for freedom.” His lips lifted into a snarl as he glanced to the pit, then back to her. “All dead.”

A sob tore from her throat a second before his fingers were latched around her neck, pulling her to her feet as she struggled against the knowledge of death.

He didn’t hurt her, when he should have. She had been responsible. She had trusted. She had betrayed.

“I should toss your body in there with them,” he roared in her face as she screamed in fear.

His lips curled back from his teeth, and she could almost feel the sensation of those wicked incisors tearing at her neck.

She wanted to excuse the betrayal. She wanted to explain, but there was nothing she could say, nothing she could do to excuse it. She had told her husband. She had discussed it with him. She had overlooked the fact that he wasn’t the man she once believed he was; she had tried to believe in that last vestige of humanity she thought he possessed.

Her hand lifted. She touched the blood that ran in a slow, crooked stream down his hard cheek. She touched it, fingers trembling, and bringing it to her lips, closed her eyes.

She tasted the blood she had spilled. Her father had said before his death that men should be made to taste the blood they spill, to experience death, to know the horror they perpetuate.

She knew. She accepted her fate. She tasted his blood as another sob tightened in her throat yet never fell past her lips. She hung in his less than gentle hold, expecting the pain at any moment. Expecting death. She had trusted the man she had given her heart to, and she had learned the cost of that trust.

“I own you.”

Her eyes jerked open to see his, too close, glaring back at her. Nearly nose to nose, the heat of his breath caressing her cheek, the sharp canines too close to her flesh.

“What?” the question was instinctive.

“I own you,” he growled again. It was the animal, not the man, that she faced. This Breed was nothing like the civilized Breeds she had been following for so many months for the newspaper she worked for.

“No.” She tried to shake her head, but the fingers wrapped so cruelly around her throat refused to allow her to move.

“I know your secrets,” he snarled. “And I’ll know more. This.” He looked around the control room, rage flashing in his face as his gaze landed on the entrance to the pit once more. His eyes flashed back to her. “You owe me for their lives. You owe me for his sins.” His gaze returned to Douglas’s fallen form.

She tried to shake her head again, but his hands only tightened mercilessly, as his expression became harder, colder.

“Brothers and sisters,” he snapped at her. “My family, not my pride, and they lie dead because of his perfidy.”

More tears slipped free. Guilt was a ball of flame in her chest. Grief was the knot of agony in her throat that his fingers clenched into.

She was going to die here. She could feel it, and perhaps a part of her would even prefer it. If she lived, she would have to face this, she would have to deal with it. She had seen the blood, the lives wasted in that pit, and she didn’t know if she could bear the weight of knowing they had ended because of her ignorance.

Dear God. She might as well have killed them with her own hands.

Cabal St. Laurents. They were named in these labs. They were given an identity when it would have been far kinder if they hadn’t been. It was a reminder of what they were not. Never free. A reminder of what they were, always tied to their creators.

He was a Bengal, and the animal inside him refused to relent. It rejoiced in the blood of the enemy. It plotted with his humanity, planned and sought the death of every creature that would stand in the way of escape.

Now the man was ready to kill. The human wanted to taste the blood, and the animal held back.

His captive was female. It was the most corrupt of any species. It was the reason those that shared his blood now lay in that same blood that had gushed from their bodies. He held her now, his fingers gripped around her throat, his teeth aching, his tongue nearly tasting her flesh. And he couldn’t harm her. The animal drew back, the feral intensity that had driven him to escape the pit receding.

He released her slowly, watching as she crumpled at his feet. She wasn’t sobbing for mercy. Her head bent, her long, burnished, dark blond hair flowed around her. It touched the floor, and his blood stained the ends of it.

An agony of rage shuddered through him. The roar that raced through his throat and exploded from his lips brought an unwilling sob past the female’s lips. But still, he didn’t strike. The animal stood back, watched, waited. For what it was waiting, he wasn’t certain, but he admitted he had no desire to take this woman’s blood.

She had been foolish. He could smell the scent of her husband on her body, knew the pain that tormented her. She had betrayed them unknowingly, but how could he ever forgive the death of those he had held dear?

“I own you,” he repeated, stepping back from her as he felt the weakness of blood loss creeping through his system. “When I call you, you’ll come. Whatever I ask of you, you will give.” He reached down, and gently, so gently, when rage and the need for violence poured through his system, he gripped her chin and lifted her head until he could see into the dove gray of her eyes, inhale the scent of her and know her forever. Know her and always remember this day. The day a woman had destroyed everything he had held dear.

“And one day,” he swore, “you’ll pay.”

He stumbled. Weakness rushed through him.

He’d lost too much blood. His strength was depleted. There was nothing left but the aching rage, the agony of loss and the taste of defeat. He had sworn to save them, and because of this woman’s thoughtlessness, because of her trust in the wrong man, he had lost everything.

He stumbled again, going nearly to his knees before he caught himself. Swaying, he forced himself upright as the sliding metal doors into the control room were pushed open, and the scent of Breeds filled the room.

There was no threat, no feeling of danger. The animal inside of him recognized the animals rushing in. The rescue forces the scientists had been so worried about. Headed by a Breed that even the Genetics Council was rumored to fear, Jonas Wyatt.

Cabal lifted his head and stared back at them, noting their expressions of disbelief at the sight of the male dying on the floor and the female staring up at him with equal parts fear and anger.

She recognized him for the animal he was and she knew he had stamped her with his ownership. She would walk his line and by all that was holy, he would ensure that she paid the price if she ever allowed another to touch her.

He almost stopped in shock at that thought. He would have, except one of the men stepped up for the woman. His hand reached out to grip her arm, to pull her to her feet. And Cabal was there.

He locked his fingers around the man’s wrist and snarled out a warning. A primal, feral sound that had the female flinching.

What was this imperative need inside him? What had the animal driving forward once again in rage where this woman was concerned? He should want her out of his sight, out of his mind. Never did he want to have to think of the horrors he had faced here or the mutilations that had occurred within that devil’s pit of death.

He could still smell the blood of his family. They shared his blood. Each of them, created of the same DNA from the same Bengal, created of the sperm from the same donor. They were true family. Blood family. And he had lost them all.

“Mine,” he snarled back at the other Breed male, ignoring the arrogance, the dominance in the swirling gray eyes that stared back at him. “Her debt belongs to me.”

The male looked from his wrist, where Cabal held him firmly, back to Cabal’s eyes. There was an edge of danger in the stranger’s silver eyes. An edge of pure, primal command. The scent of it was in the air and Cabal was aware that even at full strength he would be hard-pressed to defeat the strength and power of the animal.

“You’re wrong.” The dark, even tone had the hairs at the back of Cabal’s neck lifting in warning. “You’re hurt, and weak, Bengal,” he said softly. “I’ll let this one go. But she’s not one you can use, and she’s not one you can harm.”

“Her debt is mine,” Cabal hissed again, baring his canines as he pushed his face closer to the other Breed’s. Nearly nose to nose now, the battle of wills was one Cabal feared he might well lose if pushed. But he would fight. He would fight to his last drop of blood.