Bengal's Heart (28 page)

She didn’t flinch; she didn’t back away. Her long hair lay in tangled waves against the material of one of his shirts as her bare toes peeked out of the hem of her jeans.

She looked like a little girl playing grown-up games. Games that could get her killed.

As he shielded her body, several things registered at once. She had managed to slip up on them, something that should have been impossible. Unless she had no scent. His nostrils flared as he tried to draw in the essence of her, just as he knew the others were doing.

There was nothing there. No mating scent, no arousal, no smell of his lust on her body. It was as though Cassa were a ghost, with no substance, with no scent.

He turned, gripped her arms and stared down at her in shock as he fought to smell the woman he had just spent the night spilling his seed into. There should be some trace of a scent. Any scent.

“What the fuck,” Lawe muttered to his side. “Jonas?”

Behind him, he felt Jonas shift, move. He knew the other Breed was doing exactly what Cabal was doing, trying to find a scent so elusive it didn’t exist.

Cabal narrowed his eyes on her, searched her face and realized the implications in a single heartbeat.

“Gentlemen, here’s your killer’s secret.” She lifted her hand and in the middle of her silken palm was a small white pill. “A scent blocker. Sent to me by the killer, reportedly created by Brandenmore Research. This is how your rogue Breed is getting by you.”

◆ CHAPTER 15
◆

Cassa watched Cabal’s profile several hours later as they made the trek back down the mountain in the all-terrain Raider he was driving.

He was still angry. His profile was hard, his expression cool, and she’d noticed that the amber glitter in his eyes seemed duller. That was rage, because the dark green was more brilliant and seemed alive with the anger surging through him.

Panic had threatened to overwhelm her ever since morning, when she had given Jonas one of the small pills that had been sent to her, and explained just how well they worked. Jonas hadn’t been happy that she had eavesdropped on his conversation with Cabal the night of the Coyote alpha’s wedding reception. Cabal seemed even less pleased with her.

She remembered her first, ill-fated marriage. Whenever Douglas had become angry, she had carried the bruises, sometimes for weeks at a time.

Now, more than a decade later, she was sitting in a vehicle with a lover whose anger swirled in the air around her. There was an edge of fear, uncertainty. She hadn’t allowed herself to ever be placed in a position again where she had to worry about a lover striking her. She was beginning to wonder if perhaps she had bit off more than she could chew with Cabal. If she thought Douglas was dangerous, then her Breed lover was a hundred times more so.

He was angry with her, and what made the situation even more precarious for her was that she wasn’t certain why he was so furious.

Her interruption of his meeting that morning could be the cause, she thought. It had been a rather dramatic entrance. She had taken the pill when she had heard the Raiders advancing up the driveway, not long after Cabal had left the bed.

She’d had every intention of telling Cabal about the drug. It was too dangerous to hold secret for very long. If the Breeds’ enemies got their hands on it, then Sanctuary or Haven, either one, could be breached easily by the Council’s Coyotes and soldiers. No Breed mate would ever know a moment’s security, and every Breed child born would be at risk.

“Your attitude is starting to irk me.” Cassa forced herself to go on the offensive. “If you’re pissed off, then you could do me the courtesy of telling me why.”

He shot her an irate glance. An irate Breed was really rather commonplace, she assured herself.

“You could have warned me about that pill before Jonas arrived,” he pushed between gritted teeth. “And what the hell are you doing risking yourself by just taking some damned drug that an anonymous killer sent to you? Have you lost your mind?” There was the anger. His voice rose with it.

“Don’t yell at me, Cabal,” she ordered him with more bravado than she felt. What she felt was sheer panic. He was angrier than she had first thought. “I took a risk admittedly, but it was one that paid off.”

“It could have paid off with your life.” His hands clenched around the steering wheel as he navigated the mountainous path. “Son of a bitch, Cassa. Did you even think before you did it? Did you even consider the risks?”

She gave a little shrug. “I always consider the risks, Cabal. Whoever sent that drug and the proof of those killings doesn’t want me dead yet. He has something to prove. To the Breeds as well as to me. Killing me wouldn’t serve his purpose quite yet.”

Because the past hadn’t come full circle yet. Cassa knew that. The killer had other plans in store for her, the only question was whether or not she would survive them.

Was it foolhardy? Risky? No doubt. She had admitted that going in. But after more than a decade of doubts, recriminations and guilt, she knew she couldn’t do anything less than see this through now.

She had dropped the ball during the rescue of the German facility where Cabal had been imprisoned. Because of her husband, so many had died. Because she had trusted Douglas to care about the story even though her marriage was failing. And she had been wrong.

Now she had a chance to make certain that this rogue Breed didn’t destroy the Breed community as a whole. She refused to drop the ball on this one. She refused to back down.

“And all you thought of was yourself?” he asked, his voice lowering, darkening.

Cassa gave a bitter little laugh. “Who else should I consider?”

“Friends?” He snarled. “I know you have many of them, don’t deny it.”

She didn’t try to.

“Look, this is my job. It’s my life.” Cassa turned to him, her own anger mixing with her fear. “I weighed the consequences and took the risk. It was my choice to make.”

His lips thinned as he narrowed his gaze at the road. His hands didn’t relax on the steering wheel.

“You knew we were mates when you took it,” he accused. “Did you consider me?”

“Oh yeah, let me think about that one,” she bit out sarcastically. “No, I didn’t consider your opinion of it quite simply because I assumed you really didn’t give a damn. It’s not as though you gave the impression that you were ready for a mate, Cabal. A harem maybe.”

She hated that. The playboy of the Breeds. Or at least he’d been considered one half of a play team before his brother Tanner mated.

She watched as his jaw bunched, and she wondered if his molars were strong enough to stand the force of his teeth gritting together.

“I’ve never had a harem,” he stated angrily.

“Whatever.” Cassa blew out an irritated breath and flicked her fingers in his direction. “You were just fucking your way through the world. I understand.”

And she hated it. The thought of those women touching him, having him, touching those sexy-as-hell stripes while she still had yet to do so made her crazy. She curled her fingers at the thought of touching those oddly colored markings and tried to push past the image of her lips running over them.

A man shouldn’t be this sexy or so damned irritating.

“You don’t understand a damn thing,” he informed her. “If you weren’t constantly running scared, maybe I wouldn’t have felt like an animal chasing a rabbit. You ran from me every chance you had.”

“I simply stood aside to keep from being trampled by the hordes of lusting women,” she bit back acerbically.

But she had been frightened, and she knew it. Frightened of the strength of her desire as well as the past that she feared he would never forget or forgive her for.

“You were scared, just as you’re scared now.” There was a hint of censure in his tone. “When have I ever made you believe I would hurt you, Cassa?”

She was silent at that question. He had never done anything to make her believe he would lay a hand on her. Unless she were the enemy, and then there would be no saving her from him.

God, wasn’t that a cheerful thought, considering the fact that she had been the reason for the worst betrayal of his life and still he hadn’t given any indication of the amount of blame he assigned to her.

“You’ve done nothing to make me believe you would hurt me, Cabal,” she answered wearily. “If you sensed fear, maybe it’s for other reasons.”

“Your husband?” He cast her a brooding look. “That wasn’t in the investigation Jonas had done on you.” She guessed she should congratulate herself for having hidden the abuse she’d suffered so well that no one had guessed. If anyone had suspected, then the Breeds would have had that information. They knew every damned thing. Sons of bitches couldn’t keep their noses out of other people’s lives.

“Then what makes you think it was my husband?” she asked archly.

He grunted at that. A completely feline sound of irritation.

“I read the report on you as well as that of your husband, Douglas Watts,” he informed her. “He wasn’t exactly a prize, Cassa. You could have done much better. Just because there was nothing in there about abuse doesn’t mean it didn’t exist.”

That was no joke.

“But there was nothing in that report about it,” she reminded him.

His hair brushed against his shoulders as he gave his head a quick shake before maneuvering the vehicle onto the main road.

“And you’re being too evasive, that’s answer enough for me.” There was a latent growl in his throat, one that sent shivers of both pleasure as well as dread racing down Cassa’s spine.

“Believe what you want to,” she told him coolly. “There are much more interesting matters in my life right now than a husband long dead. How long do you think it will take Jonas to figure out where that drug came from?”

Thick dark gold lashes narrowed on her as he cast her a quick look before turning his attention back to the road.

“Soon” was the only answer he gave. “Our main concern at this point is to catch our killer. Find him and we’ll find the origin of that drug.”

“Jonas thinks he can control a rogue, doesn’t he?” She could well believe Jonas was that arrogant.

“Jonas thinks he could control the wind if he put his mind to it,” Cabal snorted. “He’s that damned hardheaded. But in this case, he most likely can.”

Cassa shook her head at that thought. “I saw those pictures, Cabal, just as you saw the bodies. That amount of rage can’t be contained. Jonas could end up on the wrong end of a rogue’s fury.”

“He’s been there before.” And from the sound of Cabal’s voice, it hadn’t been any more pleasant then.

Cabal breathed in the scent in the Raider and restrained the need to snarl in anger. He still couldn’t catch her scent or his mark upon her. It enraged him that something so elemental had been restrained within her body. Her scent, so uniquely hers, had been completely wiped away. There was nothing to reassure the animal inside him that she was his, that his scent covered her body. There wasn’t even the scent of arousal to salve that primal need.

Added to that insult was the knowledge that his accusations against Watts were correct and she was still trying to hide it. Watts had admitted to beating her, abusing her. During his interrogation after Cabal’s escape from the hellhole of the pit, Watts had admitted to it. Just as he had admitted that Cassa had known nothing about his betrayal. That he had played her. He had laughed at how eager she had been for that illusion of love, of belonging.

Cabal had wanted to kill him. So many times. So many ways. But forcing the bastard to live was a salve to Cabal’s pride as well. As much as Cabal wanted him dead, this way Watts was actually paying for his crimes rather than resting in peace as it were.

Cassa’s fears were instinctive, and though Cabal understood that, still he couldn’t get past his anger that she would fear him.

He was her mate. He would rather harm himself than harm her. That was more than instinct, that was a part of him. No male could call himself a man if he gained his sense of power from harming those weaker than himself. Especially his woman.

Glancing over at her, he grimaced at the continued lack of scent. It should have lasted only approximately two hours, she had told them that morning. It had been quite a bit longer than that.

He couldn’t smell her, and a part of him needed that connection to her. Removing one hand from the wheel, he reached out to her and enclosed the soft delicacy of her hand as it lay against her thigh.

Her response was a stiffening of her body as the slightest tinge of surprise wafted through the air. She looked from where he clasped her hand back to his face.

“What are you doing?” she asked suspiciously.

“Isn’t this what lovers do?” he asked her as he continued to hold her hand, drawing it from her lap to his hard thigh. “Hold hands.”

She blinked back at him silently. He’d managed to shock her. Damn, he thought he might feel a little pride in that. Cassa rarely allowed herself to be surprised or shocked.