by Lora Leigh
so to speak.” Her eyes narrowed on him for one long moment. “I’ll have to see what I can do to even the score now.”
Even at twelve, Cat had been known to strike with swift, accurate results when exacting revenge for a perceived slight.
“Cat . . .”
“But then, warning me never was one of your strong suits, was it?” she pointed out as she lifted her knees and wrapped her arms around them while watching him knowingly.
“Cat . . .” He injected a note of warning in his tone, one she ignored. He hadn’t really expected her to pay attention, he had just hoped she would.
“You stole that little bear from me when you left the labs,” she said then, surprising him. “What did you do with it?”
The bear? What the hell did that bear matter to her now? It had been thirteen years and she wasn’t a child anymore. Besides, it was his now, the last reminder he had of the trust she once gave him.
“Why?” Watching her warily, he wondered what she was going to come up with next.
“Because it was mine.” Her voice was laced with steel but for a second a flash of something lost and lonely gleamed in her dark eyes. “It was something I loved. You threw it away, didn’t you, Graeme? Just like you threw me and Judd away when you were done with us.”
The brutal snarl that snapped from his lips wasn’t an accident. The alpha command was one she would of course ignore. She might deny his place as her alpha but she didn’t want to push it, especially right now.
Bitter cynicism curled at her lips. “I don’t acknowledge you as my alpha. I barely acknowledge that mating bullshit. But then, you have only yourself to blame if I don’t show the respect you so obviously want.” Flipping the sheet back and rising naked from the bed, she threw a hard look over her shoulder. “You made me what I am, remember, Graeme? Your experiment.” Her expression hardened but he sensed the pain burning inside her, sensed the anger and the grief. The grief he hadn’t sensed until this moment. “Now you can live with it.”
Turning her back on him, she took her clothes and strolled with no apparent haste to the bathroom, where she closed the door softly behind her. He heard the smothered whimper that escaped behind the closed panel, though, scented the emotions she fought so desperately.
Fury slashed at the control he was struggling to keep and, for the first time since the monster had made an appearance, it wasn’t someone else it was lashing out at in defense of her.
It was Graeme.
Her pain had always destroyed him. The sight and scent of it had never been bearable.
There was so much she didn’t understand, so much she didn’t know and so much he couldn’t tell her yet.
If she thought she hurt now, then the truth she hated him for not giving her would only hurt her more. He knew his Cat and he knew the sense of guilt she would feel if she learned why the monster existed. If she knew the unreasoned hell he’d experienced, it would destroy her. He didn’t want her to come to him, to trust him, out of guilt. It had to be out of love, or the tigress he was determined to fully set free inside her would never have a chance to emerge as it should. Cat was holding parts of who and what she was restrained, and he couldn’t bear it.
• CHAPTER 14 •
Two days.
So far, she’d made it two days, Cat assured herself as she paced her bedroom, all but growling in irritation. Because she wasn’t going to make it much longer.
There wasn’t a chance in hell she’d make it three days, and with the damned reporters camped across the road from the gates, escaping the grounds for any reason was out of the question.
They were like vultures. Scavengers. They were the worst of the lot. The tabloid reporters who wrote more lies than truth in their race for sensationalism.
A written statement, supposedly from her, had been sent to the press, causing many of them to pull up stakes and head to Window Rock in an attempt to catch sight of Raymond, Maria or Linc instead.
She wished them luck. The Breeds had Raymond locked in an undisclosed location, while Maria was confined to the Martinez mansion until the inquiry into Raymond’s crimes was completed and his sentence set.
Linc was keeping the reporters busy moving around, though. His “no comments” only had them hungering for more.
And Cat was watching it all on the television whenever she turned it on. She’d grown bored with it in the first few hours, though. Now she was also growing bored with the house, the grounds and the enforced isolation.
Escape was a thought, after she took care of the burn heating her from the inside out.
Damned Bengal. She was also convinced he’d done this to her deliberately. She just hadn’t come up with a reason yet.
“It would appear your Bengal has finally set his mark upon you fully. Does this mean you’ve forgiven him?”
“Keenan.”
Swinging around to the sound of the voice, she really didn’t expect to see the leader of the small sect of winged Breeds that hid in the jagged cliffs of the nearby mountains.
“What are you doing here?” The anxious hiss as he stepped into the bedroom from the balcony doors was followed by an anxious look toward the bedroom door.
Wild brown and gold eyes filled with amusement as the feathers on those huge wings ruffled with a restless sound.
Keenan stood over six feet tall himself, but those wings were even taller. Rising at least a foot above his head before curving down and trailing a good foot behind him like a living cape in myriad dark colors, the power—and sheer beauty—of the wings he’d been created to bear was exceptional.
“There are no cameras in the bedroom now.” He shrugged as he crossed his arms over his powerful chest and stared down at her thoughtfully. “For some reason he deactivated them just after the Jackals were captured. Beware, though, we detected many more throughout the house.”
We.
There were very few of the winged Breeds. Six males, she believed, and a single female they’d discovered near death several months before.
“I’m surprised there aren’t a few dozen in the bedroom,” she muttered as she moved to the door and locked it securely. Just in case.
Turning back, she felt like squirming beneath the knowing amusement in his gaze.
“I warned you destiny could not be avoided,” he reminded her.
She watched as he moved to the sitting area to the side of the bed. His wings lifted, parted and spread out of the back of the seat as he sat down and leaned back comfortably.
“And I warned you I’m damned good at avoidance,” she snorted, moving closer to lean against the side of a nearby chair. “I assume you’re here with an update on our project rather than to gloat?”
Their project.
She’d made a promise to herself the night she’d entered Claire Martinez’s life. A promise that one day she’d reunite Honor with the momma and daddy she’d cried for before she too had stepped into another girl’s life.
Honor had been finding more of herself by the day before she and her mate, Stygian, had moved to the small Breed Secure ranch just outside Window Rock. Unlike what had happened with Cat, Honor Roberts hadn’t surfaced in Liza Johnson’s consciousness until recently. How much she remembered now, Cat wasn’t certain, but before she’d entered the secure grounds of the ranch, she’d remembered enough to begin checking on her parents.
The promise Cat had made hadn’t been forgotten either.
“I am here with an update,” he acknowledged. “But is this still the best time to begin the reunion? Perhaps after you’ve settled into this new life you are beginning . . .”
Cat shook her head, determination tightening through her.
“No, it has to be now,” she insisted. “It’s time, Keenan. It can’t wait any longer.”
If she waited, she might not be there to see it through.
He nodded slowly, his gaze still far too intent to suit her.
“Have you made contact with General Roberts yet?” she asked rather
than giving him time to ask her whatever the hell it was he had on his mind.
“I have,” he said. “The meeting is in two nights’ time at midnight. I will collect you from here and fly you to the meeting site, then return you.”
“Cool, I get to fly again.” She grinned, though the excitement she’d once felt for the experience was no longer there.
The quirk of Keenan’s lips left the suspicion that he knew she’d somehow lost the anticipation that had once risen inside her.
“Have I told you, Cat, that your aid has been invaluable to me and those I protect?” he asked, his voice gentle. “Should you ever have need of our protection, you have only to ask it of us.”
Pushing her hands into the pockets of the jeans she wore, Cat shook her head slowly. “You don’t need my problems, Keenan. Besides”—she rolled her eyes mockingly—“it’s not as if Graeme would physically hurt me.”
“Sometimes the scars that are hidden are far more painful than those the world can see,” he said softly. “He is your fate, we both know this. But should you need time to consider the truth of fate and destiny, then I would provide you what time I could.”
“You don’t know Graeme, he’d freak . . .”
“Ah, but I know Gideon well,” he said then, shocking her to silence. “But that does not affect my knowledge of you or my gratitude for all you have done. A debt to one does not cancel a debt to the other.”
“How do you, Graeme, Jonas—all you sneaky male Breeds—always seem to know things that you shouldn’t know?” Placing her hands on her hips, she faced him in amazement. “You know about Ashley’s visit, don’t you?”
“Of course!” He actually laughed at her amazement. “The reason sneaky Breeds know so much that they should not is because they have friends just as sneaky. Remember that, Cat. Whether by debt or by loyalty, power is gained from those willing to follow one and to reveal secrets others are unaware they’ve learned.”
She shook her head slowly. “I hate Breeds.”
“You love the drama as well as the excitement each day brings now that you can join the often chaotic, but always surprising world of those who stand between worlds,” he told her, refuting her claim as he rose to his feet. “You are Breed, Cat, no matter how you were born. And when Wyatt calls Graeme’s identity into question when he can no longer cloak his Bengal scent merely reminds the director of the anomalies of Mating Heat and that the strength of your Breed scent is increasing with the emergence of your genetics. The dominant mate’s scent cloaks the other, and both change for it. Normally the male’s scent cloaks the female’s, but perhaps in this case, your rather fierce Bengal instinct is aware of the danger to your mate. That would explain why the Bengal scent would cloak a Lion’s. After all, it’s never happened before. Who is to refute it?”
As he strode to the door he slowly disappeared. Whatever the hell that black synthetic leather uniform he wore was created with, it completely shielded him, making even the huge spread of his wings invisible while flying.
A rush of breeze blew over her, indicating he’d lifted from the balcony in a surge of power to return to wherever he and his small group of winged Breeds hid.
She’d seen them fly once, deep within a hidden canyon where no eyes could see them other than those they allowed. She’d watched them train in aerial combat and had marveled at the grace and agility of such a huge wingspan. It had been incredible, a sight she’d marveled at for weeks.
With the rising conflict between Breeds and Raymond Martinez, though, those little outings had come to an end and only the most important meetings conducted face-to-face.
Such as this one.
In two nights’ time she would meet with Honor’s parents, give them the information she’d selected and the pictures that would lead them to their daughter. Honor deserved her parents.
Once, long ago, Cat had wondered why she hadn’t deserved parents. Her mother had died from a disease she’d refused to treat, one she’d passed on to her newborn daughter because of her refusal to acknowledge it.
There had been no father listed on her birth record. Her mother had been without any known family. Cat had been born alone in the world and would have died had Phillip Brandenmore not claimed her and brought her to the research center to test his new gene therapy.
It sometimes seemed she was just as alone now as she had been when she’d been born. Without family, but not totally without friends, it appeared. Hell, Keenan was a damned good friend to have too, not to mention a rather cool one.
A grin touched her lips.
“Take that, Ashley,” she murmured. “Bet you don’t have an Eagle for a buddy. All you have is Graeme.”
It might have been said defiantly, but the ache, the hurt that hadn’t abated, reminded her just how much she wished so many things had been different.
As that thought drifted through her mind, the distant scent of enraged Bengal drifted to her senses and it was coming closer. Fast.
Jumping for the bedroom door, she unlocked it quickly and, opening it, came face-to-face with a furious Graeme.
It wasn’t the maddened fury that brought out the Bengal to mark his eyes and his flesh. This was the Breed, the mate, who had somehow sensed more than he should have been able to sense.
“What the hell is your problem?” Stepping back, she allowed him to stalk into the room, watching his nostrils flare, wondering if he could detect Keenan’s scent even when she couldn’t.
Glaring at him, she crossed her arms over her breasts, waiting. He prowled around the room, a growl rumbling in his chest as she blinked at him in amazement.
“You’re starting to worry me,” she informed him with a glare. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Motion sensors on the balcony picked up movement, and it wasn’t you.” The growl in his voice was one that demanded not just answers, but the truth.
“Really?” Moving slowly to the balcony, she looked outside the open doors before turning back to him with an arch of her brows. “Well, it wasn’t me, but how would you know?”
“Who was it?” The snap in his voice caused her eyes to widen in surprise.
“Check your damned cameras, Graeme,” she snapped back at him. “Who the hell could get to my bedroom without you knowing about it now?”
Lying to him wasn’t preferred for some reason, she didn’t know why. No doubt he lied to her every chance he got. He was created to lie. He was a lie.
She could almost hear his teeth grinding at her question.
“No one should be able to get to your bedroom without detection,” he admitted, not in the least pleased to do so.
“Maybe you should check your electronics,” she suggested slowly, as though wary of his mood.
Screw his mood.
She was in a mood of her own.
“I checked my electronics.” Facing her fully, arms braced on his hips, he confronted her with a heavy frown. “What are you up to, Cat?”
He said it so seriously that she had to laugh.
“What am I up to? Really, Graeme? I think I should be asking you that question. You’re the master of games, not me.”
Dropping her arms, she moved to the bedroom door and held it in preparation to slam it behind him. “Why don’t you go check your electronics again, wild man, because I don’t have time for your moodiness right now.”
The change in him was instant, but then it only began to coincide with hers.
Mating Heat.
She’d been burning for him for two days. The need for his touch was growing like an addict’s need for a fix.
She wondered if she could find a twelve-step program to fix it.
She doubted it. Her luck simply wasn’t that good.
Surely to God there was a cure rather than just some stupid hormonal treatment to aid in the symptoms. Because she had news for him, she simply wasn’t in the market to try another therapy.
She’d had enough of those as a child.
“My moodiness?” he
asked carefully, his expression tightening, his eyes narrowing on her warningly.
She couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “Haven’t you figured out that expression and that tone of voice really don’t work on me? The days of blind obedience are over, Graeme. They’ll never return.”
“You’re no longer a child, Cat,” he scoffed. “Blind obedience was never what I wanted. Yet you seem determined to keep us in the past, where every act, every response, is either black or white, when you know damned good and well our lives never existed on such a plane.”
“You mean a plane where I could trust you?” she asked archly, her grip tightening on the door. “You’re right there. We never existed in that place, I just thought we did.”
“For someone with exceptional photographic memory and an aptitude for logic, you can be amazingly nearsighted and surprisingly illogical,” he accused her as his expression pulled into lines of disapproval. “I taught you better than this, Cat. Why don’t you use some of those incredible gifts I know you possess for something other than hating me?”
The slam of the door wasn’t a shock. Even as her muscles bunched and the hiss of fury left her lips she threw it against the door frame with a powerful flip of her wrist.
“Because you’re so deserving of my hatred?” she retorted, knowing it wasn’t hate she felt.
She’d known that all along. She’d never hated him, not for a single moment. How much easier her life might have been if she could.
“In the eyes of a child, perhaps,” he agreed. “But you aren’t a child, Cat. Even at twelve you were no child, any more than Judd and I had the option of claiming such innocence. You knew when I disappeared that I hadn’t been taken by that death squad, just as you knew a transfusion of your blood would have dire results. You ignored what you knew.”
“You were dying!” she screamed, overwhelmed by the lash of remembered fear at the sight of his wounds and the blood he had lost. “I couldn’t lose you.”
But she had lost him.
He stood there, just staring at her, his gaze heavy and somber. And knowing.
She had known the transfusion would enrage him. She’d overheard Dr. Foster telling him never to risk it without taking precautions. She hadn’t known what the precautions were, but she’d seen the injection he’d received before getting a transfusion from her after an experiment Dr. Bennett had performed had gone wrong.
“To you, it was worth the risk,” he guessed, his voice incredibly sad. “That risk exploded out of my control.”
“Because I infected you?” she sneered.
Stalking to the other side of the room, she rubbed at her arms, the ache for his touch nearly unbearable now.
“I won’t fight with you over things you refuse to see.” He breathed out, the sound fraught with weariness, or sadness. “I can understand your anger, Cat. I can even understand hatred. Your refusal to acknowledge what you knew then and now, I refuse to accept.”
He refused to accept it?
He’d done everything possible to isolate her, to strip her of friends and loyalties, and he thought she should just accept it? Acknowledge what he thought she should know?
“I’ll never trust you,” she whispered painfully. “Never.”
Moving toward her, he shook his head with slow, even movements.
“You already trust me, baby, you just don’t want to accept it yet.”
“You’ve lost your mind.” Disbelief warred with the hunger rising inside her as he came closer.
“Yeah, I did, a long time ago,” he agreed, his arm curving around her waist to drag her against him. “Then I found it in a lonely desert as I watched a tigress hunt and realized all I dreamed of had been right beneath my nose as I searched for her.”
Surprise parted her lips and she would have demanded an explanation. But his kiss stole the words as well as the need for them. Sealing them together as the taste of the mating hormone spilling from both of them mixed, exploding through her senses and her emotions.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, her fingers spearing into his hair to hold him to her as a broken moan escaped her throat, Cat knew she couldn’t have survived much longer without him.
She’d searched for him. She knew that. She’d drawn him back to the desert, gave him the clues needed to find her and refused to tell him who his contact had been. She’d waited for him, night after night, searched the night and the desert for him, and she’d told herself she hated him. She’d told herself she was simply tired of waiting for him to find her and kill her.
What he was doing was more painful, though.
Yet, she was cooperating, wasn’t she?
A strangled cry of need and knowledge filled their kiss.
Tightening his arms around her, Graeme swung her from her feet and carried her to the bed. With his lips still covering hers, their tongues licking, tasting each other’s kiss and their hunger, he moved over her. His body covered hers, his hands exploring, removing the clothing separating them and blocking access to naked flesh as she tore at his with sharpened claws until they fell away.
His rougher, tough skin stroked against her softer flesh as his lips tore from the kiss to slide across her jaw to the vulnerable line of her neck.
“You just shredded my clothes.” He nipped at her neck as though in retaliation but the sharp pleasure had her tilting her head to give him greater access.
“I’m sure I’m so sorry. I’ll do better next time,” she whispered breathlessly, stroking her hands down his back, marveling at the hard muscle flexing beneath his skin.
“Make sure you do.” Lifting his head, he stared down at her, catching her gaze and holding it.
It was as though he was seeing into her.
Did he see the nights she’d searched the desert for him, so hungry for the sight of him that she’d made damned certain he knew where she was? That he found out who she was? Did he see the fear she’d fought to hide as a child, the hunger she’d felt as she became a woman?
“My Cat,” he whispered, brushing his fingers over her cheek before lowering his head to lay his cheek against hers. “Let me hold you, baby, just for now, be my Cat.”