Bengal's Heart

by Lora Leigh

  gards to your opinion of him.”

  “I’m not paid to be tactful.” She felt like a ten-year-old being taken to task for causing trouble.

  “And I’m not paid to babysit reporters who go looking for trouble,” the sheriff shot back. “Stay out of the forest until the Coyote soldiers are gone, that’s the best advice I can give you.”

  In other words, it would be really nice if she just packed up and left town. Cassa mentally scratched the sheriff off her list of persons to contact should she actually need any help in her own investigation.

  “Thank you so much for your time, Sheriff.” A patently false smile spread her lips as she strode to the door and opened it for the other woman. “I’ll be sure to let you know should I need any additional help.”

  Sheriff Lacey breathed out wearily as she shook her head and moved to the door. “Ms. Hawkins, Breed Law states that I can’t run these guys out of town, nor can I officially protest their presence. As much as I hate it, I have to put up with the likes of men like Dog and his lieutenants until they actually mess up and give me a reason to contact the Bureau or throw their asses in jail.”

  “Until then, I’ll just hide in my room and pretend I’m having fun,” Cassa stated sarcastically. “I’ll be sure to mention that in the pleasant little story I had planned about the area.”

  “And while you’re mentioning that, please mention that you created this situation for yourself by plastering Dog’s picture all over the damned air at that station you worked for last year,” the sheriff reminded her. “ ‘The once anonymous Coyote Breed, suspected of drug and weapons smuggling, violence against Breeds and stealing candy from little children,’” the sheriff quoted her mockingly as she shook her head in amusement. “Really, Ms. Hawkins, did you think he was going to be pleasant when you met up with him in the forest? You were lucky Cabal and his team were there.”

  At the moment, lucky wasn’t exactly how Cassa felt. But she kept her mouth shut, kept her opinion to herself.

  “Good day, Sheriff.” She smiled tightly at the sheriff, then she turned to Cabal. “You can leave now too.”

  Her body was still humming. Sexual need was still a hunger that ached to be assuaged, even as anger poured through her. He had to have known she had contacted the sheriff. That was why he was here, the nosy bastard. She should have filed a damned report about the attack the night before and she should demand an investigation now. But to do that, she would actually have to come up with a reason why she had been in the forest herself.

  Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem. But she wasn’t normally so aroused that her brain refused to work.

  “Come on, Breed,” Sheriff Lacey ordered, her voice firm. “Let’s see if you’ll be any more forthcoming about the reason you’re here as well, while you file the report you obviously forgot you’re supposed to file when conducting exercises in my county. I have a feeling you two are going to be more trouble than Dog and his men.”

  The look he shot Cassa promised retaliation of a kind that would no doubt leave her screaming in pleasure and begging for more.

  “Getting rid of me for a while isn’t going to make this situation any better,” he warned her softly as he moved closer, his gaze locked on hers now. “Don’t fool yourself, Cassa.”

  “Bet me,” she muttered.

  “I’ll bet you.” He stopped in front of her, his head bending until his lips rested at her ear. “I bet you, sweetheart, one hard, hot kiss. I bet you ignoring it is something you won’t be able to do.”

  Jerking back, Cassa glared up at him. The blood was thundering through her veins again, and she could have sworn the fresh, winter-night smell of him was a taste against her tongue.

  “I’ll catch you later, Cabal.” She had to force the words past her lips even as she had to force herself to step back from him before she took that kiss now. “Have fun with the sheriff.”

  His lips quirked in mocking amusement before he straightened and did as she asked. Turning, he strode to the door, gripped the doorknob and pulled the panel closed behind him.

  The sound of the door quietly latching had Cassa closing her eyes in relief as well as regret. The regret was something she wasn’t going to allow herself to face. She had turned on her heel and started for the shower when a muted beep from her laptop alerted her that mail had just been received in her inbox.

  She turned back to the room and strode to the desk. Having typed in the passcode to access the screen, she stared at the subject line of the email.

  You’re going to fail.

  Failure wasn’t an option.

  Cassa opened the email.

  More blood is being spilled. The Deadly Dozen are deadly no more. I’ve given you enough time. My prey comes here each year. He dines in splendor. He charms without prejudice. How handsome he was, how handsome he is. How evil is his soul, how corrupt is his heart. The land that would have hid and cherished the children of the wild will now taste the blood of their enemies once again, Ms. Hawkins. Beware that one day you don’t become the prey as well.

  The ever present warning, that one day she would become the prey. Cassa had no doubt that that day was growing ever nearer.

  Cabal followed Danna Lacey from the inn, his stride even, matched to hers until she drew abreast of the official SUV she had driven there.

  “Stay out of this, Danna,” he warned her as she unlocked the driver’s door and glanced back at him.

  Her expression filled with mocking amusement. She knew the investigation he was working on, she knew the danger involved, and yet there wasn’t so much as a hint of fear in her eyes.

  “Who do you think you’re talking to, Cabal?” Her voice was gentle, despite the hint of arrogance in it. “I’m not a Breed soldier under your command, nor do I heel so well. You’d do well to remember that.”

  “Just as you’d do well to remember exactly what we’re facing here. Not just the Breeds, but this community as well. Stop feeling sorry for Cassa and start worrying about yourself.”

  He could smell the sympathy, the compassion that rolled off her in waves. That was just Danna. He would have never thought she had the emotional strength for the job she held. As a sheriff of a small town, she saw the cruelty inherent in people she must have surely once seen as friends, as neighbors.

  “I always worry about myself first, Breed.” She chuckled as she reached in, pushed the key into the ignition and started the vehicle.

  “Stay out of my way, Danna,” he warned her again. “Don’t let Cassa put a fire under your ass where this is concerned. I don’t have time to battle you.”

  She gave a graceful little snort. “As though there would be a battle to it,” she drawled. “Really, Cabal, you should know better. I’m fairly lazy; I don’t put myself out any more than I have to.”

  Cabal knew that statement for the lie it was. Danna was anything but lazy.

  She laughed at his dark look, refusing to show so much as a hint of trepidation or fear. And he doubted she felt either emotion.

  “Yes, Cabal,” she continued, “I’ll just put my little head down and run around barefoot and pregnant to suit the Breeds. Satisfied now?”

  Cabal grunted at that. No, he wasn’t really satisfied and he didn’t appreciate her humor either.

  “You just be certain you do that,” he muttered. “While you’re at it, see if you can get some information on Banks that I don’t already know. That would please me immensely.”

  Danna shook her head with a laugh. “You have what I have, Bengal. I can’t do you any better than I’ve already done for you.”

  And she had done a hell of a lot of legwork for them. At forty-five, single and independent, the sheriff had given uncounted hours through the first few days of Cabal’s investigation.

  “Stay the hell out of trouble, Danna,” he warned her, even as he wished he could warn Cassa.

  “I could say the same to you, Bengal, but I suspect you’d pay as much attention to me as I’m going to pay to you.” She
rolled her eyes at him, but he saw the hint of worry in her gaze.

  Glen Ferris was her territory, and from past experience he knew she didn’t take well to Breed interference in what she considered her domain.

  He shrugged the thought off. No one took that well, but it was now a fact of life. To survive, Breeds needed a measure of autonomy. Breed Law had given them that autonomy for a period of five decades. They had fifty years. Cabal had a feeling it wouldn’t be nearly enough time.

  ◆ CHAPTER 11 ◆

  A restless night filled with broken, erotic dreams haunted Cassa until the first fragile rays of light began to spill over the Gauley River that flowed beyond the window of her room.

  Rising from bed, she stared into the churning, murky winter water, not for the first time, frowning at the sense of excitement and trepidation that filled her.

  She should have been furious. She hadn’t seen Cabal the night before. Whatever business he’d had to do had taken him much longer than hers had. Of course, hers had amounted to no more than tracking down Banks’s golfing buddies. None of whom had any information that could have led to the cause of the former mayor’s disappearance.

  She had returned to her room at midnight, disgusted and aroused. Mating heat sucked, but at least Ely’s hormones were keeping her from searching out Cabal and demanding sex.

  She didn’t want to face what she knew was happening to her own body. She wanted to question someone, anyone. She just wanted a few ideas on how to handle a very stubborn Bengal Breed. Surely that wouldn’t be too much to ask.

  Merinus, the Feline pack leader’s wife, or Scheme, the wife of the Felines’ head of public relations—anyone but Cabal, because God only knew he’d never tell her the truth. But she knew better. If she talked to anyone, then she was sealing her own fate.

  Somehow—no, not somehow, she knew how—mating heat was beginning to affect every facet of her life. It would only get worse, she already knew that. As the days slipped by, her need for him would only grow, until the initial phase of the heat eased. After that, she could expect a few days to a week each month that the symptoms were worse. Ovulation always triggered it, made the need for sex more insistent. Ely had already pretty much told her what to expect.

  Wrapping her arms across her chest, she breathed in slow and easy, feeling the hard tips of her nipples, the swollen contours of her breasts. It was more of an irritant, at the moment, rather than being painful.

  She gave her head a hard shake before turning and striding quickly to the shower. Despite the cool temperature that she’d set the thermostat at the night before, her body was still overheated.

  A cool shower eased it, but only marginally. Two hours later, dressed in jeans, a white blouse, leather jacket and hiking boots, she slung the small backpack she carried for personal use over her shoulder and left her room.

  She’d wasted enough time the day before. There were answers in this small town, she could feel it, as well as a story that went much deeper than the murders of men who had once hunted down and aided in the torture of Breeds.

  She had felt that knowledge each time the anonymous emails came through. She had seen something beyond the pictures of death that were attached to the later emails, and the threats that her own secrets could be revealed. She had no secrets that she knew of. There wasn’t a day in her life that the Breeds hadn’t thoroughly investigated.

  Those deaths had a purpose though, a reason that went far beyond Breed rage. Cassa wanted to know what that purpose was. For the first time since the Breeds had revealed themselves, one of them was stepping past the careful control she had always glimpsed within them. One of them was taking personal vengeance, and he had come here, to Glen Ferris, a place where Breeds had once taken refuge, to do so.

  Leaving the inn, she opted to walk rather than drive the few blocks to a nearby diner and the breakfast meeting she had set up with Myron, hoping to get more information than she had the day before. He knew something. She had sensed it, felt it.

  She wanted to know what he wasn’t telling her, and why he had never told her about the Breed wife he’d had before he met and married Patricia.

  Pushing through the door to the diner, Cassa gazed around the large, crowded room until she caught sight of Myron. His bright red hair stood out in relief. Cut much closer to his head than it had been years before, it lay around his freckled features and threw his pale blue eyes into stark relief.

  At the side of his eyes deep lines were carved into his face that she hadn’t noticed the day before. She would have called them laugh lines, but Cassa had never seen Myron laugh. The same grooves bracketed his mouth, and across his forehead deep frown lines were displayed with the shorter cut of his hair.

  But his face was lean, and he looked years younger than his forty-two years of age. He had been one of the guiding forces in the movement to find a safe place for the Breeds to hide before their presence was revealed eleven years ago. He and his father had worked tirelessly for years to hide the Breeds, who had often arrived near death, in the one area rumored to offer a measure of safety.

  Moving across the dining room, Cassa caught sight of two Breeds drinking coffee in a corner behind and to the side of Myron. They were dressed in jeans, flannel shirts and ball caps. She would have never picked them out for Breeds if she hadn’t familiarized herself before she arrived with the Breeds known to be in the area. They looked like farmers. Hell, they might well be farmers. Many of the Breeds that had been hiding in these mountains had been smart enough to carve a living out for themselves in the area.

  “Myron, I hope you have coffee coming.” Cassa slid into the booth as she smiled back at the reporter, taking in the ever present suspicion in his pale eyes and the deepening of the frown lines at his forehead.

  Lifting his head, he nodded toward the counter.

  “The waitress was waiting on you,” he told her as he laid aside the newspaper he had been glancing over. “What do you need now? I told you, Cass, I don’t know anything about Banks’s disappearance.”

  He had been in a better mood the day before, which wasn’t saying much.

  “I wasn’t going to ask about Banks.” She waved the subject away. “It’s been a while, Myron, maybe I just wanted to catch up.”

  He shook his head at that. “You don’t have time to catch up, Cass. I follow your stories, you know. Last I heard you were chasing down the location of Breed scientists known to have been involved in the Coyote Breed genetics. What happened to that?”

  “I’m still working on it.” She shrugged. “There were rumors that two Coyote Breed scientists had survived an assassination attempt by the Coyote Ghost and were now actually residing in the Coyote stronghold. All I’ve heard are rumors though.”

  Myron lifted his red brows in surprise. “Surprising that the Council allowed them to live, even if the Ghost did. The Coyotes were their most secret creations.”

  “And Breeds as well as human scientists are still trying to figure out why,” Cassa agreed. “Perhaps this marriage between the Coyote alpha, Del-Rey Delgado, and Anya Kobrin will shed some light on those scientists.”

  Myron snorted at the thought, though she saw a flicker of worry in his gaze.

  “I wouldn’t bet on it,” he muttered.

  “I don’t bet on anything where getting information out of Breeds is concerned.” She almost laughed at the thought. The definition of “Breed” was “closemouthed and unpredictable.”

  Myron smiled at that, then gave her a probing look as he sipped his coffee, before saying, “I hear you have a particular Breed on your ass at the moment. What’s up with that?”

  Cassa affected an innocent look. “Just a particular Breed? If there’s a Breed around, then he seems to be nosy about my business.”

  “Comes with the territory?” He chuckled. “You’ve turned yourself into the bane of their existence with your reports. You’re not just a nosy reporter, but best friends with two of the Breed alpha mates. Be careful, you might become a
liability next.”

  Cassa rolled her eyes at that. “Maybe I’ve already become one.” She had no doubt that was how Jonas and Cabal both saw her now. It was a dangerous position to occupy.

  “That could explain that Bengal Breed shadowing you.” Myron folded his arms on the table and glared at her warningly. “Stay out of trouble, Cassa. I’d hate to see you get hurt here.”

  Now there was a shift.

  “There was a time when you would have helped me get into trouble,” she reminded him with a small smile.

  Myron only shook his head as he sighed roughly.

  “So have you found out anything about Banks?” He lifted his coffee to his lips as the waitress set another cup in front of Cassa along with a menu. “It’s obvious you don’t intend to stay out of whatever stink you’re trying to stir up.”

  “I could only wish.” She tried for a smile as she poured cream in her coffee and watched Myron through the veil of her lashes. “Did you know Brandenmore and Engalls very well? I know they have a hunting cabin in the area.”

  Myron’s eyes narrowed on her. “It’s a small town, Cassa. Of course I knew them. We didn’t socialize together though.”

  “Did you suspect then that they were involved with Breed deaths?”

  Myron’s expression hardened further as his jaw tightened.

  “If I had suspected then, they wouldn’t be alive to continue to torture Breeds now.”

  Myron was being extremely closemouthed on the subject. That wasn’t like him. He was a reporter. He should have already gotten most of the information that she needed to continue her own investigation.

  “Did they have a connection to the Breeds that you knew of?” She frowned at the feeling that she was having to drag answers out of him.

  “They hated the Breeds and you know it.” Myron grimaced. “Look, Cassa, if anyone around here knew anything that would help you or St. Laurents, trust me, you’d have the information. We want to see those two taken down as much as anyone else does. We’d be doing ourselves, as well as the Breeds, a favor.”

  “There’s a rumor that someone is doing the Breeds other favors as well. That someone has identified the Deadly Dozen and they’re taking them out.” Cassa reached into her bag and pulled out the picture of the valley she had been searching for in the mountains. Watching him closely, she laid it on the table. “One of the Dozen could have died here.”

  Myron’s gaze flickered over it before his expression tightened with what she was certain was recognition. He knew the area, and he knew that location.

  “Do you recognize that valley?” she asked him.

  When his gaze lifted, the look in his eyes was flinty and hard.

  “That could be anywhere,” he said tonelessly.

  Cassa frowned down at the picture before looking back at him suspiciously. She had seen his reaction; she knew he recognized that valley.

  “Its about four miles past the north fork, along the eastern portion of the largest ravine that runs down the mountain.”

  “That could be anywhere,” he repeated, his tone stiff.

  Cassa sat back in the booth and stared at Myron in confusion. What had happened over the years to change his attitude toward her? They used to be friends.

  “What’s the problem, Myron?” she asked quietly. “You and I have exchanged information for years, what makes this time different? What makes today different from last year?”

  His lips thinned as he looked away, his gaze focused outside the large windows of the café. When he turned back to her, the animosity wasn’t there, but neither was the friendliness she was used to seeing in him.

  “You should stay out of the forest at night, especially if there’s something going on up there concerning Breeds and the Deadly Dozen,” he finally said, his voice pitched low as he leaned forward. “Listen to me, Cassa, these mountains are brutal, and I’m not just talking about the nature of them. Whatever you’re looking for here, let it go.”

  Cassa sipped at her coffee as she gazed back at him. There was a darkness in his gaze, a warning that she couldn’t ignore. When she set her coffee back on the table, she made certain her expression reflected the determination she could feel inside to figure out what the hell was going on in Glen Ferris.

  “You know me better than that, Myron,” she warned him firmly. “Just as I know you. You know what’s going on up there, don’t you? Is this something you’re working on yourself? We’ve worked together before; we could do it again.”

  He had to know. She could see it in his face, in his eyes. And he wasn’t mentioning his first wife, or her death. He never had. Suddenly, she had a feeling that Myron was covering up much more than he had ever revealed to her about the Breeds. She knew he was.

  “I stay out of those mountains now,” he snapped, his voice still low. “And that’s the advice I’d give anyone else. Stay the hell out.”

  “And ignore the fact that people are dying. Again. Just as your first wife died.”

  Myron flinched before he breathed in slowly as she spoke. She watched his nostrils flare, watched the dilation of his eyes and the flicker of his gaze toward the Breeds in the room.

  No doubt they could hear exactly what was being said. A Breed’s hearing was excellent, much more sensitive than a human’s and she had a feeling they were there just to listen in on this particular meeting.

  “People or monsters?” he snapped back. “I’m not worried about the death of something evil, so don’t look at me as though I should be. The Deadly Dozen should have been exterminated before they ever came together. You know that as well as I do. And I don’t discuss my first wife. Ever.”

  “And if a Breed is doing the killing?” she hissed back at him. “What happens when he’s caught, or when that Breed sends the proof to a reporter who doesn’t care about anything but flashing it across every paper in the nation? Does that make up for your wife’s death, Myron? Or will it just see more Breeds murdered?”

  His lips thinned. “Justice, Cassa. It would be no more than justice. You know that.”

  “And if that justice is going to be used against the Breeds?” She lowered her voice further as his eyes narrowed on her once again. “What if I told you that the killer intends to frame the Breeds with certain murders? That there are pictures of the victims, their throats ripped out, their bodies clawed? What if, Myron, there were pictures of a Breed cleanup crew?” She nearly mouthed the last question. “What do you think that would do to everything we’ve both fought to save?”

  She watched his expression closely. All emotion seemed to have been wiped from it, as a bleak anger flickered in his gaze.

  “You know what’s going on here, don’t you, Myron?”

  His lips parted.

  “Myron.” A deep male voice voice piped up from behind Cassa. “There you are. Your wife’s looking for you, buddy.”

  It seemed his wife was always looking for him.

  Cassa watched, eyes narrowed, as the older gentleman slid into the booth beside Myron. “She was getting a little irate that you weren’t answering your cell phone.”

  “Cell phone’s turned off,” Myron muttered as he slid out of the other side of the booth and stood up. The look he cast Cassa was that of warning, and concern. “If you need a ride to the airport tonight, let me know.”

  With that, he grabbed his jacket and stalked from the booth. That was the warning. To leave now. It did nothing but make her more determined to stay.