Bengal's Heart

by Lora Leigh

  want to die today, Sheriff?” he asked her before he turned to Myron. “Do you want to see your daughters grow up and have children of their own? I could make certain you don’t live to see that if you prefer.”

  He would make certain of it. He’d stood back and denied his mate for too many years. Out of arrogance, out of stubbornness, for whatever reason. Now that he had claimed her, he wasn’t willing to lose her. Not for any reason. Especially not a rogue Breed’s hunger for vengeance.

  He turned his head, staring around the house, inhaling slowly. He could barely detect that hint of cinnamon in the sherrif’s house now. The same scent that had caught his senses before when he had been here. The same scent he had detected in the air during Cassa’s kidnapping.

  “Who is Rick?” He turned back to the sheriff, the name filtering through his mind for possible Breeds that he could identify.

  Danna inhaled swiftly at the name, perhaps only now realizing she had used it. She shook her head slowly, her eyes sheen ing with tears.

  “Rick,” he mused, a picture flashing before his mind. A picture found on the bank of the river where Cash Winslow had died. A picture of a Breed who should have been dead.

  “Patrick Wallace?” His eyes narrowed on the sudden dilation of her pupils. She wasn’t trained to lie. She was good. Damned good. But still an amateur. Easily read and easily deceived. “Where is he, since it’s obvious he’s no longer dead?”

  Danna stared back at him levelly. “Patrick Wallace died twenty-two years ago.”

  Cabal tilted his head and stared at her before straightening and roaring back in her face in rage. “Where is he?”

  He could sense the lie. He knew a liar when he sensed one.

  “Oh God.” Terror raced through her; the stench of it was nearly overwhelming.

  “Get back, Danna.” Myron pushed in front of her, using his own body to shield her as Cabal advanced on them. “Look, Cabal, we don’t know shit!” he yelled back. “Whatever the hell happened to your mate, we don’t know shit about it. We don’t know where Walt has Banks, and we don’t know where Rick’s at.”

  “Who is Rick?” he snarled in Myron’s face.

  “Patrick Wallace,” he answered truthfully. “But in the labs he was known as Azrael.”

  Cabal almost blinked back at him in surprise and in shock. Azrael had killed himself, six other Breeds and an entire lab of soldiers and scientists more than thirty years ago. He had been created in a hellhole in Libya. His Lion genetics were crossed with the genetics of a young woman rumored to be a descendant of an ancient, bloody pharaoh.

  Each DNA sequencing that had gone into the creation of Azrael had been precise. Nothing had been left to chance. He was their prize. He had become their death. And it was believed he had become his own death due to feral fever.

  “Azrael,” Cabal murmured. He had been a legend among the Breeds when he lived. There had been no Breed bloodier, or more merciless, than he.

  Eyeing them both for long moments, he reached out first to jerk Myron’s sat phone from its belt clip, before pushing past him and taking Danna’s.

  Opening the call log, he shook his head and muttered. “Amateurs.”

  The numbers were clearly displayed, giving him all he needed.

  Tucking the phones into the narrow pocket on his mission pants, he smiled coldly. “It’s been a nice visit, but it’s time for me to go now.”

  He had no compunction about knocking them both out. It was that or kill them, and the need to kill was already rising hard and fast within him.

  After making sure they were unconscious, he pulled two pressure syringes from his pack and a vial of sedative. They needed to stay out for a while. He didn’t have the time or the patience to deal with the interference they would cause.

  Using the sheriff’s restraints, he secured them by the wrists and ankles and left them lying on the kitchen floor. If either of them had an ounce of intelligence, then it wouldn’t take them long to get free. But it would give him enough time to do what he had to do. They were going to nap for a while anyway.

  Cabal reengaged the comm link as he left the house, and pulled the sat phones free again as he hit the secure line to Jonas’s link.

  “I’m going to kill you when I find you,” Jonas promised with lethal deliberation.

  “You have a bigger problem. Azrael is alive.”

  There was a long silence, dark and dangerous, across the link.

  “That’s not possible,” Jonas finally answered, his voice cold. “His DNA was identified at the scene.”

  “You said yourself when we found Alonzo that these kills reminded you of Azrael,” Cabal reminded him. “That’s because they are his kills. I suspect the six Breeds he led are here with him as well. You need to get an accounting of your Breeds, Director. All kinds of problems are beginning to crop up here,” he finished sarcastically.

  “It’s not Azrael.” Jonas denied it again. “He’s dead, Cabal. Whoever this is is just doing a damned good job of impersonating him. Do you have anything else?”

  Cabal shook his head. Jonas didn’t want to admit Azrael was out there, simply because there would be no controlling that particular Breed.

  “I guess giving you the sat phone number I have for our god of death would be a bad idea then,” he drawled. “I was hoping you could trace it, but I think I can handle that little chore now.”

  “Don’t make me kill you painfully, Cabal,” Jonas warned him, and it wasn’t an idle threat.

  There would be payment for literally going rogue on the director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs. That wasn’t usually a wise move. However, in this case, it had been Cabal’s only possible move.

  “Sorry, Director. Some things are more important than the bottom line.” He disconnected the link as he mulled over Jonas’s insistence that Azrael was indeed dead. The director should have learned by now that nothing was definite where Breeds were concerned.

  There had been too many Breeds that were believed dead but had turned up alive in the past few years. It wouldn’t surprise Cabal in the least to learn that Azrael was indeed still alive.

  Moving away from the sheriff’s house, he pulled one of the small remote sat detectors from his pack and plugged the sat phone into it. Pulling up the numbers once again, he chose the one he figured was most likely the rogue he was searching for. The number dialed the most often.

  Tucking the unit back into the leather holder, he loped through the forest to the area where he’d stored his rifle and larger pack before entering the cabin. He should have the location he was searching for soon. Once he had that, he would have his mate’s kidnapper.

  His muscles were tense, and rage still thundered through his blood as he fought to hold on to his much needed control. Now wasn’t the time to let the animal free, to allow the killer to hunt. The man had to keep a measure of control for the time being. Until his mate was safe. Then the animal could have his vengeance.

  God help all of them if Cassa had been harmed. There would be no force on earth that could save any of them. Danna Lacey, Myron, Azrael or whoever the hell he was—it wouldn’t matter. If Cassa was harmed, then Cabal had no reason to live.

  He almost paused at that thought. Living had always been the one hunger that had gotten him through the hellish existence of the labs. Nothing had mattered but survival. When most of his pride had died, when he had realized there was no way to save them, even then, survival had been paramount.

  It was humbling to realize that if Cassa didn’t live, didn’t breathe in his world, then he didn’t want to be a part of it.

  He paused, breathed in hard and deep and fought back the emotion clawing at his chest, at his throat. God help him, just to smell her scent, to hear her voice, to know she lived . . .

  He couldn’t bear the not knowing. Wondering if she was suffering. If Azrael lived, then he was the one Breed that wouldn’t care if she suffered. If he had deemed her a threat, or a pawn in this game, then he wouldn’t care if she hurt
, if she cried. If she was innocent. Nothing would matter but the plan he had in store for her.

  If that were the case, then nothing would matter to Cabal but his blood. Azrael might be the god of death, but Cabal would ensure he died.

  As he reached the store of supplies he had stashed for the visit to the sheriff’s home, he felt the muted vibration of the tracking unit in its pack against his thigh. He smiled, a cold, hard curl of his lips, and drew the device out.

  And there it was. The location of the sat phone he was searching for. And, he prayed, the location of his mate.

  ◆ CHAPTER 25 ◆

  “Rick, I can’t reach Danna or Myron on their sats.” Walt moved back into the kitchen a few hours later, a frown creasing his brow. “They were calling every few minutes, then it just stopped. I can’t reach them now.”

  Patrick turned from the open window above the sink, his gaze going immediately to Cassa, his eyes turning hard and cold.

  “Keith.” He turned to the Breed that waited silently at the other side of the room. “Contact Rand and Jason. Have them check on it.”

  Keith nodded before pulling free the sat phone and making the call. His voice was low as he spoke, filled with pauses, but little expression on his face.

  “I’ll let him know,” he finally said before turning to Patrick. “They’re under surveillance,” he reported. “Do you still want them to continue?”

  Patrick looked at her again, as though it were her fault or she could do something about it. Finally, he nodded slowly. “Continue and report back to me.”

  Keith relayed the order before disconnecting and storing the small phone in his jeans pocket.

  “If he’s hurt them, you’ll hurt,” he stated coldly. “He knew that before he laid hands on them.”

  “If your mate was taken, what would you do?” she asked him. “Who would you hurt? They knew the risk when they helped you in this.”

  “And he knows the risks in striking against them.” He lifted his shoulders heavily. “So be it.”

  So be it.

  Cassa shook her head at the statement. This was the part of the Breed world that she didn’t always understand. Though she knew she should by now. In some ways it wasn’t that dissimilar to the human psychology, and yet in others, they were poles apart.

  She was a pawn between Patrick Wallace and Cabal whether she wanted to be or not. She was insurance that Cabal wouldn’t strike out against his friends, as well as insurance that he would stay suitably occupied while Patrick killed again.

  “Once Douglas is dead and you’ve found your son, what then?” she asked him. “What’s left, Patrick?”

  He didn’t answer her immediately, but she saw the stiffening of his shoulders, knew he’d heard her and that the question had impacted.

  “There are four more,” he finally answered. “If Jonas doesn’t kill me, then I’ll finish the job.”

  “Jonas?” She stared back at him in surprise. “Jonas is the one you have to worry about killing you?”

  “Jonas is the only one capable of killing me,” he informed her with mild amusement. “Your Bengal is good, Ms. Hawkins; he’s damned good. But he’s not a primal Bengal. He’s a recessed Bengal.”

  “Really?” The question was mockingly phrased. “So there are two different kind of Bengals?” That was news to her.

  He turned back to her then. “There are in every Breed species.” He lifted his hand, flexed his fingers, and Cassa felt her stomach almost heave as she watched claws extend and push out beneath the nails.

  “I’m a primal Lion Breed.” He smiled. “The skin on each side of the human nails is no more than cartilage. Beneath the nail is a claw. It’s really rather interesting, though damned confusing to the scientists as well as the few primals that exist. There’s no pain, but sometimes, if the claws aren’t exercised, there is some blood during retraction. All in all, it’s really quite amazing. Primal Lions have been noted to have that ability. It’s rumored that primal Bengals display their stripes, especially across their face during a hunt. The small hairs at the nape of their neck become thicker, their sense of smell sharper, their rage is like icy fury. I saw one killed in the lab before my escape. It fought with true fury. Took out several Coyote soldiers as well as trained pit bulls. It was an incredible sight.”

  It sounded terrifying to her. Cruel and horrible. And this man had called it an incredible sight.

  “But they don’t have the retractable claws?” she asked. She had seen Cabal’s stripes, she had sensed the animal he tried to hide.

  “They do.” He nodded. “All primal Feline Breeds have the retractable claws.”

  She turned away from him. Cabal didn’t have retractable claws, she knew that. At least, she didn’t think he did. She had to admit she hadn’t actually asked him about them.

  “Jonas is primal,” Patrick revealed. “Few realize this, and he definitely wouldn’t want the public to know. But he was created to breed. To be a stud for a new army.” He chuckled at that. “He was primal from birth.”

  “You know Jonas?” She turned back to him, searching his expression.

  Patrick shrugged. “I know of Jonas. I knew the rumors that circulated of his genetics, and I knew what the scientists were working on before I escaped myself. It wasn’t hard to figure out who and what he was once I began checking into it.”

  “You investigated Jonas before starting this. As well as Cabal,” she guessed.

  “I did.” He nodded. “As well as Rule Breaker and Lawe Justice.” He grinned at the names. “Even they aren’t quite what you would expect. Mordecai, that Coyote Jonas keeps on a leash, is more dangerous than he knows. Coyotes aren’t always forthcoming, you know, even to those they give their loyalty to.”

  She shook her head. “And you’re going to defeat them all?”

  “I don’t have to defeat them all,” he sighed. “I just have to get Watts. He’s probably in town by now. I wonder if he’ll ask about you. Do you think he’s forgotten about his lovely wife in the years Jonas has kept him imprisoned?”

  “No doubt,” she said, mocking him. “Especially considering the fact we weren’t really married.”

  “There was that.” He nodded. “At least you know where you stand with Cabal. No divorce. And the words ‘till death do us part’ take on a whole new meaning, wouldn’t you say? When your mate dies, a part of you dies with them.” There was an edge of bitterness there, one that didn’t belong with a man’s feelings toward his wife. Or his mate. There was almost a hatred, a cold, hard core of pure resentment.

  “Does innocent blood appeal to you, Patrick?” she asked him. “Is that why you don’t mind using an innocent in your games?”

  “There are no innocents,” he grunted as he turned back to the window, obviously assessing the breeze and the scents that flowed from the mountain. “And there’s no innocence. We just pretend there is.”

  Cassa parted her lips to argue that statement, but as she began to speak the sat phone at Patrick’s belt beeped imperatively.

  Pulling the phone free, he checked it, quirked his lips mockingly, then flipped it open. “Good evening, Douglas. How nice to hear from you.” He turned to Cassa, his brows lifting in surprise. “Actually, I do have her.” He paused. Listened. His expression darkened. “A trade? Very well. The information I want for your wife. Where would you like to meet?”

  For one horrifying moment she felt fear cascade inside her and felt any hope she had of surviving this diminish. He was going to trade her for information on his son. He was going to trade her to a man that they both knew would kill her. There was no way Douglas would allow her to survive.

  God, where was Cabal?

  Douglas Watts stared at the sat phone in his hand, then at the commander of the Coyote team that had broken him from the prison Jonas Wyatt and Cabal St. Laurents had kept him in for more than eleven years.

  He hated Breeds. It didn’t matter what kind they were or whether or not they were loyal to the Genetics Council.
He just flat-out hated them.

  H. R. Alonzo had phrased it perfectly. They were an abomination against mankind. Whatever had possessed scientists to think they could control these creatures, he didn’t know.

  Now they were mixing in the general population, mating human, God-created women and infecting them with the DNA that had created the Breeds and making inhuman little monsters.

  “Were you able to track the call?” he asked the commander, as the Breed stared at the display on the tracking device he used.

  The Breed shook his head slowly. “The signal’s bouncing. It wasn’t a direct line.” He folded the device and slipped it into a pocket of his olive green mission pants.

  Douglas inhaled slowly. Deeply. Patience, he warned himself. The Council contact that had arranged the breakout had warned him that these Coyotes didn’t understand subservience the way Coyotes used to understand it.

  Kill them all, he thought. That was what they should have done.

  Clenching his teeth, he looked down at his legs and moved them again. At least there was some satisfaction there. The metal supports on his legs gave them strength, and the neural disc that had been implanted just after his escape gave him movement, sensation.

  Damn, he was a man again. He was even fucking horny. He hadn’t had a hard-on since that son of a bitch St. Laurents staked him in the spine the night Douglas had tried to ensure his death.

  If it just hadn’t been for that stupid bitch, Cassa. God, he was glad he hadn’t actually married her. The woman was dumb as a fucking brick. She wasn’t even a nice fuck. Not that she couldn’t have been if she had just put a little effort into it. The little prude.

  He snorted at the thought. He bet she would move that little ass the next time he got his dick inside her. Being mated to that Bengal. He almost chuckled at the thought. He’d heard about mating and what it did to a woman, how they couldn’t tolerate another man’s touch. Hell, he’d even seen it for himself. Twenty-two years ago, in the mountains of this little town. He’d had the pleasure of raping one. She’d screamed. Screamed in agony. Begged and fought him like a lioness. And finally, she’d died. He’d fucked her until she lost the little animal she was carrying and died right there in his arms.

  He was going to fuck Cassa like that too. Fuck her until she screamed and cried, fought and begged. And if she was carrying St. Laurents’s kittens, then he’d make sure she wasn’t carrying them when he finished with her.

  Moving slowly, he rose to his feet, almost moaning with the welcome pain he felt in his legs. It would take a while to regain the muscle he’d lost in the past eleven years, the surgeon had warned him. But it would happen. He had his legs back, he had his manhood back.

  And he had to piss.

  Even that feeling was almost ecstasy. Soon, he’d be back to his old self, and once he was, he’d tell the world, show them the brutality of the Breeds.

  They had reported Douglas Watts dead. Wouldn’t the world be surprised when he showed up, not just alive, but with proof of what they did to their enemies and the horrors they subjected those against them to.

  “We’re meeting them in the valley then?” the commander asked, his voice chillingly polite.

  “Isn’t that what you heard me arrange?” Douglas grunted, wishing he could slap the bastard down as he should have been able to do.

  “There have been Bureau patrols around them,” the Coyote reminded him. “Just because the meet was stated for there doesn’t mean we can’t change it.”

  No, the valley was perfect. He almost rubbed his hands together in glee. There was a reason he and his friends had chosen that valley to ambush the Breeds in. There were plenty of places to hide and not as many to break through. The bastard that had dared to try to kill off the Deadly Dozen, and Douglas himself, would learn that he wasn’t dealing with some country bumpkin.

  Good Lord, why hadn’t Phillip Brandenmore taken care of this mess in Glen Ferris? He practically owned this town, but still, Breeds lived and were probably breeding here. Like rats. Or cockroaches.

  “I gotta take a piss,” he told the Breed commander. Damn if he could remember his name. “Get your men together. Have they moved to the valley yet?”

  “My men are in place.” The answer wasn’t rude, but it was just shy of it.

  Douglas glared back at him. “Remember who’s paying you,” he bit out angrily. “If you don’t succeed, you won’t get a penny.”

  The Coyote’s grin was rueful. “And I’m all about the money, man. It’s the only reason your white-trash ass is still alive.”

  Fury nearly strangled Douglas. He was not white trash. He could trace his family tree back beyond the Mayflower. He was a descendant of kings, and this bastard dared to talk to him this way.

  “You remind me of a braying jackass,” Douglas sneered. “You bastards used to remember your place.”

  The Coyote laughed at that. “At your back, with a blade? Man, you’d be bleeding from your throat, not your back, if you weren’t worth more to me alive than dead. Now take your piss so we can get started.”

  The Coyote shook his head as he continued to chuckle. Let him enjoy his little laugh. He would be next, Douglas promised himself. There were plenty of pure blood societies willing to be trained to kill these animals. And Douglas knew just how to train them. Just how to work them. And this Coyote commander would be first on his list.

  Brimstone might think his shit didn’t stink, but Douglas would be the man to show him better. Soon. Very soon.

  Cabal took the pill he had saved back from those he had given Jonas. It wouldn’t eliminate the human side of his scent, but it would at least hide the Breed. If he stayed downwind of the location he had tracked the sat phone to, then it wouldn’t matter anyway.

  He just had to find Cassa. He would deal with Patrick Wallace, or Azrael as Cabal suspected him to be, after Cassa’s safety was assured.

  God help the bastard if she wasn’t okay.

  Shifting the pack on his back, he scaled one of the low-lying cliffs that led along the path to the location he was searching for. There wasn’t time to go around it. Cassa said the pills lasted two hours; that should be time enough for what he had to do.

  As he slid along the top of the cliff, he stayed low, listening to the steady hum of the near silent heli-jet cruising overhead.

  The specially designed mission pants he wore would hide him from the thermal imaging the craft had. He’d disconnected the locator the pants carried, ensuring that Jonas couldn’t pick him up on the specialized radar the heli-jet was equipped with.

  As it passed overhead, Cabal rose to his feet and moved quickly along one of the narrow paths that animals or hikers had made on the mountain. He checked the sat phone locator beacon often, noticing that it hadn’t moved. At least not yet. Though Jonas had sent a message that Douglas Watts was definitely on the move, and that worried Cabal. Because Watts was heading this way.

  He ignored the slight chill that pressed through the mission suit and ignored the snow beginning to swirl around him.

  As he topped the rise, he crawled to the edge of a ravine and looked over, his eyes narrowing at the slightest glow of light through the darkness.

  He checked the trac