Bengal's Heart

by Leigh, Lora

  Myron frowned at that, as he pulled his cell free of his jacket pocket and flipped it open. “She didn’t call.”

  Danna’s smile was a bit rueful. “She lost her cell phone again, Myron. She’s at the diner. I told her I’d let you know if I saw you.”

  Myron rolled his eyes. His expression was a cross between impatience and impotence.

  “Time for me to go.” He opened the car door as Cassa straightened from the car and glanced back at him. “Tell your Bengal hello from me, Cassa. Make sure I get an invite to the joining, wedding or whatever the hell they’re calling it this month.”

  The reference to the different titles given to mating ceremonies had a frown flashing across Cassa’s face. There was a hint of knowledge in Myron’s tone that shouldn’t be there. As though he knew more about the ceremonies, and the joining, than he should.

  “Yeah, I’ll make sure to make a note of that,” she promised mockingly, as he got into the car and slid it smoothly into gear.

  He drove off as Cassa turned and lifted a brow in the sheriff’s direction.

  Sheriff Lacey grinned at the look. “Patty’s my cousin,” she stated. “She’s been having a hard time lately. I didn’t want rumor circulating that Myron was seen having a nice little visit with a strange woman.”

  At least the sheriff was honest.

  “Cassa Hawkins.” Cassa extended her hand to the other woman. “I’m a fellow reporter. Myron and I went to college together.”

  “He’s mentioned you actually.” The sheriff nodded with a smile. “You were there with him during the first interview with Callan Lyons, when he revealed the existence of the Breeds.”

  That historic occasion was one that Cassa had nearly missed. s.” ssed The notice had gone across the nation that a breaking story in Ashland, Kentucky, was going to blow the top off a top secret private and military experiment that had been over a century in the making.

  Cassa and Myron had met up in West Virginia and driven in at near breakneck speed. They had questioned Lyons, gone over the medical evidence and seen the truth for themselves, along with dozens of other reporters.

  “I was there,” Cassa admitted.

  That had been more than a decade ago. Hell, it was probably closer to twelve years before. So much time had passed. So many lives had been lost as well as created in that time.

  So many years, and still the Genetics Council that had created the Breeds, then tried to destroy their creations, was hampering their freedom.

  The Council funded pure blood societies, incited those groups against the Breeds and, in some cases, recaptured their creations and finished the destruction.

  “There were a lot of us that threw a party the day Lyons revealed what was going on.” Danna nodded. “I was part of the Breed Freedom Society,” she revealed. “The battle isn’t over, but reporters such as yourself and Myron have definitely made the world safer for them.”

  The Breed Freedom Society had disbanded a few years after Sanctuary, the Feline Breed compound, had been created.

  They had created themselves as a group dedicated to the lives of the Breeds who managed to escape and to finding them. They hid them in the mountains and in their own homes, or smuggled them to other states. Whatever it had taken to protect them.

  “Lyons coming forward made it much easier to protect them,” Cassa agreed. “The battle isn’t over yet though.”

  “No, not quite,” the sheriff agreed as Cassa fought back a cold shiver.

  The temperature felt as though it had dropped on the outside, while on the inside she was beginning to burn with disastrous results.

  “The Breed Freedom Society is almost as legendary as Lyons himself,” Cassa told her. “Your group was together for more than two decades trying to protect the Breeds that came here. You did a wonderful job.”

  “Did we?” The somber curve to the sheriff’s lips couldn’t be called a smile. “We did our best, but it was rarely enough.” She turned and stared at Myron’s vehicle as it turned back to the main road. “He was married to a Breed, you know.”

  She hadn’t known.

  Cassa turned her head quickly to the rapidly disappearing car before turning back to the sheriff.

  “I had no idea.”

  Had Myron mated his Breed?

  “She was killed a few years before Lyons came forward,” the sheriff said. “An entire group of Breeds was killed that night. It was Valentine’s night. She was pregnant at the time with their first child. David Banks was part of the group that hunted them down, though we couldn’t prove it.”

  Good God. David Banks had been part of the Deadly Dozen, she had known that, or at least her informant had claimed he was, and Cassa hadn’t doubted it. But to hear this, to know he had killed so indiscriminately, for the fun of it, still had the power to shock her to the core of her soul.

  “I’ve known Myron a lot of years,” Cassa said. “I had no idea.”

  Danna shrugged. “It’s fairly common knowledge here in Glen Ferris. For a while, we didn’t think Myron would survive her death. He was in bad shape.” The sheriff shook her head in concern. “When he finally pulled himself out of it, he just wasn’t the same anymore. A few years later he married Patricia, but she knows Myron never forgot his first wife, Illandra.”

  Which explained why Myron’s wife was so possessive and jealous. She had a man who she knew belonged to another woman. It wouldn’t matter if that woman had died, or if she was living, in her heart Patricia knew that his heart belonged to another.

  “You talk to enough folks and you’ll hear about Illandra,” Danna sighed. “We all loved her, especially those of us who were part of the Freedom Society. If we’d known who the men were in that hunting party, we would have done a little hunting of our own.”

  Cassa saw the rage that flashed in the sheriff’s eyes, the pain that filled her face for the briefest second. She knew Myron was close to all his family. He thrived on family, and evidently Danna did as well.

  “Anyway, just be careful where you meet him and who sees it,” Danna advised. “Patricia’s been sick lately, and she doesn’t need any more grief than she’s already dealt with here.”

  Cassa nodded slowly. She could relate to that, she could understand it. Cassa had her own ghosts, her own regrets that she knew would follow her probably even into death.

  She understood Patricia a little better now though, where she hadn’t before. She’d always liked Myron’s wife, but she’d always known that Patricia had hated it when Cassa met with Myron over the Breed revelations more than a decade ago.

  If Myron had mated his Breed wife though, would he have eventually been able to wed and to have children with another woman? And there was no doubt those children were Myron’s. They looked just like him.

  She wished now that she had questioned her friend more extensively when she first learned that he had been part of a group that had smuggled Breeds through the States after their escape. She wished she had delved into more than the fact that Breeds had been escaping those labs for decades.

  There was so much information to process at times with this new species of humanity though. Sometimes Cassa could well relate to the average citizen’s fears and phobias where the Breeds were concerned.

  Breeds had been created with one purpose in mind: to kill, and to do so savagely and without mercy. To look at them, to see the near perfection of their bodies and their features, it was hard at first to imagine that killers lurked behind their charming smiles or saddened eyes.

  But that was exactly what lurked there. A creature that had been bred with the intent to bring out the most animalistic instincts that could be imagined.

  “I better be going then,” the sheriff finally announced as she turned away. “If you need anything, Miss Hawkins . . .”

  “Actually, I do,” Cassa informed her.

  The sheriff turned back to her slowly with a frown. “How so?”

  “I need to know more about David Banks and his disappearance. Ther
e’s been no body, no clue to his whereabouts or who may have wanted him dead. This is my story, Sheriff Lacey. I’m going to need information from somewhere.”

  A smile flashed across the other woman’s face. It was tinged with a hint of knowing mockery as well as friendliness.

  “So, since you can’t meet with Myron, you’ll just ask me?”

  Cassa lifted her hands with amused helplessness. “We do what we must.”

  The sheriff laughed at that. “That we do.” She shrugged her shoulders beneath the heavy jacket she wore. “But, where Banks is concerned, there’s not a lot I can tell you. I know his ex-wife, his kids, in-laws and grandkids. I know his birthday, I know where he ate when he ate out and who his golfing buddies in town were, but that’s about it.”

  Cassa pulled the notebook and pen from her back pocket and flipped it open. “Who were the golfing buddies?”

  Danna’s eyes glittered with amusement as she shook her head. “You’re a quick one. No one knows anything, but I’ll give you names.”

  The sheriff gave her names—names of the golfing buddies, Banks’s favorite waitress and his banker. By the time they’d finished talking and Danna was driving away, Cassa was left with a head full of information that she had no idea how to categorize at the moment.

  She was also left to face the mating heat and its building effects. The burn between her thighs, the light sheen of sweat between her breasts and the knowledge that, on more than one front, running from Cabal wasn’t going to work.

  Even more, running from herself wasn’t going to work. The old saying you can run but you can’t hide more than applied at the moment. She was running from the emotions she had hid for far too many years, and now she was going to have to figure out exactly how to deal with them.

  Tucking her hands back into the pockets of her jacket, she turned and headed out of the park for the walk back to the inn. It wasn’t a short hike, and it would be hell with the mating heat rising inside her body. It would give her time to think though. And right now, she needed plenty of time to think.

  ◆ CHAPTER 8 ◆

  Cabal followed his mate as she made her way back to the inn and to her room. He’d shamelessly eavesdropped on her conversation with both the male she had met with as well as the sheriff that had arrived later.

  Following her smacked of deceit, especially considering the night that had just transpired between them. But he’d be damned if he knew what else to do at this point.

  For the first time in his life, Cabal was conflicted.

  Emotions. He knew what they were; it wasn’t as though he didn’t have feelings. He just made certain he didn’t have them often. He was immune to having a conscience—with the blood that stained his hands, he’d be crazy not to be immune to it. He liked sleeping at night, and worrying over lost lives outside his control wasn’t conducive to sleeping.

  Or were feelings out of his control?

  He shook his head at the thought, as his hands clenched at his sides. He was lingering outside Cassa’s room like a damned stalker uncertain if it was time to strike.

  She was his mate. He had every right to be in that room with her. To touch her. Except there were other responsibilities that came with touching, responsibilities he just didn’t know how to carry.

  As he stood there staring at the door to her room, he was reminded of another young woman, who had often given him cause to think of Cassa.

  Jolian. The little Jaguar Breed had been young, clumsy, uncertain with herself and her place in Sanctuary. She had also, for a brief time, been suspected of spying within the Feline Breed compound.

  She’d died when the spy they had overlooked had attempted to kidnap Cabal’s sister-in-law, Scheme. She had died as she attempted to fix a misunderstanding that she feared had angered Cabal. Because she had been infatuated with him. Because she hadn’t wanted him upset with her. She had given her life to explain that to Scheme. She’d stood between Scheme and the kidnapper.

  He remembered sitting next to her still, lifeless body and staring into her pale face. He’d cared for her, even though he hadn’t wanted to admit to himself that he had. Not as a mate, not really even as a lover. But he had cared for her because what came so hard to him was easy for her.

  Emotions. She had cared about him, and she had gone out of her way so many times to show it. Her smiles, her attempts at laughter, even the nervous little twitter that had often been in her voice and the scent of anticipation and hopelessness that often filled the air around her.

  She’d had very little respect from other Breeds, simply because of her lack of confidence. As he sat beside her that day, he’d realized she hadn’t had enough respect from him.

  She had died feeling unloved, unwanted and, even worse, untrusted by the man she had thought she loved. She had let her heart, her emotions, get in the way of her training, and she had died because of it.

  Now Cabal was facing the fact that something he didn’t want to admit to was getting in the way of his mission: his emotions, his hunger for Cassa, his need just to be close to her.

  Yet when she had tried to curl up against him this morning, what had he done? When she had sought a bit of solace amid the tempestuousness of the mating heat, he had moved away from her, uncertain how to deal with it.

  He could deal with the sex. The physical part of mating heat wasn’t a hardship. It was damned exciting and more pleasure than he’d ever had in his life. It was also causing some of the damnedest feelings to rise up inside him. Feelings he didn’t want to face and didn’t want to admit to. Heading the list was the need to hold her.

  He’d run from her this morning like a fucking coward. Now he was hanging around outside her door like a worse fucking coward.

  Son of a bitch.

  Because the mating heat was doing something odd to him. He didn’t have the need to just fuck. Hell no, it couldn’t be that simple. Just getting his rocks off wasn’t going to be enough with this woman, as it had been with others.

  He wanted to feel her. He wanted to feel her rubbing against him, her skin stroking his, her hands caressing him as he stroked and caressed her. He wanted her laughter, God help him, even her tears.

  It was the strangest thing. He’d never had the desire to be close to any woman, but this woman, he wanted to sink into her flesh and be consumed by her.

  She was dangerous. The animal inside him had realized that the night he escaped from that pit, lured by the scent of her fear, her rage and his own fury. He had realized it in that one instant when he saw her pale face, her agonized gray eyes, and knew that she belonged to the man who had betrayed the lives of his family.

  She was dangerous because she slipped past his training as well as his determination not to care, for anyone. He cared for his brother, Tanner; he had no choice there. Tanner hadn’t allowed him a choice. He cared for Tanner’s mate, Scheme. That perhaps was instinct. She belonged to Tanner, therefore she was Cabal’s responsibility to care for.

  But this woman?

  He strode down the hall before turning and contemplating the closed door once again. This woman he had no ties to, he had no reason to care if she was warm, if she needed affection or needed to be held.

  Yet he did care.

  Clenching his teeth, his muscles bunched to move. Before he could make the trip back to her door, the cell phone at his belt vibrated imperiously.

  Throttling a growl, he jerked the phone from its clip, checked the number, then flipped it open and brought it to his ear.

  “What the hell do you want?” he answered.

  “A few manners would go over very well tonight,” Jonas replied sarcastically. “A little discretion wouldn’t be amiss either.”

  “I haven’t had witnesses in years,” Cabal snapped. “And we were taught not to spill blood in public, remember? So what the hell are you talking about?”

  The silence on the line was telling. Jonas’s patience was being tested, and wasn’t that just too damned bad.

  “I have pi
ctures,” Jonas finally said, ice dripping from his voice. “A pretty little park, a pretty little mate and a Bengal Breed all over her in the front seat of his truck.”

  “Pictures?” Cabal asked carefully. No one should have had pictures. He hadn’t sensed anyone watching, nor had he sensed any danger.

  “Isn’t that what I said?” Jonas stated calmly. “The memo attached states that one Cabal St. Laurents seems to have ‘mated’ the Breeds’ favorite reporter.” There was a short, tense silence. “We have a problem here, Cabal.”

  Mated. The very fact that the word had been used was cause for alarm. So far, they had managed to ensure that exactly what mating heat was remained hidden, and the term “mate” wasn’t something used lightly. Someone knew. Which meant Cassa could be in danger. The Council would love nothing better than to get their hands on a Breed mate. Especially the mate of a Bengal Breed.

  “We have a Breed watching us,” Cabal stated. “Have you checked out Dog’s interest in the area?”

  “This isn’t Dog,” Jonas replied, his tone certain.

  “Is Dog here at your request?” Cabal asked then, knowing the machinations that the Bureau director was often involved in.

  “He’s not there at my request, but neither is he considered a danger at this point.”

  That told him more than he wanted to know, Cabal thought. Dog wasn’t under Jonas’s control, but the reasons he was here benefited Jonas or the Breeds in some way. With Jonas, it was all about the Breed society, something most people rarely understood when it came to his games and calculations.

  “So what the hell do you want me to do?” Cabal finally growled. “You have pictures and a message that she’s my mate. Our killer is a Breed; there’s every chance he well knows what a mate is.”

  “And every chance that he’s deliberately pulled in the one person that could distract you,” Jonas pointed out. “Which means he has some connections into the community.”

  “We’ve gone over this ground,” Cabal sighed. “I know she’s being watched. We already suspected she had been deliberately brought in, now we know why.”