Bengal's Heart

by Leigh, Lora

  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 tracker on the sat phone, and was certain that this was the cabin he was searching for. He watched, inhaling the scents blowing toward him, searching for some sign of Cassa and finding nothing on the cold breeze.

  He was going to have to get in closer, but with the way the cabin sat and the position of the ravine, it was going to be damned near impossible to slip up on another Breed. His Breed scent might be masked, but if the pill did indeed allow the human scent through, then he could be fucked. Because Azrael would be able to detect him coming.

  He would have to stay low. The lower he was, the less chance there would be of the breeze betraying him. The winds were swirling, but for the moment they
were coming down, curling and moving along the edge of the valley. If they stayed as they were, a big if there, then there would be a narrow window of movement that he could use to advance on the cabin.

  Plotting his course, he gave the breeze time to die down before he took off. Using one hand to hold the rifle secure at his back, he ran, body low, using the speed that had been built into his genetics to race the wind.

  As he drew closer to the cabin, he knew something was wrong. He could smell Breed scent; Walt Jameson’s scent was there as well as a scent he knew belonged to David Banks. But the scents weren’t fresh. They weren’t there.

  Enraged, a howl tore from Cabal’s lips as he went through the front door. Glass and wood crashed into an immaculate kitchen. There was chili on the stove, coffee in the pot. All fresh. Cassa’s scent was there at the table, an untouched bowl of food where she had sat.

  But there was no Cassa.

  “You fucker!” he screamed. Fury burned like fire in his blood and tore through his senses, darkening the stripes now bisecting his face and running down his body.

  “Jonas,” he barked into the comm link. “They’re not at the cabin I tracked the sat phone signal from. What the fuck is going on?”

  “Watts is moving,” Jonas growled into the link. “If you’d keep the goddamned link turned on, you might know that. There’s movement at the valley where Alonzo’s body was found. We can’t slip in with the heli-jet. We’re moving in on foot.”

  Cabal didn’t wait to question. The clearing was a good half hour’s hard run from where he was currently at. The distance could be shortened if he shot over the cliff behind him. If he could scale it quickly enough.

  It was a second’s thought, quick calculation before he ran for the cliff. The leather gloves on his hands protected his palms, but nothing could protect the gloves as his nails retracted, the strong claws beneath shooting out to grip the stone.

  He scrambled up the narrow cliff face, using every ounce of strength in his arms and legs to move himself quickly along the jutting stone and the weathered erosions that pitted it.

  Within minutes he was jumping over the top and was running. Son of a bitch, he hated running with this damned suit on. He couldn’t feel the breeze, couldn’t smell it either, couldn’t sense friend or foe as he could without the protective outerwear.

  Without it though he would be easily detectable to Breed or human devices. The fabric blocked some scent; hopefully the anti-scent drug he had taken would completely block the Breed scent. If he was lucky, damned lucky, then he just might be able to slip in.

  “Cassa’s been sighted, Cabal. She’s alive. Patrick Wallace has made a deal with Watts according to the information our spy within the group had gotten to us. He’s trading Cassa to Watts for information on a missing son.”

  “What missing kid?” he snarled into the link.

  “The Valentine’s night massacre,” Jonas relayed. “Wallace’s mate was in labor when the Dozen found her. She was alone with the midwife. Both his mate and the midwife were killed. Her child was cut from her body and taken. Watts took the boy. Wallace is hunting for his child.”

  Then he should have come to Jonas. Hell, he could have come to Cabal at any time and received every resource they could use to find Wallace’s missing child.

  No, what this man had done was insanity. He had killed, risked the Breed community and then dared to attempt to trade Cassa for information.

  He was a dead man, Cabal promised himself. There was no way in hell Cabal was going to allow such mercilessness to survive.

  “Cabal, we have a team moving in,” Jonas informed him. “Brimstone is commander of the Coyotes that broke Watts out of the prison. That team is not to be touched. Those Coyotes are friendly. I repeat, they’re friendly. Do not engage. Son of a bitch, you stubborn-assed Bengal. I know what the fuck I’m doing here!” Jonas finally yelled in frustration when Cabal didn’t respond.

  Engage, his ass. Then they better not get in his damned way. He liked Brimstone just fine. Second-in-command of the Coyotes that had joined the Wolf community of Haven, he was a fine man. He was a damned good Breed. But if he stood in Cabal’s way, then he was going to be a damned good dead Breed. It was that simple.

  ◆ CHAPTER 26 ◆

  Patrick Wallace didn’t touch her, Cassa had to give him that. He made certain she was given breathing room, she wasn’t crowded in the van that he, Walt, Keith and David rode in.

  David didn’t continue the full distance. They met another vehicle not far down the mountain.

  “Protection,” Patrick murmured as Cassa watched the several Breeds from the other vehicle help David Banks into the four-wheel-drive. “David has proof and information against the members of the Dozen that have been identified so far. It’s been a process of elimination for the past few years.”

  Cassa turned and stared at his profile. His expression was quiet, reflective. His face was cast in shadow in the low light of the dash, giving him a somber, dark-angel appearance.

  “You won’t find the identities of the final four,” she told him quietly. “Cabal will kill you for this, Patrick.”

  She was shaking inside. She could feel the fear moving through her, building in her mind. If Cabal didn’t find her soon, and she knew he was looking for her, then she was screwed. God only knew what Douglas would do to her once he got his hands on her. From the videos she had seen of those hunts, it was something she didn’t want to contemplate.

  Patrick shook his head slowly.

  “My mate betrayed me and mine to those hunters,” he said quietly. “My best fighters were massacred. The females of my pride were either killed or returned to their labs. I learned then: You do what you have to do. My loyalty is to my fallen pride and those who still survive. You’re a pawn, Ms. Hawkins. Cabal was a pawn. And Watts will become a fatality. However I have to effect that end, that is what he will be. Whether you live or die all depends on how intelligent you are, and whether or not you’ve learned how to fight in the past eleven years.” She stared back at him, knowing there was going to be no mercy here. He might not want to hurt her himself, but if she was harmed, he wouldn’t cry over it.

  “I hope this is worth the hell Cabal will ensure you endure,” she whispered.

  “There is no hell greater than the one I’ve already endured.” He sighed as he slid the vehicle into gear and drove the van out of the wide spot he’d used to pull off on.

  Cassa was certain a worse hell awaited her though if she didn’t find a way to escape it. What had he said? Her ability to survive this depended on her own intelligence. And what exactly did he mean by that?

  “Rick, everyone’s in place,” Walt informed him quietly as he disconnected the sat phone he had held to his ear for long moments. “Watts is moving into the meeting area.”

  Patrick nodded. “Keith?” He glanced at the Breed in the back.

  “In place.” Keith was quiet, his voice rough. “The players are all heading to the field.”

  The tension mounted in the van now.

  “Don’t do this,” she whispered again.

  “I was born to do this,” he said heavily. “Live or die. It ends with Watts tonight.”

  Cassa stared into the darkness that gathered around the van as they drove deeper into the mountains. The bare trees danced in the wind as snow began to swirl in the air. The chill outside seemed to seep inside the vehicle, to sink into her flesh.

  She needed Cabal. She ached to burrow against him, to feel the warmth of him just once more. She should have told him, she thought. She should have told him that this mating meant so much more to her than she had ever imagined it would. That through the years she had run from him, just as hard as he had run from her, because she had been frightened. Because she had been afraid he could never forgive her for the deaths of his family.

  Not just his pride. Those Breeds were more: They were brothers and sisters, born of the same mother, bred from the same genetics.

  She loved him. Sh
e had always loved him. That night as she stared into his eyes, feeling his fingers wrapped around her throat and seeing the amber rage in his gaze, she had also seen the mercy. The struggle within himself. The certainty that he would never hurt her, no matter the fury that tore through him.

  He hadn’t left the first mark on her. Not a single fingerprint or bruise. He hadn’t hurt her. He would never hurt her. In that single moment a part of her heart had opened and Cabal had filled it.

  And now she could lose that forever.

  Where was he? She stared out into the night, knowing he was there somewhere. He was looking for her. He was fighting to save her. She might have to save herself for a while first though.

  She could do that. Whatever it took to ensure that she had the future she had always dreamed of with Cabal. Whatever it took to ensure that she didn’t have to live so much as another hour without knowing that he understood the faith and the trust she placed in him.

  Had she ever told him that? She hadn’t. God, this had all happened so fast. The mating, learning to adjust to a heat that really wasn’t as bad as she had heard it was. Actually, she thought and frowned, it was rather tame when compared to the trials she knew other mates had faced.

  Though the physical symptoms were lighter than with other mates because of the hormones, she could still feel the bonding. She could feel the need to be close to him, the need for his warmth, not just his lovemaking. She needed Cabal, just because he was Cabal. Her wild Bengal Breed.

  “Get ready,” Patrick warned them as they pulled into the wide clearing she had used herself when searching for the valley where Alonzo had died.

  Get ready to die.

  Cassa could feel the tension rising inside her. As Patrick stepped out of the van and slid open the door by her seat, she met his gaze calmly.

  “You can’t trust Douglas,” she told him. “He always has a backup plan.”

  “As do I.” He shrugged. “Let’s go. We’ll get this taken care of as quickly as possible. Perhaps you’ll get lucky and you’ll see your mate before the night is over.”