Bengal's Quest

by Lora Leigh

  hrough the labs on a killing spree that left few within them alive, was often hazy.

  The monster he’d become that night had been a final, welcome relief. Because that creature had no mercy, no regrets or recriminations. He was pure superior intelligence and primal instinct.

  When the monster retreated and the Breed found a measure of sanity, there she had been, the cat that had begun his downfall. And the knowledge that she would always be his downfall.

  Gripping the sheet covering her, Graeme eased it slowly down her body, his lips quirking as the frown deepened at her brow.

  She should have already awakened.

  Were he a Council soldier or Breed, then she would have already been dead. Or raped. Possibly both. Probably both.

  But then, no doubt she would have awakened before a threat made it to her bedroom. He’d watched her over the months and he knew her instincts were damned good. The Breed instincts maturing inside her kept her on her toes.

  And apparently, trusted him far too well; otherwise she would be clawing rather than stretching sensually beneath his gaze as the sheet cleared her body.

  She could have worn one of those sexy nightgowns she owned, he thought in regret at the sight of the loose, sleeveless top and snug cotton pants she slept in. She even wore socks.

  A grimace pulled at his lips. He’d have much preferred the sexy nightie, dammit.

  Easing back from the bed and moving to the chair she’d placed next to the open balcony doors, he slouched back in the comfortable seat and just stared at her. He let his gaze caress her from her delicate face along the slender column of her neck to the rise of her breasts beneath the thin top.

  Nice breasts. A perfect handful and his fingers ached to cup them, stroke them.

  The many ways he could amuse himself with those lush, peaked curves tempted the control he exerted over his lusts. He wasn’t accustomed to restraining himself. Whether it be his need for sex or for blood, patience was used only when it made the game more exciting.

  Restraining himself would definitely make this game more exciting. So far, maneuvering her into place, pulling the pieces into play and beginning this particular game had called upon more patience than even he had imagined he possessed. The question was, could he maintain it?

  Focusing his gaze on her, he let his senses connect with the always alert part of her genetics that marked her as his and called her from sleep. Connecting with her inherent senses had always been particularly easy. Too easy.

  • • •

  Cat didn’t come awake slowly.

  Her eyes snapped open, aware of the presence even before she’d awakened. Furious that her sleeping senses hadn’t awakened her sooner. Could they have warned her first? Hell no. She had to wait until he commanded her to wake up.

  “So the cat’s awake.” The growl came from the far corner of the bedroom, directly across from the large bed. Slouched in the chair she’d positioned there for him, just to the side of the opened balcony doors, he watched her like the very dangerous feline he was.

  The asshole.

  “You’re late.” Sitting up as she slid her legs over the side of the bed, Cat watched him carefully. “I expected you the last night.”

  White teeth flashed in the darkness of the room as he shot her a mocking smile.

  “I was here.” The shrug of his shoulders wasn’t missed, nor was the latent confidence in it. He had to be related to Jonas Wyatt. The two were far too much alike.

  “No doubt you were,” she snorted. “You’ve turned into a stalker, G. I hadn’t expected that of you.”

  The racing of her heart gave lie to the casual attitude she’d adopted, she knew, just as the scent of her wariness would be easily detected by him.

  His amusement was frightening.

  Icy, watchful, predatory.

  She didn’t like it.

  “What did you expect of me then, little cat?” he drawled, shifting to lay his ankle on the opposite knee as he watched her with odd, amber-flecked green eyes.

  Like Jonas Wyatt’s silver eyes, there were no black pupils to separate the color. And when rage filled every molecule of the Breed, that color would bleed into the whites of his eyes as well.

  “I didn’t expect to wake up.” The admission wasn’t easy to make, but she had no illusions about her ability to fight the animal in front of her.

  There would be no fight to it, it was that simple.

  He only narrowed his gaze on her.

  “You thought I would kill you in your sleep?” he asked with an arch of his brow. “I’d at least give you a chance to fight.”

  The superior mockery in his voice assured her that he was well aware there would be no risk involved in allowing her a chance to fight. Only a moment to laugh at her.

  “Well, doesn’t that make me lucky,” she snorted. “That’s really big of you, G, that you’d give me a chance to realize how helpless I really am. I appreciate the thought.”

  She hadn’t expected that much, she realized. He could have easily sliced her throat in her sleep and that stupid heffer of a tigress inside her would have bowed down and let him without ever giving Cat a warning. Stupid Breed genetics.

  “I assumed you would.” The mocking drawl just grated on her nerves and had those Breed genetics she so often cursed rising to the fore. “See what a nice guy I really am?”

  Yeah, he was just a helluva guy, wasn’t he?

  It would have been nice if the genetics she possessed could have risen when he first slipped into her room. At least given her a chance to run, maybe?

  “Yeah, just a teddy bear,” she murmured belligerently.

  A teddy bear.

  A flash of memory, a ragged teddy bear, one eye missing, just big enough for a small child to wrap her arms around.

  What had he done with it when he stole it? she wondered. It had been the only possession she’d had in the research center. And one that would have been taken from her if anyone but her cellmates had realized she had it.

  “I was surprised to find you here,” he stated, dragging her thoughts back to him. “In this desert. I expected you and Judd to head for the jungles. For the hidden places where you could disappear easier.”

  That had been an idea, until Orrin Martinez had found them and convinced them otherwise.

  “Could I have hid from you, G?” she asked, rather than explaining their choice. No doubt he already knew. “Do you think there’s a single place in the world where you wouldn’t have found me?”

  There wouldn’t have. She’d been so desperate to see him over the years that she’d stupidly tried to find him or contact him more than once. As she’d grown older that need had become a hollow, painful ache she’d never been able to fully understand.

  Sharp incisors flashed in a cold smile. “I rather doubt it. Hiding from me wasn’t an option, Cat. You know that.”

  Yes, she knew that now, just as she had known it then.

  Hiding from him would have been impossible, just as depending on his protection had been a fool’s dream.

  “Then isn’t it a very good thing that I didn’t try to hide from you?” Rising to her feet, she turned her back on him and headed for the bedroom door. “Want a drink? I think I need one.”

  The growl that reverberated through the room had her pausing. Instinct rather than inclination stopped her in her tracks while the desire to give him the submission that sound demanded clashed with her determination not to.

  “You’re not my alpha any longer, G,” she warned him softly. “No matter what you or my Breed genetics may want to believe.”

  The lie slipped out easily, but even she wasn’t convinced, let alone the Breed, with such cool purpose.

  “That’s not what you told Jonas the other day,” he reminded her, the mocking amusement in his tone grating on her nerves. “I believe your comment was that no other could usurp my place as your alpha. I think I liked the sound of that declaration. Repeat it. This time to me.”

  He was
joking surely.

  “That claim is nonexistent. Besides, everyone lies to Jonas,” she informed him with an edge of disgust. “It’s the only way to deal with him. Now, I want that drink whether you do or not.”

  She had to literally force her feet to move, her fingers to curl around the doorknob. She could still feel him behind her, staring at her, demanding she return to him.

  Damned stupid Breed genetics. They could have slept just a little while longer.

  Or at least given her a warning.

  Because before she even realized he’d moved, he had her pressed against the door, the hard length of his body holding her in place. Sharp teeth nipped at her ear, shocking her with the heated sensation. Not quite pain. Definitely too much pleasure.

  Pleasure?

  No, G would never deliberately pleasure her, no matter how many times she’d fantasized about it in the past months. If he’d known he’d done so, he’d likely ensure she never made the mistake of believing he’d do so willingly again.

  “G . . .”

  “Graeme.” The name was growled at her ear, the order emphasized by the rumbled warning in his voice. One her Breed genetics, as well as the human, recognized. “Too many in the research center knew you called me by my initial rather than my name. Don’t make that mistake again, Cat. It could get us both killed. Surely you don’t want to do that, do you? Wouldn’t you cry a little bit if I died?”

  Everything familiar was being taken from her, because of him, by him. She was already stripped bare, without friends or family. Hell, even her Breed genetics would betray her if she allowed them to. What more could he take from her but her life? Or his life. Could she bear to face the future without him in it in some way. Even as her enemy, her tormentor, was better than his death.

  “Let me go, Graeme,” she bit out, feeling the urge to release her claws, to fight, scratch despite the realization that he was still that important to her.

  He wasn’t her alpha, no matter the primal instinct that still existed inside her. Her alpha would not have deserted her. He wouldn’t have threatened her or left her to fight alone.

  He wouldn’t have allowed her life to be stolen for all the years she had had to hide from the Genetics Council and their goons. Her alpha wouldn’t have stripped her life down to nothing.

  “I’ll never let you go . . .” The guttural claim stripped her of control.

  The hell he wouldn’t.

  A hard twist, a turn, a slash of claws high on his thigh and, oh yes, he did release her.

  Dropping to the floor to evade the quick grab he made for her, Cat rolled out of reach before jumping to her feet and facing him at a half crouch. Breathing hard, heart racing, she watched him with narrowed eyes.

  He was amused. Too damned amused. As though she had done exactly as he expected her to do.

  Then slowly, deliberately, his gaze dropped to his thigh, high, inside his thigh, no more than inches from a heavy, denim-covered bulge. There, the material was slashed in three long rows as blood spilled from the slices in his flesh to wet the fabric.

  “Close,” he murmured.

  “The next time, I’ll neuter you.” The bravado was completely false.

  Oh God, what had she done? The lacerations in his upper leg were spilling blood too fast. She’d sliced deep, the sharpened claws she possessed far more effective against his flesh than she’d ever believed they would be.

  He chuckled at the threat. “I’d delay that one if I were you, little cat. As your mate, I’d be rather ineffective, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Before she could speak he was out the bedroom door, closing it behind him as Cat stared at him in denial and disbelief.

  His what? That wasn’t possible. She wouldn’t allow it.

  “Where the hell are you going?” Jumping to her feet and rushing to the door, she jerked it open, staring at the empty hallway in shock.

  “Graeme?”

  Dammit, she’d called him Graeme rather than G. She hated him.

  She hated her genetics. She hated anything Breed right now.

  “Where the hell are you?” Stomping from the bedroom and along the open hallway to the stairs, she still didn’t see him.

  All but running down the curved staircase to the small foyer, she stared around the open living room, dining area and kitchen. And still no Graeme.

  G, she reminded herself fiercely.

  Damn Breed alpha bullshit. Pain-in-the-ass genetic encoding.

  She hated it, she reminded herself.

  Stalking through the house, room by room, she merely confirmed what she already knew: He was gone.

  “Did the bad kitty have to go fix his boo-boo?” she sneered, stepping back into the silent kitchen. “Poor arrogant-assed Bengal. I hope it hurts.”

  Moving straight for the fridge and the wine she’d placed in there earlier, she poured a half glass. Rather than sipping at it, she simply threw it back like a shot of whiskey before refilling and promising herself she’d sip it.

  She really didn’t hope it hurt.

  How had she done that? She hadn’t meant to. She hadn’t even meant to release her claws as she tried to escape his hold.

  With everything between them, though, she hadn’t expected him to claim to be her mate either. As though she was unaware what a mate was and what the claim meant. Just because she pretended not to be a Breed and got away with it, it didn’t mean she hadn’t witnessed that Breed-mating crap.

  Why lie to her? Did he think she wouldn’t know the difference?

  “I know you were lying, Graeme,” she snapped aloud.

  Of course he’d have the house bugged. He was smart like that.

  “I’m not stupid. I’m no mate of yours.”

  She’d not allow herself to be tied to someone she couldn’t trust nor depend on. He’d proven both over the past ten years.

  She had no doubt he’d been well aware of the area she was in before Jonas ever came looking for her, Honor and Judd. He might not have known exactly where she was, but there was a chance he had known that too. Graeme—damn him—he could be more frightening than Jonas.

  Quiet, secretive, mysterious. His intelligence had never been rated, his genius in Breed physiology and biology had never been documented that she knew of. But while under the tutelage of Dr. Foster, the first head of genetic and biological research at Brandenmore’s labs, he had excelled to the point that she’d wondered if even Dr. Foster feared him.

  Then Dr. Foster had disappeared and a new research scientist had been brought in. It was then Cat had seen exactly how manipulating and calculating Graeme could be. For almost a year he’d maneuvered the scientist, played him, worked the information he’d gained . . . then he’d disappeared as well. One night he’d been there; the next morning alarms had awakened her and Judd and his cot had been empty.

  He’d left them alone.

  Honor had gone home just weeks before, finally cured of the illness that had brought her there. With Graeme’s escape, she and Judd had been left alone.

  Cat had been devastated.

  She could still remember the shock, her utter rejection of the idea that he would leave her. She’d been convinced they’d killed him. That Dr. Bennett had ordered his death.

  Until the night he’d jerked open the doors on the van taking her and Judd to be euthanized, she’d been certain he was dead, that there was no way her G would ever desert her.

  But he had. He’d left them. The truth was there in the wild green eyes and Bengal stripes bisecting his face. And because he’d attempted to rescue them, he was dying.

  The bullets he’d taken to his chest had created horrifying wounds. Judd had fought to stabilize him, then been forced to inject the weakened Bengal with a small amount of the Council paralytic to still Graeme’s struggles, which the guards carried in the event one of the breeds they were transporting became too violent.

  He’d cursed them as Judd attached the crude lines between Cat’s vein and Graeme’s. He’d cursed them, threate
ned them, then, staring in her eyes, he’d assured her he’d kill her. He’d peel the meat from her bones if she didn’t make it stop.

  I love you, G. She’d whispered those words without crying, her twelve-year-old heart breaking at his fury. I can’t lose you.

  I never loved you. You were my experiment . . .

  He’d sliced her soul open when he’d told her he didn’t love her. Sliced it open and left it bleeding with an agony she hadn’t been able to comprehend.

  Yes, he’d proved he didn’t love her, that he’d never loved her. The mark he’d left as her alpha had tormented her, the pain of her disobedience had weighed in her for years. Until she’d managed to convince herself that she’d managed to destroy it. A lie. She’d known all along that mark would linger as long as the breed mutations lived inside her.

  When Cat had awakened the next morning and found, once again, G was gone, she’d given Judd her loyalty, but he’d already had that anyway. When he’d held his hand out to her silently, his gaze filled with such regret, she’d taken it and acknowledged to herself that she had no one . . . she couldn’t even allow herself to depend upon Judd. Damned good thing, because months later an attack, the six shadowy warriors who rescued them, and a group of six Navajo spirit men, had changed the course of her life.

  At least until now.

  “You’re right, you’re not the one I knew as G,” she whispered into the silence. “My G would never have left me so alone and frightened and in such danger. You always were Graeme. You should have told me then who you were. I’d have allowed you to die as you wished.”

  Turning out the kitchen light, she moved slowly through the large open room to the staircase, taking each step with such weariness that reaching the top seemed to take forever.

  She left the bedroom door open, left the balcony door open and crawled into the bed. Dragging the blankets over her shoulders, she lay, staring into the darkness, dry-eyed, aching and wondering why it still hurt so damned bad.

  After all, she hadn’t been under any illusions, hadn’t fooled herself into believing he’d felt any differently than he’d claimed to feel that night. So why did it hurt so damned bad now?

  REEVER ESTATE

  “My G would never have left me so alone and frightened and in such danger. You always were Graeme. You should have told me then who you were. I’d have allowed you to die as you wished.”

  But he wouldn’t have died.

  The wounds were bad, he gave them that, some of the worst he’d ever had. But Dr. Foster had created him, and just as they had perfected Cat’s genetics, Foster had perfected his. And his brother’s.

  Those genetics, the DNA that created the Breed as a whole, had ensured any wound was immediately isolated and all the body’s strengths and power went to healing it.

  He would have healed, it just would have taken longer. And he would have retained his sanity. By giving him Cat’s blood without the serum Dr. Foster created to counteract the newly emerging hormone in her blood, he’d been driven mad. She was a child, still a baby, and far too young for the mating hormone showing up in her system. Far too young to mark a fully adult Bengal Breed that wasn’t quite sane to begin with. Nothing had mattered but stopping the transfusion. When he couldn’t stop it, nothing had mattered but ensuring she never searched for him. He had to keep her away from him until she’d had time to become a woman, to allow both her human and Bengal genetics to mature.

  Reviewing the surveillance video of the house as he perched on the steel cot in the middle of a small cavern beneath the Reever estate, Graeme paused in the careful stitching of his thigh to glance at the video.

  He could see her face, so stark and pale, her eyes filled with such bitterness, and felt his chest clench at the knowledge of the pain he’d caused her.

  She actually believed he’d left her alone and unprotected? That it was possible for him to ever do so? There was still a part of him that was amazed she hadn’t laughed at him when he claimed he didn’t love her. She’d always seemed to know and to understand him so well. Yet, she’d taken his words at face value and believed he’d left her alone.

  Shaking his head he finished the old-fashioned stitches, spread a healing cream over the wounds then bandaged it carefully.

  He’d heal quick enough, but the slices into his flesh had come far too close to the artery. He’d bled like a stuck pig before reaching the tunnel that ran from the main estate to the small house nearly a mile away. Thank God, he hadn’t walked the distance that night. While the motorized buggy had made its way through the tunnel on auto, he’d managed to put pressure on the wounds to keep the loss of blood at a minimum until he reached the med room he’d created in one of the smaller caverns.

  The tunnels and caverns ran for miles beneath the Reever estate. He doubted even Lobo knew where all the tunnels exited and exactly how many caverns existed beneath the large main house and its grounds.

  Graeme knew, though, and he’d made excellent use of many of them. Electricity, stolen from the main grid running underground less than a mile from the estate’s walls, now lit the tunnels he’d deemed most important as well as the caverns used for research, medical supplies and the store of medications he’d begun putting together.

  Lobo had given him free access to the tunnels and caverns, and Graeme made use of them as he saw fit. He didn’t trust the current climate of Breed-human relations, but hell, he didn’t trust humans, period, in most cases. He’d learned the folly in that at a very young age. He could count on one hand the number of humans he trusted and not use all his fingers.

  The monster he’d become during his last stay in Brandenmore’s research center trusted no one. Never. To trust was to become weak, to chance a mistake that could be stopped, to risk what it had come into being to protect.

  A growl rumbled deep and low in his chest, a snarl trembling on his lips. The monster was never far below the flesh, always waiting, taking no chances, ready to spring at a moment’s notice to protect what it claimed.

  Taping the bandage into place, he lifted his gaze once again and stared at the face in the monitor.

  She was still awake, still staring into the dark, the bitterness and loss she felt still reflected in the deep, golden brown eyes.

  He wanted to tell her he was sorry, while he’d been there, and hadn’t been able to. He’d looked into her ey