Bengal's Quest

by Lora Leigh

  Pushing the inflatable lounger to the steps leading into the water, she slid from the float and stepped warily onto the rock patio.

  Graeme was prowling closer, his gaze flickering over her body as water dripped down her tanned flesh. The look was so intent she wondered that she couldn’t feel the touch of it like a physical caress.

  “Stop undressing me with your eyes,” she demanded as she moved to the umbrella-shaded table and the bottle of water resting in the ice bucket there.

  “You’re already undressed,” he assured her, his voice smooth seduction. “I was merely enjoying the view.”

  “Then stop enjoying the view.” Not that the retort fazed him.

  His lips quirked in the beginnings of a far too appealing hint of humor. And was still watching her, still stroking her with his gaze, caressing her. And she found herself far too responsive to it.

  She reached for the light robe she’d brought out with her.

  “Please don’t, Cat.” It wasn’t a demand.

  Turning, she met his gaze, the hunger and need in it blistering, the demand clear, but his tone was gentle, requesting. He was asking her not to put the robe on, not demanding it. At least not demanding it vocally.

  “Why?” She had to turn away from him, the need she glimpsed in his gaze weakened her, made her want to forget the past thirteen years, and she didn’t dare forget.

  “Because you’re the most beautiful vision I’ve ever had.” His voice was rough now, the sound of it flooding her senses and her body with the most incredible weakness. The pleasure that flooded her entire being shortened her breath while causing her heart to race in excitement.

  How did he do this to her? Why had her entire life been consumed by this one Breed and all the conflicting, pain-filled emotions he inspired in her?

  “Why are you doing this to me, Graeme? Why are you trying to destroy me?” He’d been her world then he’d destroyed it. She’d been a child. Nothing had mattered to her but him, and he’d destroyed her.

  “Destroying you was never my intent.” He moved behind her, stopping only when he was within a breath of touching her. Gently, firmly, his fingers curled around her hips as his head lowered to her bare shoulder. “Hurting you was never my intent, Cat.”

  “Then what was your intent?” Fists clenched, she fought the lure of his body, the memory of the incredible sensations his lips could create against her flesh. “Because for something you didn’t intend, you’re doing a damned good job of it.”

  He was destroying her senses, her determination to remain aloof, her promise to herself that she would never allow him to shred her heart again. Or what still remained of her heart.

  Callused fingers clenched at her hips, holding her in place when she would have eased away from him.

  She couldn’t do this. If she continued to stand here, to let him hold her against him, then she would cave and she would beg him to take her, to continue ripping her apart. One hand slid from her hip to her stomach where it flattened against the clenched muscles of her lower abdomen. Her eyes closed, the sensual weakness building, making a mockery of her determination to withhold herself from him.

  “I can smell your need, soft and heated,” he whispered at her ear. “An addictive scent I find myself longing for at the oddest moments.”

  “I’m sure there’s a twelve-step program for that somewhere. I bet Jonas Wyatt could point you in the right direction,” she assured him, forcing the sarcasm into her voice rather than the breathless need she couldn’t hide from him.

  The feel of his teeth raking against her neck was followed by a low, warning growl in reply to the suggestion.

  “Bad girl,” he berated her. “I’m sure I don’t need Jonas’s help in any way.”

  “You need help period,” she assured him before gasping and finding herself turned so quickly she barely registered the move.

  One second she was staring away from him, in the next she was staring up at him, her breasts pressed into his cheek, his erection, restrained only by the denim he wore, pressed into her lower stomach.

  “When I found you, I was completely maddened,” he growled, staring down at her with a hungry demand that flickered in the gold flecks of jungle green eyes. “I was instinct and intellect only. No mercy, no compassion.” One hand threaded into the back of her damp hair, clenching there as his gaze flickered over her face. “The last time I was in this desert searching for you, only the scent of Claire Martinez surrounded your body. There was no hint of my Cat, no matter how similar you were in looks, I was fooled. When I returned, there was no hint of Claire, only my Cat, and her pain. Her loneliness.” His voice dropped, his head lowering as his lips brushed against the corner of hers. “All the madness that had driven me for so long eased away and the monster I’d been settled back. What little sanity remained snapped into place and I knew why the monster existed to begin with.” He paused, his lips whispering over hers, but refusing to initiate the kiss she was suddenly hungry for. “Do you know why it existed, Cat?”

  She shook her head, fighting to breathe, fighting not to take the kiss she needed.

  “Why?” She forced the question out, wishing he’d just hurry and give her what she needed.

  “For you,” he breathed. “It lived for you, Cat. To protect you. To hold back the horror of the risk of Bennett finding you and dragging you back to the center. It existed, to ensure you lived.”

  The monster everyone spoke of in the past months had existed for blood . . . And each time it had taken blood it had been someone that threatened her, or those she cared for.

  “You swore to kill me.” It was all she could do to force the words past her lips. “To kill me and Judd. You knew what you were saying.”

  She remembered that clearly. Cold, deadly purpose had filled his eyes, his expression.

  “I was a child, G,” she whispered, remembered pain slicing at her heart again. “You were all I had to depend on. All I knew of love.”

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

  She pressed her forehead to his chest, wishing she could wipe the memory from her mind, from her heart.

  “I needed you.” The fingers gripping his shoulders curled into fists. “Years, Graeme. For years I worried, I cried, I searched for you.” Shudders tore through her body as aching, furious rage tore through her. “I needed you.” It was a snarl, a deep female rasp of overwhelming pain as she tore from him, memories and so many nights of unrelenting hunger to just see him. “Damn you, G. Damn you. I survived without you for the past thirteen years and I’ll survive without you now. Get the hell away from me.”

  She felt as though she was going crazy now. Rage and hunger. The need to push him away, the need to hold to him so tight she was never without him ever again. The conflicting emotions were tearing her apart.

  “You survived?” Catching her arm he swung her around again, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace of anger. “Is that what you call it? Hiding? Pretending to be Claire Martinez? You took her personality as well as her identity and hid everything you were, every part of you, when you could have been who you were, who you were intended to be.”

  Mockery shot through her. “Who was I intended to be, Graeme?” she questioned with such false sweetness she nearly gagged on it. “It seems only you know that answer. What did you think you created when you shot that shit inside me with those therapies? Did you justify it each time I screamed and cried and then lay wasted for days begging you to let me die?” she screamed that question at him. A question she hadn’t even known tormented her until that moment. “What was I supposed to be, G?”

  Tears filled her eyes. She hated that. Hated the weakness and the emotions that tore her apart each time she remembered that she had been his experiment.

  His experiment.

  “You were supposed to live,” he growled furiously, gripping her arms and hauling her back to his chest, glaring down at her as the pupils of his eyes became obliterated by the green. “You h
ad to live and there was only one way to ensure that, with Breed DNA. There was no other way to wipe that fucking disease out of your body and I wasn’t going to let you die. You were mine.”

  “I was your experiment,” she cried out. “You said it yourself, you never loved me.” A sob tore from her throat, knowing that wound had never healed. “Do you know what you did to me that night? Do you have any idea what you did when you told me that?”

  “Do you have any idea what it did to me?” Before she could answer him, before she could do more than recognize the animalistic rasp of pain in his voice as his lips suddenly covered hers.

  Hard. Possessive.

  His tongue pushed past her lips, determined and hungry and spilling the most alluring hint of spice. That hint of taste captivated her, left her wanting more and had her lips closing around his tongue, some primal impulse demanding she draw on it, to pull more of that elusive taste into her senses. Moaning, clutching at his shoulders once again, Cat reveled in the pleasure, losing herself in it.

  She should be fighting him and she knew it. She should be fighting this overwhelming need, and she couldn’t, had no desire to now that she was being consumed by his kiss. All she could do was hold on to him, hold him to her and relish in the fact that he was here now. That the lost, agonized part of her soul found solace.

  When his head jerked back, his lips pulling from hers, Cat could only stare up at him, dazed and uncertain. Blinking in shock at the abrupt withdrawal it took a moment to realize what had disturbed the chaotic hunger he’d unleashed on her. The Wolf Breed scent was vaguely familiar though she couldn’t quite place it until he spoke.

  “Sorry, Graeme,” the Breed cleared his throat uncomfortably. “We have a situation at the estate. Alpha Reever asked that you be found immediately.”

  Cat moved to turn and face the Breed, uncomfortable with her back turned to him.

  “Don’t.” Graeme held her still with a growl as his hand jerked out and returned with the robe discarded on the back of the patio chair.

  Staring up at him she let him help her into it, remaining silent as she pulled the front edges together and belted them snugly.

  The disturbance was for the best, she thought. No good could come of the trust she wanted so desperately to give him, or the emotions burning in her chest. He’d already betrayed her once, he would betray her again.

  “This isn’t over,” he warned her as she stepped away from him. “Don’t imagine it is.”

  Cat could only shake her head. “It was over a long time ago, you just refuse to accept it.”

  Without turning to face the Breed that came for Graeme, Cat escaped back into the house and the realization that nothing would ever be easy, or simple, where Graeme was concerned. And what was left of her heart had no escape from the destruction he’d wreak in it.

  • CHAPTER 6 •

  Night was encroaching across the desert before Cat managed to get her emotions, let alone her hormones, under control. Confusion was still running rampant, though. The confusion part was probably harder to deal with.

  Stepping to the patio outside the large family room, a glass of wine in hand, Cat couldn’t help but marvel at the beauty of the landscape, the rich black velvet and diamond-drop brilliance of the sky above and the sweet scent of a land unmarred by the scents and sounds of the city.

  For all of Window Rock’s conveniences, at the moment she wouldn’t trade a single sweet breath for all of them. How she’d longed to escape to the shadowed, seemingly barren land over the years. So many nights she’d wanted to run, to hunt, to slip away from the ever-present gloom the Martinez household seemed to possess.

  The scent of booze-laden escape didn’t exist here, neither did the putrid scent of guilt, suspicion and hatred. But there had been happy memories, though none had anything to do with Raymond or Maria Martinez.

  Grandfather Orrin, with his dry sense of humor and unexpected calls to Raymond to send his “granddaughter” to him immediately. He would hustle her into his truck, wink at her, then sometimes, for days at a time, show her the desert he loved, or the memories he’d amassed in pictures.

  Terran, Claire’s uncle, would often take her on vacations with him and Isabelle and Chelsea. A week of lazy wallowing in the sun next to some tropical beach where drinks were delivered by barely dressed men and Raymond’s cruelties didn’t exist.

  Where were Isabelle and Chelsea now? she wondered. She knew Isabelle and her new husband, or mate, were honeymooning in some secret location. Just as Honor and her husband-mate, Stygian, were doing.

  Undisclosed locations. Yeah. They were hiding in Breed Secure desert homes in the area. They were close, but she hadn’t seen them, hadn’t heard from them.

  Chelsea had visited once, but the revelation that her cousin was an imposter had made the visit a bit uncomfortable for the other woman. She’d been distracted, choosing her words carefully as they talked.

  Linc was the only member of her former family that she’d seen, outside of Terran and Orrin, in the weeks since the charges against Raymond had been filed.

  Charges Linc had clearly wanted to deny. Not that she blamed him. How horrible it must be to have to face what his father truly was. To admit he had come from such filth as Raymond Martinez.

  Why hadn’t she contacted him and told him how cruel Raymond was? Because she’d known he would have never stood by and allowed it. And her suspicion that he was part of the Unknown had kept her from contacting them as well. Informing anyone of Raymond’s cruelties might have resulted in him actually contacting the Genetics Council sooner, though, and they would have moved her. What the Unknown hid, no one found. And she couldn’t risk not being there when Graeme came for her as she had known he would. The Unknown would have ensured even he couldn’t find her.

  The shadowy group of warriors assigned to protect her while she’d posed as Claire Martinez had pulled back once she’d stepped away from the protection of Claire’s identity, she’d been told.

  She’d never needed them, but knowing they were near had always given her a measure of confidence in her security.

  A security she didn’t have confidence in now.

  Hell, she didn’t even trust Graeme’s or Lobo Reever’s security around the house and she couldn’t pinpoint why.

  No doubt she hadn’t found all of Graeme’s cameras, and he would have the house and grounds secured from every corner. Against everything and everyone but himself. The one thing she probably needed protection from the most.

  Was he truly as crazed as he seemed sometimes?

  She almost smiled at the thought. Of course he was. He’d always been a little left of sane, but as a child, she’d loved him that much more for it.

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

  She flinched at the memory of the pain that had ripped her apart that night. As if someone had reached inside her soul and torn it free of her body. It had destroyed years of trust, of security. It had destroyed her perceptions of who she was, and why he had forced her to live so many times.

  Not because he needed her childish adoration. Not because she meant anything to him. Because she was his experiment. The Breed he had created from the scraps of a dying child.

  He should have allowed her to die. Her childhood had been a series of experiments so excruciating she still had nightmares of it. Once escaping that, she’d been restrained once more and forced to watch life pass by as Claire Martinez in the hopes that by doing so, she’d be there when he came for her.

  She’d ached to run, to hunt. To train and fight. The few times she managed to escape Raymond to do so had been so exhilarating it had been actually painful to return to that gloomy house. And each time she’d escaped into the night, she’d searched for her G, wondering if he’d finally found the clues she’d sent to reveal to him where she was and the identity she was using.

  Now here she was, watching the night, enclosed by walls and being monitored by cameras once again. Damn. When would it end
?

  Finishing her wine and returning to the house, she locked up, checked the windows and doors one last time and moved upstairs to her bedroom. For the first time since moving there she closed the balcony doors and locked them.

  She felt restless, on edge. The rapidly maturing Breed genetics were being a bitch. She couldn’t seem to find a balance at all, especially since Linc and Raymond’s little visit.

  A long shower later she crawled into the overly large bed, one of the lacy little nighties Graeme had bitched over covering her body.

  Bastard. She told herself the decision to wear the sexy little gown was to torture him. She was terribly afraid the truth was far more primal. He’d wanted her to wear it. And at one time nothing had mattered more than pleasing her G.

  No doubt he was watching her.

  Where else would he hide cameras that she hadn’t thought to look? she wondered as she yawned and snuggled into the bed. She’d have to go through the house again tomorrow and see if she could find any other likely hiding places.

  An instant, raging alarm clashed through her senses with such abrupt speed she was instantly awake. And it was too late. She sensed the breeze drifting past the balcony doors, but something else moved much faster, with far more deadly accuracy. The second the pressure syringe injected the drug into the vein at her neck, Cat knew the restlessness she had felt earlier for the warning it had been.

  “No!” Her ragged snarl was one of rage as everything began shutting down, even as knowledge flashed through her mind.

  That agonizing burn along her nerve endings—every nerve ending—a pain no Breed had ever been able to fully describe began shutting down her ability to move, to speak. To protect herself. Animal instincts honed to perfection surged forward, giving her just a moment to jump from the bed.

  She nearly fell instead.

  A fiery lash of agony began tracking through her body, spreading through her. The burn raced beneath her flesh, moving steadily to her brain.

  No. This couldn’t be happening.

  The paralytic was fast acting, taking the ability to move, to speak . . . to scream.

  She had to escape.

  Dammit, she shouldn’t have destroyed so many of the cameras. What if there were no more in the bedroom to alert Graeme of what was going on?

  She was screwed. It was that simple.

  She made it as far as the middle of her bedroom floor, only halfway to the door before she crumpled. Unable to cushion the fall, or the wrist she felt break as she went down. The pain would have been agonizing if she hadn’t learned long ago what true agony was.

  The burn was moving through her brain now, the rest of her body was sensitized, pain receptors heightened and awaiting the next lash of sensation.

  Helpless. Far too vulnerable and with no defenses whatsoever.

  How had her balcony been breached without the alarms going off? She hadn’t touched the cameras or the security sensors there.

  Unless it was Graeme.

  Would he be so cruel as to inject her with the paralytic? To hurt her this way? No. Graeme would find a far more effective way to punish her. This wasn’t something he would do.

  The drug, created by Genetics Council monsters, was amazingly efficient. There was nothing she could do while under its effects. No Breed had ever been able to fight past it, no matter how strong their will.

  A faint creek of the floor outside the bedroom had her fracturing senses pausing for a moment, waiting, feeling the danger coming.

  Lying on her side as she was, she could see the bedroom door moving slowly, opening as though in slow motion, making her wait.

  He thought all she knew was the shadow moving toward her through the entrance.

  His scent reached her even before the door opened, filtering through the animal’s senses.

  It wasn’t Graeme.

  She watched as Raymond moved steadily closer, the scent of his malevolent hatred sickening. With the door opened, other scents reached her as well. She could smell the scent of the Jackal Breeds now. The few to have survived were used by the Genetics Council only when absolutely necessary. So few survived the creation process, but those that lived were vile, brutal soldiers with instincts that had amazed the trainers.

  “Fucking animal.” Raymond’s curse was followed by a hard kick to her undefended ribs.

  Agony erupted in the point where his boot met her body. She could do nothing to show her pain, nothing to escape it. It made the animal inside her crazed.

  It made her crazed.

  Her breath didn’t even break as the pain of it focused at the contact point, exploding outward as far as flesh and bone would be affected. The paralytic kept her vital organs working properly while ensuring the pain was agonizing.

  Nothing broke. She prayed Raymond didn’t know that or he’d make certain it did.

  She couldn’t even turn her gaze up to him, couldn’t force him to stare into her eyes as she glared her hatred at him. She could only stare straight ahead, unable to so much as blink.

  There was no way to shield the agonizing pain gripping every cell of her body, though.

  “Bitch,” Raymond snarled. “You finally managed to turn Linc against me, didn’t you? You’ve been nothing but trouble. Nothing but a blight on my family.”

  And here she thought he held that title. Damn. How wrong could a tigress be?

  “Thought you could escape me, didn’t you?” Raymond bent closer to her, the broad, sneering features filled with distaste. “Thought the Breeds could save you by hiding here. Intimidate me,” he hissed. “I contacted the Council. They’re here for you, you freak. They’ll take you and cage you just as you should have stayed caged all along. As soon as I’ve finished with you they’ll make damned sure you never open your mouth again and cause me so much as a moment’s trouble.”

  But they hadn’t meant to keep her caged.

  They had meant to euthanize her.

  She had escaped then, she would find a way to escape now. She hoped she found a way to escape . . .

  Rising again Raymond aimed another blow to her ribs, connecting with her stomach instead.

  She couldn’t even throw up.

  Cat’s stomach pitched and roiled with the agony, bile gathered in her throat, but the paralytic refused to allow it to release.

  “Let’s see what they do with you then, fucking freak,” he grated out at her with hate-filled fury. “I won’t have to deal with you ever again. Will I?”

  God, she had to find a way to stay alive. And she would, as soon as she could think, as soon as the pain eased just enough for her to pull her senses back in place and to figure out just what to do.

  “They’ll have fun with you before they take you out of here,” Raymond snarled. “Lobo Reever’s security bastard will find your blood, smell the scent of your rape, and we’ll see how crazy he gets then. Son of a bitch. I’ll kill him yet.”