Bengal's Quest

by Lora Leigh

  k the possessive, warning growl threatening to escape.

  Ashley stepped forward. “Really, Director?” she exclaimed with lazy irritation. “It’s late and I’m not feeling well. I believe you sent me out too soon.” She batted charming gray eyes up at him with impish sweetness. “Talk to her tomorrow when I can enjoy the show.”

  Jonas turned to her slowly, the quicksilver of his gaze icing over as his expression tightened with a coming snap of disagreement.

  “Jonas.” Her alpha stepped forward, clearly not hesitating to defend the young woman Graeme knew was an intricate part of his pack. “Tomorrow.”

  “There’s no rule that says Ashley must come along,” Jonas drawled.

  “Of course there is,” Ashley pointed out imperiously. “I wish to be there. And we all know how you enjoy spoiling me for being such a good little Coyote warrior and surviving my wounds. Yes? Consider it an early birthday present.”

  “It’s not your birthday yet, you little imp,” he growled, but his fondness for her scented the air, as well as his concern.

  “So it’s an early present,” she declared, one small hand going to her hip in an outrageous display of deliberate maneuvering.

  “Six months early?” Jonas questioned smoothly. It was obvious he was well aware of her calculated effort to keep him away from Cat.

  Ashley shrugged. “Six months, eight months, who really knows? All gifts are accepted with much appreciation at any time.” A pout formed at her pretty lips. “This is my request. You are not allowed to deny me.”

  Jonas’s nostrils flared as the silver gray of his eyes threatened to overtake the pupils. “Not allowed?” he drawled.

  “It could cause a relapse.” Her hand lifted until it lay over the area of her chest that the bullet had penetrated. “I could become depressed again, you know? Remember how you worried when I wasn’t giving you heartburn with my antics?” Her eyes widened innocently. “Refusing this request could be detrimental to my health.”

  It was obvious Jonas was just barely holding back his laughter.

  “Del Rey, she’s a menace,” Jonas informed her alpha.

  Del Rey merely grinned at the accusation.

  “Interesting,” Kiel drawled at that point. “For all the rumors of calculated deception against this director, he treats the rest of you like favored family members.” He chuckled at his own comment. “Hell, Director, and here I was concerned about the rumors of volcanoes, interrogations where enemies lost skin, and unspeakable tortures. While you’re giving out birthday presents, mine’s next week. I’d like to be released tonight as a present, if you don’t mind.”

  The Jackal hit the floor a breath later, sprawled back, his arms outspread, compliments of Jonas’s fist as a snarl of fury filled the air.

  Jonas motioned to the enforcers behind him to remove the unconscious body before turning his attention to the other Jackal.

  “You have any requests?” he snapped.

  That Jackal lifted a brow mockingly. “Not at the moment.”

  Both Jackals were dragged from the house, Kiel held by the back of his jacket, his head lolling to the side.

  “First thing in the morning, Lobo,” Jonas stated before following the enforcers from the house. “First thing.”

  The director and his little entourage of force were gone as quickly as they’d arrived, leaving the Coyote alpha, Ashley and Emma staring at the doorway broodingly.

  “He’s an acquired taste,” Ashley drawled, her accent thickening. “Better in small doses rather than large ones.” Then she gave a soft, charming little laugh at her own observation before tossing Graeme a bright smile. “He’s quite funny when he gets all irritated like that, isn’t he?”

  And here, everyone said he was insane, Graeme thought in amazement. Those who made the accusation had yet to see the various inner workings of Breed socialization. It was complete madness with a high quantity of pure insanity.

  Good God, what was he getting himself into?

  • • •

  Cat was still awake when the bedroom door pushed open forcefully to reveal a less than pleased Graeme as he stalked into the bedroom. Snapping it closed, he turned the lock, crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her.

  Staring back at him, she was sitting on the bed, the black training suit she’d worn earlier exchanged for soft cotton shorts and T-shirt. She wasn’t going to let Graeme’s glare intimidate her.

  “Before you even begin chastising me for whatever you have on your mind to chastise me for, I’d like to know how Raymond Martinez and two Jackals managed to get past security and into my room to inject me with that damned drug.”

  She should have heeded her own restless senses earlier in the evening, a mistake she wouldn’t make again. But still, their ability to slip past security concerned her. The glare eased from his face as he reached to rub at the back of his neck.

  “Martinez placed a nano-nit into the security system while he was here with his son.” Disgust filled his voice. “The bastard. It was unfortunate for them that I found the anomaly in the surveillance feed that tipped me off to a problem. I caught the intrusion as it happened. Otherwise, Martinez would have never had a chance to kick you.”

  As he spoke, Graeme moved closer to the bed, his powerful body filled with a tension that seemed to tighten by the moment.

  Staying in place, Cat watched him carefully, feeling her own body tighten, the tension that filled him affecting her as well.

  “How’s your wrist?” Settling next to her on the bed, he reached out and lifted her arm to stare at the location of the break.

  “Skin splint?” His gaze narrowed on the ultrathin brace nearly impossible to detect. “I’ve only seen those once.”

  “Dane Vanderale,” she said, answering the question she sensed in the comment. “When I was fifteen I broke my leg and refused to let anyone know. Dane was in the area at the time and must have seen me. That night he slipped into my room, left several skin splints, jars of salve for wounds and other supplies he thought I might need.”

  If it hadn’t been for Dane, she didn’t know what she would have done. The supplies he’d left had literally saved her ass several times.

  Graeme slid his finger over the skin splint. “After my escape from the labs the second time, I developed an infection I hadn’t expected. I was in some African jungle when I was found, and taken to the Vanderale’s. Such a brace was used to stabilize several breaks I’d acquired.”

  He said it so simply, but she sensed far more behind the explanation.

  “You did a very bad thing tonight, Cat,” he stated before she could question him further as his fingertips trailed up her arm. “I’m not rational when I’m like that. You could have been hurt.”

  “You’re just as inclined to hurt me now as you are at any other time.” She tried to keep her breathing even, her heartbeat steady, but it was impossible.

  His touch did something to her, it made her weaken, made her melt with the sensations that began building in her body and the pleasure that began spiraling through her senses.

  “And later,” he pointed out with a vein of humor. “Very cleverly stealing that debt from Jonas for yourself. I didn’t see that coming. Lobo wasn’t happy with it either.”

  “My heart breaks,” she murmured. “Really, Graeme, not all the lessons you taught me were wasted.”

  “So it would seem.” His fingers lifted, his arm outstretching as he leaned closer, bracketing her body as she leaned back into the pillows.

  “What happened in the research center when they recaptured you, G,” she whispered as his lips lowered to the curve of her shoulder. “What pulled that rage from the depths of your soul and created the Gideon I saw tonight?”

  He stiffened against her. She had to know what happened to him. True, he’d never been completely sane, but he’d never let that part of himself free either. It had slept, lending him strength, adding to his intelligence, but always in the background.

  “
Nothing that need concern you.” The arrogance in his voice astounded her, as did his refusal to answer her.

  “And you expect me to trust you?” she all but begged him for answers. “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

  “I don’t require your trust,” he rasped. “I require your touch, and the freedom to touch you.”

  “Only the physical?” Bracing her hands against his chest she stared back at him, hating the weakness, the need to give in to him. Hating his arrogance and refusal to let her know him. It enraged her. He wanted all of her and wanted to give nothing in return.

  Lifting her hand from his chest he gripped her fingers, moving them quickly to the heavy weight of the arousal contained behind the zipper of his jeans.

  A gasp of shock, of arousal, left her lips as he curled her fingers around the evidence of his erection.

  “That’s physical,” he snarled. “So fucking physical it’s tormented the hell out of me for five years. When you gave me your blood without the serum needed with the transfusion, you began this, Cat. You set this in motion, though I warned you not to.”

  “You were dying.” The memory of that night was another nightmare, another reason not to trust him.

  “Death was preferable to the Mating Heat, damn you.”

  His hands gripped her shoulders, giving her a hard shake as he glared down at her. “You were fucking twelve. When I awoke I was crazed with pain and the knowledge that if I stayed with you, I could end up becoming more of a monster than those I helped you escape from.”

  Anger flashed through her. Lifting her head until they were nose to nose, she sneered back at him. “Then perhaps you should have been more careful in who you chose to become your own personal little experiment. Or chose the genetics you forced inside my body more wisely.”

  He had created her. If he didn’t like who and what she was, then it was his own damned fault now, wasn’t it?

  His eyes narrowed on her, the amber flakes burning brighter in his gaze.

  “Cat . . .” The warning growl only offended her further.

  “Get off me.” She pushed at his shoulders, determined to escape the pleasure, the warmth she felt at his touch. “Get off me now, Graeme. No means no, and I’m telling you now I don’t want you.”

  He jumped away from her, the low, feral snarl that accompanied his action causing her to move quickly across the bed to jump from it and face him from the opposite side.

  “You want me,” he accused her furiously, his brows lowering heavily over the jade green glitter of his eyes. “I can smell the scent of your arousal and it deepens each time I touch you. You’re my mate. Mine, Cat.”

  “I’m no mate of yours,” she denied with a disgusted curl of her lip. “I may enjoy playing a few of your games, and I may be forced for the time being to accept your protection, but I don’t owe you jack for it. You owe me, Graeme, and you owe me dearly.”

  She would never forget each instance that he owed her for either. They were burned in her brain. Lacerated into her soul with scars of such betrayal that at times, she’d hated him for each and every one of them.

  “I owe you?” The dangerous rasp of his voice didn’t affect her in the least. “And how do you imagine, my little tigress, that I owe you?”

  “Think about it, Graeme,” she bit out, her voice tight and filled with years’ worth of resentment. “Why would a tigress renounce her alpha? And trust me, I renounced you years ago. Use those superior senses Dr. Foster claimed you had, big boy. Because that mark you left on me has been gone far longer than you can even imagine.”

  The mark he’d left on her was the same he’d left on Judd, Honor and, over the years, several other Bengal Breeds. It was a primal, mental mark, one he hadn’t believed could be wiped away. Especially by his mate, by the tigress he’d ensured existed inside her.

  But she was right. Allowing his Breed senses to reach out to her, to search for the bond he’d assumed was still there, he was shocked to realize there was only the faintest remnant of it left. A part of it he doubted she even knew was still there.

  The knowledge rocked him to the core. He felt off balance, stunned by the weakness of a bond he’d been certain couldn’t be destroyed.

  “You destroyed that bond,” she accused him then, her voice soft, the bitterness grating. “You destroyed what you created, Graeme. I might have had the potential to be your mate, but like the alpha bond, it doesn’t exist now. Nothing exists now but my need to see the only part of you that I still feel some fondness for survive. Strangely enough, it’s not the part of you that I know as Graeme that I even give a damn about. It’s that part of you the world knows as Gideon that concerns me. His survival is tied to yours, though, it seems, so I guess I’m stuck with that part as well. Stuck with it. Not mated to it. So why not leave me in peace to get what little sleep I can until I have to deal with a crazy Lion Breed as well in the morning.”

  Years of heartache, of nightmares that had tormented her vulnerable heart, and the loss of her only friend, had shattered her slowly over the years, over and over again. She’d never had a chance to heal, a chance even to catch her breath before she’d had to deal with another blow.

  All she’d ever wanted was to belong somewhere, to someone. To be a part of something besides her own aching loneliness. And even now, he refused to share enough of himself to allow her to feel secure in belonging to him again.

  “What are you waiting for?” she cried out painfully as he stood, eyes narrowed, simply staring at her. “Do you think glaring at me is going to replace that bond? That you can intimidate me into it?”

  A mocking laugh fell from her lips. “You did come to find me because I was your mate. You came for vengeance and I was just stupid enough to lead the way, wasn’t I?”

  His arms crossed slowly over his chest, the powerful stance only enraging her further.

  “You enjoy lying to yourself, don’t you, Cat?” he suggested, the superior amusement he displayed insulting.

  “Not nearly as much as you do,” she retorted furiously. “Now, why don’t you leave, please. I simply can’t deal with you anymore. I refuse to deal with you. Get the hell out of here and don’t come back before I leave myself.”

  She had few options. The only assurance she had of protection would also endanger the one person she had no intention of revealing to either Jonas or Graeme.

  “I’ll go for now.” His arms dropped from his chest. “I’ll be back in the morning when Jonas arrives. And we will finish this conversation then.”

  Turning, he left the room, the door closing behind him as Cat felt the strength drain out of her.

  It was too much.

  Too many upheavals, too many losses and revelations.

  She wanted to escape. She needed to escape.

  And she had no place to go, no way of surviving if she ran as she longed to run.

  And God help her, but she longed to run.

  • CHAPTER 10 •

  Dealing with Jonas was something she just couldn’t do.

  The next morning she was up, showered and out the back door by daybreak. The small pack she carried on her back held water, fruit, two peanut butter sandwiches and a weapon.

  She strapped her knife to her thigh, over the black pants she’d hurriedly pulled on the night before to rush downstairs before Graeme could torture his enemies. The black shirt overlay a racer-back tank top while hiking boots covered her feet.

  With any luck, she’d have an hour to run before Graeme caught up with her. She had no doubt he’d catch up with her, just as she had no doubt he was aware she was leaving the grounds.

  She wasn’t a prisoner. She hadn’t allowed herself to be a prisoner since she had escaped the research center where she’d been raised. Where Graeme had turned her into the Breed with the potential to be his mate.

  The bitterness that had spilled from her the night before had surprised her. As the pleasure of his touch had heated her, spreading through her senses and sending a sensual letha
rgy through her, she’d wanted nothing more than to lie back and to give herself to him.

  In that moment, she’d felt him, felt that primal connection she hadn’t felt with anyone since the night she’d renounced him as her alpha.

  She’d been a child. Broken, betrayed one time too many, and lost within herself without the only person she’d depended upon all her life.

  Her G.

  It was different. What she felt now wasn’t a child’s love and adoration. What she’d felt the night before was a hunger she’d never felt before. Hunger for a man she could feel seeping inside her, becoming a part of her. No, he’d always been a part of her. But she could feel him taking more of her now, and she couldn’t deal with that.

  Running through the chill of the desert morning, the wind racing over her face, she tried to tell herself she could fight it, she could deny it. That the sensitivity of her flesh could be ignored, that the hunger for his touch could be denied. That she wasn’t his mate.

  She belonged to herself.

  Didn’t she?

  As she ran, the need to escape the chaos her life was becoming rose inside her with a fury that left her at a loss for how to deal with it. For thirteen years she’d allowed her life to be dictated by the need to hide from those searching for her. Always aware that if she was captured, if she allowed that to happen, then Judd and even Honor were at risk as well. The weight of that responsibility had always been with her whenever she’d longed to escape the hatred and malevolence of the Martinez household.

  How had Claire, the somber, far too serious young woman whose life she’d stepped into, borne it for the fifteen years she’d been raised in that house?

  What had caused Claire to drive the car she’d stolen from her father that night over a cliff with her best friend beside her, resulting in a tragic, near fatal accident for both Claire and Liza, Cat had never really known. Even Claire hadn’t remembered why she’d done so. Before she’d disappeared entirely, her essence absorbed completely into Cat as part of that ritual twelve years ago, Claire had remembered very little from her life before that wreck.

  What Cat was certain of, was Raymond Martinez had something to do with it.

  As the sun burned the chill from the morning, Cat watched from a vantage point at the base of one of the stone towers that rose from the desert floor as the Bureau’s heli-jet landed outside the grounds of the house Lobo Reever had allowed her the use of.

  Graeme would know she wasn’t there. Thankfully, he hadn’t followed her. Not that she knew of. She hadn’t sensed him behind her, but that didn’t mean anything. If he had followed her, he was leaving her alone for the moment at least.

  He was the only one leaving her alone though. No more than minutes after sitting back to enjoy the view she sensed the advance of two Breeds. It wasn’t their scent that alerted her first so much as the sense of invasion, and manipulation.

  “Nice place.” It didn’t take long for them for step into view and to disturb the beauty of the morning. Jonas Wyatt and Rule Breaker. She just didn’t need this right now.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Dressed in dark silk slacks, a white silk shirt, sleeves rolled up and barely wrinkled, he didn’t look as though he’d been carefully following her since she’d left the enclosed grounds of the guesthouse.

  He was a fucking magician or something.

  A smile quirked at his lips as he moved into the shelter created by the boulders before easing down to sit at the base of the tower. Leaning back against the cool stone he looked out between the boulders, obviously enjoying the same view she’d claimed as her own.

  “I knew you wouldn’t be at the house this morning,” he told her, snagging her pack before she could stop him.

  Digging inside, he pulled out a bottle of water and one of her apples. Taking a bite of the crisp fruit, he glanced at her in appreciation before seeming to relax as he made his way through the fruit.

  She waited.

  She’d learned in the research center that pressing for explanations and answers made her seem weak. She wasn’t begging him for a damned thing, and she didn’t owe him a damned thing.

  Finishing the apple and tossing the core outside the shelter for scavengers, he opened the water, took a long drink then capped it. Holding it loosely between his fingers and bending one knee to rest his arm, his gaze narrowed on the desert below the boulders.

  Cat just watched him.

  Not enough people spent enough time watching this man’s face and eyes, she thought. Not that he often gave anything away, but watch him long enough, pay enough attention, and sometimes hints of what he felt or knew would flash in his eyes or his expression. A time or two, she might have caught a scent of emotion, of regret.

  “I don’t feel superior to your genetics because of my creation versus your additions. What you sensed at that meeting is something difficult to explain, and your accusation of prejudice may not have been entirely unfounded. For that, I sincerely apologize,” he said softly, still staring out at the desert. “I would like to mark it down as a moment of human weakness that has since been eradicated.”

  He turned his eyes back to her and the ice that normally filled them, that emotionally blank gaze he normally gave the world, was absent. Jonas had lowered his defenses, allowing the Breed and the man to be revealed to her uniquely strong sense of smell.

  Regret, sincerity and perhaps even a hint of uncertainty. He couldn’t predict whether she would accept his apology or not.

  “Apology accepted.” She shrugged, still watching him closely, aware of the emotions he tried to stem, or make sense of. He was a Breed that rarely allowed others close to, and trusted even less.

  “Amber is as much my child as any Rachel will conceive from our union,” he told her softly then. “She is flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, and I want to know how Gideon made that happen.”

  Cat couldn’t hide the flinch of shock at his words.

  “What? What do you mean?” She shook her head, confusion filling her.

  Jonas turned his gaze to her, the brooding intensity in it focusing on her completely.

  “For six months, at the very least, he was slipping past every security protocol I used to alert me that he was there, and he was injecting my little girl, the child that came to me as a stepdaughter, with that evil that Brandenmore created. The files he left explained everything, but how Amber is slowly becoming a Lion Breed isn’t explained. One with my genetic markers. And I want to know how he did it.”

  With Jonas’s genetic markers? Graeme knew how to adjust the serum to mark the Breed genetics with familial coding and he hadn’t marked hers in such a way? Was it something he’d learned only after leaving the labs? Or something he’d learned with his recapture?

  “I don’t know how he did it.” She shook her head, staring back at him and allowing him to sense that inner part of her where truth or deception lay.

  “I never imagined you knew how he did it,” he acknowledged. “It’s something I have to know, though. He’ll return, Cat. He’ll come back to you, he won’t be able to help himself. You’re his mate. You belong to him and we both know he’ll never be far from you. That endanger