by Lora Leigh
e child he ached for, the granddaughter he feared he’d already lost.
• CHAPTER 21 •
If she were going to run, it would be tonight.
Focusing his attention on the display of the security feed from her bedroom on the secured e-pad lying in the dirt before him, Graeme reminded himself of that fact once again. Confronting her about it would do no good. To give answers, she would first demand answers, and revealing the horrors he’d experienced when he was recaptured was something he couldn’t bring himself to do. Instead, he was here. The interrogation of the Jackals had been delayed, though a brief meeting with Jonas hadn’t been. Even as he watched her shift on the bed and tuck back a stray strand of hair into the snug braid she’d bound the rest into, he couldn’t push away the certainty that she was going to run.
Tonight would be her best chance if that were her intention. She believed him distracted by the interrogation of the Jackals with Jonas Wyatt. She was certain he was unsuspecting of her intent to leave. Had Claire not warned him of Cat’s intentions, then he might have questioned his certainty that something was wrong.
And something was definitely wrong. He could feel it. Even as he lifted his gaze from the security feed to stare at her open balcony doors, his instincts were raging. He hated her habit of leaving those doors open, it was a security risk that made his skin crawl after the attack by the Jackals and Raymond Martinez. But, like Claire, she enjoyed the night and the cool breeze that drifted into the bedroom. Personally, Graeme thought it was the sense of freedom the act gave her that she enjoyed.
Not that there seemed to be a risk tonight. The breeze was soft, cool but not yet cold. And for all the eyes on the small rental estate, there was nothing restless or dangerous that seemed to drift on the wind.
The six-man team of enforcers from the Bureau of Breed Affairs had fanned out around the walled property at perfect vantage points to watch the area. They thought they were hidden from Graeme’s detection, but he’d found them instantly as he scanned the area.
The fact that Jonas’s warning instincts were roused as well had the primal force inside him itching to emerge. Just beyond the gates of the property Brim Stone, along with Ashley, Emma, Rule Breaker and his mate, Gypsy McQuade, watched the front of the house in plain sight. The two human soldiers the Council had sent were in the shadowed rise of boulders about a half mile from the property, believing themselves hidden. Graeme had known the second they passed Lobo’s borders the night before, though. There was no way for his Cat to be taken or to run without being seen. So why he was so certain her safety was in imminent peril he couldn’t explain.
Beside him, stretched out on the rocky peak of the rise behind the house, Lobo waited as well. The Wolf was so still, so silent, Graeme could barely detect his heartbeat. Lobo was far more than others suspected and took extreme advantage of that fact. And like Graeme, he could be the perfect killing machine. They’d been in place since darkness had fallen and not once had the other Breed questioned Graeme’s instincts. In the year since they’d formed their unusual partnership Lobo had given him what seemed to be unquestioned faith. If only Cat would extend a small measure of such trust.
“She’s good,” Lobo murmured as his gaze remained focused on the security feed. “Cool as ice. Whatever her plans, she’s not giving anything away. You trained her well, Graeme.”
Unfortunately, that was far too accurate.
“Perhaps at some things I trained her far too well.” Graeme sighed, his voice barely a breath of sound.
Lobo gave a small, amused grunt.
“As a trainer your instincts are excellent. Even my own force has benefited from them immensely. Despite their dislike of felines.” The wry comment had a grin tugging at Graeme’s lips.
“They learn well despite my dislike of wolves.”
The world believed the Breeds—feline, Wolf and Coyote—struggled with a perceived, instinctive dislike toward and prejudice against one another. The truth was, only those who had sided with their creators harbored such prejudices. For those born with the instincts more closely related to their animal genetics, there was no such dislike. It hadn’t been in their training either.
“She’s too patient,” Lobo pointed out.
“Her patience has always seemed immeasurable. And it’s vast. But it has a limit. When that limit’s been reached she’s already perfected a deadly plan of attack or retribution. She’s incredible.” He was in awe of her and she had no idea how he felt.
At twelve she’d done what neither he nor Judd had expected. When the transport agents had arrived to take her to the kill center they had deemed her without threat and hadn’t restrained her. Not that their restraints would have locked properly around her tiny wrists.
She’d waited, seemingly drawn within herself, until she’d somehow sensed the perfect moment to launch herself on the agent guarding her and tear his throat out. Judd hadn’t expected such a move and it had been accomplished before he could react. The silent accuracy and cold determination Judd had described had Graeme doubting him. In the time he’d watched her, though, seen her few desert hunts, he’d lost that doubt.
“And when she loses her patience with you?” Lobo asked in an amused murmur. “Will you survive?”
Graeme wasn’t so certain he would.
“She’ll shred me,” he admitted. “Without mercy and without death, she’ll fucking take me apart. But when she does she’ll be the mate I know lurks beneath the calm.”
Breaking that calm had been impossible so far. She was too calm. Too much of the protective Claire still influenced her instincts as well as the Breed genetics struggling within her.
“She’s rising,” Lobo alerted him.
Moving his attention to the e-pad, Graeme watched as she tossed the electronic device aside and rose from the bed. Striding to the dresser, she collected a short, filmy gown from a drawer and moved into the bathroom.
Dammit, he should have replaced the security equipment she’d removed from the room. Waiting, nerves on edge, he knew the sound of the shower long minutes later should have had him relaxing. But it didn’t. There was nothing to indicate danger, no reason to suspect she was doing anything but preparing for bed, but he could feel the monster rousing. Some instinctive knowledge pulled it to the surface despite Graeme’s attempts to push it back.
“Brim, take Ashley and Emma in to check the master shower,” Lobo ordered through the communication link he wore. Graeme had been unaware that link had been programmed to connect to the Coyote Breeds.
Brim didn’t answer but Graeme detected a hint of movement as the Breeds exited the Dragoon and scaled the fence at the front.
Graeme waited, watching carefully as security showed Brim, another Coyote and the two females entering the front door and proceeding upstairs cautiously.
“Something’s not right.” His voice was deeper, harsh, an indication he was losing his grip on the maddened force he harbored inside. “Damn her. She’s flown . . .”
Flown. Claire had said she would fly, not run.
Swinging his head to Lobo, he pierced the Breed with a furious stare. “Are the winged Breeds in this desert?”
Lobo stared at him in surprise. “They’re in South America.”
“Like hell they are,” the monster growled. “They’re here and they have her.”
The monster was free. Power flooded his body, shaped it, poured through his senses and sharpened each detail, each sight and scent that filled the night. And then, the smell of them, so subtle, barely there, reached him.
The winged Breeds had taken his mate.
A savage, enraged roar filled the night.
He’d kill every damned one of them.
• • •
The thrill of flying with the winged Breeds would never grow old, Cat thought as Keenan landed with her on the desert floor next to a Limo series Desert Dragoon. The larger, expanded Dragoon with its luxury appointments inside and additional armor and weapons on the outsi
de was quickly becoming adopted as the perfect defense vehicle in the Southwest.
Around the vehicle were four other winged Breeds with one inside the vehicle with the human couple. Reaching forward, Keenan opened the passenger-side back door and allowed Cat to slide inside.
The lighted interior had been hidden by the dark windows, but when she faced the couple, she could clearly identify where Honor had gotten many of her features. The general’s hair was graying now, as was his wife’s, but the attractive, almost aristocratic features made them look years younger.
They stared at her in shock, both the general and his slender wife silent, their gazes wide as they watched her. She flashed them both a grin as she pulled a leather-bound sheath of papers from the deep pocket on the thigh of her snug black pants.
“What were you expecting?” she asked, amused at the looks. “You knew the winged Breeds were flying me in.”
“I wasn’t expecting you,” the general almost whispered. “Sweet God, Catarina, we thought you were dead.”
She kept her expression amused, didn’t deviate an iota from how she watched them, though inside she stilled at the name. Catarina? Who the fuck was Catarina?
“That was the idea,” she answered. “If knowledge that I was still alive reached the Genetics Council, then I wouldn’t have been alive long.”
General Roberts shook his head. “So many years. You contacted us but not your parents? They still grieve terribly, despite the fact that they believe you died as a baby.”
Everything in Cat was freezing. She was amazed she was still breathing. She had been told she had no parents. That her mother had died from her refusal to treat the AIDS she’d contracted and had passed the disease to her daughter. She’d been told that the woman had sold her child to Brandenmore for enough money to ensure she was buried properly rather than cremated as hospital property.
And Graeme had never told her any different.
Yet, she knew General Roberts wouldn’t lie, and he would never speak of something he wasn’t certain of.
“Tell me about them.” She finally managed to force words past her lips. “I never learned who they were.”
General Roberts shook his head as his wife’s eyes filled with tears.
“They are our dearest friends,” Annette Roberts whispered, tears filling her eyes as she stared at Cat in amazement. “Your mother, Helena, has been my closest friend since I was three. My God, you’re the image of her, though I can see your father’s stubborn jawline.” A trembling smile pulled at her pale lips. “Helena still cries for you each year on your birthday and Kenneth still adds a single piece of furniture to the dollhouse he made for you before you were born.”
Oh God.
They were killing her. Cat could feel her soul being shredded as it never had been before. It was being ripped from her one small piece at a time. She had parents? She belonged? And Graeme had never told her?
“How could you not know who they were?” the general asked then. “The Breed that came to us earlier this year, Graeme, gathering information on them, told us he intended to inform you of the lie Brandenmore had told of your birth.”
“And you knew Brandenmore lied about it?” Cat asked, fighting to understand such deliberate cruelty. “The years Honor was at the center and you never told me?”
Regret and grief filled his expression as he reached out for her, sighing when she jerked back from his touch.
“How could I tell you?” he asked gently. “They held my child’s life in their hands. Brandenmore could have killed Honor as easily as he cured her. I didn’t dare let any of them suspect I was less than the good little Genetics Council follower. Then, just when I thought I could keep her safe, and could go to your parents, I was told you’d died in the labs when one of the Breeds there escaped. I couldn’t find any proof otherwise and didn’t dare add to your mother’s pain.”
“She never had more children?” Cat asked numbly.
“The genetic defect you were born with had something to do with an incompatibility between her and Kenneth’s genetics,” the general told her. “They didn’t dare risk it. Losing another child would have killed Helena.”
She was dying inside. Agonizing bursts of emotion were exploding inside her, ripping her apart with the force of them.
“And you say Graeme knew?” she asked.
The general nodded. “The Bengal boy that cared for you, Gideon I believe his name was, he knew as well. Once the genetic abnormality was being treated, Dr. Foster demanded to know who your parents were in case he needed further genetic information. The boy was there and I questioned his presence, though the doctor assured me he would never speak of it. I guess he didn’t.” He shook his graying head with sadness. “Damn, that kid loved you, though. There wasn’t a guard or doctor there who didn’t sweat whenever the therapies were given to you. Even Brandenmore walked cautiously around him where you were concerned. What they did to him later . . .” He drew in a hard breath as the scent of horrific disbelief wafted around him. “If they hadn’t threatened to reacquire you, he would have died during that last vivisection.” Horror flashed in his eyes and in Cat’s soul. “There were three. During the last one, Bennett gave the order to acquire you at all costs to see if you could survive the same experiments. God knew he deserved the peace after what Bennett did. I hope he finally found some measure of it.”
Three vivisections? They’d cut into him as he lived, exposed organs and inner flesh in an act that no other Breed was known to have survived? And they had threatened to do the same to her. There was no way he would have allowed that. Because of it, the monster that lurked inside him had risen like a demon of death to destroy anyone that dared threaten her.
This was what he’d hid from her, because it had been her fault. That transfusion placed her blood inside him, marked him with her mating hormone, and because of it Dr. Bennett would have been beside himself with glee at the thought of experimenting on a living, mated Breed.
“You brought the information?” The files detailing what had been done to him, why it had been done, and the birth of the monster they unleashed. That had been her price, she’d warned him, though she would have given him the information to find his daughter regardless.
“Had I known it was you, Catarina,” he whispered, “I would have tried to dissuade you from asking that price.”
From seeing what had happened to Graeme rather than briefly being told? What difference would it make, she knew now what Graeme had been trying to protect her from.
All the lies, his deliberate silence, his refusal to reveal she had parents, all of it had been his attempt to protect her, to ensure no one could harm her. The means was questionable, but the intent pure. That moment of insight broke what was left of her heart. She’d refused to trust him, even though she’d known, known in the deepest reaches of her soul that the man she’d known as a child would do nothing to intentionally harm her. “Graeme, the Breed that came to us some months back, said he knew where Honor was being hidden. He had yet to learn her identity, though.” Gray eyes hardened on her. “We haven’t heard back from him. We didn’t tell him we were already in contact with someone giving us reports on her.” Gratitude flashed in his eyes. “For that, we thank you. Living without her . . .” Moisture gleamed in his eyes as a tear slipped from his wife’s. “So many years lost.”
He handed over the flash chip to her. The information she’d bargained for was hers now, for what? To learn how far he would go to ensure her safety?
Cat in turn handed over the leather-protected sheath of papers, pictures and various flash chips she’d made of Honor’s life over the years.
“Is Honor happy?” Annette whispered then, a thread of fear, that her daughter might not need her in her life now, hidden in the hope.
“She’s with a Breed who loves her more than his own life,” Cat told her softly. “But she still misses a mother to confide in and a father to lean on. The couple that claimed her as a daughter are wonderful peo
ple, but she never became close to them.” Honor had never awakened as Cat had. At least, if she had, she’d never let anyone, especially Cat, know. “Take the information you have to Jonas Wyatt. He’s at the Window Rock offices of the Bureau of Breed Affairs. Make certain the director of that office, Rule Breaker, is present during your meeting. Confront him, demand to see her, and Rule will make certain it happens. Otherwise, Jonas will have the Breed she’s in love with move her.”
“She’s in danger?” the general guessed.
“For the moment,” Cat affirmed, still trying to hold in her shattered emotions. “Letting her see her parents won’t affect the situation, though. It may even help it.”
“Catarina.” Annette sat forward as Cat reached for the door to leave the Dragoon. “Whatever pain haunts your eyes could be soothed with a mother’s love. Go to your parents, please. Because I don’t know if I can watch her pain another year and not reveal the truth. And trust me, when I do, your father will go ballistic. He’ll raze through the Breed forces with every favor he’s amassed in his life and his father’s, and God only knows the destruction he’ll cause to find you.”
“The Bureau didn’t know about me. They didn’t hide me, nor did they know where I was hidden. If they had, I would have died long ago. Trust me, Mrs. Roberts, those who hid me—no one can find them unless they want to be found.”
“It won’t change anything, my dear,” the general warned her gently. “Kenneth won’t allow it to. Once he learns you’re alive, he’ll tear the world apart to find you.”
Cat stared through the window, watching as Keenan and his winged Breeds stood protectively around the Dragoon. Her world was no place for parents who had loved their daughter.
“I’m not the child they lost anymore,” she whispered, refusing to look back at them. “They’re better off not knowing.”
“Cat—” Whatever the general had been about to say was cut off by a vicious roar, nowhere resembling sane, that split the night and had the winged Breeds reaching for their weapons.
“Go.” Pushing the door open and diving out, she yelled the order to the driver. “Get them the hell out of here.”
The winged Breed jumped into the driver’s seat and was accelerating before Cat finished the order.
“Let’s fly,” she demanded, racing to Keenan.
The Eagle looked down at her with quiet contemplation as he shook his head.
“Better to face the beast here than to have him tracking us.” He sighed. “Hopefully I’ll still have some feathers attached when this is finished.”
“No.” She grabbed his arm, suddenly terrified as the roar sounded again, this time much closer. “I’ll deal with him. Let’s go.”
“Fly, bastard!” Enraged, guttural, the demand came as a shadow bounded from the darkness, crouched, maddened rage gleaming in hammered gold eyes. “While you have feathers to do so.”
Cat swung around to face . . . she wasn’t even certain who he was. Whatever Graeme had become, it wasn’t Gideon, and it wasn’t the face he wore before the world now. He seemed taller, broader, so powerful it was frightening.
“Are you fucking insane?” She’d be damned if he was going to intimidate her or harm one of the few true friends she had.
The smile he gave her was frightening; the incisors gleaming with challenge were sharper, longer than before.
The look that accompanied it was one of such male satisfaction it made her claws emerge and flex in warning.
“I would imagine I am.” The rumble of danger in his growl sent a chill racing down her spine. “Now, stand aside so I can convince your friends of it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Yes, they’re friends, and you aren’t touching them.”
His roar shattered the night again. The only reason she didn’t flinch was because she was too shocked by it. Shocked and well aware of the danger surrounding the winged Breeds now. If Keenan stood and fought as he intended to, then they might all die.
“They took you.” This roar, and there was no other word for it, was filled with furious affront. “They called this free. They can deal with it.”
“And how exactly did they call it free?” she snapped caustically.
She was scared to fucking death for Keenan and his men, but not herself. What Graeme had become was terrifying in the sheer power and primal force he displayed. But he was no threat to her. Unfortunately for him, the same couldn’t be said of her.
“They took what was mine.” He paced forward, his gaze locked on Keenan. “Come on, bird man. Come from behind the pretty girl.”
“I’m not the crazy one,” Keenan stated calmly. “I don’t mind a bit letting her stand between us. I like my feathers.”
Graeme sneered back at him. “Coward.”
“‘Sane’ is more the word, I believe.”
“You should have used that sanity and refused to fly her from me, then.” The growl was mixed with such a wealth of frustration that it couldn’t be missed.
As long as she stood between them, he wouldn’t attack. At least not while she wasn’t in danger. He’d have to calm down eventually, wouldn’t he?
“I owe her, Bengal,” Keenan stated then, his tone matter-of-fact. “More than I owe you. And as you’re aware, my debt to you is large.”
He owed her? It was the first time she’d ever known Keenan to outright lie. She didn’t think he knew how.
He didn’t owe her a damned thing. He’d come to her out of the darkness one night while she hunted and informed her that two Council Coyotes were sneaking up on her. He’d disappeared just as quickly.
She owed him.
But what did he owe Graeme?
“Repossession is in your future,” Graeme snapped and though the rage still pulsed around him, it didn’t seem as intense. “Count on it.”
“That’s when you’ll get your fight.” Keenan sighed heavily. “There is no repossession.”
She was going to be asking questions, Cat decided, because she had no idea what the hell they were talking about.
“Graeme . . .” Suddenly, he was in front of her, his back to her, roaring out in challenge as he felt Keenan and his men moving to shield her between them, ready for battle.
From the shadows four figures emerged. Tall, dressed in warriors’ leathers, as silent as death they moved toward them.
The Unknown.
“No. You’ll not have her,” Graeme warned, the monstrous sound of his voice terrifying once again.
Their gazes centered on her, finding her as she stared over Graeme’s shoulder.
Faces painted, eyes gleaming darker than night, they moved forward slowly as even the breeze seemed to move with them. They were the earth, the darkness, the secrets of the land and the protectors of all its secrets.
Cat felt a sob fighting to escape her throat as electric pinpoints of energy began to whip through her body.
“Gideon!” She called out to him in fear as he whipped around and the winged Breeds moved back slowly, away from them, no longer defending, but heeding the sudden breeze pushing at them.
“No . . .” he snarled, catching her as Cat felt the strength leave her body.
She could feel herself being torn apart from the inside out. Her heart fought to beat, yet she could feel it slowing. The blood pounded in her head, trying to push through her veins, yet slowed. Terror sent adrenaline surging into her bloodstream, yet it had little effect.
The awakening. The prophecy said it would come with death. With her death.
She stared into her ma
