Bengal's Heart (36 page)

She’d wondered at the time, What family? Douglas had never mentioned family to her.

Lifting her head, Cassa paused at the back entrance, her hand clenched around the strap of her pack as she fought with the questions raging through her mind.

This killer was smart, methodical. He had managed to get seven men to return to Glen Ferris after word would have spread that the Dozen was being picked off, one by one. He knew what he was doing, and he knew how to do it.

He wanted Douglas. He wouldn’t be satisfied with Douglas’s wife.

She felt her heart racing in her chest now, and this time, it wasn’t from arousal. It was from horror. Terror.

She could feel herself shaking her head, feel the knowledge burning into her soul as surely as the mating heat burned through her body.

“Turning back, Ms. Hawkins?”

She turned with a gasp at the sound of Dog’s rough voice.

Eyes widening, she watched as he stepped from the doorway of one of the offices. Dressed in black leather, his silver and black hair framing his savage features, he looked like a demon come to collect souls.

Was her soul the one he had chosen? Or merely her life?

“You were supposed to meet me outside,” she said, feeling the fear as it rose inside her with a vengeance.

“So I was.” His brow arched with curious amusement. “And you were supposed to actually step outside that door thirty-five seconds ago. You’re late.”

“So I am.” She stepped back as he moved a step forward.

What had she done? She had known even as she stepped from that elevator that she was making a mistake. That she should have never agreed to this meeting. Now she could feel that certainty to the very marrow of her bones.

She should have never allowed herself to be drawn away from Cabal so effectively. She should have fought this out with him rather than trying to solve things the same way she had done all her life. Her way. Silently. Stubbornly.

Douglas had once told her that her stubbornness was going to cause him to kill her. Maybe, in a way, he had always been right.

“So much fear.” Dog scoffed mockingly as he watched her, his head tilted to the side as one thumb rested just inside the pocket of his snug leather pants. “You should have thought of the wisdom of this meeting before arranging it perhaps.”

No shit.

“I’m considering it now,” she retorted. “Let me pass, Dog.”

“Going to run back to your little Bengal then?” He grinned as he asked the question. “Tell me, Cassa, have you figured it out yet?”

Had she figured it out? She had a lot of suspicions and a lot of questions. But she had a feeling that Dog didn’t have as many answers as he thought he had.

“What’s there to figure out?” she questioned him instead. “Cabal will kill both of us if I leave here with you.”

“Well, he’d kill one of us anyway.” His lips quirked in a rueful smile. “Somehow, I doubt you’d be so lucky as to escape that easily though.”

Somehow, she guessed he was right.

“We’re not leaving the inn,” he finally told her as he glanced up the hall before turning back to her. “I have no desire to end my existence quite yet, despite repeated attempts by others to hurry it along.”

Cassa swallowed tightly as she stared back at him and wished to hell she had stayed in her room.

“What was I supposed to have figured out by now?” She returned to his previous question.

He shook his head slowly. “Mordecai seemed pretty confident that you were smarter than you’re letting on,” he sighed. “Tell me, Cassa, haven’t you figured out yet why the killer drew you here? Why your Bengal refuses to allow you to be a part of what he’s involved in?”

“Dog.”

Cassa started, swinging around as Cabal stepped into the back hallway.

Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.

Her gaze swung between the two men as the eerie sense of danger began to wrap around her.

“What was I supposed to figure out?” she asked the Coyote as she ignored her mate. Ignored the man she loved and tried to ignore the suspicion that was beginning to make her sick inside.

“Drop this, Dog,” Cabal warned quietly. “It’s gone far enough.”

“Perhaps it has,” Dog sighed. “If the truth hasn’t slapped her upside the head by now, then it isn’t going to.” He inclined his head toward her. “Next time you want to talk, Ms. Hawkins, try going through regular channels. It’s normally safer for my ass that way.”

“He’s alive.”

Dog froze. Time froze. Behind her, Cassa heard Cabal growl.

“Isn’t he?” she whispered and turned back to stare at Cabal. “My husband is still alive.”

◆ CHAPTER 20
◆

“He’s not your fucking husband!” The words tore out of Cabal’s mouth before he could stop them. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he spoke without thought, without considering the words that fell from his lips.

He hadn’t meant to say it, not just like that. But he couldn’t handle it. Hearing her call Watts her husband was too much for him to stand.

The pain in her eyes, in her scent, nearly overwhelmed him. The need to comfort her, to wrap her in his arms and shelter her from this knowledge, was like a stake through his soul.

“Get out of here, Dog,” he snarled.

That bastard Coyote. The son of a bitch had to be related to Jonas, because he was nothing but a manipulative troublemaker, rather like the Bureau director himself was.

Dog watched them silently, his expression brooding, heavy.

“Let her face it,” he said softly, his gaze going to Cassa as she stared at Cabal with betrayal in her eyes.

The betrayal hurt the worst, Cabal acknowledged. As Jonas had warned him, this secret had come back to bite him on the ass.

“You knew.” Her voice was husky with a pain he had no idea how to ease for her. “You knew he was still alive.”

“And I know it doesn’t matter.” He’d had enough.

Cabal stepped forward, gripped her arm and pulled her toward the elevators. “We’ll talk about this upstairs.”

“The hell we will.” Jerking her arm out of his grasp, she stared up at him, waves of fury beginning to pour from her now. “What else have you been keeping from me, Cabal? How many other lies have you told?”

“More than you want to keep track of,” he bit out in self-disgust. “Do you want a fucking list?”

He pushed her gently into the elevator, blocked the exit and stared down at her implacably as the doors slid shut behind them.

“Locking me up again, Cabal?” she sneered at him.

He couldn’t blame her for her fury. She had every right to it. As Jonas had said, this was a secret he shouldn’t have kept from her, but neither had she needed to know. Until this assignment. Until the mission that Cabal had no doubt would require that he kill Watts again. This time for good.

“You would only slip out,” he growled. “You can’t stay in place, can you, Cassa?”

“Go to hell!” she yelled furiously, her face flushing a becoming pink. “I’m not some weak-kneed little bitch you can order around. Not anymore.”

“So instead of fighting me for anything, you go to Dog?” he snapped out, the anger beginning to burn in him as well. “To a Coyote, Cassa?”

“At least he was willing to tell me the truth.”

“Perhaps I would have been willing if you had dared to fight for it,” he accused her roughly.

“Fight for it? I should fight for it?” She looked like she was ready to shoot him. “Why should I fight for a respect that you should have given me willingly? For God’s sake, Cabal. You should have let me stand at your side without having to fight you for it, simply because I was your mate. You should have wanted me there.”

He stared back at her in silent shock, seeing in her gaze the betrayal she felt, and for the first time understanding why Cassa had never fought him for respect and acknowledgment when she had never hesitated to go head-to-head with other Breeds.

It had bothered him, he admitted that now. It was something he hadn’t wanted to admit before. Just as he hadn’t wanted to see what it was doing to her. He wanted to protect her. He had wanted her to demand her rights from him as he had seen her do with others she went up against. He had wanted her to challenge him. He hadn’t realized until this moment how she
had
been challenging him. Daring him to be a true mate. Daring him to be
her
equal.

As Cabal struggled to make sense of the mistakes he had made, the elevator came to a stop with a muted little ping and the doors slid open on Cassa’s floor.

The hall wasn’t empty. Waiting for them were Jonas, Lawe, Rule and Mordecai. And they didn’t look happy.

“We have a situation,” Jonas stated, his tone cold, implacable. “We need you for this.”

Cabal clenched his teeth together furiously as he turned to Cassa.

“Like hell.” She pushed in front of him. “I know Breed Law and don’t think I won’t use it.” She stared back at Jonas. “Where he goes, I go.” She shot Cabal a hard, angry look. “It looks like the only way to get the truth out of him at this point.”

Jonas’s brows lifted in surprise as the other members of the team stared back at Cabal in shock.

Cabal kept his expression carefully blank, though he didn’t doubt the arousal pouring through him was clearly detected. Mating heat was surging through his system, pumping in his veins. She was taking her place. She wasn’t asking for it. A part of him was exultant, another part was terrified. He couldn’t protect her if she was in the line of fire. But she was also proving that protection wasn’t what she wanted.

Was this what he had been pushing for all along? he wondered. A mate who would fight to stand beside him rather than behind him?

It didn’t matter, and he wasn’t questioning it at the moment. Later, they would discuss this. Just as they would discuss her penchant for getting information from Dog rather than her mate. If she needed information, then she could damned well challenge him for it.

“Very well.” Jonas shot Cabal a warning look. “We’ll take the elevator to the top floor. The meeting room is set up there.”

The same meeting room Cabal had been headed to when Mordecai had waylaid him in the upper hallway to inform him that Cassa was meeting with Dog.

A meeting Mordecai had set up to repay a debt he owed to Cassa. Cabal understood the repayment, just as he appreciated the loyalty the Coyote had shown in informing her mate of that meeting.

He had accepted certain facts the second Mordecai had informed him that Cassa was meeting with Dog. First and foremost was his own mistake in not working with her. He had thought he could quell that independent nature enough to allow him to protect her. He’d been wrong about that, he admitted it.

Breed society was much different from that of human society. Respect wasn’t given, it was taken. She had earned the respect of every Breed she had worked with but had held back with him. She had expected that respect to be given. She had demanded it in her own way; he had just been too dense to understand. And now it was hers.

Above all else though, he had wanted to save her from the truth of what was going on here, the truth of her own past and the parts that were not as dead as she had believed they were.

“In here.” Jonas led the way into the suite he had taken.

The meeting room was still set up from earlier. Pictures were displayed on a holographic board while several holographic vids still played of previous hunts the Deadly Dozen had been on. The videos had been saved from Council archives that had been discovered in some of the labs that were rescued over the years.

There weren’t many of them, but there were enough to show the horrifying measures the Dozen had taken in catching their prey.

Cassa stopped inside the room, her gaze on the images displayed across the electronic board.

The Deadly Dozen had been rumored to have taped some of their hunts. It was how they sold their services to the Council and the individual labs seeking to reacquire their escaped Breeds.

Actually seeing proof of it was horrifying though. Seeing the Breeds as they fought to run, to hide, to escape a dozen hunters that had lain in wait for them.

She heard the door close behind the four men, and she was aware of them moving around her, watching her as she stared at the images on the screen.

“They were too good,” she whispered as she watched the video for long moments. “There was a Breed with them.”

“Two. They weren’t part of the Dozen,” Jonas stated quietly. “That was always part of the deal. The labs would loan them two Coyotes to help track during the hunt.”

She shook her head slowly. “They led them where they wanted them to go. They watched. Waited.”

“Some of the hunts lasted for weeks, a few months at a time,” she was told. “They stalked their prey.”

Like a safari hunt, she thought. They knew what they wanted, where it was. They knew their prey’s habits and how they tracked, hid. As she watched, she could see that. They knew their prey intimately.

“This particular hunt was one of the first,” Jonas told her, and she felt Cabal moving behind her, his hands settling on her hips, pulling her against him.

The clasp was intimate rather than sexual. Comforting rather than arousing.

“We found this one in a lab in New Mexico,” Jonas continued. “The hunt took place approximately twenty-seven years ago. The Breeds they were hunting were a male and two females from that particular lab. They caught the first female a week before this hunt.”

She sensed what Jonas wasn’t saying. That she didn’t want to know the particulars of that capture. She probably didn’t want to know this one either.

As she watched the footage, she caught a few glimpses of the hunters themselves. Black-masked and black-clothed. It was impossible to tell who was who.

The dark landscape was illuminated by the thermal and night-illuminating capabilities of the video. She could see the male Breed, a Lion Breed if the brown eyes and tawny-colored hair were an indication, as he attempted to keep the female in front of him.