Bengal's Quest

  Just for now.

  Hunger raged through her, a hunger that went far beyond the sexual into a realm of broken dreams, a broken heart and a scarred soul. But the need to be held by him had followed her through all of it.

  The need to be his, in whatever capacity he would allow her to belong to him, had always been a part of her. Whether coded in by him, or matched by nature, did it really matter? Because the need for it far outweighed anything science could have created.

  Closing her eyes, Cat gave in to the need, the hunger and the overwhelming emotion she restrained with such force that at times she feared it would strangle her.

  She let herself be what she had been born to be.

  His Cat.

  • CHAPTER 15 •

  She’d dreamed of his touch.

  Lying beneath him, Cat wondered if she would ever regain her emotional distance now.

  Callused palms stroked along her sides to her hips, the warmth and friction exploding against her sensitive flesh in flash points of pleasure. As she tightened her fingers in the blankets beneath her, the moan trapped in her throat escaped. The whimpering sound surprised her, the aching need it contained shocked her.

  Her breath caught when one hand stroked up her side once again, his fingertips caressing, dragging with exquisite heat until they curled around the swollen curve of her breast. His lips smoothed from her neck to her collarbone, a little nip causing her to jerk her hands from the bed to grip his shoulders.

  She needed to hold on to him, needed to steady her senses as his thumb brushed over her nipple and his lips moved over the rapidly rising flesh to the hard, aching tip.

  “Graeme.” Whispering his name didn’t help her find that center.

  His lips surrounded the tight bundle of nerves, his teeth raking over it before he sucked it into his mouth with firm, destructive pressure.

  Cat ground her head against the bed, dizziness washing over her as pleasure crashed through her, forked fingers of sizzling sensation striking straight to her womb.

  “Graeme.” She cried out his name.

  Arching against him, Cat gasped at the pleasure, the heated pressure devastating her control as pleasure raced from her nipple to the aching bundle of nerves between her thighs.

  Electric pulses of tiny explosions raced through her body, dragging her deeper into the morass of chaotic needs, physical and emotional¸ that churned through her. As his mouth drew first on one nipple, then the other, before moving to the other again, Cat fought to drag her senses back under control.

  It wasn’t happening.

  The pleasure was destructive. It tore down defenses she’d spent years building and replaced them with such burning need she wondered if she’d ever be the same again.

  Wondered? No, she knew she would never be the same again.

  She’d fought the knowledge that there was a part of her that would always belong to him, but here, in this moment, there was no fighting it. There was no denying it.

  “I love the taste of you,” he whispered, his lips smoothing over her nipple before he began spreading blistering kisses lower.

  His lips moved over her midriff, smoothing over delicate flesh, trailing lower. Stroking his fingers down her sides once again, over her hips to her thighs, where he spread her legs slowly. He eased his kisses closer to the throbbing bud of her clitoris.

  She couldn’t bear it.

  Her senses were swirling, caught in a whirlpool of nearing ecstasy that she was certain she would never survive.

  “Just let yourself go, Cat, I have you,” he whispered, the warmth of his breath wafting over the tight bud throbbing for his attention. “I have this, baby.”

  Trust him to hold her through this? He had this?

  “Graeme . . . oh God . . .” Her hands slapped to the bed, claws extending into the blankets as her hips arched in reflex to the astounding pleasure that tore through her.

  His tongue licked through the swollen, saturated folds between her thighs. A slow, sensual swipe of raw sensation rushing through her and obliterating any chance of saving her control.

  It was gone.

  Control wasn’t even a thought. Nothing mattered but each luxuriant caress of his wicked tongue as it moved through the sensitive flesh before swirling around the tight bundle of nerves throbbing for release.

  She arched, her thighs parted further. Each licking caress, each swipe of erotic sensation tightening in her clit dragged her deeper into the storm building inside her. She was racing toward the center of it, reaching for it, strangled moans tearing from her throat.

  It was so good.

  The intensity of each sensation, the turbulent rush of pleasure surging through her system only added to the euphoric haze filling her dazed senses.

  Each pulse of blood racing through her veins carried the pleasure-laced adrenaline to infuse her senses, locking her in the sensual maelstrom Graeme was creating.

  Graeme.

  Her Graeme.

  Whatever name he used, whatever persona he took, he was hers. He’d always been hers.

  Just as she had always belonged to him.

  Each path they had taken in life, each battle, each night that she had searched the darkness had been part of the journey leading to this.

  To this pleasure.

  A growl rumbled against the swollen bud of her clit as his lips surrounded it, drawing on the delicate flesh as his tongue rubbed against it, stroked it . . .

  Oh God . . . the pleasure was indescribable. Each lick sent electric pulses rushing through her, building, burning along nerve endings so sensitive that each touch, each caress had the power to draw her deeper into a hunger she hadn’t expected.

  It swirled, building with each breathless moan, each touch.

  Blinding, searing sensation rocked her senses. Muscles drew tight, her body arched and in a rush of pure, burning ecstasy her orgasm exploded through her.

  Breathless, strangled cries escaped her throat. Shudders tore through her, each explosive rush of ecstasy jerking her against Graeme’s body as he slid up over her.

  She was certain the pleasure couldn’t be any better. That the storm erupting inside her couldn’t become more chaotic.

  Until the broad, iron-hard length of his erection surged inside the flexing, tightening depths of her vagina.

  “Sweet Cat.” The primal sound of his voice at her neck was followed by the feel of incisors raking against the delicate flesh.

  Cat wrapped her arms around his shoulders and turned her lips to his neck as well, her own incisors gripping the hard muscle of his shoulder where it curved away from his neck.

  Pushing into each fierce thrust of his hips between her thighs, the feel of his erection surging inside her, stretching her with burning pleasure, pushed her toward a precipice she wondered if she’d survive.

  Survival or not, the need to meet the flaming ecstasy he was pushing her toward became a desperate, driving race to her own destruction.

  Each powerful thrust of his hips, the feel of his body covering hers, one hand gripping her hip, the other buried in her hair, fingers tightening in the strands to hold her head in place, assured her he was racing for that same blinding edge of rapture.

  Her thighs tightened on his hips, her teeth grazed his neck and, in a moment of complete, blinding instinct, she bit into his flesh as the violence of her orgasm threw her over that edge with such power, such explosive sensation, that nothing else existed but the ecstasy and the man joining her in it.

  She felt his release as it jetted from him. Hard, heated pulses of semen that triggered the primal erection of the male barb. It locked into place, holding him inside her as he jerked against her, his incisors piercing her shoulder and a deep, guttural growl vibrating against her shoulder.

  And it was never ending.

  The ecstasy continued to explode, over and over again. The jagged bolts of fiery rapture overwhelmed her senses, overtook them. And just as he’d promised her, he held her through it. Secured against
him, shuddering, defenseless, she felt herself lose something to him. Something she knew she’d regret later. Something she knew would give him the power to destroy her as he hadn’t in the past.

  But he was holding her now, just as he’d promised he would.

  She could feel his heart beating against her breasts, his battle to breathe as difficult as her own. Locked within her, his senses as overwhelmed as her own, his pleasure just as wild and untethered as hers.

  At this moment he was hers just as much as she belonged to him.

  For this moment.

  • • •

  Midnight was edging across the sky, the cool desert breeze drifting through the open balcony doors as Graeme laying staring into the night beyond.

  Curled against his side, boneless in sleep, Cat and the gentle rhythm of her breathing seemed to soothe the restlessness that normally plagued his nights. Holding her, replete after hours of loving, had dulled that razor edge of fury that seemed to follow him closer than his own shadow, and replaced it with drowsy satisfaction.

  His mate.

  Stroking the heavy strands of hair that drifted over her pillow, he couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that he even had a mate, especially this exquisite creature. When he’d first programmed the genetic serum for her he’d never imagined that connection he’d felt to her could be something so complex as what he felt now.

  Hell, he’d been eleven years old, his mind filled with so many formulas and so much knowledge that insanity had already set in. No child, even a Breed child, should have such a capacity for decoding something so complex as the human and animal genome being researched in Brandenmore’s labs.

  He’d known not just how to decode it, though; he’d known how to code it as well. The complexity of identifying and mapping the unique DNA strands was something researchers who had studied it all their adult lives still didn’t understand. Even Dr. Foster, one of the most renowned geneticists in his field, had been unable see what Graeme saw in each DNA strand under research. And even Graeme had known that 90 percent of what he knew, he’d never be able to reveal.

  That knowledge had enabled him to guide Dr. Foster in the direction he needed to go for Cat’s therapies, though. As painful as they were, as agonizing as they had become, it was all that would save her life.

  The genetic abnormality she had been born with would have killed her within days. She’d been missing a gene vital to hormonal and immunity development. One he’d been able to replace with the Bengal Breed genetics.

  By the time she was eight, he’d known that getting her out of the research center was imperative. Like Judd’s, her development would progress in ways science, as it stood, would never be able to understand.

  He’d planned everything with such precise detail. Everything but the bullets ricocheting off a boulder and slamming into his chest, thigh and abdomen. He hadn’t planned for that, nor had he planned for the transfusion forced on him.

  His Breed instincts had been unable to process the strength of the forced bond that began snapping into place. And he’d known Cat as he knew no other. The only way to force her away from him was to make her hate him.

  There had been so much left to do to ensure her safety.

  Then fate had stepped in once again and the Genetics Council soldiers had recaptured him and returned him to the research center.

  Forcing back those memories, he glared beyond the opened doors, forcing back the volatile rage that filled him whenever he allowed himself to revisit that particular hell.

  Cat shifted next to him, rolling to her side before sitting up on the edge of the bed.

  Frowning, he watched as she rose from the bed, dragging the sheet along with her and wrapping it around her nakedness almost protectively. Inhaling slowly, he felt his Breed senses suddenly rioting, the insanity that was never more than a breath away blinking awake in sudden, furious awareness.

  Graeme was out of the bed instantly, striding to her as she reached the balcony doors. Gripping her shoulders and turning her to him, he stared into eyes filled with bleak bitterness as he realized the scent of his mate was no longer present.

  This wasn’t his mate.

  “Claire?” Where had she come from? He hadn’t scented her in months, had begun to suspect she no longer existed.

  She existed, though.

  Cat’s scent was so subtle, so diluted by the awareness of the protective spirit that existed within her, that she almost wasn’t there.

  “Aren’t you so handsome,” she said wistfully, staring up at him with a curiosity so lacking in anything sexual that he could only ache for the life she’d never had. “But I knew from Cat’s memories of you that you would be. She’s very lucky.”

  “Why are you here?” The deepening of his voice, the rage building in his senses, was the only warning he ever had of the monster he could become beginning to make itself known.

  Somehow, she sensed that creature and the threat it could be.

  “Don’t hurt me.” Fear flashed across her face. “Please. I’m here for Cat, I promise.”

  The stripes were beginning to shadow his face, his neck.

  Releasing her abruptly, Graeme stalked to the other side of the room, desperate now to push back that part of him that could rise with merciless intent to destroy anything, anyone, that stood between him and Cat.

  He wouldn’t last long. His instincts were rioting and yet he knew that releasing that rage would terrify this timid shadow of a child that should have been allowed to pass when her body could no longer sustain life.

  The stripes eased away. The grip on his control became firmer before he turned back to her.

  “Cat’s mine.” He fought to keep his voice gentle, unthreatening. “She has to return.”

  “She’s only asleep.” The scent of Claire’s fear was like a cloak surrounding her. “She doesn’t know I’m here. She can’t know. Promise me. I swear, I’m here for her.”

  A sharp nod was all he managed. At the moment his voice would terrify her.

  “I had to warn you,” she whispered, still holding the sheet to her. “I just wanted to see the night for a moment first.” She glanced toward the balcony doors, the haunting sadness that was so much a part of her doing little to ease the instinctive need to force her back into hiding.

  When he didn’t speak, she gave a small sigh before meeting his gaze warily. “Breeds can smell a lie. I wouldn’t lie to you. I’ll just be here for a few moments. Is that really so bad? I just wanted to see the night before warning you . . .” She frowned, obviously fighting to choose her words.

  “What’s Cat up to?” He knew his Cat, and he had sensed her secrets. He was willing to wait, to gain her trust, but he had to do whatever it took to satisfy the young woman who had protected Cat for more than a decade. If she didn’t leave quickly they would both regret it.

  “If I betray her, then I’ll be like everyone else, in her eyes,” she said softly. “I can’t tell you her secrets, but she’s taught me there are other ways to say what must be said.”

  “Say it, child.” He forced back the guttural tone filled with rage long enough to warn her that she didn’t have much time.

  “The past isn’t over,” she whispered quickly. “There are threads that she’s sought. The danger isn’t to her, it’s to the fragile remnants of trust that allowed that bond she had with you to remain. But these secrets could destroy it. Beware of flight. If she takes wing, then you may well lose her forever.” With that she stepped back to the bed and, unwrapping the sheet, lay back and stared up at him with such regret that guilt seared him to his soul. “I just wanted to see the night again. I’ve missed it so . . .”

  Her eyes closed and as quickly as the spirit had shown herself, she was gone once more. The scent of his Cat filled the room, the mating bond, the mark he’d left on her, once again filling the room.

  Graeme couldn’t take his gaze off her.

  There had been no warning that Claire would make an appearance. No warning t
hat the spirit that had slept within Cat would awaken.

  The eeriness of the presence threatened the sanity he’d found with his Cat, and the knowledge that Claire still existed within her was unsettling.

  The ritual performed by the Six Chiefs of the Navajo over a decade before, to hide Cat from the Council forces determined to recapture her, had been designed to place Cat’s spirit in a sleeping state while the spirit of Claire faced the world in Cat’s body.

  It had changed even Cat’s genetic makeup during the time Claire had been “awake.” Graeme knew Claire had slept more often than she’d been awake, though, and Cat had faced the petty cruelties and hatred she found in the Martinez household.

  Once the need for that protection was over, Claire should have found that path to her eternal sleep or to whatever came after death.

  There were times Graeme wasn’t certain what to believe about the afterlife part, but he knew now that Claire hadn’t found it.

  Fuck.

  This wasn’t tolerable. He wouldn’t allow it to continue. Cat had lost enough of her life. She deserved to face life without the danger of another awakening inside her and taking her place.

  He deserved more than to have her taken from him so easily in such a way. When he’d faced Claire, nothing but the most subtle scent of Cat remained. So subtle that identifying her would have been impossible if he weren’t her mate, though even the mating no longer existed when this woman faced the world.

  A silent snarl curled at his lips.

  She was his. He’d died for her more than once. He’d lived for her. He’d lost his sanity for her. He’d be damned if he’d allow anyone to take her from him now.

  Not the Genetics Council, not Jonas Wyatt, and not that poor, sad little creature that had wanted to see the night so desperately.

  Claire deserved her rest if she deserved nothing else in this world.

  But even more, he and Cat deserved to face life without the knowledge that when Cat slept, the other spirit could awaken so easily without Cat’s knowledge.

  It was time to break the fragile truce he had with a certain chief and bring this to an end.

  • CHAPTER 16 •

  The next night, Graeme moved carefully to the location where he knew the chief would be awaiting him. Even at a young age Graeme had inspired fear. He hadn’t always understood it, though he often appreciated the ability. One man who had never looked at him with fear or even trepidation was Orrin Martinez, the highest of the Six Chiefs of the Navajo, the spirit men of the tribes of the Nation.

  And he’d never managed to surprise Orrin either. Even at that first visit so many years ago, he’d found the Navajo chief waiting for him in the same place he was waiting for him now.

  In a year of intense rains, runoffs and flash floods had carved out the land in many places and revealed surprising gorges as well as caverns once hidden behind thin stone walls and packed desert sands.

  It was one of these caverns that he stepped into, aware that Orrin didn’t wait alone. With him were four of the Unknown, Navajo warriors selected to protect the secrets the chiefs oversaw.

  One of those warriors, Lincoln Martinez, stood silently, his features, marked by warrior’s paint, nearly obscured by the design they used.

  “I’d love to know how you figure out when we need to talk.” Graeme shook his head as he took a seat at the small fire Orrin had prepared.

  Orrin watched him closely, the solemn wisdom reflected in his gaze just as deep and just as knowing as it had been so long ago.

  “The winds whisper to those willing to listen,” Orrin stated quietly. “Many just prefer not to hear.”

  It was his standard answer when Graeme asked how he knew whatever he knew at the time.

  The winds whispered the secrets to him.

  “Does Claire hear the whispers when she’s awake?” he asked the old Navajo, not in the least surprised when Orrin sighed heavily at the question.

  “If so, she did not tell me, nor did the whispers that drift by me,” he said softly. “My granddaughter, even at a young age, was well versed in keeping her secrets.”

  “She loved the night, didn’t she?” Graeme asked then, wondering how much the chief did know where Claire was concerned.

  Orrin’s head lifted, his gaze staring beyond Graeme’s shoulder before he turned to the warriors and nodded to the cavern opening. All but one left the natural enclosure. Lincoln moved from where he stood, though, and took a seat next to Orrin.

  The Navajo hiding in the small crevice leading to another cavern came forward then, his saddened features and bitter gaze attesting to the fact that none of the Martinez family had escaped the repercussions of one son’s actions.

  Terran moved to Orrin’s other side, sat and stared back at Graeme silently.

  “You spoke to Claire?” Orrin asked then.

  “Last night.” Graeme nodded. “You told me once Cat awoke that Claire would find her rest, Orrin.”

  He hadn’t known of the ritual until he’d scented Cat in the same body that he’d known carried a different scent years before. It was then that Orrin had come to him in the desert and explained the actions the chiefs had taken to save Cat and Honor, as well as Judd.

  “The ritual was to place your Cat in a sleep so deep none could find her,” he said softly, a small, rueful smile tugging at his lips. “Perhaps the winds did not tell me how determined that little Breed was to rule her fate, no matter who others believed she was.”