Bengal's Quest
Lora Leigh
“Plastic surgery was performed after the ritual?” Graeme wasn’t pleased over that. He’d liked Cat’s looks fine when she was a child.
But Orrin nodded. “The surgery was required to alter her facial features to more closely match those of Claire’s.” His voice hoarsened with emotion then. “Barely six months after the ritual Cat awoke and Claire went away for such a long period of time I feared she would not return. Then the Breeds began arriving, and Claire would return when they were near. She was your Cat’s protector when needed, but otherwise, she slept so deeply that even I, with all my knowledge of the intricacies of that ritual, could not find her.”
Yes, his Cat was determined, Graeme agreed silently. He had no doubt she’d come awake with a vengeance, but he doubted Claire had slept as much as Orrin suspected.
Graeme knew how desperately Cat had ached for a friend who couldn’t be taken from her as everyone had been taken in the research center. She would have kept Claire awake every second possible.
“What happened the night Claire died?” Graeme asked. “What sent a fifteen-year-old racing into the desert with her father’s vehicle into a canyon guaranteed to kill not just herself but also the girl she claimed as her best friend?”
Orrin merely shook his head, lowering it silently as though he didn’t know.
He knew something.
Growling, Graeme glanced to Terran, who did the same, then to Lincoln.
“Are you going to lie to me as well, warrior?” He freely released a portion of the madness just waiting to leap free and do whatever necessary to protect his mate.
His body heated where the stripes emerged, his vision became so clear no detail was missed and those extrasensory abilities he’d acquired when giving himself to the pulsing fury became so much sharper he could almost hear the thoughts of the brother who himself ached to know why.
“She called Grandfather that night,” Lincoln revealed as his grandfather expelled a hard puff of air. “You could hear the whine of the car’s motor in the background and Liza’s frantic cries that they wouldn’t make it. Claire was crying.” Lincoln swallowed tightly. “She told him . . .” He shook his head, turning away from Graeme.
“‘Tell Lincoln . . .’” Orrin whispered Claire’s words. “‘Tell him, Grandfather, I’ll miss climbing in the canyons with him. I love you all.’” A tear fell from the corner of the old man’s eye. “Then she and Liza were screaming until the sounds ended in the crash.”
“Your granddaughter was murdered,” Graeme snarled. “And all these years you’ve called it suicide.”
Orrin shook his head as his hands tightened on his knees. Gnarled and swollen with arthritis now, they whitened with the desperate pain pouring from him.
“Raymond found drugs in her room. The pills were known to produce hallucinations. Claire had been caught smoking, drinking . . . He was her father.” Bitter anger resonated in his aged voice. “She seemed to love him. She never told me of any problems in her life, and Lincoln knew of none. Until the past days, the explanation seemed to make sense.”
“Whatever happened that night I knew it wasn’t drugs,” Lincoln bit out furiously. “But he and Mom were broken that night.” His jaw tightened. “Or they seemed to be broken. But any man who loved his daughter would be desperate to keep alive the young woman protecting her spirit within her own body.”
Orrin, Terran and Lincoln, three men Graeme knew had loved Claire before her death, and each was immersed in the guilt of ignorance.
“What did my granddaughter say to you?” Orrin asked then, desperate for news of his granddaughter. “Did she have need of us?”
The hope he expressed was one Graeme almost hated to dash.
“She came to me with a warning that Cat would try to run, to escape.” That much he would reveal. “And she said she wanted to see the night. She’d missed it.”
“She loved the night,” Lincoln whispered wearily. “She always said the night called to her.”
“Why is she awakening?” Graeme focused his attention on Orrin. “She’s been sleeping . . .”
“Not always,” Orrin informed him with a hint of pleased pride in his granddaughter. “She and Cat, they were sometimes both awake at the same time. They would play within the world together, gaining knowledge and strength. If she came with a warning, then it’s because whatever Cat has planned will endanger her. She is Cat’s protector, Bengal. She is no danger to your mate, she will not replace your mate. She protects her. Until the time comes . . .” Orrin inhaled roughly. “On the night of the ritual, the winds whispered that with the awakening came death. I fear for both Cat and my granddaughter now. For I know the awakening nears. That time when the protection is no longer needed, and one spirit must pass on, nears. And I fear we will lose them both with it. I sensed years before that they had claimed each other as sisters. They now protect each other, a very dangerous development when the Awakening comes.”
The hell they would.
A vicious snarl tore from Graeme’s throat as he came to his feet, the monster he was inside moving swiftly through his senses.
“Listen close, old man”—primal, guttural, his voice echoed with the promise of death—“if she dies, then none involved will live. Hear that. What will be unleashed upon this desert is something you do not want.”
Compassion filled the chief’s expression, that and immeasurable sadness.
“So the winds have whispered,” Orrin agreed. “The beast will stalk the night and blood will run in rivers.” He shook his head in regret. “Go. Be with the mate that calms the monster you would be. And if the monster is set loose upon this land when the awakening comes, then it is what fate has decreed, and what the spirits have called.”
A roar shattered the night. The ferocity of the sound brought the warriors standing beyond the cavern racing inside as Terran and Lincoln moved quickly to their feet as though to protect the old chief staring up at him sadly.
There was nothing more to say. Merciless, intent, the creature facing them now had no compassion, no regret. It knew no right or wrong but that of vengeance and blood.
The monster had come into being to protect what Graeme lived for, for the mate that held the last remnants of the Breed’s soul.
Turning, he moved quickly from the cavern, the race to return to Cat suddenly desperate, filled with a certainty that a reckoning was rapidly moving closer.
The roar he released as the open desert surrounded him was a warning to anyone who dared to take her, to risk her, or to aid any willing to. It echoed through the chilly night, calling out to man and beast and those in between.
The monster wasn’t chained, it only waited for anyone so oblivious to hell that he would face it. Because the monster knew well how to bring hell.
• • •
Lincoln stared at his grandfather as his uncle helped the old man to his feet, his own knowledge, his own awakening abilities to hear the whispers in the winds assuring him that his grandfather knew much more than he was telling.
“Grandfather . . .” He would have demanded answers.
Orrin’s hand shot up in a demand for silence, the strength and purpose in his dark eyes as brilliant now as it had been for as long as Lincoln had known him.
“A price will be paid,” Orrin snapped. “That we cannot stop. What that price will be, I do not know. I know only that death will come, and that Cat will face a past that will bring that death. Claire was not fated to die, Lincoln,” he ground out, his conviction in that belief without doubt. “I saw her fate at her birth, and it was not death. The winds whispered her path would be one no other would want to walk, and her heart would know scars others could not comprehend. But she is to fly from the flames and become a voice all will hear. Death is not her fate.”
But even Orrin, who understood the whispers that drifted through the breeze of the desert better than any other, completely believed his granddaughter would never truly live. Lincoln saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice.
He’d failed Claire; he’d been determined he wouldn’t fail in protecting Cat. But he had. He hadn’t realized the evil his father was in time, and Claire had suffered again alongside Cat.
He would kill Raymond if he ever faced him again, Linc feared. No man should ever face that within himself. But if he ever faced Raymond again, then the bastard would suffer . . .
• • •
The tiger’s roar shattered the silence of the night, jerking Cat from the diagram Keenan had laid on the patio table just outside the kitchen.
“That’s one pissed-off tiger.” The reflection in his voice, not to mention the understatement, was almost amusing.
“It won’t take him long to get here.” She sighed. “He’s incredibly fast when he gives in to the full primal abilities he possesses.”
Keenan gathered up the papers, folded them and shoved them in the leather vest he wore. “Did you see enough of the plans?”
She’d seen all of them. The maps and diagrams as well as the locations of the Reever security details. All she’d needed was one look, a glance at best, to imprint them on her memory.
“I saw enough,” she assured him. “We won’t have long before Graeme realizes I’m gone and manages to track me down. Let General Roberts know we’ll have to stick strictly to the plan. Any deviations and I’m out of there. For both our sakes.”
“I’ll inform him of this.” He nodded in assurance, those wild Eagle eyes watching her far too closely. “Will you weather the storm your mate brings with him, though?”
“Weather the storm,” what a very apt phrase. Graeme was definitely a storm no matter his mood. Enraged Gideon or the slightly mad Graeme, whichever face he showed at the moment, he was still like a tornado sweeping through her life.
“Graeme’s storms are well known to me,” she promised, a small smile curling at her lips. “Weathering them is always an adventure, but not in the least dangerous.”
“To you,” he pointed out. “It seems the beast does have a leash, no matter what others believe.”
“Well then, let’s just keep that between ourselves,” she suggested. “Go now, Keenan, before he’s close enough to realize you’ve been here. When the beast is loose his senses are far too adept.”
With a nod, he phased from sight and a moment later a hard push of wind signaled his departure.
Turning, she watched the back wall Graeme had disappeared over hours before, knowing he’d return the same way. Where he’d gone she had no idea. He’d slipped from her, believing she slept, thinking he could sneak away from her so easily.
As curious as she had been over where he was going, who he was meeting with, because she knew he was meeting with someone, still she’d taken the opportunity to meet with Keenan rather than follow him. This meeting with Honor’s parents had been years in the making. Their desperation to finally see the daughter they’d released, rather than chance losing forever, was like a hunger ravaging their lives.
Cat had contacted them years before, giving them periodic reports on the child they feared they’d never see again. Now it was time to instigate a meeting that would fully awaken Honor.
What would happen to Liza, though, she wondered, and Claire? They had sacrificed the peace they had deserved to find to protect Cat and Honor over the years.
The meeting was tomorrow night. She knew Graeme and Lobo had some meeting planned at the main estate and that would be the only chance she would have to slip from him. With any luck she would be back before he returned. She doubted that much luck was running around loose in her life, but she could hope, right?
At that thought, the sight of a shadow bounding over the eight-foot wall had her brows lifting in surprise. He’d made much better time than she’d anticipated.
She waited for him, knowing he would come to her. She’d heard the roar and the warning it carried. It dared anyone, anything, to face him in his rage.
Except his mate.
Except the woman still fighting to trust the man she was bound to.
“Where were you?” she asked as he prowled closer, his head lowered, amber eyes glittering beneath his lashes as the stripes shadowing his face highlighted the golden color.
“I didn’t go far . . .”
“Don’t play word games with me, Graeme,” she warned him.
Crossing her arms over the loose shirt she’d donned with a pair of snug shorts after he’d left house, she watched him closely.
“I had a meeting.” The snap of his teeth signified his battle to control the rage fueling him like gasoline on flames. “I was near. I won’t leave you unprotected.”
“I’m capable of protecting myself against most things.” She shrugged. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Until it comes to that damned paralytic?” he grunted. “You won’t be as susceptible to it again, though. The injection I gave you that night actually helps immunize against it.”
Her brows lifted. Now, that was some interesting information.
“Jonas aware you have that?” she asked, understanding more by the day the advances Graeme had made in so many areas of Breed genetics.
“He’s unaware, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been immunized.” The grin that tugged at the corners of his lips was pure amusement.
Within seconds the stripes disappeared from his face and the amber color of his eyes eased, returning to the wild, jungle green she so loved.
Loved.
Inhaling deeply, she shook her head at him. “You’re sneaky, Graeme.”
Broad shoulders lifted negligently. “What was it you said, everyone lies to Jonas?”
Lowering her arms to prop one on her hip, she rolled her eyes at the comment. “He’s like those overprotective fathers on television. The Breeds around him are terrified of his machinations and constantly on guard to ensure he doesn’t interfere in their lives. They call him the Mate Matcher behind his back because he’s always scheming to pair mates together.”
“It’s part of his genetics,” he stated then, the amusement of moments before easing away. “Where the combinations of genetic material used to alter the sperm and ova that created me shifted to advanced biology and genetic engineering, Jonas’s was deliberately programmed to create a Breed with the ability to lead many, with a demeanor to ensure their loyalty. That of a father. Unfortunately for the scientists, the twist in those genetics created a calculating and domineering personality that often can’t see the trees for the forest.”
“He gets lost in the bigger picture.” She nodded, turning back to the house.
“Cat.” Firm, gentle fingers gripped her arm before she took that first step. “Will you run from me?”
The wary somberness in his tone had her frowning as she turned back to stare up at him.
For once, he wasn’t hiding from her.
Cat swallowed tightly, her heart beginning to beat heavier as her breath caught in her breast.
“What?”
Reaching up, his fingertips caressed slowly along the line of her jaw.
“Graeme . . .”
“You’ve always been mine,” he whispered, his voice a breath of sound. “You believe I deserted you, that I left you undefended. I was at your back until the night the Unknown took you from that hotel while I kept Council soldiers at bay. I was half-mad, still healing, the need to ensure your safety like a sickness inside me. I lost you that night, when they took you to Orrin. I searched for months and couldn’t find you. I believed you were safe and I left to finish what had to be done to ensure your safety. But I didn’t desert you. I couldn’t desert you, you were all that made my life worthy. Not my experiment, Cat. You were and are, the reason for my existence. And nothing but you mattered. Nothing but you has mattered since the day Bra
ndenmore laid a four-day-old infant in the arms of an eleven-year-old creature spiraling into a long, dark tunnel filled with abject insanity. You saved me. You have always saved me.”
Who was this Breed?
It was Graeme, she knew it was, but the Graeme she knew would have never opened himself so completely to her or to anyone else.
“Graeme . . .”
“If I lose you, my sanity will be lost forever,” he whispered, his head lowering to her lips, brushing against them, caressing them with such tenderness, such hunger, that a cry nearly escaped her. “You are my sanity, Cat. From that first moment you looked up at me with a newborn’s trust until I take my last breath. You are my sanity.”
• CHAPTER 17 •
Was he simply telling her what she wanted to hear?
Staring up at him, Cat remembered how easily he once manipulated the soldiers, scientists and techs in those labs.
The same ones he’d killed before escaping when they’d retaken him.
He had a way of looking inside a person, knowing their greatest desire and making them believe they could acquire it. That only with his help could they acquire it.
And he knew her. He knew her so well.
She had no doubt he’d quickly learned exactly what she ached for, what she’d needed most from him in the years she’d spent away from him. It wouldn’t be all that hard to figure out. She’d idolized him as a child, weaved fantasies of how they would escape and travel the world. Then she’d shared them with him. When her pain had been so great she’d begged to die, he’d reshared those fantasies with her and added to them. He’d painted pictures of great adventures and how she would never be alone. Because he’d always be a part of her life.
But he hadn’t been.
He’d left her alone with nothing but those fantasies and a love for him that had continued to grow despite her bitterness and the losses she’d faced. A love that had grown as she had grown, and as she had grown, it had only entrenched itself deeper inside her.
But that didn’t mean she had to reveal it to him. It didn’t mean he’d realized it existed. That part of herself she kept hidden in the deepest reaches of her soul. In a place that never saw the light of day, and rarely saw her own realizations.
“I know I’ve always been important to you, Graeme,” she whispered, her heart beating with a heavy, sluggish pace as that emotion threatened to escape and swamp her. “You made me yours when you made me your experiment . . .”
Fury burned in his eyes as a sharp, commanding growl silenced her. Some commands she could ignore. That one, even she hesitated to ignore.
“That is not all you are to me now or then,” he snarled, the abrupt shift from gentleness to frustration threatening to give her mental whiplash.
A vicious growl rumbled in his chest as he turned from her, raking both hands through his hair before whirling back to her just as quickly.
“You think what I feel, my dedication to you and to your safety, has been because of that fucking research?” The fury pulsing in his tone had her brow lifting, one hand moving to her hip and her eyes narrowing as she watched him.
“I think there’s a very good chance you identified something genetic where the mating’s concerned and you ensured it,” she admitted, a sense of sadness overwhelming her. “We were without any sense of security or bonds in that place. I think you needed a bond to hold back that spiraling insanity you spoke of. You were alone, until you created something that would ensure you had something, someone, to hold on to.”
If she hadn’t had him, if she hadn’t thought she was connected to him, that she had someone in that place, then she would have died herself long before any chance came to escape.
“You infuriate me.” The declaration was followed by a slight shadowing of those stripes across his face.
Here was the Bengal she knew. He might call himself Graeme now, but this was the creature she had known and loved for so long.
Loved.
She wanted to smack herself for that thought.
“I infuriate you?” Her temper flared at the very thought of it. “Sorry there, big boy, but I passed infuriation several years ago when I all but laid out a red carpet to lead you to me and you bypassed it as though it didn’t exist.”
Something about his stance, about the air of heavy intent he directed her way, had her almost pausing.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked as though sincerely confused at the information.
She stepped closer, her hand dropping from her hip to form a fist at her side.
“Two years ago, just before Diane Broen began tracking you, Graeme,” she hissed, “I contacted the email account you set up before we ever left the labs. I contacted you and I asked you to come for me.” Her breath caught, the memory of that email slicing through her. “I told you where to find me and you didn’t come.”
God, how she’d needed him. She’d needed him so desperately she’d been willing to face the fury he’d felt for her, to see him, if only for a moment.
“I was here.” The frustration evident in his tone would have been amusing if it hadn’t hurt so bad at the time. “I’ve been here, Cat, watching over you since before that fucking email.”
“You might have been here, but you didn’t come to me.” Her fist pressed hard between her breasts, the emotions that tore through her razing her senses. “You didn’t come to me, Graeme. You didn’t let me see you. You didn’t hold me . . .” She whirled away from him, the betrayal she’d felt then almost as bad as that she’d felt when she was twelve. “You created me to long for you, to love you . . .”
“The hell I did. If I’d had such knowledge, I’d have created you to fucking obey me,” he snapped back furiously. “I’d have created that code before creating anything else.”
The bitterness in the laugh that escaped her might have surprised her if she wasn’t so furious. “Perhaps you simply miscalculated there.”
His head jerked up with such a look of superiority she rolled her eyes in amazement.
“I do not miscalculate.” The very arrogance in that statement was a testament to the power and confidence that had only grown in him over the years.
Had she expected anything else? Really?
“So you thought it was enough to simply be here?” She spread her arms for a second before dropping them to her sides. “To just be wandering around playing your games when I asked you to come to me? What did you think that meant, Graeme? I asked you to come to me, not to camp your fucking ass out in the desert and watch me.”
“I was so f
