Bengal's Heart

◆ CHAPTER 8 ◆

Cabal followed his mate as she made her way back to the inn and to her room. He’d shamelessly eavesdropped on her conversation with both the male she had met with as well as the sheriff that had arrived later.

Following her smacked of deceit, especially considering the night that had just transpired between them. But he’d be damned if he knew what else to do at this point.

For the first time in his life, Cabal was conflicted.

Emotions. He knew what they were; it wasn’t as though he didn’t have feelings. He just made certain he didn’t have them often. He was immune to having a conscience—with the blood that stained his hands, he’d be crazy not to be immune to it. He liked sleeping at night, and worrying over lost lives outside his control wasn’t conducive to sleeping.

Or were feelings out of his control?

He shook his head at the thought, as his hands clenched at his sides. He was lingering outside Cassa’s room like a damned stalker uncertain if it was time to strike.

She was his mate. He had every right to be in that room with her. To touch her. Except there were other responsibilities that came with touching, responsibilities he just didn’t know how to carry.

As he stood there staring at the door to her room, he was reminded of another young woman, who had often given him cause to think of Cassa.

Jolian. The little Jaguar Breed had been young, clumsy, uncertain with herself and her place in Sanctuary. She had also, for a brief time, been suspected of spying within the Feline Breed compound.

She’d died when the spy they had overlooked had attempted to kidnap Cabal’s sister-in-law, Scheme. She had died as she attempted to fix a misunderstanding that she feared had angered Cabal. Because she had been infatuated with him. Because she hadn’t wanted him upset with her. She had given her life to explain that to Scheme. She’d stood between Scheme and the kidnapper.

He remembered sitting next to her still, lifeless body and staring into her pale face. He’d cared for her, even though he hadn’t wanted to admit to himself that he had. Not as a mate, not really even as a lover. But he had cared for her because what came so hard to him was easy for her.

Emotions. She had cared about him, and she had gone out of her way so many times to show it. Her smiles, her attempts at laughter, even the nervous little twitter that had often been in her voice and the scent of anticipation and hopelessness that often filled the air around her.

She’d had very little respect from other Breeds, simply because of her lack of confidence. As he sat beside her that day, he’d realized she hadn’t had enough respect from him.

She had died feeling unloved, unwanted and, even worse, untrusted by the man she had thought she loved. She had let her heart, her emotions, get in the way of her training, and she had died because of it.

Now Cabal was facing the fact that something he didn’t want to admit to was getting in the way of his mission: his emotions, his hunger for Cassa, his need just to be close to her.

Yet when she had tried to curl up against him this morning, what had he done? When she had sought a bit of solace amid the tempestuousness of the mating heat, he had moved away from her, uncertain how to deal with it.

He could deal with the sex. The physical part of mating heat wasn’t a hardship. It was damned exciting and more pleasure than he’d ever had in his life. It was also causing some of the damnedest feelings to rise up inside him. Feelings he didn’t want to face and didn’t want to admit to. Heading the list was the need to hold her.

He’d run from her this morning like a fucking coward. Now he was hanging around outside her door like a worse fucking coward.

Son of a bitch.

Because the mating heat was doing something odd to him. He didn’t have the need to just fuck. Hell no, it couldn’t be that simple. Just getting his rocks off wasn’t going to be enough with this woman, as it had been with others.

He wanted to feel her. He wanted to feel her rubbing against him, her skin stroking his, her hands caressing him as he stroked and caressed her. He wanted her laughter, God help him, even her tears.

It was the strangest thing. He’d never had the desire to be close to any woman, but this woman, he wanted to sink into her flesh and be consumed by her.

She was dangerous. The animal inside him had realized that the night he escaped from that pit, lured by the scent of her fear, her rage and his own fury. He had realized it in that one instant when he saw her pale face, her agonized gray eyes, and knew that she belonged to the man who had betrayed the lives of his family.

She was dangerous because she slipped past his training as well as his determination not to care, for anyone. He cared for his brother, Tanner; he had no choice there. Tanner hadn’t allowed him a choice. He cared for Tanner’s mate, Scheme. That perhaps was instinct. She belonged to Tanner, therefore she was Cabal’s responsibility to care for.

But this woman?

He strode down the hall before turning and contemplating the closed door once again. This woman he had no ties to, he had no reason to care if she was warm, if she needed affection or needed to be held.

Yet he did care.

Clenching his teeth, his muscles bunched to move. Before he could make the trip back to her door, the cell phone at his belt vibrated imperiously.

Throttling a growl, he jerked the phone from its clip, checked the number, then flipped it open and brought it to his ear.

“What the hell do you want?” he answered.

“A few manners would go over very well tonight,” Jonas replied sarcastically. “A little discretion wouldn’t be amiss either.”

“I haven’t had witnesses in years,” Cabal snapped. “And we were taught not to spill blood in public, remember? So what the hell are you talking about?”

The silence on the line was telling. Jonas’s patience was being tested, and wasn’t that just too damned bad.

“I have pictures,” Jonas finally said, ice dripping from his voice. “A pretty little park, a pretty little mate and a Bengal Breed all over her in the front seat of his truck.”

“Pictures?” Cabal asked carefully. No one should have had pictures. He hadn’t sensed anyone watching, nor had he sensed any danger.

“Isn’t that what I said?” Jonas stated calmly. “The memo attached states that one Cabal St. Laurents seems to have ‘mated’ the Breeds’ favorite reporter.” There was a short, tense silence. “We have a problem here, Cabal.”

Mated. The very fact that the word had been used was cause for alarm. So far, they had managed to ensure that exactly what mating heat was remained hidden, and the term “mate” wasn’t something used lightly. Someone knew. Which meant Cassa could be in danger. The Council would love nothing better than to get their hands on a Breed mate. Especially the mate of a Bengal Breed.

“We have a Breed watching us,” Cabal stated. “Have you checked out Dog’s interest in the area?”

“This isn’t Dog,” Jonas replied, his tone certain.

“Is Dog here at your request?” Cabal asked then, knowing the machinations that the Bureau director was often involved in.

“He’s not there at my request, but neither is he considered a danger at this point.”

That told him more than he wanted to know, Cabal thought. Dog wasn’t under Jonas’s control, but the reasons he was here benefited Jonas or the Breeds in some way. With Jonas, it was all about the Breed society, something most people rarely understood when it came to his games and calculations.

“So what the hell do you want me to do?” Cabal finally growled. “You have pictures and a message that she’s my mate. Our killer is a Breed; there’s every chance he well knows what a mate is.”

“And every chance that he’s deliberately pulled in the one person that could distract you,” Jonas pointed out. “Which means he has some connections into the community.”

“We’ve gone over this ground,” Cabal sighed. “I know she’s being watched. We already suspected she had been deliberately brought in, now we know why.”

“Now we know why,” Jonas agreed. “Have you mated her?”

Jonas was always inordinately curious when one of his enforcers or, in Cabal’s case, one of his covert enforcers mated. Strangely enough, he kept up with them, even after the mating, even after the initial danger. Cabal bet Jonas could name every mate, every potential and suspected future mating, and list any variances in the mating heat that showed up on the scientists’ tests.

“She’s my mate,” Cabal affirmed. “That’s all you need to know, Jonas.”

“Her file shows Ely’s had her on the mating hormone for the past five years. Were you aware the effects had progressed to the point that she required the treatments?”

He hadn’t. Cabal turned and paced back to the end of the hall, where he moved to the wide window that looked out over the Gauley River.

“I didn’t know,” he finally admitted.

“She told Ely there had been no physical contact other than the night of your escape from the facility. She stated she tasted your blood.”

Cabal closed his eyes as a wave of agony swept through him. Emotion. Regret. He remembered the scene clearly. Tears had poured down her face, saturating her features as her body shuddered with her sobs. Trembling lips had opened as her fingers shook, touched the blood on his face, then touched the tips of those fingers to her tongue.

She had tasted his blood.

“Hell,” he muttered. “There were no signs of heat then.”

Jonas grunted at that. “Snarling that you owned her didn’t count, huh?”

“Reflex,” he growled.

“Or instinct,” Jonas suggested. “Tell me, Cabal, have you told her yet that the man she believed was her husband is still alive?”

Cabal froze. A sense of predatory rage built inside him until the growl that came from his throat was more enraged animal than furious male.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Jonas’s tone was coldly disapproving.

“As far as she’s concerned, he’s dead,” Cabal snarled. “He can rot in whatever prison he’s sitting in.”

A heavy silence filled the line. Cabal understood it. His boss was giving him the chance to reconsider the decision. There was nothing to reconsider. The moment he had learned that the marriage Douglas Watts had perpetuated between himself and Cassa hadn’t even been legal, he’d made the decision for her.

He’d be damned if that bastard would ever shadow her life again. He wouldn’t have it.

“Cabal, you could be making a mistake,” Jonas warned him quietly.

“It’s no mistake,” Cabal snarled. “He’s been in a Breed organized prison since his recuperation. That was his choice. That or death. He chose the prison. He wasn’t given the option of informing the woman he’d continually lied to.”

He heard Jonas breathe out heavily. “Very well. For now, we can play this your way. The day may come though that the game shifts. What will you do then?”

“She is my mate.” His voice was clipped, cold. “He has no hold on her that I can’t top. Period. If that day ever comes, then I’ll deal with the choice I made. Until then, fuck the bastard. I only wish he were in more pain.”

He was paralyzed from the hips down. There was no sensation in his legs, or in other areas that had been important to Watts. Confined as he was in a high-security overseas prison created and manned by Breeds, there wasn’t much chance of Cassa ever learning the truth.

“I just hope you know what the hell you’re doing, my friend,” Jonas stated, his tone concerned now. “She’s a good woman.”

“She allowed the man she loved to use her,” he growled. “He used her to kill, to maim, and he received pay for it. She should have chosen more wisely.”

A part of him protested the statement he’d made. The human part, he decided. The weaker part. That internal voice was forever harassing him where she was concerned. His conscience? Hell, he thought he’d killed the fucker years ago.

“Perhaps she should have.” It didn’t really sound like an agreement; it sounded more like a chastisement, and not of Cassa.

Cabal tightened his lips, refusing to argue the matter further. It was a done deal. Douglas Watts was no more than a shadow of himself that existed in a hellhole of a prison. There were no televisions, video games or computers. There were few comforts. The food wasn’t too bad, unless you were used to better.

Sucked to be Watts.

“I have things to do, Jonas,” Cabal finally stated harshly. “If this was all you wanted, then you’re wasting my time.”

“I have no doubt.” The heavy mockery pricked at Cabal’s temper. “Take care of your mate then, Bengal. Give me a report whenever you have one.”

“Until then you can get your report from Rule or Lawe,” Cabal snapped. “Since they’re obviously not here just to see the sights.”

“They’re not mated,” Jonas said quietly. “Their heads are still clear, Cabal. And that’s what I need. Enforcers with clear heads. Remember that.”

Jonas disconnected before Cabal could tell him to get fucked. But one thing the director had done was to remind him of the fact that mating Cassa, tying her completely to him, was of the utmost importance.

If she ever learned about Watts, she might be a little upset. He didn’t want to have to do without one of the few benefits that came from mating heat. Especially the one that put her screaming in pleasure beneath him.

He’d deal later with Rule and Lawe sticking their noses into his business. For the moment, there was the scent of his mate in the shower, the smell of feminine cleanliness and sweet, hot woman.

She was aroused. The mating heat was building inside her. She could take the hormone treatments until hell froze over, but it wasn’t going to cure the effects of his kiss, his touch. She should know that by now. Nothing could combat that, though the scientists were still trying.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t hide mating heat forever. There would be a day—and it was coming soon, Cabal knew—that the world would learn about mating heat, just as it had learned about the Breeds to begin with.

It had been more than ten years, closer to twelve, since Callan Lyons, the alpha leader of the Feline Breeds, had mated his wife, Merinus. Neither Callan nor Merinus had aged appreciably since then. Doctors had determined that their bodies had aged merely one year in all that time. Their bodies’ aging process had slowed down dramatically, and from all the scientists had learned, especially since the first Leo’s appearance with his own mate, it seemed that the aging process would remain incredibly slow for years to come.

The first Leo was over a hundred years old, as was his mate. They both appeared no older than their late thirties, and their bodies were in peak condition.

Mating heat could become the Breeds’ worst enemy if the public at large learned of it. For now though, it was the greatest pleasure Cabal had ever known in his life. His emotions were in chaos, hell if he knew what to do with them, but he knew that nothing in this world or any other could be as good as touching his mate.

He strode to the door, slid the key card through the security lock, waited for the light to turn green, then twisted the door latch.

The door swung open, and he was confronted with a sight that made the blood in his veins boil with lust.

His mate. His woman. And she was beautifully, splendidly naked as she froze in place, just outside the bathroom door.

Cabal now felt the heat rising inside his body like an inferno. How the hell was he supposed to stay sane, to keep his head straight, when the sight of her bare body made him dizzy with fucking lust?

Maybe having Rule and Lawe here wouldn’t be a bad idea after all, he thought, as he tore off his jacket.

The denim material dropped to the floor as he watched her eyes widen.

“Don’t you dare move,” he growled as she started to step back into the bathroom. “For both our sakes, Cassa. Stay still.”

He swore he could feel a ringing in his ears as he tore off his T-shirt before turning his attention to loosening the material of his jeans.

His cock was so damned hard it felt like steel, so hot he wondered why he wasn’t blistered.

She stood there like an angel, wide-eyed, almost innocent. Her long hair lay around her shoulders and down her back, thick and heavy, darker with dampness. High, full breasts were topped with hard, reddened nipples. Her slender waist and softly rounded hips led to smooth, creamy thighs and a patch of soft, dark blond curls to entice him.

He inhaled her scent again, growing nearly drunk on the smell of her arousal. It hit his head like a potent drug, almost making him dizzy as he tore his boots, then jeans from his body.

She just stood there, watching him. A damp sheen covered her shoulders; there was a single drop of water lying against her breast. Her nipples were peaked so hard they looked like ripe berries, sweet and ready for him to taste.

Another man had once touched her body, he thought with rabid fury. Had kissed her, stroked her. His scent no longer lingered on her, but Cabal clearly remembered a time when it had.

He needed that memory wiped away. He needed his scent to become so much a part of hers that when he smelled her sweetness, there were no lingering memories of any others taint ing her.

She was his. She carried his mark on her shoulder. Her scent was infused with the mating heat now, but soon, so soon, it would change. Her scent would meld with his, creating something different, something unique. She would be marked by him, into her very DNA. She would never escape him.

“I told you.” His voice was rough when he wished he could make it softer, gentler for her. “I own you.”

What did the tone of voice matter though, when stating such a harsh claim? he asked himself.

Her eyes narrowed as he faced her, naked and aroused.

“You wish you owned me,” she stated clearly, enraging the animal inside him. “No man owns me, Cabal.”

He reached her in a few long strides, his fingers sliding into her hair to grip her head and hold her still.

“You’re mine.”

“In your dreams.” Confidence and steely amusement glittered in her gray eyes. Damn her. She would never admit what he knew they were both well aware of. She belonged to him, there was no way her body could deny him.

His head lowered, his lips covering hers without preliminaries, sinking against the soft silk of them, his tongue pushing into her mouth to release the hormone that gathered in the glands beneath his tongue.

She took it, she took him. A little moan whispered into the kiss as her soft hands lifted to grip his biceps, as though she needed to hold on through the storm raging between them.

“Deny it now,” he bit out harshly as his lips lifted just enough to allow her to speak.

“My body can’t deny you, Cabal,” she stated, her voice husky with arousal now. “That’s all you own. And its probably all you’ll ever own.”

There was an edge of bitterness in her voice that bothered him, a faint sadness. It reminded him of her attempt to curl into his arms that morning, and his rush to escape the swirl of emotions that had swept through him.

His fingers tightened in her hair. Soft, dark blond lashes drifted over her eyes in pleasure as he did so. She was so easy to pleasure, he thought. Each touch he had given her the night before had had her turning to him with eager need. With hunger.

His cock throbbed at the thought. That unruly organ was insistent that he take her again, now. Preliminaries be damned. To spread her thighs, grip her ass and push hard and deep inside her.

“Cabal.” She whispered his name as he realized his hand was cupping her ass, his fingers only scant inches from the dew-soaked folds of her pussy. And he was lifting her to him.

“I need.” His eyes closed as he tried to block out the need he heard in his words and saw in her eyes. The need for more than just this.

This being him, lifting her, bracing her against the wall as he shifted them to the side, spreading her thighs, tucking the head of his cock into the slick, hot folds of her sex.

“I wanted to give you more.” The words tore from him as he pressed inside her. Slowly.

Ah hell. It was so fucking good. A heated silken glove enclosed his tortured flesh, stroking it with pleasure, rippling over it with hungry demand.

He braced his feet apart, his hands tightened on the globes of her ass as he pressed deeper and growled with the sensations of not just his own pleasure, but hers as well. He could feel the silken muscles tightening, gripping around him as her sharp little nails bit into his shoulders.

He felt her legs wrap around his hips, gripping him as he surged those final inches inside the heated, ecstatic grip of her hot little pussy.

“You make me crazy.” He nipped at her jaw as he forced himself to still inside her, to luxuriate in the pleasure.

“It’s just the hormone.” There was a sob in her voice that he hated to hear. Part pleasure, part pain. “It’s just the hormone.”

No, it wasn’t just the hormone, he knew that. It was so much more; he sensed it, felt it. She was his match, his mate; nature had only ensured that the stubborn human part of his genetics didn’t fuck up and walk away from her.

And he would have. He would have continued to run for as long as possible. He would have denied the animal’s insistence, because she fucked with his head, not just his arousal. And even worse, she fucked with his cold, icy heart.

“Fuck that damned hormone,” he snarled, wishing he could recall the words.

Clenching his teeth, he forced back words he refused to release. To say them was to mean them. To mean them was to accept that he needed more.

He couldn’t allow himself to need. To need invited weakness. It invited danger.

He would not allow himself to endanger her.

He wanted to fuck her, that was all. The hormone be damned, that didn’t make him fuck. It just made him want to fuck more, harder.

Holding tight to her, he moved his hips, rotated them, thrust and plunged inside the velvet grip of rapture. So much pleasure. It washed through him like a tidal wave, tearing past his consciousness, sinking into the animal that lurked inside him.

It roared in triumph. The sound slipped past his throat, mingled with her cry as he felt her tighten in orgasm. He felt her juices, sweet and hot, flow around the erection thrusting harder, faster inside her.

God save him, he was dying inside her.

He couldn’t hold back the pleasure or the need. He couldn’t hold back the victorious snarl, or the ecstatic groan as she bit his shoulder. It wasn’t a timid bite. Her sharp little teeth latched onto him and refused to let go.

He could feel the brutal ecstasy rushing over him now. His cock thickened, tightened. His balls drew up tight to the base of the steely shaft, and when he came, it was death. And it was rebirth.

The thumb-sized extension became erect beneath the head of his cock, thickened and distended, revealing the Feline Breed male barb and locking his cock inside her. His hips rotated, shifting until it was lodged comfortably, pleasurably. Then a throttled roar left his chest as his semen began to pump hard and deep inside her.

Each fierce spurt sent a surge of blistering electric sensation tearing up his spine, wrapping around his body. His muscles drew tight, his head lowered; his teeth locked into the mating mark at her shoulder as his tongue licked and stroked, spreading the hormone into the tiny bite. Marking her more, marking her deeper.

Sweet Cassa. His mate. His woman. She was the one thing in this world that he knew was his alone. The woman created for him. The one woman that could destroy him.