Bengal's Heart

◆ CHAPTER 19 ◆

Anger was a horrible emotion. It stayed, lingered, brewed and built inside until Cassa felt as though she were going to explode.

Two days after the discovery of Cash Winslow’s death, she watched the news report of the supposedly fiery car crash he had been involved in while driving from D.C.

His vehicle had hit ice—plausible, there was a light snow in the mountains—and plunged through the guardrail to explode at the bottom of a treacherous mountain cliff.

Dozens were mourning the loss of the security advisor, the reporter related. The ex-government agent was suspected to have been drinking and driving.

“Could you have used anything more clichéd?” she muttered as Cabal paced the room behind her, his narrowed gaze drifting to the reporter before turning back to her.

“It’s clichéd because it works,” he growled.

She shrugged nonchalantly as she continued to watch the news report, her gaze keeping track of the time at the corner of the television screen.

Two days. She’d slept in her own bed during those two days, alone. He’d taken her, but if any dared to call it making love, then she would have become violent. Not that that made it much different from the first time, or the times after it. She was merely noticing that there was definitely more and more Cabal was holding back.

Was it tenderness? He was always gentle with her, always careful . . . Perhaps that was it. He was too careful. Too conscious of each touch, while keeping her helpless in a sensual maelstrom that didn’t allow much of a chance for her to assert her own sexuality.

Mating heat and a mission that Cabal was refusing to allow her to be a part of weren’t going hand in hand here. And she was tired of bitching over it. She hated to whine, and begging wasn’t her style.

“I have a meeting to go to.” The deep rasp of his voice sent a thrill of response down her spine.

Of course he had a meeting to go to. Jonas was waiting for him two floors above, along with whatever evidence they had taken from her computer and the latest crime scene.

“Figures.” She gave another shrug and kept her attention on the television, carefully controlling her response to him as well as her own plans.

“I’ll be a while.” There was an edge of impatience to his voice now.

“Take your time.” She waved him away, allowing just enough of her own anger to show to allay any suspicions that she might be hiding something or have a meeting of her own planned.

Text messaging was a wonderful, wonderful invention. And Dog was so sneakily efficient that he even avoided messaging while Cabal was in the room with her. That was damned scary. It made her wonder if he had an eye in her room, or an ear, that Cabal might have overlooked.

She glanced over at her mate to catch him watching her silently. On second thought, she doubted he’d missed anything, especially not an electronic bug in either of their rooms.

“Look, Cassa, I know you don’t understand my need to protect you . . .”

“Don’t start.” She held her hand up in a halting motion. “I’m not fighting you any further.”

His lips thinned in irritation. For the past two days she had refused to discuss his stubborn insistence that she wasn’t a part of this investigation. She wasn’t arguing anymore.

“We’re going to have to discuss it.” The words came from between gritted teeth. Poor little Bengal, at the rate he was going he wasn’t going to have any molars left by the time he left Glen Ferris.

By the time she left him.

“You mean I’m going to have to agree with you and turn my independence over to you sooner or later,” she retorted sweetly. “Nope, sorry, my pretty striped tiger, it’s not gonna happen.”

A frown jumped between his brows at her mocking pet name for him. He hated any references to those sexy-as-hell stripes. Too bad, because she rather liked them herself.

“That wasn’t what I meant.” There went another layer of those molars.

“Don’t you have a meeting to go to?” She turned the television up louder as she settled more comfortably in her chair and directed her attention to the weather for Glen Ferris for the next week. Looked like it was going to be colder than normal. Big surprise there.

Behind her, Cabal blew out a hard breath. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Maybe we could go downstairs for dinner when I get back.”

She shrugged. She had no desire to eat with him, not when she was getting ready to share burgers with a Coyote who had information.

Damn Cabal. Did he think the thought of a meal with him was going to make up for what he was trying to take away from her?

“Cassa.” He was in front of her before she could move away, bending until he could stare into her eyes, his knees bracketing her legs as the backs of his fingers brushed against her cheek.

The curiously gentle caress had unbidden tears threatening to moisten her eyes. And that, after she had promised herself she wasn’t going to cry.

She stared back at him coolly. He might be able to smell the turmoil brewing inside her, but that didn’t mean she was going to allow him to see it. And it sure as hell didn’t mean she was going to beg.

“What?” Her voice was husky, a measure of the emotion slipping free to roughen the tone as the very nearness of him affected her senses.

“I’m not trying to steal your independence.”

Oh yeah, she believed that one. She could see the proof of his statement. Yeah, boy. Sitting right here as big as life and as ignorant as a rock was Cassa Hawkins. Slammed right out of an investigation that involved her more than it likely did any Breed that Jonas Wyatt had brought in to investigate it.

None of those Breeds had been married to the man the killer wanted. A man who was dead.

She stared back at him silently. Refusing once again to argue her own points or the dishonesty of his statement.

His hand cupped her cheek. She expected him to kiss her, to pull her to him, to infuse her senses with the taste of the mating hormone that she knew would fill the kiss. Instead, he leaned forward, his head lowered, and his lips pressed against the sensitive flesh at the bend of her neck and shoulder.

The kiss was poignantly tender and filled with all the warmth, the need, that she had wanted to feel when his body covered hers at night. It held everything he had refused to give her at any other time.

“I just want you safe,” he whispered, his forehead pressing against her shoulder then. “Just that, Cassa.”

She shook her head as she stared across the room miserably. “You can’t lock me up. And that’s what you’re doing, Cabal. You’re doing the one thing you would kill to keep anyone from ever doing to you again.”

He tensed, then slowly pulled back from her. The amber in his eyes glittered with anger. She’d pricked his arrogance, his male assurance that he knew what was best for her. She didn’t need him making such decisions for her, and she didn’t need his so-called protection.

“You don’t know nearly as much as you think you do,” he assured her, his voice harsh as he rose to his feet, towering over her. “This isn’t a case of wanting your goddamned independence, Cassa.”

“Then it’s a case of you wanting everything your own damned way, Cabal,” she burst out with, pushing to her feet and pacing across the room. “Look, just go to your damned meeting. I have work here to do, and I sure as hell don’t need your help.”

She stalked to her laptop, stared at the screen and tried to fight back the fear she couldn’t keep from building inside her. The fear that somehow the past was darker, harsher than she had ever believed.

The information she had found in the past two days on Douglas, information she hadn’t had before, hadn’t bothered to find, was beginning to give her panic attacks. Reports on the Deadly Dozen, from Breeds who had survived being captured by them, were violent, vicious. Among those reports were those of a single male and the horrifying acts he had practiced on the female Breeds that were captured.

Not just the acts, but also his pleasure, the joy he’d found in practicing them.

“You don’t need anything from anyone, do you?” he growled, coming behind her, his large body bracketing hers, shocking her with the sudden heat that poured through her.

Mating heat and anger didn’t mix. She could feel the blood pounding through her system just that fast. She could feel the heat of his flesh beneath his clothes, the warmth of his palm as it settled on her stomach.

“This won’t fix anything.” She tried to keep her voice strong, sure, but there was too much awareness, too much need for him.

She sucked in her breath as his fingers found the button and zipper for her jeans. They released, too damned slowly.

Cassa closed her eyes, drew in a hard, deep breath and fought the wave of dizzying need that assailed her.

It was always like this. Her nails dug into the top of the small desk as his hand slid into her jeans and found the wet heat between her thighs.

“You want me,” he accused her roughly. “How can it not fix at least this?”

Yes, she wanted him.

Her head fell back against his chest as his fingers parted the plump folds of her pussy, delved inside and filled her with the exciting rasp of his fingers caressing her.

Behind her, she could feel him releasing his jeans, felt the hard, jutting length of his cock pressing against her lower back, and she knew what was coming. She knew, and she couldn’t stop it.

“Bend over, baby.” His voice was rough, sensual, as one hand pressed against her back. “So sweet, Cassa. You make me drunk on the taste of you, the touch of you.”

If only she could make him fall in love. If only she could make him respect her. If only . . .

She bent for him instead, her upper body lowering as she braced her shoulders on the top of the table and felt her jeans and panties sliding over her hips.

God, this was so primal. Sexy. She had never been taken like this, hadn’t imagined she would want to be until she heard his broken breathing behind her and the heated little growls that escaped his throat.

“Fucking you is like flying.” The head of his cock pressed closer, slid through her juices and found the entrance it sought. “Like dying, Cassa. The sweetest escape in the world.”

Her back bowed as she felt the thick flesh pressing inside. Tingles of electric, ecstatic energy sizzled through her, inside her. They surrounded her clit, struck at her nipples. She trembled beneath the force of the energy and fought to keep from crying out as he stretched her slowly, easily.

His hands gripped her hips, holding her in place. She wanted to see his face, but she was feeling something she hadn’t felt the other times when she had lain beneath him. She felt more now. As though he were letting go of something he’d held inside.

His hips moved with a smooth, pumping rhythm. Each stroke of his erection inside her pushed the pleasure higher, pushed her closer to the center of sensation and bliss.

Cassa could feel herself tightening, close to coming apart with the pleasure. She was riding a sensation so desperate, so filled with ecstasy that she wondered if she could survive it.

She wanted to scream but couldn’t find the breath. She wanted to cry out his name, to beg, to plead for more, and couldn’t find the strength. She could do nothing but hold on to the wood of the tabletop, lift to her tiptoes and silently plead for more.

As though he could read her mind, he gave it to her. Harder, faster strokes. The thrusts of his cock inside her stroked hidden nerve endings, revealed others. It stretched and burned, and as the pace increased to a driving, desperate rhythm, her orgasm began to tear through her.

It exploded in her clit, ricocheted to her womb, then detonated in the center of her pussy and left her trying to scream, to cry out with such a surfeit of sensation that shudders began to race through her.

She was lost in him. So lost that little else mattered, nothing else made sense for long, agonizing moments. Until she felt his release pour into her, felt the barb extend from beneath the head of his cock, locking him into her and creating another climax that completely stole her breath.

He was there with her. Through the violent tremors, he held her to his chest, arched over her, sheltered her from a storm that wrapped around her as well as inside her.

His fingers tugged her hair, turned her head to the side, and as she fought to hold on to the last shred of reality, his lips covered hers. His tongue licked over her lips, stroked them, then slid inside and spread the fiery heat of the mating hormone into their kiss.

It infused the last pulsing tremors of her orgasm, intensified it, tightened her muscles and left her shaking rather than trembling, left her arching to him, desperate for more.

His lips slid from hers despite her whimpering cry. He kissed and licked his way down her neck, then before she could prepare herself, his teeth bit down on the mating mark at her shoulder and his tongue rasped over it.

Shivers began to course through her, quaking through her body as a muted scream tore from her throat. Finally, there was the emotion. Now, when she couldn’t see it on his face, couldn’t define it. When it couldn’t soothe the pain racing through her heart.

She wanted to cry at the unfairness of it. Because she knew once it was over nothing would change. She would still be relegated to being the protected rather than the protector she had been for so many years. She would be behind him rather than beside him. And beside him was where she longed to be.

“I’d die without you,” he whispered at her ear, his voice rough, dark, rasping with an emotion she wished she could define, could see on his face. “Do you understand that, Cassa? If anything happens to you, then I’m nothing.”

Because she was his mate. Because once mated, there was never another for them.

Of course he would fear losing her. He would want her behind walls, locked away from danger, safely in his bed.

She had to fight back tears long moments later as the barb receded and he eased from her. She could still feel the pulse and throb of his cock inside her in the echoes of her release. The heat of him was a memory that even her flesh couldn’t let go of.

“I’d do anything to protect you, Cassa,” he swore as he helped her straighten her clothes.

She kept her back to him. She couldn’t look at him, not yet. She couldn’t let him see her tears, or her regrets. Loving him wasn’t going to be enough and she knew it, because she knew she could never be what he needed.

“I don’t need your protection.” She fought to keep the pain out of her tone even as she kept her back to him. “I never asked you for that.”

“It’s here anyway,” he promised her. “I can’t do anything else.”

There was an edge in his voice, not really of anger, irritation perhaps.

Cassa shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, Cabal, we’re never going to agree on this. And until we agree, nothing is going to change.”

She couldn’t allow him to win this battle—if he won this one, then she would never know a moment’s independence again.

She moved slowly from the table back to her chair, before taking her seat with a sense of weariness. Suddenly, she felt tired, uncertain. She had no idea where to go from here or how to convince him that he would end up destroying her.

She turned her head, watching as he straightened his clothing, his gaze glittering with amber frustration.

“I’ll be back later. We’ll discuss this then,” he stated as he stalked across the room to the door.

“Of course we will.” Her smile was tight, sad. “I’ll just sit right here and wait on you like the good little mate you think I should be.”

“Is that what I ask from you?” Anger was invading his tone now.

“Have you asked anything else from me?” she asked quietly.

The door slammed behind him in response, a clear indication that his temper was riding the same thin line as the arousal that bound them.

The sarcasm in her voice should have warned him. If it hadn’t, then he would learn in time, she assured herself.

Pushing back the fear was the hard part. The fear that defying him would earn her more than his arrogance or harsh words. That it would earn a slap, or something worse.

She wasn’t a coward, but she had been taught her limits of physical endurance years before, during one of the most hellish periods of her life.

God, what had made her think that Douglas wouldn’t betray his own career then? He had betrayed her, over and over again. His career wouldn’t have mattered any more to him than she had. Selling the Breeds and their rescuers out to the Council wouldn’t have caused him to lose a moment’s sleep. What had ever made her believe otherwise?

And what had made her think she would ever be free of him? There wasn’t a chance of being free, not ever again.

She watched the news for a while longer, keeping careful track of the time as she did so. She was to leave her room at precisely three minutes after four. No sooner, no later.

She rose from her chair at two minutes after, pulled on her jacket and moved to the door. As the time changed to three minutes after, she opened her door and stepped out as she slung her pack over her shoulder.

Striding to the elevator, she checked the time. Dog had given her exactly two minutes to make it to the back entrance of the inn.

As she stepped into the elevator, she had to fight the feeling that she was going too far. Contacting Dog wasn’t a good idea—if Cabal ever learned of it . . . Meeting with him was an even worse idea.

How else was she supposed to get the answers she needed? How else was she supposed to find out why a killer thought he could kill Douglas again? Unless he meant to kill him through her.

She shook her head at the thought. The killer wasn’t insane. There wasn’t even a hint of insanity in what had transpired so far. Vengeance, yes. Anger, perhaps. But there was nothing crazy.

Did the killer think Douglas was still alive?

The thought almost froze her in her place as the elevator doors opened on the lobby floor, depositing her in the deserted hall.

Douglas wasn’t alive. She had seen him die; she knew she had. There on the floor of that horrible lab, a steel spike driven into his back.

She stepped into the hall, her steps slowing as she moved to the back entrance of the inn.

She hadn’t actually seen him die. She hadn’t seen his body at the burial. It was a closed casket funeral, supposedly at the request of family.

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.”