Bengal's Heart

◆ CHAPTER 23 ◆

“I’m not going to sit here in this room and wait on someone who’s not coming.”

Cassa made her announcement the moment she stepped out of the bathroom, freshly showered and dressed. She wasn’t a patient person when it came to pacing the floors. She would just as soon be pacing the sidewalk adding to her story or hunting down sources.

Hunting down sources was her primary concern today. She had several in mind, for information she needed. Chief among the questions she had was in regards to any surviving members of the Feline pride that had been massacred on Valentine’s night twenty-two years ago. Who was left? Who would be taking vengeance now?

She knew Walt Jameson had information, and there were the two Breeds that had been in the café the morning she had met Myron there. On closer thought, those Breeds had been a little too curious. They were watching her that day, listening to her conversation. Which meant they were most likely involved.

She was going to find them and simply have a nice little conversation with them. Maybe mention Valentine’s Day. Maybe mention Douglas.

She felt armed for battle. Dressed in jeans, her favorite dark gray long-sleeved T-shirt and boots. Her long hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and a light dusting of makeup had been applied where she felt it was needed.

Last night had held too many revelations, and too many surprises. She wasn’t a sitting duck for anyone, especially Douglas Watts. She had put that behind her the day she thought Douglas had died, and she wasn’t returning to it.

She watched Cabal as he turned from the window to stare back at her. She took in the hard expression, but paid attention to the glitter of amber in his forest green eyes.

Those eyes almost had the power to mesmerize her. She could stare into them for hours, lose place and time and never regret a moment of it. If she let herself.

“What do you think you can do before Watts arrives?” He crossed his arms over the dark gray cotton shirt he wore, as his gaze flickered over her.

“There’s any number of things I can do.” She shrugged. “High on the list is finding Walt Jameson. I’d like to talk to him a bit more.”

“Why?” Suspicion hardened his eyes.

“Because I suspect he’s more involved in this than even you know,” she informed him. “And he offered me information. I intend to take him up on that.”

“He’s close to Myron and Danna,” he informed her. “Anything you talk to him about he’s going to talk to them about.”

“Then I’ll just have to talk to him discreetly.” She shrugged. “I am aware of how that’s done, Cabal.”

And she needed to get out of this bedroom, away from him. The night before had thrown her off balance. Not just in terms of the revelations she had learned, but also in terms of things she had learned about herself as he held her in his arms.

She had felt more last night than she had ever felt in her life. Each touch he had given her, each kiss had sunk clear to the core of her spirit. It had been like flying. Like being reborn. And now she felt off balance, uncertain. She needed time to think, time away from his touch to make sense of it.

“I have no doubt that you can question him very discreetly, Cassa.” He blew out a rough breath as he pushed the fingers of one hand through his hair, feathering it back from his face only to have the silken strands fall back into place. “I just know Walt. If Danna and Myron are involved in this, he’s going to protect them. And if they’re involved, then no doubt he is as well.”

“I’ll talk carefully,” she stated. “But I will talk to him.”

She moved to the desk and quickly stored her electronic notepad in its case before pushing it into her pack. Sitting here waiting wasn’t something she could do. She had to get out of this room, she had to put some distance between herself and her need to stroke Cabal from head to toe.

Her hands were tingling with the need to just pet him. Just touch him. And she knew damned good and well where that would lead.

Her body was already heating in response to that thought. It seemed that the more she touched him, the more she was touched by him, the more she wanted.

“You think you’re leaving here without me, don’t you?” he asked with an edge of amusement in his tone and his expression as he watched her.

Cabal personified male arrogance. She could see it, feel it pouring off him. She might think she was going to go without him, she might even want to go without him, but as far as he was concerned, it wasn’t going to happen.

It was a damned good thing she had decided she was better off with him than without him at this point. She was stubborn, and she liked her job, but she had to admit that with the information she now had, things might be just a little too dangerous for her alone.

“Actually, I more or less assumed you would just follow along,” she replied blithely. “So come on, Bengal. Let’s get to work.”

She didn’t miss the narrowed eyes or the look of male outrage in his gaze. Well hell, if she was going to have to put up with his male attitude, then he better learn to take her female adjustments. It was that simple.

“You know, Cassa, we’re going to have to discuss this penchant you have for pricking my ego,” he stated as they left the room.

“Really?” She couldn’t help the laughter in her voice as she glanced back at him. “You know, Cabal, I was just thinking the same thing about my ego. Sounds like a lengthy discussion to me. Are you certain you have the patience for it?”

The sound he made behind her was between a purr and a growl. Almost one of anticipation.

Funny, she thought, she had heard that Feline Breed males would purr for their mates, normally after sex. She hadn’t heard a single purr yet. And here she had been looking forward to it.

Another discussion they might be having soon. She made a mental note of that one.

Start as you mean to go on. That was the advice her mother had always given her where men were concerned. Weigh each confrontation and ensure you can handle years of it before you decide to bow down and let a man have his way. Because give him an inch and he was going to take a mile. Or in Cabal’s case, an interstate.

As they left the inn, she felt his hand settle in the small of her back as he led her to the black Raider normally designated as a law enforcement or Breed vehicle. The high-profile, four-wheel-drive vehicle was rated for normal road use, but designated for off-road efficiency.

She’d often heard that it could almost climb a tree if it had to. The Bureau of Breed Affairs loved the vehicles.

Having opened the door with the keyless entry remote, Cabal helped her step up into the seat. She didn’t miss the way his hand caressed the outside of her thigh, or the heated look he gave her. It was enough to make her wonder if perhaps she should have postponed this little outing for a bit more inside playtime.

She almost laughed at the thought, as well as the almost giddy euphoria she could feel moving through her. She felt . . . happy. And why she felt that way didn’t even make sense.

It had something to do with the night before. The way he had held her after taking her, the feel of his lips as he kissed her head while cuddling her to him.

Last night he hadn’t budged from her side. He hadn’t let go of her. He hadn’t given her a chance to feel the familiar chill of loneliness that usually afflicted her while she was on assignment. His arms had been strong, his big body warm. And Cassa had felt almost cherished.

It was a good feeling. A fool’s dream perhaps, because only a fool could believe in happily ever after considering the past she and Cabal shared. But it had been nice. It had been satisfying.

As he got into the driver’s seat and closed the door behind him, she caught the look he shot her and had to restrain her smile. It would have been a very self-satisfied smile. Because his look lacked that complete male confidence he’d always had until now. As though he was questioning his opinion of her or their relationship.

Her lips had parted to make a laughing comment when a strange beeping began to sound through the vehicle.

She saw Cabal’s expression first. Complete disbelief.

“Fuck! Get out!” Between one breath and the next he was throwing her door open and pushing her out.

Stumbling, adrenaline coursing through her body, Cassa went to her knees before scrambling to her feet and running.

“Cabal!” She screamed out his name as the Raider exploded behind her.

A wave of heat, shocking, searing, threw her to the ground as smoke began to roll and thicken the air. She could hear the squeal of tires, voices raised in alarm, seconds before rough hands latched onto her arms and she was tossed again.

Screaming, kicking, trying to bite, she fought the hold as she literally bounced against a metal floor and a door slammed shut.

Smoke still filled her lungs as she fought to cough, to drag in needed oxygen, as she pushed herself to her knees and swept her hair back from her face.

Terror surged through her as she felt movement. In one second a thousand impressions assailed her. She was in a van—the cold metal floor beneath her knees, the chill of the air, the dank scent of the interior. It was shadowed, closed off. There were no windows, but she wasn’t alone.

Her eyes swept around the interior until they landed on the man who inhabited the van with her. Long, dark brown hair, dark brown eyes and a dark complexion. For all his unassuming coloring, his features were memorable, and unmistakable. He was pure Lion Breed. She’d seen him in the picture left on the bank where Cash Winslow had died. She had seen him in other pictures as well. In the vids Jonas had displayed the night before. Pictures of the pride of Felines that was murdered Valentine’s night, twenty-two years before.

“Cabal will kill you,” she whispered hoarsely.

His lips quirked into a faintly amused grin.

“You don’t care?” She did.

“I’d have to be alive to care, Ms. Hawkins,” he said, his voice torn, raspy. More animal than man. “And we both know, I’m not really alive. Don’t we?”

She was staring into the face of a dead man.

Roars of rage echoed in the parking lot of the inn as smoke billowed from the destruction of the Raider. Flames leapt from the burning vehicle, searching for dry tinder, finding none. They sputtered on the pavement, in the street and the damp bank of the river that flowed on the other side.

Guests rushed from the inn. Sirens screamed through the small town, and Breeds rushed from several points shouting reports to Jonas as he raced from the building, followed by Rule and Lawe.

Cabal fought through the haze of smoke to find his mate, knowing she wasn’t there. He’d heard the vehicle, heard her screams. She’d been taken. He could feel it in the very marrow of his bones, and the knowledge enraged the tiger that lived just beneath the flesh of the man.

“St. Laurents, you’re wounded.” One of the Breeds rushed to him, dared to lay hands on him.

Cabal turned to him with a silent snarl of pure primal fury. Satisfaction raged through him as the Breed paled and backed away. He knew what the other man saw. At any other time he would have hated it, would have fought back the animal to hide it. Now he let it free, knowing that the dark stripe that ran from his forehead, slashed across his eye, nose and opposite cheek was an anomaly—the animal raging too close to the flesh, the spirit of the beast overtaking the man. He didn’t care. Let the animal free. The man had been weak. He had let his enemies live as he searched for answers. He had allowed his mate to be endangered as he searched for vengeance. No longer. Blood would spill. The enemies would die. There would be payment for this day.

“Cabal. Stand the fuck down.” Jonas’s order was a distant command, one he ignored as he surveyed the area, taking in the scents, drawing them in, separating them.

He knew the scent of the vehicle. There was a hint of something he had smelled once before, in only one particular place. The sheriff’s home. Danna Lacey was partial to cinnamon scents. The scent of cinnamon had been heavy in the small house she owned. It was more subtle in the van, but proof enough that she was acquainted with it.

He raised his head as the sounds of the sirens drew closer. The sheriff’s cruiser was the first to pull in. Cabal narrowed his gaze, watching as it slammed to a stop and Danna Lacey jumped from the vehicle.

There was no surprise at first. There was knowledge. Her eyes showed her knowledge of what had happened here before she replaced it with shock and began shouting orders. An ambulance rolled in, fire trucks. He paid little attention as he stalked toward her, aware that Jonas, Rule and Lawe were coming on his rear fast.

“Cabal. Are you okay?” There was true shock now. There was always shock when the unwary saw the proof of the tiger streaked across his face.

He didn’t answer. He could feel the blood at his shoulder, the slice across his flesh. It was there. It wasn’t fatal. An inconvenience, nothing more.

He bared his teeth in lethal fury. It wouldn’t stop him from killing this woman.

As the Breeds converged around them, his hand went out, his fingers locking around her throat as he slammed her against the side of the car.

Not enough to hurt her. The male was weak; he was merciful where the animal wanted nothing more than to rip her lying throat out.

“Return my mate.” He kept the order simple. Words weren’t as easy as they had once been, not with the growls that were tearing from his chest.

“Get him off me, Jonas.” Her voice was rough, filled with fear as she stared up at him.

She stank of terror and guilt. And he wanted her blood. He wanted to taste it, feel it pouring over his fingers and know that any fear his mate was feeling at this moment was felt tenfold by this woman who had instigated it.

“I. Want. My. Mate.” His roar was an ugly, furious sound.

He saw Jonas’s reaction, smelled the wariness that emanated from the Breeds around him.

God help him, he was terrified himself. All he could think about was Cassa. She would be frightened. She would be waiting for him to save her. He would save her. Or he would kill anyone he suspected to be involved in her disappearance.

“I don’t have your mate,” she wheezed, her nails clawing at his wrists. “Let me go, Cabal. I don’t know where she is.”

“Cabal, let her go,” Jonas hissed at his ear. “Stand down. Now.”

He turned on the director, snarling in rage.

“Now, Cabal!” he barked.

“You back off.” He drew back, the rage solidifying into ice, into primal, feral determination. “Fuck you. No more games, Jonas. Not again. I’ll find her myself.”

He turned and loped across the parking lot, slammed his way back into the inn as he ignored the curious bystanders. He needed to get to his room. Weapons and needed supplies had been destroyed in the Raider, but he had more. He never went into an assignment without additional weapons.

Jonas, Lawe and Rule followed him. It was no more than he could expect. Jonas had his games to play, and it was Rule and Lawe’s job to keep him alive while he played them. He might not live much longer though, if he continued to play them with Cabal’s mate.

“Cabal, the van she was taken in is being tracked,” Jonas informed him as they followed him into his room. “We have a team on it now, keeping close behind. We’ll have her location soon.”

“Now.” Cabal threw open the closet door and pulled out the duffel bag he had carried in with him earlier.

“Cabal, we don’t have it now,” Jonas snapped. “For God’s sake, if you mated bastards don’t stop going apeshit like this, then I’m going to start shooting you.”

“Remind me not to tell Jonas if I get infected,” Lawe murmured to Rule.

“Better yet, don’t get infected,” Rule grunted. “I’d hate to have to shoot you myself when you start acting stupid.”

Cabal stared back at them in icy distain before pulling out the weapons he would need. There was a knapsack packed with ammunition and clips. He strapped a dagger to one thigh, a handgun to the other. From the back of the closet he pulled free a rifle stored in its weatherproof bag and pulled the strap over his head and shoulder to allow it to lie comfortably along his back.

“Dammit to hell, Cabal, we have this covered,” Jonas cursed furiously. “Let’s handle this the right way.”

“Your way you mean?” he asked coldly.

“That’s usually the right way,” Jonas informed him.

Cabal shook his head slowly. “Not this time, Jonas. Not this mate. You can ignore yours as long as you want. I’ve claimed mine.” He paused, pain streaking through his soul. “She claimed me.”

He brushed past the three men as he stalked from the room.

Watts hadn’t had time to reach Glen Ferris; Cabal couldn’t imagine he’d had anything to do with this kidnapping. The Coyote spy they had on the team that had broken him out of the prison would have reported it first thing.

Who had taken her?

He slipped silently out of the inn, a shadow, a lethally trained ghost that had once known nothing but the hunt and the kill.

Sliding around the edges of the commotion still ongoing outside the inn, he pinpointed Jonas’s people, and those who weren’t.

There were three Breeds, well trained to blend in, but not blocking their scent as well as they thought they were. How the hell had they gotten the drug that blocked the Breed scent and left only the human scent? The drug Cassa had given them had been tested at Sanctuary. The hormones in it were developed to block scent in Breeds, not humans. Though in humans they blocked all scent, as shown in Cassa.

Breeds were another story though. The drug left only the human scent, and human scent within Breeds was often known to change under duress.

As he watched from the hill above the inn, he saw the sheriff’s subtle looks toward the three Breeds. They took orders from her. She was directing them.

He watched, eyes narrowed, his senses on alert. Danna Lacey was a mated female, though obviously her mate had died, because his scent barely registered on her now. According to the information Jonas had managed to find, her mate had been killed the same night Myron James’s mate died.

And speaking of the reporter, the supposed friend to Cassa, James pulled up, parking his car in the far corner of the inn’s parking lot before getting out slowly.

Sheriff Lacey glanced over at him. There was fear on her face, and indecision. She was still looking around, as were the Breeds that had arrived.

Cabal watched Jonas’s enforcers as they talked to firemen, filled out reports. There were others watching, just as he was. But the explosion had revealed the Breeds. Whoever else might be watching would know how many there were now, and had most likely identified them as well.

Ice filled his veins at the thought of Breeds working against Breeds. These weren’t Coyote, they were Lion and Jaguar, and if he wasn’t mistaken, there was a Cougar Breed down there as well. These were men who weren’t registered with the Bureau or with Sanctuary.

That made them a target.

Someone had taken his mate, and someone was going to pay for it. God help them all if she was harmed.

Memories of the murdered members of the Dozen flashed through his mind. The horror in their expressions, the pain they had suffered before they died. Cash Winslow had died fighting to breathe. There had been no mercy in his death. There had been pure vindictive hatred in it.

Was Cassa suffering?

Agony streaked through him at the thought.

He hadn’t told her . . . He shook his head. He hadn’t told her that she made him warm inside. That the ice that had filled him for so many years had begun unthawing at her touch.

He had wanted to tell her. As he held her last night. As her soft breaths had caressed his chest and the pads of her fingers had rubbed against his waist, he had wanted to tell her what she was to him.

As he had fought the purr that wanted to rumble in his chest, he had fought the words, held them back, because he didn’t know how to tell her. Didn’t know what to say to her.

And now she was gone, frightened, taken away from him. And he couldn’t tell her.

What had he done? He had wasted so many years because of his own pride, his own stubbornness. He had always known she’d had nothing to do with Watts’s actions, but the very fact that he saw her as his weakness had held him back.

Because of this. Because the thought of losing her was destroying him inside. It was eating away at him in ways he couldn’t fight, couldn’t push back in that icy corner of his soul. Because there was no ice left. Cassa had warmed it, melted it, softened parts of him that he hadn’t even realized were stone hard.

She had made him proud of his stripes as she kissed and licked them. She had made him proud to be a man, to be a Breed, with each soft touch of her hands, each whispered cry of longing as he touched her.

She didn’t know how she had touched him, and that was his fault. She didn’t know how important she was to his life. Hell, he hadn’t known himself until he had heard the countdown to that explosive and realized he could lose her.

She was his mate. She was his heart.

“Cabal, tell me you’re using the comm link.” Jonas’s voice came over the secure link he had placed at his ear.

“I’m watching,” he replied almost silently. “There are three unregistered Breeds taking silent direction from Lacey. James is in sight, for the moment watching only.”

“We have eyes on them as well,” Jonas reported. “Were you detected leaving?”

“Negative.”

“I have two enforcers that didn’t show themselves during the explosion. Mordecai and Tarek Jordan. What’s your location?”

“Close” was all he revealed.

Jonas cursed bitterly. “I need more than this, Cabal.”

“Fuck what you need,” Cabal stated bitterly. “I know what I’m doing. I don’t need direction or orders from you, Director.”

He’d had enough. For ten years he’d followed Jonas, worked with him, and though he highly respected the man, he didn’t trust his mate’s life in anyone’s hands but his own.

“We don’t know who has her, Cabal,” Jonas reminded him softly.

“No, we don’t,” he agreed. “But I sure as fucking hell know how to find out.”

And he knew where to go. Who to wait on.

Disconnecting the link, he moved from his position and began his trek up the mountain. The sheriff’s house was about twenty miles away. An easy run for a Bengal Breed. An easy run for a man racing to save his own soul.

His mate.