“Why are you here, Khi?” Tilting her head, a small frown pulled at her brow. “Does Graeme know you’re visiting?”
Khi gave a light laugh at the question. “I don’t ask Graeme Parker’s permission to go anywhere on the Reever property.” She gave a little roll of her eyes. “I don’t even extend that courtesy to Lobo.”
Cat lifted her brows at the statement. “Quite an accomplishment. I envy you,” she snorted. “I imagine Lobo’s arrogance more than matches Graeme’s. And he seems just as domineering.”
“Just as much an ass, you mean?” This time, Khi’s smile was a bit tight. “I imagine he can be. I try to stay out of the way of his arrogance and he avoids my bitchiness. It works for us.”
Interesting. At one time, Khi had been rumored to be quite close to her stepfather. Of course, that was before her mother tried to kill him.
Not many were aware of the fact that Jessica Reever had been one of the Genetics Council’s spies. Her first husband had died attempting to help liberate an Irish Council research lab. She’d even appeared to mourn him for several years.
Breathing slow and easy, Cat drew in the other girl’s scent, the subtle differences in it confusing. There was a hint of something that reminded her of Mating Heat, yet wasn’t, as well as the odd scents of a Wolf Breed and fierce anger. Whatever Khi Langer was bottling inside herself was building to an explosion. She wasn’t normally so mocking or caustic, Cat knew.
Cat didn’t know the other girl well. Raymond’s dislike of Lobo Reever, as well as his wealth, had ensured he did his best to make certain Cat’s path didn’t cross with Khi’s.
“So, why am I here?” Placing her hands on her upper leg, Khi leaned forward and flicked Cat a quick look. “Because it’s completely boring at the house: Lobo has the estate on lockdown, and everyone I really know from the area is in hiding, it appears.” She rose gracefully to her feet. “How about a drink? I’m sure it’s five o’clock somewhere.”
“Why don’t you return to the main house, and when Graeme asks you why you didn’t see your babysitting duties through, you can inform him I asked you to leave,” Cat suggested coolly.
It hadn’t really taken long to figure out why Khi was there. Graeme was due to leave soon for some meeting with Lobo that would last well into the night, she knew.
“I’ll do that.” Khi nodded. “But let’s have that drink first and give him time to leave for that meeting. You really don’t want him sending Lobo’s guards out instead. They’re really assholes. Come on.” As Khi brushed past her into the house, the scent of overwhelming weariness had Cat hiding an impatient sigh.
She had her own things to do.
“Tea?” she suggested rather than asking the other girl to leave now.
“Only the alcoholic kind,” Khi demanded. “If you want to do virgin, it’s your choice. Personally, virginity doesn’t really appeal to me. It’s been a hell of a morning.”
And it looked like Cat was in for a hell of an afternoon.
She was going to kill Graeme. A babysitter? Really? For what?
What did he think Khi could do but tell on her if she attempted to leave the house? Khi wasn’t protection, she was there as a tattletale and nothing more.
She had a few hours, Cat decided. If Khi wanted a drink, then she could have a drink. Come dusk, Cat thought, she’d just pretend to take a little nap. It wasn’t as though Keenan and his men came through the front door. Not that Khi would see them if they did.
She wanted one of those damned suits they wore so bad she couldn’t stand it. Unfortunately, Keenan was not all about sharing the technology. And not even the best nano-nit Cat had created had managed to get past the electronic firewalls built into the electronics either. Damned winged Breeds were like Graeme, too smart for their own damned good.
Following Khi through the office, Cat retrieved the e-pad to ensure she didn’t miss any messages sent by Keenan or his second in command, Teal. Keenan had given her the device to ensure all communications between them was untraceable. If only there was a program for the babysitters Graeme chose.
• • •
Graeme watched the monitor as Khi strode to the bar in the guesthouse and poured herself a drink.
She was drinking too much too often, he thought, concerned. He’d grown fond of her over the past year, respected her intelligence, the loyalty that went far too deep, as well as her determination, but that kid’s heart was torn into two raw chunks and she had no idea how to deal with it.
Mated to one brother and in love with the other, unable to give in to either of them. It was a hell of a position to be in and he didn’t envy her in the least. Still, he was going to have to discuss the drinking with her. They had a deal, and if he let her renege on her part, then she could slip down an emotional tunnel from which she might not return.
At the moment, Khi wasn’t the concern, though—Cat was. Claire’s warning and the knowledge that the protective spirit had roused again the night before as Cat slept had his instincts going haywire. There was something he was missing, he could feel it. Add that to his meeting with Orrin Martinez and Graeme was determined to find out what the hell was going on with Cat.
He’d be damned if he would lose her. He’d dedicated his life to ensuring her safety and his peace; he wouldn’t let her down now, not when he’d already let her down as he had.
She’d been right, he’d trained her to fight at his side. Both Judd and Cat had been taught to fight. Cat was especially adept at it because her small stature and apparently fragile build managed to fool people, even those who should know better, into believing she would be easy to defeat. But Gideon had taught her to strike first and deal with her conscience later. She went for the jugular, literally, just as she had done the night the guards had attempted to transfer her and Judd to the kill facility.
The thought of that night brought with it the memory of the betrayal in her eyes when he’d thrown open the doors on the van. She hadn’t been allowed to bathe or wash her hair often, he’d noted that instantly. Her nails were stained with dirt and blood, her face streaked with dust. The scent of such grief and pain that it filled every part of her struck him first. Then betrayal. Her entire being had flooded with a sense of betrayal as he stared back at her.
She’d just stared at him, so silent, almost in disbelief. But he’d seen that first slow fall into the distrust she now felt for him.
He would deal with that, he assured himself. Turning to the bank of computers in the underground cavern he used for security monitoring, Graeme told himself he would deal with that, just as soon as he dealt with Jonas and the interrogation of the Jackals that Lobo had managed to include them in on.
No one had broken the bastards yet and they still insisted on speaking to him alone if they were going to release any information. He had no doubt they had plenty of information to release; for that reason alone Jonas had agreed to bring them to Lobo’s estate, and the small secure building the Wolf Breed kept at the back of the main estate house, for the interrogation.
Unfortunately the audio setup had yet to be extended out to there. Completing it before Jonas arrived was paramount.
Hopefully, Cat would talk to Khi and perhaps in that conversation Graeme could glean a hint of what was going on with his mate. Because he had no doubt she was up to something, and when Cat plotted, Graeme knew, life could become very dangerous indeed.
• CHAPTER 20 •
Cat didn’t think Khi would ever leave. She lingered for hours, chitchatting, talking about life in Ireland versus on the Reever estate and how she’d once missed the country of her birth but it seemed foreign now. She talked about everything and everyone but Graeme. The few questions Cat asked about him she neatly sidestepped, though it was expected. Khi’s loyalty to Graeme had never been in question—Cat had already suspected the other woman all but idolized Graeme.
The thought sent a wave of jealousy washing through her that had to be quickly tamped down. She couldn’t afford to get into
a confrontation with the reigning princess of the Reever estate. And she didn’t really want to. Hell, the other girl had enough problems with the Reever brothers, she didn’t need any from anyone else.
Finally, as the sun rose to its highest point, baking the already dry desert landscape further, the other girl rose from the chair she’d curled into on the patio and set her empty glass aside.
“I guess you’ve had enough of me now,” Khi drawled. “And it looks as though that wily mate of yours is making an appearance.”
Turning her head, Cat watched as Graeme strode from inside the house, the black pants and T-shirt he wore giving him a dark, dangerous appearance.
“I’m just leaving,” Khi assured him as she flashed him a mocking grin. “I believe I might have time to dress for dinner with Lobo. He’s been bitching about that lately.” She shrugged carelessly. “I found the cutest pair of ripped jeans and a T-shirt with tanning oil stains on it. I thought I’d try it out.”
Graeme actually winced. “He’s going to ship you off to a convent, Khi.”
She only snorted at that. “In his dreams.” Throwing Cat a careless wave, she moved with unhurried grace around the side of the house and disappeared. Within moments a low, quiet hum indicated she’d left via one of the small, personal gliders Lobo often used around the huge desert estate.
“Interesting friend you have there.” Cat remained in the lounger where she’d stretched out to listen to Khi’s chatter. “And she’s so quiet. How do you bear it?”
He hadn’t been one to tolerate useless chatter when they’d been younger. Of course, the research center hadn’t exactly encouraged chatter of any type.
“Stop being a smart aleck,” he chastised, though there was a glint of amusement, affection and concern in his gaze. “She’s a conflicted child at the moment.”
Cat rolled her eyes. “Conflicted, huh? I guess that’s as good a word for it as any.”
Stopping next to the lounger, he stared down at her, the latent hunger and heated lust in his gaze instantly spurring the Mating Heat, which was making itself known by stronger degrees by the day.
Even her flesh was sensitive, aching with a need for his touch that she found distinctly unsettling. As she stared up at him, the image of him thirteen years before flashed through her mind. He hadn’t been as muscle hard, but he’d been powerful, even then. His features were more defined now, more savage, and lacked the very slight softening of compassion he’d had so long ago.
Now there were the smallest lines at the corners of his eyes that had nothing to do with age or the sun. His features weren’t lined, but the sharp definition hinted at the brutality of the life he’d lived for so long.
He’d changed so much. Over the course of the past weeks she’d learned that those changes went far deeper than she might guess as well. The changes weren’t just physical either. He wasn’t harder just on the outside, but on the inside as well, except where it came to her. He still treated her with a gentleness she knew was completely alien to him.
And he belonged to her on a level she’d never questioned, even as a child. As an adult, so many things made more sense, and yet others were so much more complicated. And there was one question she had to have the answer to.
“Did you ever love me?” she whispered, remembering his claim that he never had. “Or have you always just claimed me?”
If his features could have hardened further, they did, and she knew that flash of uncertainty she thought gleamed for a moment in his gaze had to be an illusion. Graeme was never uncertain.
“You’re mine,” he stated and there was no uncertainty at all, not in his voice or in his gaze. “And I would suggest you never forget that.”
He claimed her.
She rose slowly from the chair.
“I would have thought you loved me,” she said softly, the pain that sliced at her more than she would have expected.
“What do I know of love, Cat?” he asked her then, drawing her gaze back to his as he watched her with a hint of confusion. “What the world calls love, I highly discount. There’s no loyalty in it, no drive to hold on to what they claim once that haze of lust dissipates. If that’s love, then why would you want it?”
“That isn’t love.” She had to force the words out. “No more than possession is love, Graeme. No more than Mating Heat is love. Without real love, what separates possession from obsession, and Mating Heat from biological rape? Mating Heat can begin without love, but like lust, it won’t bind mates without love.”
“And what makes you a fucking expert on love, Cat?” he bit out, pushing his fingers through his hair in frustration. “When did Webster contact you for the definition?”
“When you decided I was your mate,” she snapped back, one hand going to her hip as the dominance he displayed had her shoulders straightening and determination hardening her tone. “I’m far more an expert on it than you evidently, Graeme, because at least I recognize it when I feel it.”
“And just who did you recognize it with?” Pure fury lit his eyes.
First that wild green spread across his eyes, obliterating the whites, then within a heartbeat later the tiny flecks of amber gold began to fill it as shadowed stripes began marring his face and neck.
“With you,” she all but yelled. “Unfortunately loving you now does me about as much good as it did when I was twelve. And you include me in about as much of your life now as you did then.” Stepping closer, glaring up at him, she could feel the tips of her claws flexing, aching to emerge. “When I was twelve you pushed me aside to fight alone and left my protection to others, and now, other than when you need to fuck, you push me aside to fight with Khi or Lobo or Rule or whoever else you decide is strong enough to stand at your side. When will you consider me your partner rather than your damned fuck toy?”
“When I’m not in danger of losing my fucking sanity at the thought of a scratch on your soft skin,” he snarled back at her, head lowering until they were snarling at each other, nose to nose. “I taught you to fight to aid in your protection. Not to aid in my battles.”
“If I can’t fight with you, then I don’t want to fuck with you,” she sneered up at him. “Go on to your little meeting, Bengal boy.” She waved toward the main estate with a curl of her lip. “Go have fun with the big dogs. See how much good they do you when that hard cock of yours needs attention, because I won’t give you the satisfaction of taking care of it.”
Swinging around to stomp away from him, she found herself pulled up short by firm fingers snagging her wrist, manacling it and pulling her around to face him once more.
“You are my mate,” he reminded her, the gleaming brilliance of that fierce green swirling with glints of amber fury. “You can claim you’ll deny me all you want, but the heat will always bring you back to me, Cat.”
“Will it?” she asked tightly, her breathing harsh, anger and need and far too much love for such an arrogant beast raging inside her. “We both know exactly how stubborn I can be, don’t we, Graeme. Let’s see which is stronger. My determination or some biological lust that lacks any basis in emotion. Which one will win, Graeme?”
“Don’t turn our mating into a battle, Cat,” he warned her, his voice deepening to a guttural growl.
“No, you’re turning it into a battle, not me. Even worse, Graeme, you want to weaken me, you want to destroy what you made when you created the therapy to save me. And I’ll be damned if I’ll stand for it. I’ve spent too many years waiting for my chance to be free. I will not put my head down and pretend to be weak ever again. Not for you. Never for you.” She couldn’t bear it. The very attempt would kill her.
Jerking her wrist from his hold, she all but ran into the house and up to her room.
He had to go to his precious meeting, well, she had a meeting of her own to attend. She’d worked too hard for this day, when she could keep the promise she’d made to the girl who’d shared those cells with her. The promise that one day her parents would find her. Jona
s refused to allow it and Honor’s mating with a Wolf Breed placed her under certain constraints where the Bureau of Breed Affairs was concerned.
Cat wasn’t ruled by the Bureau, by Jonas nor by Graeme.
Honor still hadn’t fully awakened and the protective spirit of Liza Johnson that ensured Honor’s identity was hidden was still far too protective. Only one thing would ever force Honor to break through that dark labyrinth within her own mind to take control of her life once again. The parents who loved her enough to send her away rather than see her returned to the research center. Parents Jonas had yet to contact, and Honor had yet to awaken enough to remember fully.
Cat had never had parents. No mother who loved her and cried for her, no father who searched tirelessly for her or watched the faces of every female her age, hoping to see the child he’d lost.
This meeting, like all the battles she’d fought in the past years, she would do without Graeme. He couldn’t include her in even the plans or meetings regarding her protection or her life? What could even make her imagine he’d help her with this? He wouldn’t.
And if he did, the one thing she’d bargained with General Roberts for, she would never see. The files Dr. Bennett had submitted on Gideon’s recapture and the tests performed while he was there. Something had changed him. Changed him so drastically that, as he said, sometimes he felt he would drown in blood.
To understand her mate, to know why he’d become so much harder, she had to know what had happened when he was returned to the research center. What created the monster that had raged for years after his escape, and what had enabled him to regain his sanity?
She knew everything else. Every move he’d made since he’d disappeared the night he’d rescued her and Judd from the soldiers escorting them to the kill facility. Every move made in the past year, she knew about. But what had happened in the center for the year Dr. Bennett had held him, she had no idea. Jonas wouldn’t tell her. If Orrin had known, he wouldn’t tell her. But General Roberts could acquire that information. And she had something he wanted bad enough to ensure he brought it to her. The daughter he and his wife had never stopped waiting for.
The woman the world knew as Liza Johnson was the child Honor Roberts, the friend Cat had lost forever in a Navajo ritual that had stolen her memories, her very identity, for years—so many years, that who she was as a child perhaps no longer even existed. But who she had been to her parents, who her parents had been to her, would never be lost, Cat suspected. And possibly it was all that would enable Honor to step back into her own life and take her place, fully, with her own mate.
Cat only hoped that perhaps, at some point in the future, she could take her own place. That maybe Graeme would soften enough to realize that Mating Heat was love. Without one, the other could not exist.
• • •
The Six Chiefs of the Navajo moved into the sweat lodge behind two of the Unknown. Each of the warriors carried the still, silent body of a young Breed female—both females so unique, and so important to the Breeds as well as the Navajo, that the very land itself called out for their preservation.
As the procession moved into the steamy room, the herbs and potent medicines used to awaken and to guide the spirits began to scent the moist air.
In the center of the lodge two large flat stones sat between six mounds of steaming rocks. The damp heat from the steaming rocks wafted over the hard stone bed that one young woman was placed upon. Orrin Martinez stepped back and stared sadly down at the unique creatures the chiefs had been called to aid.
Graceful gold, creamy white and russet wings arced above the head of the first and framed a small body before ending far below her small, booted feet. Fragile, small boned, the young woman could have passed for a child were it not for the shapely woman’s curves beneath the leather pants and vest she wore.
Long, light brown hair touched with russet highlights spilled along the side of her face and over her breasts in lush ringlets and Orrin knew when her eyes opened he’d see the fierce eagle hues of brown, green and a hint of black. Creamy flesh unmarred by her battles was now pale, the luster of life quickly dimming.
On the narrow stone next to her lay another young female Breed, this one having only just passed her twentieth year. This one Orrin ached for the most. The little Lion Breed female had known only a few years of freedom. She’d had no time to build dreams or the life Breeds had been promised.
As small and fragile as the winged Breed, the little Lion Breed female lay just as still and silent. There all resemblance ended, though. The Lion Breed female’s hair was short, framing a curiously inquisitive little face with a pert nose. Wide eyes were framed by a line of dark color as though nature had applied liner around the slightly tilted curve of her lashes.
She wasn’t dressed in leathers, but rather in the long white gown she’d been dressed in after being brought to the Breeds. There were no wounds on her body; the injuries had been internal but had healed. Her fragile spirit could no longer endure the life she was born into. Years of confinement and cruelty had worn her down. Her escape had given her only a few years to acclimate to freedom before she’d been forced to witness yet more atrocities in an attack against her and two other female Breeds.
The wound to her head was healing nicely, yet her spirit continued to seek escape. Life was bleeding from her with each shallow breath she took.
These spirits fought to escape while two others fought to linger. The awakening of Cat and Honor was completed, yet Claire and Liza had yet to walk the path to the afterlife. Orrin had been concerned by this until the winds had begun whispering the will of the land and the fate of two weary souls that would leave bodies strong enough to endure the ritual of placement.
Stepping back from the stone beds, his five fellow chiefs gazed at him silently.
“We are in agreement?” he asked them softly. “The winds have called us to this place prepared by the Unknown. In the breath of the land we heard the request to awaken and to prepare for death and to prepare for placement. The Unknown have been sent to bring to us the awakened. Should they seek life, these bodies will be theirs. Should they seek their rest, then the lands will show them the way.”
“So the winds have whispered to us,” the five agreed.
Orrin turned to the two Unknown who had brought the females to them. “To the Unknown have the lands called to take your brothers to the awakened and bring them to this place?”
“So the Unknown have been called,” they agreed.
“Then we prepare,” Orrin announced. “Tonight the awakened will be freed and placement shall begin.”
The rituals were ancient and ones only the chiefs and the Unknown knew the intricacies of. The rituals were far older than the Nation, and their mysteries originated, it was told, as long ago as time had begun in the stars themselves.
They were the People, given to the Earth for safekeeping, given guardianship of the secrets of the lands by the Great Spirit and the winds themselves. For as long as the Navajo had drawn breath, their bodies filled with the air given by the winds, those winds had whispered vast knowledge and the secrets of rituals unlike any others could imagine.
They were the Six Chiefs. Always, there had been six chiefs. Always, there had been twelve of the Unknown. And from the Unknown, the chiefs that would carry the next generation would be chosen by the winds. So it had begun and so it would continue.
But with each ritual of awakening, there was the passing. With each life given, one was taken. The spirits of these fragile young women could endure no more. The horrors of their lives, of the cruelties of man, had been far more than they could endure. Their losses had sapped their will to continue in this life they were given.
The prophecy had been whispered to him the night his granddaughter’s body had expired from its wounds and she had become the protector of the young Breed female known as Cat. The winds had whispered that with the awakening, death would come. He had known since Claire’s birth that her destiny was t
o be one of heartbreak and fear in her youth, but one of freedom and greatness once payment was made.
No gifts were given without the battle to receive them, he knew. The Earth knew what many parents did not understand: Its children must work for the gifts given and only with sacrifice could they appreciate the happiness that came with those gifts.
His granddaughter Claire had sacrificed everything for future happiness. Though if the happiness did not come, perhaps at some point she might find contentment in finding a new life. Which of these exceptional young women’s bodies she would be accepted into he did not know. The spirits of the young women had seen all they could see, fought all they could fight; their weariness was apparent in the dimness of their life force.
The Earth, the Great Spirit that guided them all, had other plans for their bodies and he only prayed those plans would see to the eventual happiness of th