“You have stripes.” Her weak voice drew his attention as her hand tried to lift, only to falter and fall back to the bed.
He knew what she wanted. She had been fascinated with the stripes on his hips and thighs. These on his face would be no different.
He lifted her hand to them as he slowly sat down on the small stool next to the bed.
“These will be gone soon,” he said quietly. “It won’t be long now.”
She smiled as her lashes drifted closed, then opened once again.
“Ely pulled me through, huh?” There was an edge of wariness in her voice. “Everything is okay?”
“Everything is okay.” He turned her palm into his kiss. “You’re okay.”
She stared back at him, her gray eyes somber, drowsy.
“I didn’t protect you,” he said quietly. “This won’t happen again, Cassa.”
“Don’t cage me, Cabal.”
He shook his head at that. “I can’t cage you. You’d die, just as I would. But from now on, we work together. No more assignments apart.” It was the best way to ensure that she was never threatened again.
She grinned at that. “Tame little assignments, huh?”
“By my standards perhaps. I doubt others would see it that way.”
She stared back at him silently for long moments, and he knew what she was waiting on, what she needed.
He lowered his head as he dragged in a hard, desperate breath.
“I never blamed you.” He finally lifted his head and caught her gaze once again. “Never. Not even that night when he accused you of knowing, I knew you couldn’t have.”
She frowned at that statement.
“Your scent,” he explained. “It was one of innocence, of desperation and sorrow. There was no guilt in you, Cassa. There never has been. From the moment I smelled that innocence, I wanted nothing more than to taste it. To touch it. To hold it as my own. All these years, I’ve longed for that alone, and I’ve been too damned scared to reach out for it. Too scared that fate would tear you away from me and take you forever.”
Terrified she would die. A part of him had always feared that this incredible gift that God had given him would be taken from him just as quickly.
“No more running.” Her fingers caressed a stripe.
“No more running, Cassa,” he swore. There was no place he wanted to be other than right here by her side. “I’ve loved you since the moment that sweet tongue licked across my blood. Since the night I watched you fighting so desperately to save me. I’ve loved you, Cass, and I’ve been terrified of losing you.”
Her fingers paused in the slow rubbing caress of the tips against one narrow stripe.
“Terrified?”
“Shaking in my boots.” He leaned closer, his lips against hers. “So terrified I ran as far and as fast as I could.”
She stared up at him, her eyes wide, so filled with hope. His Cassa. His brave, adventurous Cassa.
“No more running?”
He licked across her lips, tasted her, loved her. His hands framed her beloved face, his thumbs stroking across her jaw. He was nearly shaking with the need to assure himself she was fine. That she lived. That she was his.
“No more running, baby.”
He eased onto the bed with her, thankful that it was so damned big. They had to make room for large men in pain when they made the beds for the Breed intensive care facility. It was just large enough for him to lie on his side beside her, to hold her, to feel her warmth, to soak in the fact that she still lived. That she was still his.
“I love you, Cassa.” He gave her the words he knew she needed, and felt that last barrier toward her collapse.
If she died, he would follow her. He would avenge every moment of pain she felt, and then he would give up his life to be with her in death.
“Always?” she whispered.
She had always loved him. She would always love him. He knew it, felt it to the ends of his soul.
“Always, baby.” He brushed the hair back from the side of her face, lowered his lips and touched hers once again. “I’ll always love you.”
She would always be his mate. She would always be the Bengal’s heart. Man and beast, they existed for her alone.
“I love you, Cabal.” She sighed against his lips, drowsiness finally taking her as she went to sleep to his kiss.
“I love you, Cass.” He lowered his head beside hers and let his own lashes drift closed.
She was safe. She was his. She was the Bengal’s heart, the man’s soul. And forever the mate he would cherish.
◆ EPILOGUE ◆
Jonas entered the interview room of the maximum security prison that held the prisoners they didn’t want the world to ever know about.
There was a scientist in a cell. One of the most brutal and yet one of the most brilliant to ever live. She had bypassed genius level in her teens and was now considered one of the most dangerous creatures alive, even by Genetics Council standards.
There were several trainers here who had once worked for the Council and even a billionaire who had disappeared years ago behind the walls of this fortress, never to be seen again.
It wasn’t truly a harsh place to be. It just wasn’t a nice place to be. It was cold at night, a little warmer in the day. There weren’t a lot of conveniences, but there were doctors to oversee the health of the prisoners and there was nutritious food. Might not necessarily be food the prisoners were used to, but they were alive and they weren’t abused.
It was better than could be said of the treatment received by the Breeds that most of the prisoners had once overseen.
But none of those was the one he had come there to talk with now.
Jonas sat silently in the interview room and stared at the defeated pose Douglas Watts now used when facing him. His face was down. Once, he’d kept his person immaculate, his hair washed, his body in shape. In less than two weeks the hair had become dank and oily and the skin sallow. He was a man who had lost the will to fight.
“Are you in pain?” Jonas asked, though he knew Douglas wasn’t.
Douglas shook his head. “I feel nothing.”
Literally. From the hips down he was once again paralyzed, this time with no hope of recovery.
“The surgeon warned you that it could happen?” Jonas asked. He’d commanded that Douglas be given the warning.
Douglas nodded. “I was warned.”
The chip implanted needed months to interact with the nerve endings. By pushing himself as he had physically, Douglas had been the cause of his own demise.
“Then we’ll proceed,” Jonas stated. “I want the names of the final four of the Deadly Dozen.”
He was surprised when Douglas gave him the names. Three of them anyway.
“The fourth died,” Douglas sighed. “I heard about his death after I escaped. Ivan never was very smart. He pissed off the wrong man in his own government and paid for it.”
Ivan Vilanov, the former Russian elite officer that had once been an attaché to the United States.
“And the child of Patrick Wallace?” Jonas asked. That was the information he needed, what he wanted more than anything else.
Douglas lifted his head. “A boy. He was sold to this couple.” He gave their names easily. “They died. The report I have is that he has an older sister that disappeared with him a few years ago. I wasn’t able to find out more.” And Jonas believed him.
Jonas nodded as he checked the voice recorder he carried to make certain it was still recording everything.
“Did you know who Patrick Wallace was?” he asked Douglas.
Once again the other man nodded. “Azrael. The angel of death. We knew. He disappeared after that hunt. I knew he was wounded. I hoped he was dead. I was wrong.”
And now he was gone.
“And Brandenmore and Engalls?” Jonas questioned him. “Tell me what you know about their part in the hunts and the Genetics Council.”