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A chill raced down her spine again, the cold invading her as she realized that this was why Cabal held himself from her. He’d always blamed her for those deaths. He’d never forgiven her, and she couldn’t blame him.
Why hadn’t she thought of that before she had allowed him to touch her? What had made her think that mating heat could ever dim his hatred over those deaths?
She’d been warned she couldn’t escape the past much longer. The anonymous killer in the first email he had sent of the first murder had said as much: I know who you are. I know who you were. The past is never dead, my friend, it now haunts not just the prey, but the hunter as well. Beware you don’t become the hunted as well.
The words were impossible to forget, just as it was impossible to forget the pictures that had come in that first email. Dr. Ryan Damron, his expression contorted into lines of horror, his neck torn out, the ragged, bloody wounds attesting to his pain-filled death. Along with the pictures of the victim were the pictures of the dark figures removing him.
Two days later it was reported that Dr. Damron had died in a fiery crash as his vehicle plunged down the cliffs outside his California home.
More pictures, more messages, more assurances of death had come in over the months. Someone was working steadily, quickly to take out what he called the Deadly Dozen.
They were hunters who had tracked escaped Breeds and turned them over to Phillip Brandenmore for research, or returned them to the labs. At least, those that had lived through the hunts.
“Such morose thoughts reflected on such a pretty face.”
Cassa swung around, her heart tripping, pausing before racing in sudden fear and arousal as she found Cabal standing just inside the room, closing the bathroom door behind him.
How had he managed to slip up on her so easily? How had she not heard him?
Breed stealth, she thought. It was becoming legendary.
“I don’t recall my thoughts being very important to you at any other time,” she snapped, as she drew the belt of her robe tighter.
Suddenly, she felt underdressed, exposed to him. They’d had sex repeatedly, but being naked in front of him, or even half-clothed now, suddenly made her uncomfortable.
“You didn’t check the fine print in Breed Law.” His lips quirked, a sexy male smirk in his sun-darkened face as mockery reflected in his eyes. “You should be more careful in the future. I’m certain that particular stipulation is there.”
“I’ll be certain to do that and lodge my complaint at the same time,” she bit out, as her arms tightened across her swelling breasts. “I believe precedence for separations has already been established by the Coyote Breed alpha and his mate. I could sue for my own.”
He shook his head, the silken strands of his gold and black hair brushing against his shoulders. Her fingers itched to tunnel into the mass of oddly striped hair. To clench and pull, and drag his lips down to her own.
She swore she could taste him in her mouth. A taste of heated spice, a need, a hunger she fought to hide from.
“I wouldn’t try that if I were you,” he warned her, his voice dangerously soft now. “You’d not get out of bed for months, Cassa. I’d make certain of it. And I’d make certain there was no thought of separation once you did manage to actually rejoin the human race.”
She had no doubt she wouldn’t protest it either, she thought furiously. She’d probably help him keep her in that damned bed, if the sudden flurry of aroused sensations rushing through her body was any indication. He wasn’t helping matters by strutting around naked, and aroused.
Her gaze flickered to his erection before jerking back to his shoulders and the bite mark there. The mark she had left, similar to the one he had left on her shoulder.
Damn, he was making her as wild as he was.
“Come here,” he suddenly growled. “If you want to stare at me with those hungry eyes, then come to me, Cassa. Let me sate you.”
Did she look like a fool? On second thought, she didn’t want to answer that question.
“I think I prefer to keep a very careful distance between us at the moment,” she informed him. “I have things to do this evening, and being distracted by you isn’t one of those things.”
His eyes narrowed on her as he moved to his discarded clothing and pulled his jeans from the pile.
“What did you have planned?” he asked, as he pulled the denim over those spectacular legs. “I thought we’d have dinner together.”
She suddenly wished her evening was free after all.
She was too easy, she told herself. A wimp. A wuss. A horny fool.
“Regretfully, I have to decline.”
Actually, she was ready to dress and run home right now rather than face the pain she knew was coming. If it weren’t for her own past and the knowledge the killer evidently had, then she would do just that. Maybe.
