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“Because Watts was part of the Dozen, Cassa. He was part of it, and he’s the one the killer wants.”
With that surprising statement, Dog gunned the motor on the Harley and shot out of his parking space a second ahead of Cabal reaching them.
Cassa stared up at her mate, shock resounding through her as she saw the suspicion in his eyes, the knowledge. It was there, in the brilliant pinpoints of amber that gazed back at her. He had a piece of the puzzle that she should have had. He’d known something that important, and he hadn’t told her.
“What would make your rogue killer think I can bring Douglas back from the dead? Or does he just think I should continue paying for his crimes?” Her voice was hoarse with tears she refused to shed, with an anger she refused to let free.
“Fuck!” The muttered curse was a testament to the rare honesty Dog had become afflicted with.
A part of her had hoped it was a lie, that the Coyote Breed didn’t know what he was talking about. Dog wasn’t known for his loyalty to the Breed community, quite the contrary. He was known for working with their enemies. In his own way of course. Rumor in the past year was that even Dog’s handler wasn’t always certain which side he was playing on.
“Yes, fuck,” she stated with cold emphasis on the curse. “Fuck all of it, Cabal.”
Turning, she stalked away from the Bengal, ignoring the need just for his touch. It wasn’t sexual this time, and it should have been. Mating heat was reputed to always be sexual.
No, the need twisting inside her now was a need for his touch, for his hold. A need to curl against him and, for once in too many years, just heal a little.
She’d been alone since her parents’ deaths, twelve years before. On the heels of that had been her marriage. Douglas had moved in, taken over and slowly destroyed the self-confidence Cassa had had within herself.
How easy she had been, she thought as she pushed into her room and tossed her pack on the nearby table. She had thought she loved him when she married him, but as the months went by, she realized it had been her grief that had had her leaning on him.
By then, it had been too late. Douglas had integrated himself into her life and had already begun sowing the seeds of her destruction.
She cursed her own ignorance with him. She’d been cursing it for eleven years now. She had made the mistake in trusting him, and she was still paying the price for it.
Sometimes she wondered if she would continue paying until the last breath she took. And beyond.
Death watched the light flicker on in the room at the inn. How warm and inviting it looked from the opposite bank of the river. How many memories it brought back.
Too many memories. They were stacked from one end of the mind to the other, flickering across the imagination as pain ripped through a soul that had felt shattered for too many years.
Valentine’s night. It had all happened then. Another anniversary was moving in quickly. Another year without a mate that had brightened every corner of a life that had been dark before that mating.
Death rubbed at arms that were still sensitive, that still ached for touch. There wasn’t a cell that didn’t miss the presence of the mate. It was like a disease, a steadily building fever that eventually destroyed the mind.
It never ended.
Once there had been warmth, laughter. There had been a place to belong. None of that existed now. There was no longer that place to belong or those arms to be held by. There was no longer the kiss that was needed to still the hunger that never stopped growing, never stopped tormenting or torturing the body or the mind.
It had created Death. This horrifying, gnawing emptiness that never went away. That never eased. The agony never eased, it never went away. It pulsed and echoed through the spirit until insanity would be a relief.
Many would think it was insanity now. It wasn’t. Insanity was the inability to accept that what one did was wrong. Death was very well aware there was nothing right here. It was simply justice. And justice was all that mattered for the lives that had been taken. For the lives that could never be returned.
“You were once a handsome man.” Death turned
and stared at the bound, gagged victim who lay at the edge of the water.
His eyes were narrowed and filled with loathing. Filled with fury.
A smile crossed Death’s lips. It was a brutal smile. One that flashed with razor-sharp teeth and intent.
Yes, Cash Winslow, a former CIA agent. He had once been a very handsome man. Tall and fit, his hair dark and silky, his eyes deceptively friendly. Once he had been someone Death had trusted. Trusted and been betrayed by.
“I remember that fishing trip we went on,” Death said quietly, looking at the man Cash Winslow had aged into. “Do you remember?”
There were muffled sounds of rage behind the duct tape that covered his mouth.
“I caught the bigger fish. That big ole catfish. You ate with us, planned with us. We ate that big ole fish, tough as he was.” And they had laughed, planned for Breed freedom and lives that were far different from the danger they had faced then.
