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“It’s my ass at risk.” Cabal shrugged.
Jonas’s lips had parted to say more when a warning hiss echoed across the communications link.
Cabal felt the premonition in his gut, knew exactly who the enforcers were stalking before the name ever came across the line. He was only surprised that it had taken her this long to get here. She must have been damned careful attempting to slip past the perimeter patrol.
“Reporter.” Mordecai spoke quietly through the link. “Bengal’s mate.”
Damn. He didn’t want her here; she had no business here. It would only entrench her deeper in the danger he could already feel swirling around her.
Cabal clenched his teeth furiously before sprinting away from Jonas and heading for the tree line. He could smell her now. There was no breeze rippling through the trees, which had given her the advantage in slipping through the forest toward the murder scene.
She was clearing the edge of the forest at a fast clip as he moved toward her. Dressed in black, her long hair pushed beneath a cap, her expression furious, she found him instantly with her stormy gaze, even as the enforcers securing the area converged on either side of her.
“This isn’t going to work,” she snapped immediately as she pushed past enforcers reluctant to force her back as long as her mate was in the vicinity.
And there was no missing the fact that she was his. The mating scent, as well as his scent, wrapped around her, infused her. It was more effective than a brand, that scent. It held the other males back, had them watching her as well as Cabal warily.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he growled, his fingers wrapping around her upper arm as he drew her to him, then turned her to head back down the bank in the direction they had parked the Raiders.
She jerked at the hold he had on her as the scent of her anger slapped his senses. She was pissed, and he could feel his senses reacting to that aggression and the mating heat that surged between them.
She was endangering herself, placing herself in the line of fire, and for the first time in his life Cabal felt true fear that he could lose his mate.
“What the hell do you think I’m doing here?” she retorted as she began digging her heels into the sand and resisting his hold. “Let’s see, exactly why am I here? What brought me here? Could it have been those nasty little pictures a killer is sending me? Could it be that you have a rogue killer on the loose who’s threatening to send those pictures to a list of reporters who couldn’t give a damn if the Breeds survive this particular story?”
Cabal came to a hard stop. “What did you say?”
A mocking smile curled her lips. “Let me guess, you didn’t get that little message? Let me ask you this one, did you get the audio file of his death?”
Somehow, she knew he hadn’t. Cabal knew he hadn’t, just as he knew that Jonas hadn’t received it.
“You brought it with you?”
There could be clues in an audio file. Clues they could use to find the killer. Not that he expected that this particular killer had left much in the way of clues. He had been too smart so far.
“Did I say I brought it with me?” Her eyes narrowed on him. “Don’t play games with me. I want to know what you’ve found here, and I want to know who the hell the killer is talking about when he says that the last one to die is one who was dead and will die again. What the hell kind of game is being played here, Cabal?”
? CHAPTER 19 ?
Anger was a horrible emotion. It stayed, lingered, brewed and built inside until Cassa felt as though she were going to explode.
Two days after the discovery of Cash Winslow’s death, she watched the news report of the supposedly fiery car crash he had been involved in while driving from D.C.
His vehicle had hit ice—plausible, there was a light snow in the mountains—and plunged through the guardrail to explode at the bottom of a treacherous mountain cliff.
Dozens were mourning the loss of the security advisor, the reporter related. The ex-government agent was suspected to have been drinking and driving.
“Could you have used anything more clichéd?” she muttered as Cabal paced the room behind her, his narrowed gaze drifting to the reporter before turning back to her.
“It’s clichéd because it works,” he growled.
She shrugged nonchalantly as she continued to watch the news report, her gaze keeping track of the time at the corner of the television screen.
Two days. She’d slept in her own bed during those two days, alone. He’d taken her, but if any dared to call it making love, then she would have become violent. Not that that made it much different from the first time, or the times after it. She was merely noticing that there was definitely more and more Cabal was holding back.
Was it tenderness? He was always gentle with her, always careful . . . Perhaps that was it. He was too careful. Too conscious of each touch, while keeping her helpless in a sensual maelstrom that didn’t allow much of a chance for her to assert her own sexuality.
Mating heat and a mission that Cabal was refusing to allow her to be a part of weren’t going hand in hand here. And she was tired of bitchi
