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“I think there’s a very good chance you identified something genetic where the mating’s concerned and you ensured it,” she admitted, a sense of sadness overwhelming her. “We were without any sense of security or bonds in that place. I think you needed a bond to hold back that spiraling insanity you spoke of. You were alone, until you created something that would ensure you had something, someone, to hold on to.”
If she hadn’t had him, if she hadn’t thought she was connected to him, that she had someone in that place, then she would have died herself long before any chance came to escape.
“You infuriate me.” The declaration was followed by a slight shadowing of those stripes across his face.
Here was the Bengal she knew. He might call himself Graeme now, but this was the creature she had known and loved for so long.
Loved.
She wanted to smack herself for that thought.
“I infuriate you?” Her temper flared at the very thought of it. “Sorry there, big boy, but I passed infuriation several years ago when I all but laid out a red carpet to lead you to me and you bypassed it as though it didn’t exist.”
Something about his stance, about the air of heavy intent he directed her way, had her almost pausing.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked as though sincerely confused at the information.
She stepped closer, her hand dropping from her hip to form a fist at her side.
“Two years ago, just before Diane Broen began tracking you, Graeme,” she hissed, “I contacted the email account you set up before we ever left the labs. I contacted you and I asked you to come for me.” Her breath caught, the memory of that email slicing through her. “I told you where to find me and you didn’t come.”
God, how she’d needed him. She’d needed him so desperately she’d been willing to face the fury he’d felt for her, to see him, if only for a moment.
“I was here.” The frustration evident in his tone would have been amusing if it hadn’t hurt so bad at the time. “I’ve been here, Cat, watching over you since before that fucking email.”
“You might have been here, but you didn’t come to me.” Her fist pressed hard between her breasts, the emotions that tore through her razing her senses. “You didn’t come to me, Graeme. You didn’t let me see you. You didn’t hold me . . .” She whirled away from him, the betrayal she’d felt then almost as bad as that she’d felt when she was twelve. “You created me to long for you, to love you . . .”
“The hell I did. If I’d had such knowledge, I’d have created you to fucking obey me,” he snapped back furiously. “I’d have created that code before creating anything else.”
The bitterness in the laugh that escaped her might have surprised her if she wasn’t so furious. “Perhaps you simply miscalculated there.”
His head jerked up with such a look of superiority she rolled her eyes in amazement.
“I do not miscalculate.” The very arrogance in that statement was a testament to the power and confidence that had only grown in him over the years.
Had she expected anything else? Really?
“So you thought it was enough to simply be here?” She spread her arms for a second before dropping them to her sides. “To just be wandering around playing your games when I asked you to come to me? What did you think that meant, Graeme? I asked you to come to me, not to camp your fucking ass out in the desert and watch me.”
“I was so f
ucking primal you wanted no part of me,” he snarled then, his incisors flashing in the darkness. “You called me to you when I was nothing but pure instinct. An animal, enraged and covered in blood, but I came when you called, Cat. I might have been unable to hold you, but by God I was here. I was here and I watched over you every night from the moment I arrived.”
“Really, Graeme . . .”
“Do you think I didn’t hear your sobs? Smell your tears?” The deepening of his voice, the primal rasp in it, had her watching him curiously now. “Do you think I wanted to touch you while I looked like this?”
He stepped into the small amount of light spilling from the house, and the sight of him had her breath catching.
“Gideon . . .” She whispered his name, the joy that flooded her reaching into a part of her being she hadn’t known existed.
This was who she had longed for.
Graeme was his safety, it was the face he showed the world. This was the Breed that belonged to her, though. The one she belonged to . . .
Reaching up, she touched the dark gold and black stripes along his neck with the tips of her fingers and stared into eyes of hammered gold streaked with a wild, jungle green.
The animal pulsed just beneath the man’s flesh, the wildness of the creature let free for her to see.
