AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He’d be damned if he would lose her. He’d dedicated his life to ensuring her safety and his peace; he wouldn’t let her down now, not when he’d already let her down as he had.
She’d been right, he’d trained her to fight at his side. Both Judd and Cat had been taught to fight. Cat was especially adept at it because her small stature and apparently fragile build managed to fool people, even those who should know better, into believing she would be easy to defeat. But Gideon had taught her to strike first and deal with her conscience later. She went for the jugular, literally, just as she had done the night the guards had attempted to transfer her and Judd to the kill facility.
The thought of that night brought with it the memory of the betrayal in her eyes when he’d thrown open the doors on the van. She hadn’t been allowed to bathe or wash her hair often, he’d noted that instantly. Her nails were stained with dirt and blood, her face streaked with dust. The scent of such grief and pain that it filled every part of her struck him first. Then betrayal. Her entire being had flooded with a sense of betrayal as he stared back at her.
She’d just stared at him, so silent, almost in disbelief. But he’d seen that first slow fall into the distrust she now felt for him.
He would deal with that, he assured himself. Turning to the bank of computers in the underground cavern he used for security monitoring, Graeme told himself he would deal with that, just as soon as he dealt with Jonas and the interrogation of the Jackals that Lobo had managed to include them in on.
No one had broken the bastards yet and they still insisted on speaking to him alone if they were going to release any information. He had no doubt they had plenty of information to release; for that reason alone Jonas had agreed to bring them to Lobo’s estate, and the small secure building the Wolf Breed kept at the back of the main estate house, for the interrogation.
Unfortunately the audio setup had yet to be extended out to there. Completing it before Jonas arrived was paramount.
Hopefully, Cat would talk to Khi and perhaps in that conversation Graeme could glean a hint of what was going on with his mate. Because he had no doubt she was up to something, and when Cat plotted, Graeme knew, life could become very dangerous indeed.
• CHAPTER 20 •
Cat didn’t think Khi would ever leave. She lingered for hours, chitchatting, talking about life in Ireland versus on the Reever estate and how she’d once missed the country of her birth but it seemed foreign now. She talked about everything and everyone but Graeme. The few questions Cat asked about him she neatly sidestepped, though it was expected. Khi’s loyalty to Graeme had never been in question—Cat had already suspected the other woman all but idolized Graeme.
The thought sent a wave of jealousy washing through her that had to be quickly tamped down. She couldn’t afford to get into
a confrontation with the reigning princess of the Reever estate. And she didn’t really want to. Hell, the other girl had enough problems with the Reever brothers, she didn’t need any from anyone else.
Finally, as the sun rose to its highest point, baking the already dry desert landscape further, the other girl rose from the chair she’d curled into on the patio and set her empty glass aside.
“I guess you’ve had enough of me now,” Khi drawled. “And it looks as though that wily mate of yours is making an appearance.”
Turning her head, Cat watched as Graeme strode from inside the house, the black pants and T-shirt he wore giving him a dark, dangerous appearance.
“I’m just leaving,” Khi assured him as she flashed him a mocking grin. “I believe I might have time to dress for dinner with Lobo. He’s been bitching about that lately.” She shrugged carelessly. “I found the cutest pair of ripped jeans and a T-shirt with tanning oil stains on it. I thought I’d try it out.”
Graeme actually winced. “He’s going to ship you off to a convent, Khi.”
She only snorted at that. “In his dreams.” Throwing Cat a careless wave, she moved with unhurried grace around the side of the house and disappeared. Within moments a low, quiet hum indicated she’d left via one of the small, personal gliders Lobo often used around the huge desert estate.
“Interesting friend you have there.” Cat remained in the lounger where she’d stretched out to listen to Khi’s chatter. “And she’s so quiet. How do you bear it?”
He hadn’t been one to tolerate useless chatter when they’d been younger. Of course, the research center hadn’t exactly encouraged chatter of any type.
“Stop being a smart aleck,” he chastised, though there was a glint of amusement, affection and concern in his gaze. “She’s a conflicted child at the moment.”
Cat rolled her eyes. “Conflicted, huh? I guess that’s as good a word for it as any.”
Stopping next to the lounger, he stared down at her, the latent hunger and heated lust in his gaze instantly spurring the Mating Heat, which was making itself known by stronger degrees by the day.
Even her flesh was sensitive, aching with a need for his touch that she found distinctly unsettling. As she stared up at him, the image of him thirteen years before flashed through her mind. He hadn’t been as muscle hard, but he’d been powerful, even then. His features were more defined now, more savage, and lacked the very slight softening of compassion he’d had so long ago.
Now there were the smallest lines at the corners of his eyes that had nothing to do with age or the sun. His features weren’t lined, but the sharp definition hinted at the brutality of the life he’d lived for so long.
He’d changed so much. Over the course of the past weeks she’d learned that those changes went far deeper than she might guess as well. The changes weren’t just physical either. He wasn’t harder just on the outside, but on the inside as well, except where it came to her. He still treated her with a gentleness she knew was completely alien to him.
And he belonged to her on a level she’d never questioned, even as a child. As an adult, so many things made more sense, and yet others were so much more complicated. And there was one question she had to have the answer to.
“Did you ever love me?” she whispered, remembering his claim that he never had. “Or have you always just claimed me?”
If his features could have hardened further, they did, and she knew that flash of uncertainty she thought gleamed for a moment in his gaze had to be an illusion. Graeme was never uncertain.
“You’re mine,” he stated and there was no uncertainty at all, not in his voice or in his gaze. “And I would suggest you never forget that.”
