Chapter 6

Night was encroaching across the desert before Cat managed to get her emotions, let alone her hormones, under control. Confusion was still running rampant, though. The confusion part was probably harder to deal with.

Stepping to the patio outside the large family room, a glass of wine in hand, Cat couldn’t help but marvel at the beauty of the landscape, the rich black velvet and diamond-drop brilliance of the sky above and the sweet scent of a land unmarred by the scents and sounds of the city.

For all of Window Rock’s conveniences, at the moment she wouldn’t trade a single sweet breath for all of them. How she’d longed to escape to the shadowed, seemingly barren land over the years. So many nights she’d wanted to run, to hunt, to slip away from the ever-present gloom the Martinez household seemed to possess.

The scent of booze-laden escape didn’t exist here, neither did the putrid scent of guilt, suspicion and hatred. But there had been happy memories, though none had anything to do with Raymond or Maria Martinez.

Grandfather Orrin, with his dry sense of humor and unexpected calls to Raymond to send his “granddaughter” to him immediately. He would hustle her into his truck, wink at her, then sometimes, for days at a time, show her the desert he loved, or the memories he’d amassed in pictures.

Terran, Claire’s uncle, would often take her on vacations with him and Isabelle and Chelsea. A week of lazy wallowing in the sun next to some tropical beach where drinks were delivered by barely dressed men and Raymond’s cruelties didn’t exist.

Where were Isabelle and Chelsea now? she wondered. She knew Isabelle and her new husband, or mate, were honeymooning in some secret location. Just as Honor and her husband-mate, Stygian, were doing.

Undisclosed locations. Yeah. They were hiding in Breed Secure desert homes in the area. They were close, but she hadn’t seen them, hadn’t heard from them.

Chelsea had visited once, but the revelation that her cousin was an imposter had made the visit a bit uncomfortable for the other woman. She’d been distracted, choosing her words carefully as they talked.

Linc was the only member of her former family that she’d seen, outside of Terran and Orrin, in the weeks since the charges against Raymond had been filed.

Charges Linc had clearly wanted to deny. Not that she blamed him. How horrible it must be to have to face what his father truly was. To admit he had come from such filth as Raymond Martinez.

Why hadn’t she contacted him and told him how cruel Raymond was? Because she’d known he would have never stood by and allowed it. And her suspicion that he was part of the Unknown had kept her from contacting them as well. Informing anyone of Raymond’s cruelties might have resulted in him actually contacting the Genetics Council sooner, though, and they would have moved her. What the Unknown hid, no one found. And she couldn’t risk not being there when Graeme came for her as she had known he would. The Unknown would have ensured even he couldn’t find her.

The shadowy group of warriors assigned to protect her while she’d posed as Claire Martinez had pulled back once she’d stepped away from the protection of Claire’s identity, she’d been told.

She’d never needed them, but knowing they were near had always given her a measure of confidence in her security.

A security she didn’t have confidence in now.

Hell, she didn’t even trust Graeme’s or Lobo Reever’s security around the house and she couldn’t pinpoint why.

No doubt she hadn’t found all of Graeme’s cameras, and he would have the house and grounds secured from every corner. Against everything and everyone but himself. The one thing she probably needed protection from the most.

Was he truly as crazed as he seemed sometimes?

She almost smiled at the thought. Of course he was. He’d always been a little left of sane, but as a child, she’d loved him that much more for it.

I never loved you . . . you were my experiment . . .

She flinched at the memory of the pain that had ripped her apart that night. As if someone had reached inside her soul and torn it free of her body. It had destroyed years of trust, of security. It had destroyed her perceptions of who she was, and why he had forced her to live so many times.

Not because he needed her childish adoration. Not because she meant anything to him. Because she was his experiment. The Breed he had created from the scraps of a dying child.

He should have allowed her to die. Her childhood had been a series of experiments so excruciating she still had nightmares of it. Once escaping that, she’d been restrained once more and forced to watch life pass by as Claire Martinez in the hopes that by doing so, she’d be there when he came for her.

She’d ached to run, to hunt. To train and fight. The few times she managed to escape Raymond to do so had been so exhilarating it had been actually painful to return to that gloomy house. And each time she’d escaped into the night, she’d searched for her G, wondering if he’d finally found the clues she’d sent to reveal to him where she was and the identity she was using.

Now here she was, watching the night, enclosed by walls and being monitored by cameras once again. Damn. When would it end?

Finishing her wine and returning to the house, she locked up, checked the windows and doors one last time and moved upstairs to her bedroom. For the first time since moving there she closed the balcony doors and locked them.

She felt restless, on edge. The rapidly maturing Breed genetics were being a bitch. She couldn’t seem to find a balance at all, especially since Linc and Raymond’s little visit.

A long shower later she crawled into the overly large bed, one of the lacy little nighties Graeme had bitched over covering her body.

Bastard. She told herself the decision to wear the sexy little gown was to torture him. She was terribly afraid the truth was far more primal. He’d wanted her to wear it. And at one time nothing had mattered more than pleasing her G.

No doubt he was watching her.

Where else would he hide cameras that she hadn’t thought to look? she wondered as she yawned and snuggled into the bed. She’d have to go through the house again tomorrow and see if she could find any other likely hiding places.

An instant, raging alarm clashed through her senses with such abrupt speed she was instantly awake. And it was too late. She sensed the breeze drifting past the balcony doors, but something else moved much faster, with far more deadly accuracy. The second the pressure syringe injected the drug into the vein at her neck, Cat knew the restlessness she had felt earlier for the warning it had been.

“No!” Her ragged snarl was one of rage as everything began shutting down, even as knowledge flashed through her mind.

That agonizing burn along her nerve endings—every nerve ending—a pain no Breed had ever been able to fully describe began shutting down her ability to move, to speak. To protect herself. Animal instincts honed to perfection surged forward, giving her just a moment to jump from the bed.

She nearly fell instead.

A fiery lash of agony began tracking through her body, spreading through her. The burn raced beneath her flesh, moving steadily to her brain.

No. This couldn’t be happening.

The paralytic was fast acting, taking the ability to move, to speak . . . to scream.

She had to escape.

Dammit, she shouldn’t have destroyed so many of the cameras. What if there were no more in the bedroom to alert Graeme of what was going on?

She was screwed. It was that simple.

She made it as far as the middle of her bedroom floor, only halfway to the door before she crumpled. Unable to cushion the fall, or the wrist she felt break as she went down. The pain would have been agonizing if she hadn’t learned long ago what true agony was.

The burn was moving through her brain now, the rest of her body was sensitized, pain receptors heightened and awaiting the next lash of sensation.

Helpless. Far too vulnerable and with no defenses whatsoever.

How had her balcony been breached without the alarms going off? She hadn’t touched the cameras or the security sensors there.

Unless it was Graeme.

Would he be so cruel as to inject her with the paralytic? To hurt her this way? No. Graeme would find a far more effective way to punish her. This wasn’t something he would do.

The drug, created by Genetics Council monsters, was amazingly efficient. There was nothing she could do while under its effects. No Breed had ever been able to fight past it, no matter how strong their will.

A faint creek of the floor outside the bedroom had her fracturing senses pausing for a moment, waiting, feeling the danger coming.

Lying on her side as she was, she could see the bedroom door moving slowly, opening as though in slow motion, making her wait.

He thought all she knew was the shadow moving toward her through the entrance.

His scent reached her even before the door opened, filtering through the animal’s senses.

It wasn’t Graeme.

She watched as Raymond moved steadily closer, the scent of his malevolent hatred sickening. With the door opened, other scents reached her as well. She could smell the scent of the Jackal Breeds now. The few to have survived were used by the Genetics Council only when absolutely necessary. So few survived the creation process, but those that lived were vile, brutal soldiers with instincts that had amazed the trainers.

“Fucking animal.” Raymond’s curse was followed by a hard kick to her undefended ribs.

Agony erupted in the point where his boot met her body. She could do nothing to show her pain, nothing to escape it. It made the animal inside her crazed.

It made her crazed.

Her breath didn’t even break as the pain of it focused at the contact point, exploding outward as far as flesh and bone would be affected. The paralytic kept her vital organs working properly while ensuring the pain was agonizing.

Nothing broke. She prayed Raymond didn’t know that or he’d make certain it did.

She couldn’t even turn her gaze up to him, couldn’t force him to stare into her eyes as she glared her hatred at him. She could only stare straight ahead, unable to so much as blink.

There was no way to shield the agonizing pain gripping every cell of her body, though.

“Bitch,” Raymond snarled. “You finally managed to turn Linc against me, didn’t you? You’ve been nothing but trouble. Nothing but a blight on my family.”

And here she thought he held that title. Damn. How wrong could a tigress be?

“Thought you could escape me, didn’t you?” Raymond bent closer to her, the broad, sneering features filled with distaste. “Thought the Breeds could save you by hiding here. Intimidate me,” he hissed. “I contacted the Council. They’re here for you, you freak. They’ll take you and cage you just as you should have stayed caged all along. As soon as I’ve finished with you they’ll make damned sure you never open your mouth again and cause me so much as a moment’s trouble.”

But they hadn’t meant to keep her caged.

They had meant to euthanize her.

She had escaped then, she would find a way to escape now. She hoped she found a way to escape . . .

Rising again Raymond aimed another blow to her ribs, connecting with her stomach instead.

She couldn’t even throw up.

Cat’s stomach pitched and roiled with the agony, bile gathered in her throat, but the paralytic refused to allow it to release.

“Let’s see what they do with you then, fucking freak,” he grated out at her with hate-filled fury. “I won’t have to deal with you ever again. Will I?”

God, she had to find a way to stay alive. And she would, as soon as she could think, as soon as the pain eased just enough for her to pull her senses back in place and to figure out just what to do.

“They’ll have fun with you before they take you out of here,” Raymond snarled. “Lobo Reever’s security bastard will find your blood, smell the scent of your rape, and we’ll see how crazy he gets then. Son of a bitch. I’ll kill him yet.”

Kill Graeme? He may well kill her, but he’d never kill Graeme. And once Graeme realized what had happened here . . . Oh, Raymond, how I would love to hear your screams.

Right now, the only screams she could hear were the ones in her own head. The amplification of pain had agony resonating from her wrist. Her ribs were pounding and she was terrified one may be cracked. Her stomach was on fire from the kick to it, and fear was a vile taste in the back of her throat.

How long she lay there she wasn’t certain. The pain radiating through her nerves had eased, but the broken wrist and bruised ribs had yet to stop screaming. That would take a while. She remembered that. She was barely four the first time the scientists had broken bones while she was under the obscene effect of that drug. Four years old and she had believed her G had deserted her, that he’d let them hurt her. Until she’d been returned to the cells to see the tears that streaked the savage, agonized expression on his face and the restraints that held him to his cot.

He hadn’t deserted her then, but he had deserted her eight years later. He’d left, only to return for vengeance and blood. He’d probably gloat that she’d been caught so effectively after destroying the cameras. Or would he? He’d been enraged when he found Raymond and Linc there. Would he be angry instead?

With Graeme, it was anyone’s guess.

No, it wasn’t, she realized. Graeme would go insane if he saw her now. The maddened creature lurking inside him would emerge with such a need for vengeance that there would be no stopping it. He wouldn’t rest until those responsible for her pain suffered a hundred times worse. When they died, it would be only after he’d inflicted all the torture possible to inflict. Jackals could take a lot of pain, they could withstand it for weeks. Raymond would take more finesse to keep him alive for the pain she knew Graeme would mete out.

She belonged to him. She always had. He had stood by stoically when the therapies had left her screaming, her body feeling as though it were being torn apart as they reshaped who and what she was. But the few experiments Brandenmore had ordered had left him crazed.

The door began opening again, slowly. There was no scent to herald this arrival. It wasn’t Raymond, it wasn’t a Jackal.

The shadow that entered the room was far different from Raymond’s. Taller, more powerful.

Graeme.

He was the bogeyman, and the scent of icy merciless death radiated around him and filled her with an overwhelming fear that who she faced now may never allow the Graeme she knew to return.

“Now, what kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time?” he asked softly, the ice easing as just a hint of anger tinged his voice. “Would you like a bit of help, my little cat?”