She walked away from him instead. She didn’t bother to stalk out of the room; she didn’t think she had the energy for that. She just walked away, returned to the living room and the clothes scattered across the floor.
Her clothes as well as his.
Shaking her head at her own feeling of failure, she hurriedly dressed before picking up the pack she carried as a purse and leaving the cabin.
The walk was going to suck, but it wouldn’t suck near as bad as staying here and staring into his eyes, knowing that nothing she did, no matter how much she loved him, would ever make up for what her ex-husband had done. Or for how much he blamed her for the chance that Douglas had had to deceive the Breeds.
The air was chilled, the late winter weather moving in hard on the mountains as the temperature began to drop. It would be a long, cold walk back to town. But it couldn’t be any longer, or any colder, than the past that stretched out behind her.
◆ CHAPTER 17 ◆
He followed her. Cassa had expected it. He was her mate. He was her hormonal, biological match. She would have snorted at that thought if she weren’t so pissed off at him.
The walk back to town was a chilly one, but it gave her a chance to think, a chance to put things in perspective a bit more than she had already. Not that she had anything worked out, because she didn’t.
When he pulled up next to her and the passenger door of the Raider slid open, she turned, looked at him for a long moment, then slammed the door closed.
She was here for a story; she wasn’t here to be psychoanalyzed by a Bengal that had no idea the torment she had lived through because of his suffering. And she wasn’t here to fight for the heart of a man who obviously didn’t want to open his heart to her.
When she hit town, her legs were burning, her anger was building. She was nearing the entrance to the Kanawha Falls when a wicked, powerful black Harley pulled in from the parking lot and drew to a stop.
Dog.
His smirk was mocking, amused, as he glanced from her to the Raider.
“Want a ride?” he asked.
“I won’t ride with him, why would I ride with you?” she snapped.
“Maybe because I’ll give you answers, and he’d die and go to hell first?” he asked as she drew to a stop a second before Cabal did.
“Better hurry, here he comes,” Dog laughed as the Raider drew to a quick stop.
Cassa pushed aside her misgivings about Dog, jumped on the back of the Harley and crossed her fingers with a prayer that she’d survive the ride.
Dog wouldn’t hurt her so blatantly, she told herself, as she heard Cabal’s vicious curse behind her and Dog roared off.
“Answers,” she bit out furiously. “As you said, we don’t have much time.”
“You’ve been fucking up, Ms. Hawkins,” he called back to her as she gripped the leather jacket he wore rather than wrapping her arms around him. She couldn’t bear the thought of embracing him.
“No kidding,” she said tersely. “Now tell me something I don’t know.”
Dog took the curves through the little town faster than she would have liked. The motorcycle vibrated and hummed like a powerful beast between her thighs and reminded her of the fact that she shouldn’t be here, not like this, not with this Breed.
“Something you don’t know?” he called back. “Something you don’t know, Ms. Hawkins, is the same thing that your Bengal is figuring out.”
“Just keep me in suspense, why don’t you?” she called back as they neared the inn. “And if you don’t mind, don’t pass up my lodging.”
His big body vibrated with a chuckle as he turned into the inn’s parking lot, pulled around and parked close to the entrance, as Cabal pulled in behind them.
“Ask him why the killer contacted you, Ms. Hawkins,” Dog suggested as she slid off the motorcycle. “Because he knows why you’re here.”
His statement had her stopping and staring back at him, her eyes narrowing, aware that Cabal was jumping from the Raider and moving toward them.
“Why?” she snapped.
“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.