He was amused. Too damned amused. As though she had done exactly as he expected her to do.
Then slowly, deliberately, his gaze dropped to his thigh, high, inside his thigh, no more than inches from a heavy, denim-covered bulge. There, the material was slashed in three long rows as blood spilled from the slices in his flesh to wet the fabric.
“Close,” he murmured.
“The next time, I’ll neuter you.” The bravado was completely false.
Oh God, what had she done? The lacerations in his upper leg were spilling blood too fast. She’d sliced deep, the sharpened claws she possessed far more effective against his flesh than she’d ever believed they would be.
He chuckled at the threat. “I’d delay that one if I were you, little cat. As your mate, I’d be rather ineffective, wouldn’t you agree?”
Before she could speak he was out the bedroom door, closing it behind him as Cat stared at him in denial and disbelief.
His what? That wasn’t possible. She wouldn’t allow it.
“Where the hell are you going?” Jumping to her feet and rushing to the door, she jerked it open, staring at the empty hallway in shock.
“Graeme?”
Dammit, she’d called him Graeme rather than G. She hated him.
She hated her genetics. She hated anything Breed right now.
“Where the hell are you?” Stomping from the bedroom and along the open hallway to the stairs, she still didn’t see him.
All but running down the curved staircase to the small foyer, she stared around the open living room, dining area and kitchen. And still no Graeme.
G, she reminded herself fiercely.
Damn Breed alpha bullshit. Pain-in-the-ass genetic encoding.
She hated it, she reminded herself.
Stalking through the house, room by room, she merely confirmed what she already knew: He was gone.
“Did the bad kitty have to go fix his boo-boo?” she sneered, stepping back into the silent kitchen. “Poor arrogant-assed Bengal. I hope it hurts.”
Moving straight for the fridge and the wine she’d placed in there earlier, she poured a half glass. Rather than sipping at it, she simply threw it back like a shot of whiskey before refilling and promising herself she’d sip it.
She really didn’t hope it hurt.
How had she done that? She hadn’t meant to. She hadn’t even meant to release her claws as she tried to escape his hold.
With everything between them, though, she hadn’t expected him to claim to be her mate either. As though she was unaware what a mate was and what the claim meant. Just because she pretended not to be a Breed and got away with it, it didn’t mean she hadn’t witnessed that Breed-mating crap.
Why lie to her? Did he think she wouldn’t know the difference?
“I know you were lying, Graeme,” she snapped aloud.
Of course he’d have the house bugged. He was smart like that.
“I’m not stupid. I’m no mate of yours.”
She’d not allow herself to be tied to someone she couldn’t trust nor depend on. He’d proven both over the past ten years.
She had no doubt he’d been well aware of the area she was in before Jonas ever came looking for her, Honor and Judd. He might not have known exactly where she was, but there was a chance he had known that too. Graeme—damn him—he could be more frightening than Jonas.
Quiet, secretive, mysterious. His intelligence had never been rated, his genius in Breed physiology and biology had never been documented that she knew of. But while under the tutelage of Dr. Foster, the first head of genetic and biological research at Brandenmore’s labs, he had excelled to the point that she’d wondered if even Dr. Foster feared him.
Then Dr. Foster had disappeared and a new research scientist had been brought in. It was then Cat had seen exactly how manipulating and calculating Graeme could be. For almost a year he’d maneuvered the scientist, played him, worked the information he’d gained . . . then he’d disappeared as well. One night he’d been there; the next morning alarms had awakened her and Judd and his cot had been empty.
He’d left them alone.
Honor had gone home just weeks before, finally cured of the illness that had brought her there. With Graeme’s escape, she and Judd had been left alone.
Cat had been devastated.
She could still remember the shock, her utter rejection of the idea that he would leave her. She’d been convinced they’d killed him. That Dr. Bennett had ordered his death.
Until the night he’d jerked open the doors on the van taking her and Judd to be euthanized, she’d been certain he was dead, that there was no way her G would ever desert her.
But he had. He’d left them. The truth was there in the wild green eyes and Bengal stripes bisecting his face. And because he’d attempted to rescue them, he was dying.