The strongest simply stared back at him. The weaker one, his gaze flickered for just a second. And Graeme knew why, just as the Jackal did. Because Graeme could sense far more than the Jackal wanted known.
He focused on that one. “Do you enjoy servicing your Council master?” he asked softly, the scent of the human’s domination over the Jackal still lingering on the creature. “I can still smell his release on you, despite your attempt to clean it. Do you pretend to enjoy having his release fill you, rather than the other way around?” Jackals could be driven to a maddened death by attempting to dominate them. The scent of humiliation was thick on this Jackal.
A vicious snarl, enraged and exhibiting a loss of control, escaped the creature.
The other still stared back at the monster that would kill him and his partner. But what Graeme sensed there was something far different.
“When will you kill his rapist?” he asked the stronger of the two, delving straight to the Jackal’s weak spot. “Do you enjoy sharing your lover?”
Jackals simply didn’t share. Anything. Not food, not loyalty or compassion or lovers. It wasn’t in their nature.
What they did do was form partnerships with their lovers. Strength and tactical advantage. And they formed lasting partnerships. The weaker Jackal was this one’s partner in all ways.
The stronger had decidedly more control over his possessiveness, though. He simply stared back, saying nothing, feeling nothing.
“Doesn’t matter,” Graeme decided. “You’ll both die here, so neither of you will have to face the Council’s indignities again. Will you?”
“What do you know of their indignities?” the bigger one asked then, his tone rather curious. “The bogeyman was once the favored child of his creator. Would you have been favored had you starved your littermates to escape a cell packed with the waste and decay of the dead?”
Graeme’s brow arched at the question. “Thankfully, I was created not simply to follow orders, as Jackals were, it seems.”
“If I were simply following orders, then the woman would have already been taken and given to the scientists awaiting her.” He shrugged. “I was in place long before she came here.” He looked around the room to indicate the house. “His call to the Council and his demand to hear her screams first merely gave us the opportunity to achieve our own ends.”
“I don’t negotiate for freedom, Jackal,” Graeme snarled, furious that the attempt was being made. “There’s nothing you can say, nothing you have, that would convince me not to kill you and your partner. If I won’t spare you for her”—he pointed toward the foyer and stairs leading to Cat’s room—“then nothing will spare you.”
“Your mate or your child,” the Jackal grunted. “Either one is a weakness.”
“An alpha’s Pride is his children, his brothers, his sisters,” he informed the creature with insulting disgust. “Something those of your ilk know nothing of.”
Jackals may fight in groups for protection, but they fought independently of one another.
“Weaknesses,” the Jackal repeated. “You are defined by them. Weakened by them. Your survival is limited, Gideon.”
The monster filled him, darkening the stripes on his face and body, filling him with a primal intelligence and savagery that was like being on a high. Like a drug that opened all the senses, sharpened reflexes and knowledge. A possession of such power he reveled in as it filled him.
“Limited, Jackal?” The deepening of the grating tone wasn’t lost on the Jackal. For the first time, what the Jackal sensed coming from the Breed they called the bogeyman filled him with fear. “My survival never concerns me. If tomorrow comes, it comes with visions of blood, of my heart beating in front of my face even as my body fights to survive. If it doesn’t come, then it’s peace. You deserve no peace, but I’m here to give it to you.”
The Jackal was finally accepting there was no negotiating with a complete lack of sanity.
“She would have me kill you quickly.” He watched the two with calculated interest. “Doesn’t want to hear your fucking screams. Well, I want to hear your screams!”
Claws lengthened, razor sharp, strong, the slight curve perfect for ripping and shredding flesh from living body.
Glancing to his side he watched as Raymond Martinez looked on in horror, terror filling his expression, shock glazing his eyes.
“You’re next,” he promised the Nation chief. “Take notes.” Graeme had perched him on the living room chair before going to his little cat in anticipation of letting her listen to the Jackals’ screams.
Unintelligible mutters came from Raymond’s taped lips as drool eased down his chin.
A chuckle rasped from Graeme’s throat. The monster he became in any threat against his mate drew satisfaction and strength from his enemies’ fear, from their pain. Anything, anyone, evil enough to strike against such perfection as his Cat deserved all the pain he could give them, and more besides.