“She called Grandfather that night,” Lincoln revealed as his grandfather expelled a hard puff of air. “You could hear the whine of the car’s motor in the background and Liza’s frantic cries that they wouldn’t make it. Claire was crying.” Lincoln swallowed tightly. “She told him . . .” He shook his head, turning away from Graeme.
“‘Tell Lincoln . . .’” Orrin whispered Claire’s words. “‘Tell him, Grandfather, I’ll miss climbing in the canyons with him. I love you all.’” A tear fell from the corner of the old man’s eye. “Then she and Liza were screaming until the sounds ended in the crash.”
“Your granddaughter was murdered,” Graeme snarled. “And all these years you’ve called it suicide.”
Orrin shook his head as his hands tightened on his knees. Gnarled and swollen with arthritis now, they whitened with the desperate pain pouring from him.
“Raymond found drugs in her room. The pills were known to produce hallucinations. Claire had been caught smoking, drinking . . . He was her father.” Bitter anger resonated in his aged voice. “She seemed to love him. She never told me of any problems in her life, and Lincoln knew of none. Until the past days, the explanation seemed to make sense.”
“Whatever happened that night I knew it wasn’t drugs,” Lincoln bit out furiously. “But he and Mom were broken that night.” His jaw tightened. “Or they seemed to be broken. But any man who loved his daughter would be desperate to keep alive the young woman protecting her spirit within her own body.”
Orrin, Terran and Lincoln, three men Graeme knew had loved Claire before her death, and each was immersed in the guilt of ignorance.
“What did my granddaughter say to you?” Orrin asked then, desperate for news of his granddaughter. “Did she have need of us?”
The hope he expressed was one Graeme almost hated to dash.
“She came to me with a warning that Cat would try to run, to escape.” That much he would reveal. “And she said she wanted to see the night. She’d missed it.”
“She loved the night,” Lincoln whispered wearily. “She always said the night called to her.”
“Why is she awakening?” Graeme focused his attention on Orrin. “She’s been sleeping . . .”
“Not always,” Orrin informed him with a hint of pleased pride in his granddaughter. “She and Cat, they were sometimes both awake at the same time. They would play within the world together, gaining knowledge and strength. If she came with a warning, then it’s because whatever Cat has planned will endanger her. She is Cat’s protector, Bengal. She is no danger to your mate, she will not replace your mate. She protects her. Until the time comes . . .” Orrin inhaled roughly. “On the night of the ritual, the winds whispered that with the awakening came death. I fear for both Cat and my granddaughter now. For I know the awakening nears. That time when the protection is no longer needed, and one spirit must pass on, nears. And I fear we will lose them both with it. I sensed years before that they had claimed each other as sisters. They now protect each other, a very dangerous development when the Awakening comes.”
The hell they would.
A vicious snarl tore from Graeme’s throat as he came to his feet, the monster he was inside moving swiftly through his senses.
“Listen close, old man”—primal, guttural, his voice echoed with the promise of death—“if she dies, then none involved will live. Hear that. What will be unleashed upon this desert is something you do not want.”
Compassion filled the chief’s expression, that and immeasurable sadness.
“So the winds have whispered,” Orrin agreed. “The beast will stalk the night and blood will run in rivers.” He shook his head in regret. “Go. Be with the mate that calms the monster you would be. And if the monster is set loose upon this land when the awakening comes, then it is what fate has decreed, and what the spirits have called.”
A roar shattered the night. The ferocity of the sound brought the warriors standing beyond the cavern racing inside as Terran and Lincoln moved quickly to their feet as though to protect the old chief staring up at him sadly.
There was nothing more to say. Merciless, intent, the creature facing them now had no compassion, no regret. It knew no right or wrong but that of vengeance and blood.
The monster had come into being to protect what Graeme lived for, for the mate that held the last remnants of the Breed’s soul.
Turning, he moved quickly from the cavern, the race to return to Cat suddenly desperate, filled with a certainty that a reckoning was rapidly moving closer.
The roar he released as the open desert surrounded him was a warning to anyone who dared to take her, to risk her, or to aid any willing to. It echoed through the chilly night, calling out to man and beast and those in between.
The monster wasn’t chained, it only waited for anyone so oblivious to hell that he would face it. Because the monster knew well how to bring hell.
? ? ?
Lincoln stared at his grandfather as his uncle helped the old man to his feet, his own knowledge, his own awakening abilities to hear the whispers in the winds assuring him that his grandfather knew much more than he was telling.