The meeting was tomorrow night. She knew Graeme and Lobo had some meeting planned at the main estate and that would be the only chance she would have to slip from him. With any luck she would be back before he returned. She doubted that much luck was running around loose in her life, but she could hope, right?
At that thought, the sight of a shadow bounding over the eight-foot wall had her brows lifting in surprise. He’d made much better time than she’d anticipated.
She waited for him, knowing he would come to her. She’d heard the roar and the warning it carried. It dared anyone, anything, to face him in his rage.
Except his mate.
Except the woman still fighting to trust the man she was bound to.
“Where were you?” she asked as he prowled closer, his head lowered, amber eyes glittering beneath his lashes as the stripes shadowing his face highlighted the golden color.
“I didn’t go far . . .”
“Don’t play word games with me, Graeme,” she warned him.
Crossing her arms over the loose shirt she’d donned with a pair of snug shorts after he’d left house, she watched him closely.
“I had a meeting.” The snap of his teeth signified his battle to control the rage fueling him like gasoline on flames. “I was near. I won’t leave you unprotected.”
“I’m capable of protecting myself against most things.” She shrugged. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Until it comes to that damned paralytic?” he grunted. “You won’t be as susceptible to it again, though. The injection I gave you that night actually helps immunize against it.”
Her brows lifted. Now, that was some interesting information.
“Jonas aware you have that?” she asked, understanding more by the day the advances Graeme had made in so many areas of Breed genetics.
“He’s unaware, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been immunized.” The grin that tugged at the corners of his lips was pure amusement.
Within seconds the stripes disappeared from his face and the amber color of his eyes eased, returning to the wild, jungle green she so loved.
Loved.
Inhaling deeply, she shook her head at him. “You’re sneaky, Graeme.”
Broad shoulders lifted negligently. “What was it you said, everyone lies to Jonas?”
Lowering her arms to prop one on her hip, she rolled her eyes at the comment. “He’s like those overprotective fathers on television. The Breeds around him are terrified of his machinations and constantly on guard to ensure he doesn’t interfere in their lives. They call him the Mate Matcher behind his back because he’s always scheming to pair mates together.”
“It’s part of his genetics,” he stated then, the amusement of moments before easing away. “Where the combinations of genetic material used to alter the sperm and ova that created me shifted to advanced biology and genetic engineering, Jonas’s was deliberately programmed to create a Breed with the ability to lead many, with a demeanor to ensure their loyalty. That of a father. Unfortunately for the scientists, the twist in those genetics created a calculating and domineering personality that often can’t see the trees for the forest.”
“He gets lost in the bigger picture.” She nodded, turning back to the house.
“Cat.” Firm, gentle fingers gripped her arm before she took that first step. “Will you run from me?”
The wary somberness in his tone had her frowning as she turned back to stare up at him.
For once, he wasn’t hiding from her.
Cat swallowed tightly, her heart beginning to beat heavier as her breath caught in her breast.
“What?”
Reaching up, his fingertips caressed slowly along the line of her jaw.
“Graeme . . .”
“You’ve always been mine,” he whispered, his voice a breath of sound. “You believe I deserted you, that I left you undefended. I was at your back until the night the Unknown took you from that hotel while I kept Council soldiers at bay. I was half-mad, still healing, the need to ensure your safety like a sickness inside me. I lost you that night, when they took you to Orrin. I searched for months and couldn’t find you. I believed you were safe and I left to finish what had to be done to ensure your safety. But I didn’t desert you. I couldn’t desert you, you were all that made my life worthy. Not my experiment, Cat. You were and are, the reason for my existence. And nothing but you mattered. Nothing but you has mattered since the day Brandenmore laid a four-day-old infant in the arms of an eleven-year-old creature spiraling into a long, dark tunnel filled with abject insanity. You saved me. You have always saved me.”
Who was this Breed?
It was Graeme, she knew it was, but the Graeme she knew would have never opened himself so completely to her or to anyone else.
“Graeme . . .”
“If I lose you, my sanity will be lost forever,” he whispered, his head lowering to her lips, brushing against them, caressing them with such tenderness, such hunger, that a cry nearly escaped her. “You are my sanity, Cat. From that first moment you looked up at me with a newborn’s trust until I take my last breath. You are my sanity.”
? CHAPTER 17 ?