PROLOGUE
From Graeme’s Journal
The Recessed Primal Breed
Recessive, Primal Breed genetics, after age five, begins with an animal’s awareness of its own strength and the danger surrounding it. It can also be the child’s primal response to protecting itself and the creature lurking inside.
Continued recession after age eighteen to twenty can be blamed solely on the Breed and the dictates of his human genetics. The animal refuses to go against its nature, and the human refuses to acknowledge what the animal knows. At its base, the stubbornness of the two natures is in conflict, both refusing to relent.
In the end, the awakening of those recessed abilities comes when the animal grows tired of the human’s obstinate nature and surges forward to take control in ways that prove false the belief that the human controls the predator within.
Five in the morning was too damned early for a knock on his front door. He was barely out of bed and showered. His coffee was still dripping into the cup and he hadn’t even had a chance to strap his weapon on.
Cullen Maverick liked things in order whenever possible. It made life a hell of a lot easier.
Pulling his weapon from his side holster, he made his way to the front door, confident that if a threat awaited outside, then it wasn’t directed by forces other than a normal workday upheaval. As commander of the Navajo Covert Law Enforcement Agency, he’d made a few enemies over the years.
Those enemies weren’t the ones he watched out for, though. It was the enemies he’d made as a teenager that worried him.
The knock came again, firm though not masculine in the least. Recognizing the sound, a direct knock without pounding, he knew instantly who it was without questioning how he knew. His lips almost quirked into a smile.
A quick look outside the narrow window next to the door showed a slender feminine figure dressed in jeans and a light jacket. One of the junior members of the force, she’d been on a few operations, though he’d refused to give the go-ahead to move her higher.
Chelsea Martinez, with her black hair, brown eyes and dusky skin of combined Navajo and Caucasian parents, stared at the door as thoug
h she could will it open. She was a force to be reckoned with when she wanted to be.
He should know; he was usually the one butting heads with her.
Swinging the door open as he leaned against the side of the wall, he stared down at her somber, implacable expression with a slight smile.
Dawn was barely lighting the land outside, giving it an otherworldly, quiet sense of solitude belied by the homes along the side of and facing his own.
“You didn’t call, so I assume this isn’t life or death,” he remarked when she just stared up at him silently.
She’d been doing that a lot in the past few months, just staring at him as though she expected something from him, as though he’d forgotten something.
She cleared her throat, lips thinning, her gaze sliding from his for just a second before jerking back.
“I need to talk to you.” Quiet, intense, her demeanor wasn’t threatening, just too damned serious.
“Come on, I’ll give you the first cup of coffee,” he sighed heavily.
No doubt she was there to argue over her place in the Agency again. She’d been pushing for some of the more dangerous assignments in the past months. Covert Ops agents were kept quiet. They had no official uniforms, didn’t call attention to themselves. Chelsea was one of their more covert agents, though she mainly worked in an assistant capacity at the office. She could streamline files and people like nobody’s business. Hell, her name wasn’t even officially listed with the Agency and he liked it that way. It lessened any danger she might face and ensured he didn’t have to worry about losing a damned good friend because someone else blinked.
She was too young to be part of operations, he’d tried to explain to her, to make her understand that he couldn’t put her in the line of fire until her training was far more seasoned.
“Here you go.” Stepping into the kitchen, he removed that first cup of coffee and placed it on the round table that sat in the middle of the darkened room. “Flip a light on if you need to.”
He rarely turned the lights on in the place simply because he spent the least amount of time there as possible. It was a place to sleep and keep the few possessions he owned. Mainly, his clothes.
Sometimes, the television screen set in the fridge door was on, but not this morning. He hadn’t had time yet to turn it on, and music would get on his nerves after an hour or so.
“I’m fine,” she assured him.
His night vision had improved over the past years. At first, he’d questioned the change until realizing his twin, Gideon, was in the area. For some reason the appearance of the Primal Bengal sibling had sharpened a few of the recessed Breed traits Cullen possessed, but not enough to change his life. Not enough to worry him.
“Let me get my coffee before we start, minx.” He shot her a grin. That solemn, sad expression was beginning to bother him in ways he couldn’t put a finger on.
“Of course.” The answer wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear. “I know how you are without that first cup.”
There was no amusement in her tone, no teasing.
What the hell was up with her?
Leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest, he frowned at her. Damn, she looked so sad, not angry or upset. There was a sense of loss emanating from her, and he couldn’t find a reason for it.
Pulling the cup free of the coffeemaker when it finished, he lifted it, sipped and continued to regard her. She wasn’t fidgeting in front of him, wasn’t acting in the least nervous as she usually did whenever she was ready to put forth yet another position she could hold on an operation. Anything to get her out of the office and to put her training to work, she’d demand.
She was a member of the Breed Underground, she’d pointed out the last time. She’d helped move juvenile and adult Breeds more than half a dozen times, keeping them just ahead of the Genetics Council or pure blood fanatics searching for them.
And yes, she had done that, but he didn’t command the Breed Underground. He couldn’t disqualify her as a member of the forces that aided hidden Breeds or mates, so he ground his teeth each time she went out and argued with her cousins over it on a constant basis.
She was too innocent for covert work, too innocent to be scarred by the crazies in the world.
“Spit it out,” he sighed, lowering the cup and facing her quiet, intense expression. “What have you come up with this time? What argument do you think will sway me?”
She blinked a few times and if he wasn’t mistaken her eyes actually looked as though—were those tears?
What the hell had happened? Setting his coffee aside, he prepared to act, to fix whatever had been done to bring tears to her eyes.
“Chelsea?” he questioned gently. “What’s going on, honey?”
Cullen watched as she pulled back the front of her jacket, removed a folded piece of white paper from inside it and slowly laid it on the table.
Cullen swore he felt the need to growl. One of those deep, dark rumbles of dangerous warning he’d heard come from his twin’s throat more than once.
Every muscle in his body tensed and he knew, knew to the soles of his damned feet what that simple piece of paper represented.
His gaze lifted to hers once again.
“You don’t want to do this, Chelsea,” he sighed. “Come on, honey, we can talk about this.”
They had to talk about it.
They were going to talk about it.