Cullen wasn’t weaker, he just wasn’t as crazy as his brother.
“The pact, if you will recall, was to watch each other’s backs. To defend one another, as you pointed out at the time, would mean certain death. As would retaliation,” Cullen injected without so much as a flicker in response when Graeme’s growl deepened. “And don’t pull that alpha shit on me, you know it doesn’t work.”
The labs beneath the Brandenmore Research Center had been a brutal hell most adults would have never survived, let alone two Breed young. The experiments conducted there had often sent both Graeme and Cullen howling in agony, when they were allowed to howl, when they weren’t medically paralyzed from doing so. They’d also begged for death more often than not.
For a moment, Graeme’s gaze dropped to the table, one finger smoothing over the deep indents his claws had made earlier. Breaking Cullen’s gaze didn’t mean he was submitting to his brother’s demands in any way, and Cullen knew it. It was more a sign of the memories they shared of a brutal past.
Finally, Graeme gave a heavy, somber sigh.
“I won’t try to explain the Primal’s emergence, nor will I apologize for it,” he finally said as he leveled his gaze back to Cullen. “I was out of town when the attack took place. I saw it on the news service no more than an hour before I arrived here.” He gave his head a light shake, a frown furrowing his brow. “I went Primal the moment I saw you attempting to save your mate from Cerves’s men.” Mocking acknowledgment gleamed in his eyes. “At least I came here first rather than the Cerves compound as I would have in the past.”
There was that, Cullen agreed, albeit silently.
“The very fact you did it concerns me more,” Cullen admitted, still not certain how he felt about the explanation. “I thought you had control of the Primal since mating Cat.”
Graeme had spent far too many years immersed with the insane rage of instincts so primitive they defied any attempts to understand them.
Graeme’s lips quirked at the comment. “Well now, that was my belief as well,” he said rather mockingly as he rubbed at the side of his face, bemusement flickering in his gaze. “As I said, it just happened. An anomaly, I would guess.”
“An anomaly?” Cullen gave a snort of amazed disbelief at the description. “I know what you were doing, Graeme. I don’t need to be watched over or protected. As I said, I’m a big boy now. I know how to take my own vengeance, if such is needed.”
He’d learned how to kill before he was six, and after that, the creature they honed in those labs had learned how to do so with amazing effectiveness and complete secrecy.
“And if you end up dead because some bastard thinks he can take your mate, or worse, your mate and your child should she conceive?” Graeme asked with a hint of anger now. “Am I allowed vengeance then?”
Cullen shook his head slowly; the fear of just that had raised its ugly head with Cerves’s attack. If something were to happen to him, he didn’t want his brother risking his life and his own mate’s security for vengeance.
“If that happens, ensure Chelsea’s and our child’s safety, if she conceives.” He blew out a hard breath as the thought of a child had his chest tightening almost painfully. “Vengeance is another matter, Graeme. Trying to place a shield around me won’t be tolerated. Don’t cross that line again. Especially not as the Primal.”
The insanity that creature lived within was more than Cullen could bear the thought of. It was a place Graeme now needed to avoid at all costs. A sighting of the Bengal Primal, as he’d been described when his Primal genetics took over, would mean increased danger not just to Graeme but to his mate, Cat, as well. Breeds and the Council alike had once hunted the monster Graeme had been, and those years had only caused his brother to sink deeper into the insanity that held him in its grip at the time.
“No promises.” Graeme shrugged, but Cullen read his twin’s realization that it was now unacceptable. Then he leaned forward, bracing his forearms on the table, and glared at Cullen fiercely. “Do we go after Cerves together, or do I make my own plans? Because he and his Blood Queen will be brought to the realization that the continued good health and safety of you and your mate is in their best interests and those of their men. And that will happen with or without your approval or your partnership in the matter.”
Because they were brothers, because Cullen and now Chelsea were important to Graeme as well as the Primal lurking within him.
That determined stance Cullen accepted. After all, he’d already made plans to find Cerves himself and secur
e the assurance that Chelsea would never be threatened by the cartel again.
“We can agree on that.” Cullen nodded sharply. “Get your team together. I’ll meet you at the caverns after I drop Chelsea off at her meeting at the Bureau. It’s best if she—”
“Attends that meeting with you.” Chelsea stepped into the kitchen from the corner of the hall, her arms crossing over her breasts as she stared back at him with such defiance he found himself making one of those testy, grating growls Graeme was so fond of.
“Not a good idea.” He rose slowly to his feet, wondering the best way to handle the determined challenge in her gaze as well as her eavesdropping tendencies.
“Happening,” she stated without anger. If she’d met his denial with anger, he might have been able to succeed in making her back down.
The fact that she wasn’t becoming defensive over the matter assured him he was in trouble now that she knew his intentions.
Dammit, the idea was to protect her, not to draw her deeper into whatever danger seemed to be shadowing her.
“Not even on a bet,” he promised her, though he didn’t feel nearly as confident as he appeared and he knew it.
She was under his skin now. He realized that in a moment of such shocking clarity it was blinding. Under his skin, a part of him, and that weakened him, to the point that he knew rebuilding his defenses might not be very successful.
Chelsea stared back at Cullen, all too aware of Graeme’s curious gaze as they squared off.
She had known, known to the soles of her feet that he was silently plotting something when she’d left the room. She could sense it, almost feel his intentions as he waited for her to leave the room.