The Primal Breed, more cunning and predatory than any other, will not stay hidden indefinitely—as those without the Primal designations may do—once free, the animal may be impossible to control.
The female that loves such a creature must be not just strong, but in possession of a chair and whip long enough to force the Primal Breed to some semblance of at least the appearance of humanity—
THREE WEEKS LATER
There it was again.
Cullen stilled the moment his senses sharpened, aligned until scent, sight, his very pores began pulling in information around him. It lasted only a second. Only long enough for his head to jerk up, awareness slamming into him before it stopped.
He would have blamed it on an overactive imagination if it hadn’t happened more and more often in the past weeks.
In the weeks since he’d last seen Chelsea. Since she’d awakened a hunger inside him that refused to be pushed back to nothingness again.
Three weeks since he’d seen her, a month since she’d resigned.
He’d told himself she’d be back. When she hadn’t come back that second week, he’d given it another week. Somewhere around the third week, he’d finally admitted it might take a while longer. But she would be back. He just had to wait her out.
Chelsea could be stubborn; that steel will inside her often took a while to relent and allow emotion to rule her once again. If he hadn’t known that, he would have learned it after her report on Louisa had come in and he’d realized the horror she’d faced that night.
His head jerked up, some sixth sense warned him there was a slight difference in the air outside his office now. Someone was coming, but it wasn’t her.
It wasn’t Chelsea.
The office door pushed open without a knock. The tall, broad form that stepped inside closed the panel silently behind him and then grinned mockingly.
Graeme. Or Gideon, as he had once been called. He had a new identity now, much as Cullen had created one for himself, leaving his previous one as Judd behind.
The crazy twin. Madness was an old and familiar friend, he’d told Cullen. And his brother wore it like an intimate, well-molded garment.
Though in the months since Graeme had found his mate, there were days his brother actually seemed close to sane.
Days.
Not all the time, and he had a feeling this might not be one of those times.
He was six and a half feet tall, and the primal stripes that sometimes bisected Graeme’s face were absent. They only came out during moments of extreme worry now, rather than the animalistic rages he’d once experienced. As the Primal, as Graeme called the transformation, the animal side his brother possessed revealed itself in striking, physical characteristics that could cause grown men to whimper.
They’d been identical twins at birth, but over the thirty-some years of their lives, life, scars and the monster Graeme possessed inside himself had left them with only a resemblance to each other. The resemblance could be stronger if Cullen allowed it.
“What the hell do you want?” Cullen snapped. It never failed that where his brother went, trouble tried to follow. Though the trouble, he admitted, wasn’t as severe as it had once been—or it just wasn’t trying as hard.
Graeme arched one sandy blond brow, that mocking smile that tugged at his lips becoming deeper.
He was amused. Almost playful.
That never failed to bode ill for Cullen.
“Just thought I’d stop by and visit with my favorite sibling,” Gideon drawled. “What’s wrong with that?”
“I’m your only sibling,” Cullen grunted. “Alive, that is.”
For a moment, his brother’s gaze glittered with that wild promise of madness.
“That’s still debatable,” Graeme stated then, as enigmatic as always.
That was Graeme, always playing games.
“Gideon . . .” He used the one name guaranteed to piss his brother off, and he didn’t even want to know why he was so determined to arouse the insanity his brother possessed.