Her gaze flicked over him again. He loved the way she looked at him sometimes. He could see the hunger in her which she couldn't quite control. The compassion was back.
"Who did that to you? Who beat you, Fyodor? Who forced you into hurtin' others?"
Very slowly he drew the thin gloves he always wore from his hands. He never forgot to wear them. "I have a death sentence hanging over my head. You should know that up front. More danger surrounds me than you can imagine." He closed his fists and rested them on the counter so she could see the tattoos there. He had tattoos everywhere, all over his body just as he had the scars.
"These tell the world what I am. I am in the brotherhood, the bratya. Our lair was among the oldest and the most feared. Of course no one knew we were leopard, only that our family was considered the bloodiest and cruelest of all territories. No one ever messed with us and lived. We had riches and power, and that wasn't enough. It was the blood that my family craved. The depravity. The violence. Their leopards were bathed in it."
He kept his gaze fixed on her face. Watching her as he confessed. As he told her the truth of his life. Of who and what he was and would always be because they'd shaped him that way. They'd made him into a killer. It mattered little that he hadn't wanted it, they'd carved that into him so deep there was no getting it out. He was intelligent and cunning. He moved with blurring speed. Sadly, when it came to enemies, his first thought was to end them. Always.
She was silent for so long he didn't think she would speak. She added ingredients to the stir-fry and the air in the room began to smell homey and comforting. He hadn't known he was hungry. He certainly hadn't known he wanted a woman to care enough to cook for him.
"Do you suppose those men before you drove their leopards to be killers or was it the leopard that drove them?"
Again she shocked him. It was an intelligent and legitimate question. He kept his gaze on her face because he'd thought of just such a question a thousand times. "I believe it was the men driving the leopards. I look back to when I was a child and he always wanted to protect me from the beatings. I knew they would kill him, let their leopards loose on him, so I refused to let him out even when I needed him."
She was silent again for a long while and then she turned toward him, taking a deep breath. He knew why. He knew she was going to ask him and that would make her sad for him. Compassionate. Understanding. She didn't want to be any of those things. Still, his woman had courage.
"Tell me when he needed to protect you."
"Evangeline. My life was a living hell as a child. Are you certain? Be certain. Once you hear. Once you know, there is no going back from this."
"Eventually, if we were together, I would have to know."
They were already together, she just didn't know it. Didn't want to believe it. She began to tear lettuce for a salad while he watched her, fascinated by the sure way she moved her hands. A born leopard with her female solidly behind her every move.
"I was six years old the first time I killed a man," he confessed.
Evangeline gasped and spun toward him, the color draining from her face. "Fyodor. No." She said it softly. Fiercely.
She wouldn't have cowered in her room, hiding from her abusive husband while her husband forced terrible things on their child. She would have fought him to the death for their son or daughter. He saw that. He knew what was inside his woman and he needed that more than anything else in her. She would fight for their children. She would stand for them.
"The man pleaded for his life. Begged. He had tears in his eyes. My father forced me to hold a gun to the man's head in front of his wife and children. They were all crying. Looking at me like I was the same as my father. A monster. I hesitated, looking into the man's eyes, hating myself. Hating my father."
"Honey, I'm so sorry. That must have been so terrible for a child."
"We hadn't gone there alone. Both my uncles were there. They held neighboring territories and they were cruel and vicious as well. But my Uncle Lazar, the eldest, was the worst, his cruelties legendary. They wanted to be there for my first kill."
She shook her head, glanced at the table beside the bank of windows and then set two plates on the counter.
"I was afraid of what my father would do to the wife and children. When I hesitated, my father went mad, kicking me in the stomach repeatedly while my uncles laughed at him. He yanked me up by my shirt, forced the gun back into my hand, closed his fist over it and snarled at me to pull the trigger."
He tried not to feel anything as he told her. He recited the incident as if it happened to someone else, or as if it were an article he'd read. He'd learned not to feel. Feeling made one vulnerable and he could never be that.
"My leopard rose in a rush of anger and determination, of sheer courage, knowing it would have to face the demon leopards of my father and uncles." He'd been proud of his leopard then and was proud of it now. No, the vicious need for blood and the kill had been taught first by the man. Now it drove the leopard, but he hadn't started out that way.
"I was afraid for my leopard. I knew their leopards would really hurt him, so I fought him back--and pulled the trigger. It was . . . the worst moment of my life. The absolute worst, taking that man's life in front of his wife and children. All for what? Money? So little they owed and we had so much. Blood and brains splattered over me, I was that close. I stood there horrified, unable to move or speak, tears running down my face while my father and uncles did unspeakable, vicious things to the wife and daughters and then allowed their leopards to kill them. They flung the bodies aside as if they were so much garbage."
He no longer had bile rising even when he had nightmares thinking of his first kill. "I was traumatized. Sick. My father and uncles beat me for hesitating and then for crying and finally because I threw up. They called me names and forced me to crawl, covered in blood, back home. My father kicked me every inch of the way while my uncles taunted and made fun of me."
She had laid out the silverware and napkins and put the food on the counter in front of them. A meal, shared with a woman. A first for him. As she slipped up onto the barstool beside his, her hand trailed across his back, a gesture, he knew, that was sympathy, but he found it oddly compelling. Disturbing. Sensual. His cock, already raging, refused to stand down.
"I think the men in your family corrupted their leopards, not the other way around. I believe that happened in my family as well." The admission was soft. A thread of sound, but she'd given something of herself back.
His heart contracted and he picked up the fork, his gaze fixed on her face. She looked so beautiful to him. So fragile. He was a big man. He had more than a foot on her, and his shoulders were twice as wide as her body. There was no back up in her though. She would stand for their children--and she would stand for him.
"I'm a man who needs control, Evangeline. In all things. My childhood was a training ground for control and power. I crave the feeling of my fists striking flesh, of having fists hit me."
"Fyodor." Just his name. A reprimand.
"I'm trying to give you truth."
"That's the truth as they made you see yourself. The truth is far more than that."
"I don't want to be that man. I don't want my leopard to be a killer, but I didn't get what I wanted, not from birth, Evangeline. I was born into a fucked-up family. A fucked-up lair. The worst of the worst. No loving mother. No loving father. Just fists and kicks and blood."
"Your mother didn't protect you? I don't get that."
She really didn't, he could hear it in her voice. She would never leave her children to fend for themselves. Not ever. There was even repressed fury in her voice, as if she would like to talk to his mother.
"She wasn't his real mate." He'd come to know that long before his father disposed of her. "The theory was, they wouldn't look for their real mates. They wanted nothing that might make them vulnerable. Generations of that made for vicious brutes and equally cruel leopards."
"So who was s
he? Where did she come from?"
"Each lair bred women so other lairs could take them as wives to produce sons. I lived in Primorye, in southeastern Russia. We are Amur leopards. A rare breed, now dying out and with good reason."
He took a bite of the stir-fry, and it was really good. Far better than he'd expected and from Evangeline, he expected a lot. "This is great."
"If they weren't meant to be mates, did their leopards mate?"
Very slowly Alonzo shook his head, watching her the entire time. Waiting for her to get it--what his father and uncles had done to their leopards. What he had tried so hard to keep from happening. "Never. They never let them mate. They wanted them vicious. They wanted them mad with hunger and need. When they took a woman they wanted their leopards to roar with rage."
"That's just sick."
"That's what's in my blood."
Her eyes flashed at him, twin emerald stones, glittering in fury. "That's bullshit, Fyodor, and you know it, or by now, you should know it. They were vicious men because they chose to be, not because it was in their blood. They had the choice to find their real mate and they didn't do it. For their leopard, they should have."
She was fierce about it and he could see she didn't relate what she was saying to their situation. He needed to bring her back to that. "My leopard has had to live with no mate and no hope of one. There was no allowing him freedom to retaliate against what my own family did to me, and it has driven my leopard nearly insane. The constant scent of blood has made him irrevocably mad."
She held the fork to her lips, chicken on the end of it. He took her wrist, turned the fork around and deliberately ate the bite of food.
"Your leopard has been through a lot, honey," she said.
"The first time I entered the bakery I didn't even realize my leopard had settled--that I'd been given a respite. It was only when I walked out that I knew. He went crazy. Clawing, raking, demanding he shift. He vied for supremacy. He'd never been that wild before and I had to fight to control him. I used every ounce of discipline I'd developed over the years. At first I thought maybe he was reacting to someone, but then, I turned and went back into the bakery."
"I remember that," she said, again revealing quite a bit to him without meaning to.
It had been the first time he'd entered her bakery and just seeing her, the impact of that on him had been tremendous. She'd stolen his breath. His hands had actually begun to shake. He knew. Not just for his leopard but for him. She was the one.
"You walked back into the bakery and looked at me. You looked very intimidatin' in that way you have and I remember thinkin' you were gorgeous but very cold and certainly dangerous. I asked you if you needed somethin' and you said . . ."
"Yes." He remembered. How could he ever forget? That moment had been etched into his brain for all time. He'd known she was the one, but more importantly, he realized that as long as she was around him, his leopard would be calm. He wouldn't have to fight night and day just to keep the animal from killing someone. It had been a revelation that changed his world.
She nodded. "But you walked out."
"The things I wanted from you were not fit for your ears."
She blushed. Color swept into her face and she ducked her head, as if that would stop him from seeing it. He loved that little air of innocence about her. He was bringing an inexperienced woman into a nightmare world. No decent man wanted to tie a woman to him when he knew the kind of life she would be facing--and he'd tried to stay away. He'd tried to be content with just keeping his cat sane. But she'd kissed him. He wasn't decent, and she kissed him. There was no getting rid of the taste of her in his mouth. The feel of her body against his. There was no stopping his cat from rising to claim what belonged to him--and Evangeline did belong to him. They both, man and leopard, recognized her. She was the real thing. Theirs. She belonged exclusively to them. And they were never giving her up.
"So even if your mother wasn't your father's real mate, she was your mother. That had to count for somethin'."
"She was trying to survive," Alonzo said, his voice cool. Dripping with ice even. As a child he hadn't understood that, only that she wasn't around and wouldn't protect the children. She was nice enough and very warm when her husband wasn't near, but she was only trying to survive.
"But she didn't," Evangeline said.
"No. She didn't." He fell silent eating the food. It was good food and deserved to be given some attention.
Evangeline got up and went to a small wine rack built in beneath the counter. "Is red all right?"
"Your leopard allows you to drink alcohol?"
"She's acquired a taste for red wine. She doesn't like white and no mixed drinks."
He shrugged. "It was important in our family that we drank. Every meeting, every dealing with other lairs or branches, we drank. It didn't matter what the leopards wanted and eventually they got used to it."
"You don' have to have a drink with me, Fyodor." She opened the wine. "This is all disturbin'. I thought my family's lair was bad; yours was far worse. I want to know what happened to your mother."
He couldn't sit there. Neither could his leopard. He pushed away from the counter and stalked across the room. Paced like the caged animal he was. "You can never tell anyone what you know. Not Timur. Not Gorya. If my uncle finds us he will try to kill us. I'm far stronger than he can possibly know, far faster. He remembers that boy, the one getting sick and crying over his first kill. He doesn't know the demon he'll be facing if he comes for me. For us."
He had to include her. She had to know no matter what, no matter how she took this next revelation, he was not giving her up. She would have to try to find a way to live with it--with him.
"I don' talk to people, Fyodor. I keep to myself and I keep my own counsel. My mother is dead and I don' remember her. I don' think I ever saw her outside the womb. My leopard remembers she wanted me but was afraid for me. I have no one to tell your secrets to, nor would I."
He heard the truth in her voice and knew what kind of a woman she was. He couldn't stop the restless pacing. No woman could accept what he was asking and even then he wouldn't be done. His world was one of danger and deceit. She would only have him to turn to. There would only be a handful of friends they could trust. Her children would live with that.
"He killed her," she stated softly.
He closed his eyes briefly. Of course she would know. "Yes. He killed her in front of Timur and Gorya. They tried to stop him, both with their leopards and as men. He ripped them apart and he was killing them systematically when I walked in. He was covered in the blood of my mother, my brother and my cousin. I went . . ." He trailed off. "Crazy. Insane. Mad with rage, grief and fear for my brother and cousin. I killed him. Not easily, and not cleanly. Not, Evangeline, because I couldn't, but I didn't want easy or clean. He died hard. Very hard. And then I killed every male in the lair. It was a cold, calculated choice. If I didn't, they would continue with their cruelties and they would kill their women and daughters. Or sell their daughters as they often did to other lairs to live the same fate as their mothers. I killed them all. Every. Single. One. Our lair was gone. I wiped it out."
He could have kept the satisfaction out of his voice, but he didn't try. She had to know him. Had to know what she would be living with. A ruthless man, cold as ice, as dangerous as any predator she might run across. He was a killer, and he'd taken down his entire lair.
7
IT wasn't love yet, but it could be. Fast. She could fall fast. She might even be halfway there. Evangeline rolled over in her bed. She'd paid a fortune for the mattress, more than she had for just about any other piece of furniture because she was always so exhausted at night. There was no finding sleep and she knew there wouldn't be. Not with Alonzo's words drifting through her mind over and over.
"I went . . ." He'd trailed off. "Crazy. Insane. Mad with rage, grief and fear for my brother and cousin. I killed him. Not easily, and not cleanly. Not, Evangeline, because I couldn'
t, but I didn't want easy or clean. He died hard. Very hard. And then I killed every male in the lair. It was a cold, calculated choice. If I didn't, they would continue with their cruelties and they would kill their women and daughters. Or sell their daughters as they often did to other lairs to live the same fate as their mothers. I killed them all. Every. Single. One."
Evangeline sat up and pushed at the heavy fall of hair spilling around her face. She'd been so agitated she hadn't even put her hair in a braid, something she was always careful to do. He hadn't wanted to kill his father easy or clean. He'd said that. His father deserved to die. Had to die. What human or even shifter forced his child into being a killer?
Alonzo hadn't said anything about his life in the lair, in the bratya, as he'd called it, but she could imagine what he'd done. What was expected. If at six he was forced to kill, then that had been his way of life.
"All right, Bebe, we're in trouble. You get that, don' you?" she whispered aloud to her leopard, and her female rose immediately, rubbing fur along her insides to comfort her as she'd done since Evangeline was a toddler. "It isn't goin' to be just about sex for us, no matter how much that's what we want it to be. I'll fall for him. Not a little. A lot. I'll drown in him." She pressed her closed fist to her mouth and rocked gently back and forth.
He'd been six. She knew he hadn't told her so she would be sympathetic. He wanted her to know exactly who he was. What she would be living with. But she couldn't help but think of that little boy and what he'd been forced to do. Tears burned behind her eyes and clogged her throat--tears she hadn't shed when Alonzo was with her. She didn't dare. He would have tried to comfort her, and she couldn't get that close.
"What are we going to do?" she asked her leopard.
Alonzo might say she was the only one safe, but living with him would be difficult at best. He was as dominant as a man could get. She wasn't in the least submissive. She loved her bakery and she didn't want anyone telling her how to run it or interfering in any way. What if he suddenly decided she couldn't work?