“I made refreshments for us,” Evangeline insisted. “I really don’t want to miss visiting with Ania.” She objected to Ashe’s insistence that she lie down.
“If they’re in the kitchen, I’ll get them for us and bring the tray back to your bedroom. Ashe can help you get ready for bed,” Ania volunteered. “Where do I find the yummy stuff?” Because if Evangeline made it, whatever was waiting had to be excellent.
“I left the tray for us right on the counter. It’s covered, although I have to admit, if the boys see anything out, they’re like vultures.” For the first time since Ania had gotten there, Evangeline smiled. “There’s a pitcher of strawberry lemonade in the refrigerator. The glasses are set out by the tray.”
Ania was so going to learn to be a great hostess the way Evangeline was. Her mother had been. Her grandmother had been. She hadn’t taken the time to really learn those skills from either of them, and she regretted that. Everything her grandfather and father had taught her had seemed much more exciting. Now that she had lost her mother and grandmother, the things they had valued and were so good at seemed much more important.
“Evangeline’s strawberry lemonade is the best,” Ashe declared, already taking Evangeline’s arm and leading her toward the bedroom. She mouthed “thank you” over her shoulder.
“Since I’ve had her pastries, and know they are, I’ll look forward to drinking the lemonade,” Ania said as she hurried out of the room.
For a moment she wished she could talk to Mitya. Fyodor loved his wife, and she couldn’t imagine that Evangeline didn’t have the best of care, but she looked pale and drawn, and it was worrisome. There was something very special about Evangeline. Anyone could see it.
Ania got turned around in the unfamiliar big house and had to backtrack to take the right hallway leading to the kitchen. The kitchen was quite large. Her grandmother, when helping design the interior of the house along with her mother, had designed a kick-ass kitchen. It was spacious and had a butcher block island that could be used on either side if more than one person was working, but this kitchen was something out of a magazine.
She couldn’t help herself, Ania found herself examining the overhead light fixtures that shone down brightly on the counter work surfaces. The flooring was tile, a soft wheat color, intricately cut, adding to the beauty of the room. The uneven tiles added to the appearance of the room being right out of Tuscany, with a wide expanse of windows so that the cook could feel as if he or she were outside in the fresh air. The tiles also prevented anyone slipping should liquid be spilled on the floor.
The herb and vegetable gardens were right outside the windows. Ania couldn’t help but stare at them. Dim lights shone outside the kitchen, illuminating the gardens. She hadn’t turned on the lights in the kitchen because with her increased night vision she didn’t need it. She could see one of Fyodor’s guards pacing back and forth just beyond the gardens. It seemed that all of them had to live with bodyguards.
She turned her attention away from the outside and back to the textured walls. They looked like wood, a light-colored wood, almost blond, with knotty rings scattered here and there. It was an unusual choice for a kitchen, but combined with the tiled floor, they gave the room an exotic, Italian feel. She had to run her hands over the walls in order to feel whether it was real wood or just looked authentic. Immediately she felt the difference from one panel to the next. The panel in the middle was slightly raised. Eyeing it, she couldn’t visually see the variance, but it was there.
It took only a moment to find the hidden spring. The wall panel contained enough weapons for an army. She wasn’t surprised. The walls in her house hid a few revelations as well. She had to smile. Didn’t everyone’s home have similar panels in the wall?
She turned back to the counters, looking for the tray of pastries. It was right beside the refrigerator. Of course, it would be close to where she could easily pull out the pitcher of strawberry lemonade. Evangeline would have everything ready so there would be the minimum amount of work when she had company. That was her secret. Great preparation. Ania remembered her mother and grandmother were the same way. She opened the fridge and found the pitcher immediately, pulled it out and placed it on the tray with the pastries and glasses.
She glanced up to take one last look at the gardens just outside the window and her heart nearly stopped. The guard was no longer pacing back and forth. He lay in the dirt, his automatic some distance from his hand. She didn’t wait but whirled around and hit the spring for the panel in the wall. She grabbed a gas mask, three guns, a rifle and ammunition for each weapon. She wished there was a button to raise the alarm. She was going to have to mention to Fyodor and Mitya that alarms were good things to warn people when there was trouble. She spun around to head back to the bedroom to protect Evangeline and Ashe.
The explosion knocked her off her feet. She hit her head on the wall as she went down, opening a cut just above her temple. It hurt like hell, but there wasn’t any real damage done. While she was on the floor, she took the time to load each gun and then she slid one weapon down into her boot, one into her waistband and the smallest into a pocket of her sweater. The ammunition went into the other pocket. She loaded the rifle and got cautiously to her feet.
The hallway leading back toward the interior of the house had debris in it. She wasn’t absolutely certain she could find her way back to the bedroom anyway with the walls bowing in. She was fairly certain Fyodor would have a safe room for Evangeline, and Mitya would want her to go there, but peering down the hallway, she pulled back. Too much of a mess. It looked as if part of the hallway had caved in.
The other entrance led to the great room, and that seemed to be where the explosion had come from. Ania wasn’t taking a chance heading in that direction. She glanced at the door leading outside to the gardens. If she could get outside, she could make it to the roof. It was a huge house with a very big roof. The covering above was fraught with gables and steep pitches as well as ridgepoles. There had to be places she could hide and yet still see what was happening below.
Once she made the decision, she moved fast. They were under attack, and it didn’t feel the same as the other attacks. This was a well-thought-out battle plan. Mitya had said his father wanted to kill him as well as his cousins. Lazar seemed most likely to have orchestrated the explosion. She peered out the window cautiously, but it didn’t seem as if anyone was close. She opened the door very slowly, giving herself just enough room to slip out.
Need you, Jewel, she whispered to the leopard as she crouched just outside the door.
She felt the leopard move closer to the surface. Heat banded. Her hair snapped and cracked. She used the information the leopard was helping her gather. A man was very close to her, facing toward the great room. He was definitely leopard. Jewel wrinkled her nose in contempt.
Ania moved farther back into the shadows as she crept through the garden toward the side of the house. The wraparound porch had a low-hanging roof. The moment she was certain she wouldn’t draw attention to herself through movement, she slung the rifle around her neck and jumped for the porch. She caught the edge, slipped and dug her fingers in deep. Her hands had curved and long, wicked claws had sprung free, scrambling for purchase on the unfamiliar surface.
She swung there for a moment, heart in her throat, waiting for a hundred bullets to strike her. Swallowing fear, she pulled herself up, using a leopard’s strength to swing her legs onto the rooftop. Once there, she lay flat and listened to her wild heartbeat. Mitya would come for her. She had no doubt that Sevastyan would come too. She just had to hold on. Hide. That was the sane thing to do.
Ania crawled across the roof to the next story jutting up into the sky. She needed to keep going upward. She eased her body slowly up the roof toward the ridgepole. Movement drew the eye, and the intruders were leopard. She didn’t want anyone to spot her.
* * *
• •
•
MITYA and Sevastyan exchanged a long look of total comprehension. It was impossible not to inhale and smell the female leopard in heat. Every single one of Lazar’s leopards would catch that scent as well. The two men threw caution to the wind and openly hurried toward the kitchen door leading outside. Sevastyan had taken two steps when a bullet whined through the glass, shattering it and lodging across the room in a wooden panel of the wall.
Kiriil flung himself at Mitya, tackling him, bringing him down, while Sevastyan and Josue hit the floor too. The four did a hasty crab-walk to the safety of the island where they sat for a minute, breathing hard, getting the adrenaline under control. All four had removed their shoes and all unnecessary clothing in preparation for shifting. What was left could be removed fast. Shirts tore off and jeans stripped down easily. Their feet didn’t like the debris the bombs had left behind, and none of them wanted to be in the great room where the tear gas had gone off. That would soak into their bare feet and burn like hell.
“You’re going to get everyone killed, Mitya,” Lazar’s voice intoned. “You know I like a good bloodbath. Just walk out here and give yourself up. You know you have no chance. Be a man for once. Don’t go running, curling your tail between your legs to hide the fact that you don’t have any balls.”
“I’ve heard that same speech dozens of times but with different names inserted,” Mitya whispered to Sevastyan, Kiriil and Josue. “He can’t even be bothered to get new material.”
“Is that slut we all smell yours, Mitya? Or is she Fyodor’s? She ran to us, wanting real men—not the poor substitutes she has here. She’s begging for real men to give it to her. We’ll bring her into the house, and you can watch as we all use her the way she’s meant to be used. She’s in heat, a real whore, willing and eager to please in the hopes that we’ll relieve some of that burn for her.”
Mitya had heard the crap his father often spouted, especially about women. How they were only good for fucking. How he would command them to do anything he wanted, and he often gave them to his men and watched them get fucked to death. That was his favorite, he’d declared, a woman dying of the very thing she begged for.
It was one thing to have his father shout ugly things about him, but he realized he wasn’t quite as calm as he thought he could be when Lazar talked about his woman. “He doesn’t have her,” he whispered, needing to say it aloud to Sevastyan. Needing to hear Sevastyan confirm it.
“Not unless he’s on the roof with her,” Sevastyan said. “She’s stationary at the moment.”
Mitya couldn’t help the sigh of relief. Ania was resourceful; he had to have faith in her. “She won’t do anything crazy. Her parents saw to her survival training.” Again, he found himself needing to hear the reassurance aloud.
Sevastyan sent him a small smile. “That woman is intelligent, and she’s good with a gun. She’s armed to the teeth. I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of her wrath.”
Mitya knew everything his cousin said was the truth, but he needed to find her. He needed to be with her, shielding her from the vile depravity of his father. He didn’t even like her hearing the things Lazar said about her.
“She’s got a temper,” he said. “Don’t want Lazar to set that off.”
Again, Sevastyan flashed a faint grin. “That she does. She kicked the holy hell out of me.” He said it as if he was proud of her.
A thump was the only warning, and then a leopard dropped straight down on Josue, slashing his jugular with terrible claws, as his teeth simultaneously drove at Sevastyan’s neck. Sevastyan threw himself sideways. Mitya shifted, ripping the jeans from his body, barely getting them off before Dymka was there, encased in the tee, which he shredded with one swipe of his claws. He sank his hooked nails into the leopard’s back and ripped him away from Sevastyan, nearly throwing him across the room.
Dymka recognized the leopard instantly. Mitya had grown up with him, a man by the name of Artem. He had always done Lazar’s bidding, as well as any of the lieutenants’, no matter what was asked of him. He did it willingly and eagerly, no matter how demeaning or monstrous. He and Mitya had fought on numerous occasions. Artem despised Mitya because he was Lazar’s son and therefore in a position of power, and because he’d wiped up the floor with Artem when they’d fought with their fists.
Clearly, Artem thought he had the experience, and that somehow, during the years Dymka and Mitya had been away from the lair, they had lost their ability to fight. Artem attacked with a terrible roar, a battle cry, meant to intimidate his opponent. Dymka charged so they met in the air, both leopards rearing up to slash at bellies.
Behind him, the kitchen was suddenly filled with fighting leopards as four more leapt through the window or came through the open door to join the battle. Sevastyan’s big brute was in his element, snarling and driving a smaller golden male into a corner while another tried to ram him from the side. Another leopard and Kiriil came together in midair, slashing at each other with teeth and claws. The fourth leopard jumped from the butcher block straight down onto Josue, where he slumped to one side, struggling for air while his blood ran like a river down his body. The leopard blasted hot air in his face and then bit down, delivering the suffocating bite of their kind. He raised his head, his evil yellow stare finding Dymka.
Artem backed away warily as Dymka tore strips from his leopard’s belly, leaving him bloody and injured. Just as suddenly he sprang forward almost triumphantly. That was all the warning Dymka needed. The big male managed to whirl out of the way as the fourth newcomer abandoned Josue’s body and charged.
The leopard was a mixture of dark fur over gold. The rosettes were surprisingly small for an Amur leopard, a very distinctive mix. Mitya recognized him instantly. Where Artem was a show-off and an ass-kisser, Damir was an altogether different proposition. He had held out against the corruption going on in the lair, working, like Mitya, on his education. He was the son of one of Lazar’s inner circle, so he was subjected to beatings when he refused to do the things required of them, like torture anyone Lazar didn’t like.
Mitya was sorry to see that over time, Damir had conformed rather than left the lair. Once, he’d been a decent human being. The real attack would come from Damir because he was no coward. Artem was. The man would hold back, allowing Damir to take the most dangerous point. Dymka kept an eye on the golden leopard but watched the darker one, readying himself for the attack.
Damir’s leopard pulled back his lips in a snarl and then rushed, using his speed to try to drive Dymka off his feet. Dymka leapt, using his flexible spine to turn back in midair and slash a deep furrow from nose to eye as Damir shot past him. Momentum took Dymka right into Artem, where the leopard was crouched, waiting to run in and join the fray if Damir knocked Dymka off his feet. He sent Artem tumbling when his larger, solid-muscled body hit the leopard hard.
Dymka followed him, ripping and slashing, tearing great chunks of fur and skin from the cat as he tried to scramble to his feet. Dymka didn’t allow it, landing on the cat’s back, his teeth sinking into his neck in an effort to sever the spine.
Damir snarled a warning and then came at him again. This time he was much leerier, watching for Dymka’s reaction. Mitya knew Damir had to smell Jewel’s scent all over Dymka. He would know that the female Lazar was scouring the grounds for belonged to Mitya. They knew she’d left the kitchen and that she was outside somewhere.
The sound of gunfire was loud on the surrounding grounds. Fyodor was running the battle. This was his home, and he knew every single nook and cranny of his estate as well as every place a leopard could run.
Lazar had not caught the cousins alone. He thought he’d been so clever because he’d caught them all together. He hadn’t considered that the others, their friends, were all leopard, or that they had brought personal bodyguards with them.
Artem’s leopard collapsed, sides heaving, but Dymka didn’t believe the leopard
was finished. He spun to face Damir, jumping sideways away from Artem, just to be safe. Artem wouldn’t attack face-to-face, but the moment Dymka’s back was to him, he would try to take advantage.
A leopard screamed not two feet from them. Damir made the mistake of turning his head to check on his friend. Instantly, Dymka was on him. Mitya had had that particular mistake beaten out of him by the time he was twelve. Nothing could interfere with a leopard’s fight to the death. Dymka was taught, as was Mitya, to keep his entire focus on the fight until he had made certain his opponent was no longer breathing.
Dymka took full advantage, locking his teeth into Damir’s neck, holding him there in the suffocating bite. All the while, he watched Artem. The cat slunk away rather than trying to help Damir. The years hadn’t changed him much. He was still the coward he’d been back then. Mitya despised him. So did Dymka.
Damir’s cat refused to submit. Mitya hadn’t expected it to. Very slowly the life drained from the eyes and Damir slid all the way to the floor. Dymka held him a few more moments, all the while watching Artem. Rather than try to help Damir, the golden cat pushed backward toward the door.
Sevastyan had killed the smaller cat and was now in a fierce battle with the larger one, along with Kiriil. There was no way to help Josue. He was already dead, slumped over on the floor as well. Mitya felt regret for the loss of life, both lives.
There had been a time Damir had been a decent human being. He had held out for a long while, but looking back, Mitya realized, Damir had held out because he had. It had been Mitya’s strength that had carried the two of them, and when Mitya was gone, Damir had crumbled.
Artem moved again, drawing Dymka’s attention. The moment the golden leopard saw he was the focus of the larger cat, he turned and ran, leaping up to the window and pushing through in spite of the shards of glass still in the frame. Dymka was too large to fit through that particular window, but the door was still cracked open and the cat sprinted outside after the golden leopard.
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