“This is your dream? What you want above all other things?” Flambé asked. She’d been out to the garage with Ania several times before and had seen the drawings and custom works, but often wondered if Mitya had given her the job to push her into staying close to home.
Ania nodded and indicated the room built mostly of glass off to one side where several comfortable chairs formed a cozy circle. “Let’s go in there. I like that room. I chose everything in it. The carpet, the chairs, the privacy drapes, all of it.”
“Why do you have privacy drapes if no one comes in here?” Flambé asked curiously, following Ania around car parts and the engine hanging from the complicated pulley system.
Ania, a slight flush on her face, gestured toward the very comfortable chairs as she closed the door. “There are times when I welcome my husband’s visits. Sevastyan or one of the other bodyguards is never far away. We can get a little crazy sometimes.”
Flambé curled up in the soft blue of the chair. The fabric rubbed over the sensitive skin of her arm, sending a terrible burning wave over her body. She forced herself to stay still, knowing from experience the sensation would go away if she could just ride it out.
“Well, whatever you use this room for, I like how you designed it. It’s beautiful and feminine, right in the middle of your garage with car parts, tools and engines everywhere. It’s sort of a counterpoint to the tools, like an oasis. When I design my gardens, I sometimes use something similar to make a statement.”
“What would be my statement?” Ania stretched out in her chair, her legs in front of her, feet on an ottoman.
“That you’re feminine but you have a wealth of knowledge in a field that is predominately male. You’re not willing to give up being feminine to prove to anyone that you probably know far more than most others when it comes to taking a car apart and putting it back together. You don’t feel you have anything to prove at all and I think that’s a powerful statement.”
Ania stared at her for a moment. “You get that just from me putting together this little office?”
“And the way you’re sitting in the chair. You’re relaxed and open. You’re not closed off at all. You spent time putting together your office and choosing each piece inside it.” Flambé gestured to the glass windows that looked into the garage where the engine hung. “Clearly you enjoy looking at your work, so you’re excited about what you do.”
Flambé was well aware she would appear closed off if anyone studied the way she was sitting. She had curled up, made herself small, legs tucked under her, the classic way to look non-threatening. “How did you manage to hurt your wrist, Ania?” She was very careful to keep her tone interested. There wasn’t a single accusatory note in her voice.
Ania rubbed her forearm. “I feel so silly.” She gestured toward the far corner where there was a series of wooden planks going up to the roof. They were vertical, straight up, and each was a good distance apart. “I decided to climb those and I just fell. I wasn’t paying attention.”
Flambé closed her eyes and shook her head. How often had she heard the same ridiculous excuse from a female shifter? She took a deep breath. “Leopards don’t fall, Ania. And if they do, they have flexible spines and they turn in midair and catch themselves. If Mitya hurts you, I can help you.” She kept her voice low. “I know it seems like there’s no way out, but there is.”
Ania sat up slowly, her gaze meeting Flambé’s steadily. “Flambé, Mitya didn’t hurt me. He would never hurt me. Never. I really did fall. I was crying and I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing. I never should have been climbing when I was so distraught.”
Flambé could hear the truth in her voice. She waited a few moments to get her heartbeat under control. She’d almost ruined everything. This woman was Sevastyan’s cousin’s wife. She most likely told her husband everything. “Why were you crying? You certainly don’t have to tell me if it’s too personal. Friendships are so rare for me and I . . .” Deliberately she trailed off. She genuinely wanted to know, but it was necessary to divert Ania’s attention from her terrible error.
Ania stared down at the cast on her wrist for so long Flambé didn’t think she would reply, but then she took a breath and looked up. “I had just miscarried for the second time. I was really upset. I know it wasn’t my fault but I felt like somehow I couldn’t do what every other woman in the world seemed to do so easily. I want a child. I didn’t think I did, but once I knew I was pregnant, I was so happy. Mitya, of course, is only worried about me; at least, that’s what he says, but I know he hurts as well. I hate that this happened a second time.”
Flambé looked around the office to discover the box of tissues a table away. She retrieved the box and handed it to Ania, who had begun to cry. “I’m so sorry, Ania. How terrible. I had no idea. What did the doctor say?”
“He said these things happen and that it doesn’t mean I can’t carry, but that he’d run some tests. I know Mitya thinks it’s him, and that if for some reason he can’t give me children I’d want to leave him, but I wouldn’t. It would hurt not to have them, but it would hurt more not to have him.”
“If it’s you who can’t have children, would he leave you?” Flambé asked, her voice very soft. She knew she shouldn’t push, but she couldn’t help herself. “Is that what you think?”
Ania shook her head. “That’s the last thing Mitya would do. He’s told me a million times he doesn’t care if we have children or not. I can hear truth. He means it. I just wanted the baby . . .” Ania trailed off.
Flambé scraped her teeth back and forth on the pad of her finger, wishing she had words to comfort Ania, but there were no words. No way to comfort, not in this situation.
Ania’s gaze was suddenly very focused on her, and Flambé could see her cat watching her as well. “Does Sevastyan hit you, Flambé? I’ve known him forever and I can’t imagine it, but they say you never know. It’s okay to tell me. He’s very intense, and dominant. Really, if you needed help, I would help you.”
The direct question caused a sudden queasiness in the pit of her stomach. She’d done that so many times, lulled a woman into a false sense of security and then asked the important question—was she a victim of domestic violence? It was so much more complicated with shifters. Leopards were involved as well as their human counterparts, and leopards were so much more difficult to get away from.
Flambé shook her head, rubbing her palms up and down her arms, suddenly covered in goose bumps. “When he tries that, it will only be once.”
“When?” Ania leaned toward her. “Why would you expect Sevastyan would hit you? Has he done something to indicate that he might hurt you, Flambé? If he has, you need to tell me. Your leopard should indicate to you if there is a problem, but if she hasn’t, if she is too afraid and you can’t rely on her . . .”
“No, no,” Flambé cut her off hastily. The conversation had taken an unexpected turn. She had thought to protect Ania and all of a sudden Ania was trying to protect her. Unfortunately, Ania didn’t understand that her husband would always put Sevastyan before anyone else. Ania was so in love with Mitya that she was blind to that. “I don’t want you to think Sevastyan has done anything to me. He hasn’t. It’s just that . . .” She shrugged and sent Ania a smile, breaking off as if that was the end of the conversation.
Ania frowned, clearly not wanting to drop the subject. “Why would you think that Mitya would hit me? Or hurt me in any way?”
Flambé sighed. This was her fault and she had to play it out. She just had to be so careful. Really, really careful. There was so much at stake, too many lives. She’d misread the situation, or at least Ania’s commitment to her husband. “Shifters can be very cruel, can’t they? In the end, women have very little say and eventually their mates often resort to violence.”
Ania sank back into her chair, looking horrified. “Has that been your experience with shifters in your lair? Wh
at about your friends, Flambé? What have they said about their lairs? I haven’t heard you mention any of your friends. Do I know them? Like yours, my family was in this area for a long time. Maybe we know some of the same people.”
Flambé shook her head. “I doubt it. My friends were women like me, strawberry leopards, although those women came in from other countries to try to make a life here. I only got close to a few of them. They didn’t make it or they moved away.” In spite of every effort to keep herself under control, grief welled up along with guilt, so strong she felt her heart might shatter. She pressed her hand hard over her breast.
Ania, with her sharp eyes, couldn’t fail to see that telltale gesture. “Oh, Flambé. What happened?”
Flambé shrugged, tried to look casual. She was talking too much. That was why she didn’t get close to anyone. She didn’t dare let down her guard. “It doesn’t really matter one way or the other. I’m just really sorry about you losing the baby and glad Mitya is good to you.”
“Honey, I hate that you have such a bad idea of male shifters. I don’t know what it’s like where you come from, but not all shifters are cruel to their mates.”
Flambé’s eyebrow shot up. “Are you going to tell me that your husband didn’t tell you that in his lair the men murdered the mothers of their children after they gave them sons? Or that they sold their daughters to other lairs to shifters who would do the same thing to them?”
She couldn’t sit still and she jumped up, her leopard close, driving her to a restless pacing, her breath coming far too fast. There was a strange roaring in her ears and heat rushed through her veins. Beneath her skin, something grotesque moved, causing a terrible itch that left a burn in its wake. She could actually see her skin lift. The entity moved like a wave through her body, leaving behind a firestorm that raged through her until she wanted to scream.
“You should text Sevastyan,” Ania suggested gently. “Your cat is so close and she’s giving you fits. I know what that’s like and it’s so uncomfortable, Flambé.”
Flambé wanted to claw her own skin off. “Uncomfortable is a mild word, but I’ve been told strawberry leopards tend to feel things in a slightly different way. This is torture and it manifests itself in a horrible sensation.” She tried to rub her arms, hating to touch her skin. Her clothes hurt, let along touching with her palm. “I’m a mess. I’m sorry, Ania, I came out here hoping to comfort you and you’re trying to comfort me.”
“Why don’t you want to call Sevastyan to help you?” Ania got up to go to the refrigerator she had in the corner of the office. “I know he’s working, but you’re his first priority.”
“I’m not, you know. Mitya is.” Flambé gratefully took the water from Ania and drank quite a bit down, hoping to put out some of the fire. It didn’t seem to help so she entreated her leopard, trying to soothe her. Go back to sleep, Flamme. When we’re alone, I’ll let you out to run. We’ll be home and no one will be around and you can run free. She made it a promise, meaning it, at least hoping to. Maybe she could let her leopard emerge with no one around. Maybe they could do it together and once Shanty got there, they could just disappear.
“Sevastyan might be head of security here, but you’re his woman. Your cat is in heat and she’s his leopard’s mate.”
“Is she? She’s in her first cycle. So is his leopard. From what I understood from the other strawberry leopard women when I talked to them, it is very easy to get it wrong when you don’t know what you’re doing and your leopard is in heat.”
Flambé didn’t want to add that strawberry leopard shifters were notoriously sexual. It was a curse. That made it even easier to accept a male when one was in the throes of a sexual burn they couldn’t control. Not to mention, she’d been dazed from a blow to the head and Flamme had made the decision for them, half scared out of her mind. Worse, she’d been influenced by Flambé’s continual fantasies regarding Sevastyan Amurov.
She turned away from Ania and paced closer to the glass doors that stared out into the cavernous garage. She longed for the freedom of the outdoors and her plants. It was easier there in the open air, hidden in the foliage, to control the terrible cravings that racked her body at times, the ones she knew had aided in destroying the women of her species. So many things had contributed, but this curse was one of the worst.
She didn’t cry, because like everything else in her world, she couldn’t give anything away. She didn’t have friends anymore because she couldn’t take the loss. Nor could she trust anyone with the lives she held in her hands. She breathed in and out, giving her leopard air. Giving herself air. Telling herself it would pass, just like everything else horrific in her world.
“Do you feel you’ve made a mistake? Does your leopard?” Ania asked.
Keeping her back to Ania, Flambé shrugged. “I have no idea because I don’t know what to expect. I’m very nervous and so is she. She keeps hiding.” She kept her answer simple and what one would anticipate from a woman whose leopard hadn’t emerged and who had no one to instruct her in what might happen.
Immediately, Ania was all sympathy. “It’s natural for both of you to be nervous, Flambé. It doesn’t help that Sevastyan is so dominant and his leopard must be as well. I imagine his male must scare your female every time she starts to rise.”
Flamme was settling, and the terrible itching was receding, allowing the chaos in Flambé’s head to slowly dissipate. She took several deeper breaths and turned back to Ania. “His male is quite terrifying,” she acknowledged. He was. Maybe not so much to Flamme, but he was to Flambé.
That leopard wasn’t the kind to ever let his female go once he mated with her. Twice now, he’d claimed her. He’d dripped his chemical into her body via his saliva and there might be traces, even if she used scent-blockers, for him to track her. He would be persistent. He was that kind of cat. Sevastyan was that kind of man. She pushed down panic and made herself smile at Ania.
“I’m taking it one day at a time.” She had to be so careful that every word she said was strictly the truth. She drank more water and sat back down, letting Ania talk to her about how good it could be when a male leopard protected his mate and really cared for her. It sounded like a fairy tale to her.
* * *
* * *
THE sun had long since set before Ania and Flambé returned to the house. Sevastyan was aware of every minute ticking by. He’d checked on them dozens of times, ensuring they were looked after. He’d sent food out and it was reported that neither woman ate much. He didn’t like that. He had a battle plan to set up. The property was large and he wanted to make certain every point of entry was covered. Every team knew what was expected of them. Mitya and Ania had to be covered at all times. Still, he wanted to make certain the women were cared for.
He was tired and he’d been without his woman far too long. Shturm was in a foul mood, raging at the long separation, especially when he knew his mate was close to rising. It was a dangerous time to be away from Flambé. Sevastyan hadn’t gone so long without sex since he’d been with her, his body now used to getting rid of the buildup of aggression just by stalking down the hall, going to her office and finding her there, always willing to be with him. Always ready for him. One lousy day without and he found himself in such a foul mood he wasn’t fit to be in anyone’s company.
Ania came to Mitya’s office with Flambé, but as usual, his woman just stood outside in the hallway, waiting with Kirill and Matvei for him. Ania kissed Mitya as he stood up and went to her, meeting her halfway.
“I’m tired, honey. I’m going to lie down.”
“I’ll meet you upstairs,” Mitya said.
Ania nodded, and patted Sevastyan’s arm as she passed him, waving at Flambé as she rounded the corner to go to the staircase leading to the master bedroom.
“Everything’s in place, Mitya, stick close to the house,” Sevastyan reiterated. “Call me if anything
is out of the ordinary.”
A dozen strobes flashed and then went off abruptly. Instantly everyone went quiet. He stepped in front of Mitya, and Kirill and Matvei did the same with Flambé and Sevastyan.
“Someone came up the front drive, Zinoviy,” Sevastyan said softly into his radio.
“Cops. Two of them.”
Sevastyan exchanged a long look with Mitya, who cursed. There was another long silence while they all waited.
Vikenti came down the hall toward them. “The cops are here to talk to Sevastyan,” he announced. “Ray Harding and Jeff Myers. I’ve got them in the front room. Zinoviy is watching them, making certain they don’t try to plant any bugs.”
Flambé frowned. “Why would the police want to talk to you, Sevastyan?”
“They always want to talk to us about something, malen’koye plamya.” Sevastyan gave her his most casual smile and started down the hall.
Mitya went with him, Kirill and Matvei followed along with Vikenti. Flambé trailed after them. Mitya stopped abruptly, which meant all of them did, including Sevastyan. Mitya whirled around and shook his head at her.
“There’s no need for you to come, Flambé,” Mitya stated. “I’m sure you have plenty of work to do.”
She went very still and for the first time every man in the room felt her leopard rise. It was fast and the little female was furious. The mood of a female leopard was palpable. Impossible to ignore. Edgy. Dangerous.
Flambé’s skin glowed. “You aren’t my leopard’s mate.” Each word was very distinctive. Her gaze swept past Mitya to meet Sevastyan’s. She was all cat in that moment. Her eyes pure green. It was a challenge. She was forcing a choice in front of the men.
Sevastyan fucking hated what he knew he had to do. This was going to cost him and he was already on shaky ground with her. He hadn’t sealed her to him, but he couldn’t afford for Flambé to overhear anything the cops asked him about the night he’d left Mitya’s to go hunting Franco Matherson.
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