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Her gaze flicked over hiain He loved the way she looked at hier 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 alore froot to wear the over er surrounds ine" 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 a the oldest and the most feared Of course no one kneere 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 hient and cunning Hespeed Sadly, when it caht 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 roo He hadn't known he was hungry He certainly hadn't known he wanted a woh 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 hiitiht of just such a question a thousand ti the leopards I look back to when I was a child and he alanted to protect s 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 hi to ask him and that wouldShe didn't want to be any of those things Still, his woe

"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 ere 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 hi from her face "Fyodor No" She said it softly Fiercely

She wouldn't have cowered in her roo fros on their child She would have fought hihter He saw that He kneas inside his wo else in her She would fight for their children She would stand for them

"The ed He had tears in his eyes My father forced un to the man's head in front of his wife and children They were all crying Looking at me like I was the sa into themy father"

"Honey, I'm so sorry That must have been so terrible for a child"

"We hadn't gone there alone Bothterritories and they were cruel and vicious as well But endary They wanted to be there for my first kill"

She shook her head, glanced at the table beside the bank of s 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,hed at hiun back into my hand, closed his fist over it and snarled at er"

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 deter 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 hier It wasthe worstthat 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 todown my face while s to the wife and daughters and then allowed their leopards to kill thee"

He no longer had bile rising even when he had night of his first kill "I was trau 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 hile 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 sy 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 ad of herself back

His heart contracted and he picked up the fork, his gaze fixed on her face She looked so beautiful to hi 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's My childhood was a training ground for control and power I crave the feeling offists hit me"

"Fyodor" Just his name A reprimand

"I'ive 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 et what I wanted, not froeline I was born into a fucked-up fafather Just fists and kicks and blood"

"Your et 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 realbefore his father disposed of her "The theory was, they wouldn't look for their real ht make them vulnerable Generations of that made for vicious brutes and equally cruel leopards"

"So as 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 Aood reason"

He took a bite of the stir-fry, and it was really good Far better than he'd expected and froreat"

"If they weren't meant to be mates, did their leopards mate?"