Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 127461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Gedeon understood that and the need for revenge. It burned bright and fierce. Deep and cold. Smoldered and never went away.
“Patience,” Gedeon said.
“Exactly,” Gorya said. “It became a game of wits. I am a deceiver. My leopard is called Moshennik, which is why I call him Rogue. We learned to bide our time. One by one we took out the worst of them. Unfortunately, the two of us thrived on violence. We reveled in it. My first memories were of blood and death, and I don’t recall much else. The only good thing I can say for myself is, I could never stand seeing what was done to women and children. That was a trigger for me. Again, unfortunately, I’ve become a monster, and I can’t seem to hold that side of me back when that happens.”
Gedeon noted Gorya didn’t sound remorseful, only matter-of-fact. He’d accepted himself for who and what he was, just as Gedeon had.
“This territory I’ve taken over was run like the ones that I came from in Russia. The women and children are sometimes abused, but often the women are complicit in the crimes. I’ve retaliated in kind when there is abuse. It hasn’t been pretty, but I’m cleaning things up fast. On the other hand, it’s brought out every negative trait Rogue and I have. The rush for us has fed the continual need for more. We’re deteriorating very fast.”
There was stark honesty in that mesmerizing voice. Gedeon understood exactly what Gorya was telling him. He’d been there. Before Meiling, he’d grown more violent, barring his doors and windows with steel to keep Slayer from escaping. He’d taken refuge in rough, emotionless sex to try to relieve the ever-building need for violence. Like Gorya, he knew the only answer for him was to end his life before he killed an innocent. He’d been lucky to find a miracle—Meiling.
“Your cousins were each able to find their leopard’s true mate. Why do you believe you won’t find Rogue’s?” Meiling asked.
Gorya twisted the bullet back and forth until it spun between his fingers, not touching his skin but remaining in the air, a hairsbreadth away from his thumb and finger. He didn’t appear to notice while he contemplated his answer.
“My cousins are brutal, violent men out of necessity,” he finally said. “They were raised in an environment that didn’t allow for anything else, so to survive they were forced to learn those ways. They didn’t like what they had to become, but they became good at being those men. That wasn’t the case with me.”
Abruptly, Gorya pinched the bullet between his fingers and carefully set it on the desk beside the gun. “The story of how my parents died isn’t true. My father didn’t murder my mother. She was acquired in the way most of the women were in that lair. She was bought with the idea that once she provided sons, she would be murdered by her husband to show loyalty to the bratva. As my father had no problem killing his first wife with the help of his two sons, he expected to do just that with his second. Not only did he expect that he would kill her, his sons also expected it, as did his brothers.”
Gedeon couldn’t detect any emotion at all on Gorya’s handsome features or in his unusual eyes. Amur leopards typically had amber or even blue eyes, but Gorya’s eyes, although shaped like a cat’s and just as focused and piercing, maybe even more so, were slate gray. The strange and rare color made reading him more difficult than ever. His eyes could appear as pure frost or reflect back as a mirror. Gedeon would bet his last dollar that the undercoat on Gorya’s leopard was gray to match those eyes, making him nearly impossible to spot when he wanted to disappear.
“No one expected that she was his leopard’s true mate, or that he would fall in love with her.”
“Do you have any idea where she came from?” Meiling asked.
Gorya shook his head. “No one cared. She was considered expendable. My brothers, Dima and Grisha, hated her and hated me when I was born. I knew they wanted me dead. They would sneak into the room where I was sleeping and pick up a pillow to smother me. Rogue always tore his way through the pillow, even when he was a cub. They couldn’t let their leopards loose on him because it would have woken my father or mother. She always seemed alert. She watched them closely once she found the pillows ripped.”
How terrible to know from the time you’re born that your own brothers want to murder you, Meiling whispered into Gedeon’s mind. He was just an infant. So was his leopard.
Gorya had had the awareness of a much older child from the time he was an infant, and he hadn’t forgotten. Gedeon knew what that was like, although his earliest memories were happy ones. He’d been given that same gift.