“How is it I knew I could have shot the sniper in the trees and gotten into the field before Drake Donovan or Remy could have stopped me when no others would have been able to do it, Gedeon?” Meiling asked suddenly.
She continued to run her fingers through his thick, unruly hair. He loved when she did that. It made him feel cared for. This was what they had always done together at night—lay close and talked.
He knew sooner or later she would ask questions. He wanted just a little more time before she did, afraid she might think he’d chosen her for yet another reason other than because he was in love with her. Still, he refused to give her less than the truth.
The pads of Meiling’s fingers caressed his scalp as her soft voice persisted. “You’re so fast when you want to be. Lightning fast, yet you hide it most of time. I have similar speed. And the strength I have isn’t normal even for a leopard.”
“I’m going to have to go back in the history of the leopard species a little bit to give you answers, Meiling.” He tipped his head up just a little to nuzzle the underside of her breast. “It’s the kind of history our people would like to forget. You’re part of that ugly history and so am I.”
Her fingers didn’t stop moving in his hair, but he felt her gaze on his face. He kissed her bare skin. It was sonecessary that she know how much she meant to him. She was his only. There had been no one before her and there would be no one after her if he ever lost her. He hadn’t known he was capable of loving until she came along.
“Why are hesitating to tell me, Gedeon?”
He used his teeth to nip at the very sensitive underside of her breast, then soothed the sting with his tongue when her breath came out in a little rush of reaction. “I always feel as if I’m asking you to accept more and more of me on faith and trust.”
She was silent for some time, her fingers continuing to move in his hair, although slower, as if she was thinking, turning things over in her mind.
“You recognized all the way back in the jungle when I moved the branch off you that I was different. It wasn’t just that Slayer was quiet when I was around. I told you I didn’t have a leopard, but you knew something about me then, didn’t you?”
“I suspected, but I didn’t know. I was blind at the time. I hadn’t seen you, but the more I was around you, the more I had my suspicions that you had superior gifts, just as I do.”
“Are there very many others with them?”
“I don’t think any others still live, Meiling. That’s part of the very shameful history I was about to tell you. I’m going to confess to you that when I tell you everything, I won’t look the best to you. I already gave you a little of it.”
He had told her a little bit, so hopefully she wouldn’t condemn him. She remained silent, so he took a breath and launched into what he knew. “There were three families that seemed to be born with extraordinary gifts. No one knew if it was the combination of genetics, the female and male leopard getting together, but they all emerged around the same time, although in different countries.”
Her hand paused in his hair. “What were the countries, Gedeon?”
“Russia. China. North Korea. Those three countries wererumored to have families with leopards with exceptional gifts. The families were slaughtered.”
Gedeon had carefully researched the information once he was able to leave the lair. Few remembered him—or if they did, they didn’t speak of him. He left Russia and traveled around the world building his strength and then his network. Along the way he picked up as many allies as possible without giving anything of himself away. Once he found Rene Guidry, he had the man ferret out as much information as possible on the families that had been murdered in the three countries.
“It isn’t as if any of the families claimed royalty or lived in castles. My parents worked, but because they could do so many things, they thrived and those working for them did as well. They were very loyal to thepakhanand did everything they could to aid him in every way, making him wealthier. The problem with being different is people become jealous and they fear you. Too many people went to my parents rather than thepakhan, and he feared they were growing powerful. Then there was the problem of their children. My father and mother had gifts, but it became evident that my siblings had even stronger ones than our parents at such young ages. Fear increased and the demand to rid the lair of us swelled in volume.”
“This happened in each country?”
He nodded. “Yes. Later, when I was older, I found out there was a much larger, widespread conspiracy. A group from each of the countries had started the unrest. They wanted to wipe out all members of each of the families. They’re still in play today. I imagine those are the ones pursuing you, Meiling.”
“You believe I’m a member of one of the families.”
He turned his head up to look at her. “I know you are. There’s no doubt in my mind.”
“Tell me everything that happened to your family before you tell me about mine and the others.”
Gedeon knew Meiling was deliberately postponing what he would tell her because she knew it was going to be crushing information. He pressed a kiss into her rib cage and settled against her. Close. Tight. Wanting her to feel his much larger body wrapped around her so she knew she wasn’t alone and would never be again.
“My father’s best friend knocked on the door late one night. They’d known each other since they were boys. Dad had saved his family from being destitute. Thepakhanat one point was furious with Uncle Yury and would have had him put to death, but my father spoke for him and saved him. Still, Yury betrayed him. He struck my father from behind and dragged him outside to the mob. They tortured and killed him. They killed my older brother and sister. My mother and I were taken to thepakhan.”
Meiling’s fingers clenched in his hair. “I spent so much time alone, Gedeon, mostly because I wanted to avoid shifters. When I was around them, I would get very upset because I could feel how depraved some of them were. It was easier to avoid them. Libby wanted to be around them, but when she was, I stayed away.”
“You have no idea how truly depraved they can be. In the lair where I was raised, trafficking was a way of earning money. Women were bought and sold. Thepakhanwanted my mother to cooperate with him, to still give him the advice our family had given him that enabled him to excel in his businesses. He also wanted her as his willing mistress. She refused. He sold her over and over to the men in the village, my father’s so-called friends. They raped her. He made me watch. He let those same men rape me in front of her.”
He told her the truth, keeping his voice devoid of all expression. He couldn’t let the rage in him out, not while she was in the room with him. “It became a way of life. Rape and beatings. Whippings. The brutality.”
At his admission, tension crept into her body until she was nearly as tight as a bow.
“I learned to be deceptive. Not to show resistance. Not to allow Slayer out. Not to show my mother a hint of what I felt for her.”
