“There’s no reason to lie, especially in light of what Kyanite told you. Gorya would object to any of us searching you.”
She looked at Gedeon with a cool, assessing stare. “That wouldn’t stop you.”
“No, but it would be a process.”
She heard the humor in his voice. He genuinely liked Gorya. Instinctively, she knew this man didn’t call very many others friend. “You would have shot his leopard if he had attacked me, wouldn’t you?”
“That was the plan.”
She had to grudgingly respect him. She also had to consider that Gorya was telling her the truth—that he had gone against his family. That he really was there to clean up the lair and that he’d planned to kill his leopard and himself before they both went insane and harmed an innocent. If she believed that, she would have to go a step further and believe Gorya when he said his body and mindhad been scarred and damaged by the Amurovs just as hers had been.
She could believe that the Amurovs would turn on their own—even sons. If Gorya had dared to oppose his father, uncles or cousins in any way, they were cruel enough to hold him up as an example, as they did other members of the lair. They would most likely make his punishments even worse. She didn’t want to think about that. If she did, her own childhood would surface, and she wouldn’t be able to cope.
“I honestly don’t know how many weapons I have on me at this precise moment. I do hope you retrieved the one Gorya took from me. I don’t ever leave them behind.” She did her best to sound demure.
“I don’t suppose you’d hand your weapons over.”
“No.”
She glanced up at Gorya as he reached past her to open the front door. She could have sworn he had a half smile on his face.
Gedeon sighed. “Why did I know you wouldn’t make this easy on me? Will you at least promise me you won’t kill him?”
“How can I do that? You know he’s going to provoke me on purpose.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t stab him. Just don’t kill him. Do you have any idea the problems you’d be making for me if you actually killed him? He has cousins. Lots of them. For some reason they like him. If that isn’t enough, my wife likes him too. I’d never hear the end of it if I let him get killed on my watch.”
“If you don’t tell him you’ll just stab me somewhere nonlethal, he’ll talk us to death,” Gorya said. “We’re going in, Gedeon. Alone. No bodyguards. We have a lot to work out.”
Gedeon stepped back. It registered with Maya that Kyanite and Matvei looked uneasy. They didn’t knowwhat to make of her. She hadn’t stayed in character as the sweet girl next door the way she normally would have portrayed herself. She’d been too shaken. Just the name Amurov had been a trigger.
She tried another smile. “I’ll do my best, Gedeon.”
Gorya indicated for her to step through the doorway. Wraith had committed them to this path. She had no real choice. She squared her shoulders and stepped inside. Gorya crowded close enough behind her that she could feel his heat and smell his feral scent surrounding her. She moved all the way into the enormous room, hoping for some respite from her own pounding heart as he closed the door on freedom.
4
Goryahadn’t expected to feel anything at all for the exotic creature standing just a few feet from him. She looked pale and delicate—extremely fragile, as if the least little disagreement would have her dissolving into a flood of tears. She had steel running through her, yet at the same time she was fragile. She just didn’t accept that she was.
“Our leopards certainly didn’t hesitate, did they?” He had to find a way to reach her. Maya was closed off to any possibility of a relationship between the two of them. In all honesty, he had been as well.
He didn’t have a soft side. There wasn’t anything good left in him; maybe there never had been. If there had, he couldn’t remember it. Still, there were his cousins and their wives. He was fiercely loyal and protective of them. He didn’t just feel mild affection for them. He loved them. He knew he did. Twice, when he’d heard of a threat to Evangeline, Fyodor’s wife, he had quietly gone on the huntand killed whoever had threatened her. No one had ever known. He wasn’t a man who needed or wanted accolades. He didn’t want to be noticed. He got the job done.
Maya wasn’t joking about weapons. He knew she was armed, and he was aware that if she felt threatened, she wouldn’t hesitate to use force to get free.
“No, Wraith knew exactly what she wanted.” Maya looked around the large room, anywhere but at him.
“We can figure this out between us.”
Her gaze suddenly collided with his, and his chest felt like a vise. There was no logical reason for the physical reaction at that look she gave him. She had no intention of entering into a relationship with him. None. He brought his palm to his heart and pressed hard to ease the unexpected ache. He didn’t want a relationship either.
Gorya knew he had nothing to give her. He was too damaged. Too brutal. Too violent. Too far beyond redemption. There had been a feeling of relief in making the decision to end the fight for sanity. He knew Rogue was a killing machine and he was eventually going to lose control of him. He was already losing control of himself. The more violence he used in cleaning up the territory—which was necessary—the worse he was becoming. Yet looking at Maya, something in him responded to her, which made no sense at all.
“Let’s start with a tour of the house. You’ll need to know your way around. It looks big, and there are escape routes, but once you know the rooms and who belongs and who doesn’t, you’ll be comfortable here.” He kept his voice strictly neutral. Pleasant, not giving away the fact that he was as conflicted as she was. Maybe more so.
The scent of her drove him half out of his mind. He considered that it might be pheromones, but he feared it was just Maya without Wraith’s influence. Wraith had subsided, as often happened during a heat. He knew because,for the first time, Rogue was at peace. He couldn’t say the same for himself. He hadn’t liked his bodyguards—not even Gedeon—in close proximity to Maya. None of his reactions made sense, and he was a logical man.
He didn’t wait for her answer. Better to be a tour guide and show her through the house than try to figure out the impossible. He didn’t like to dwell on emotions. That wasn’t part of his life. Emotions led to bad things—like revenge. Like the rush he felt in the hunt or with brutality and violence. He couldn’t afford to give in to that vile side of who he was, especially now that he had to protect Maya from himself. Damn his leopard for claiming Wraith. By doing so, the cat had complicated his life beyond measure.
