Gorya instructed Rogue to back off immediately. The leopard was still in the throes of the animal hormones. It was difficult to get him to back off and took massive persuasion. Rogue reluctantly turned away, snarling and hissing, but raced back even after Gorya started them toward home. When Gorya reprimanded him, Rogue responded with rage, reiterating that the leopard had conspired to cheat. It took patience to overcome the massive amount of male hormones running amok in the leopard.
Gorya felt the same rage and triumph and had to fight to stay focused. He was alarmed at the idea of his cousin confronting Maya without him being present. Timur was a good man but also a bulldozer when he wanted to get apoint across. Maya wouldn’t accept Timur’s domineering ways. It could turn into a shit show in seconds.
Once he was able to regain control of Rogue, he forced him to turn toward the house. Even though shifters had an advantage, leopards were built for shorter sprints. Rogue had expended a tremendous amount of energy when racing to meet his challenger and then fighting with him, although he had ended the battle quickly. He was forced to go slower on the way home.
The moment he went through the open gates, Gorya knew he’d arrived far too late. Across the long patio Timur towered over Maya, his broad, muscular body clad only in his jeans. Standing so close to her without clothes would be a trigger for Maya, let alone doing so in a threatening, domineering Amurov way. Gorya hastily shifted, dragging on a pair of jeans from his pack.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Timur snapped at Maya. “A female leopard always stays close to watch the match between the males fighting for her.”
Maya stepped back, eliciting Timur’s dictatorial nature. He caught at her arms to stop her, giving her a little shake to emphasize his point. “Youneverleave your man. You always have his back.” He snapped his command through gritted teeth.
Ashe gave a little cry of alarm as she swept into the yard, shifting and trying to pull on clothes all at the same time.
Gorya sprinted toward his cousin and Maya. Gedeon and Ashe did the same. Then everyone froze in place, including Timur.
Maya didn’t utter a sound, but with blurring speed she retaliated, slicing through jeans at his inner thighs, his belly, under his arms and ending with her hand at his throat. Thin lines of blood appeared on his skin directly over every major artery.
The air went electric. Ashe gasped, shaking her head.Timur’s bodyguards drew their weapons and aimed them at Maya’s head. Kyanite and Rodion took aim at Timur’s bodyguards. Timur was utterly still. Gorya’s gaze took in the blood leaking through Maya’s shirt on her left side. Her hand was rock steady as she held the small blade to Timur’s neck.
“Don’t you ever put your hands on me again, or I’ll kill you.” Her voice was low, but there was no doubt she meant every word. “I purposely didn’t slash your arteries, but I could have.”
Gorya ignored everyone but his woman. “Maya. Look at me. Only me.” He walked toward her, making his way through the others, taking his time, reverting to absolute calm. Gedeon paced along beside him, every bit as relaxed as he was.
“I can’t do this, Gorya. I thought I could, but you can see what happened. I’ll get my things and leave.” There was quiet despair in her voice.
“I’d just go after you, baby. You know I would. This is a little bump in the road. We expected them. We talked about them.”
“I almost killed your cousin.”
“But you didn’t. You didn’t because he’s family.” He stood in front of her, blocking her smaller figure from Timur’s bodyguards. “I can see you have an injury. Tell me what happened.”
Her expression changed. A little shudder went through her body. “I almost got you killed. It was so close. When I asked you about an assassination team, you told me it was usual to send a five-man squad. I included the leopard challenging you in that. Meiling and Matvei were taking care of two of them, and you had the leopard covered. That gave me two others to find and kill before they could shoot you.”
Gorya had to resist comforting her. The tension was so thick he could cut it with a knife. She was too shaky.Fortunately, Timur was experienced enough not to move, and he wanted to understand what was going on. He had affection for Gorya. Everything he’d done had been because he loved his cousin and wanted only the best for him. He was willing to stand there with knife cuts and be humiliated in front of his men to hear the explanation. That was Timur. He might be overbearing, but in the end, he was always fair.
“It seemed to take forever before I located them, but I did. The sniper had a spotter with him, so that meant they were together. That feeling of impending danger didn’t leave me the way it should have. I knew something was wrong, that I’d missed something. I heard Meiling and Matvei both take their shots. That meant Rogue had taken the other leopard down and I’d run out of time. That’s when I realized that the leopard Rogue was fighting was a sacrifice.”
Gorya couldn’t take it anymore. Very gently he reached out and wrapped his palm around the blade of the knife, pulling it slowly from Timur’s neck. “Give me the knife, Maya.”
She took a deep breath and did as he asked. Her long lashes fluttered as he shackled her wrist and drew her away from Timur, tucking her beneath his shoulder.
“What happened next?”
“I had to find him fast before he could shoot you. He had to have a good line of sight on you. He wouldn’t have a spotter. I made the best guess possible and then made the decision to use my speed even though I knew there were others watching.” She lowered her voice and glanced at Ashe and her bodyguard, and then at Kyanite. “It was the only way to save your life.”
He stroked a caress down the back of her scalp. “It was all right, Maya.”
She shook her head. “They’re Amurovs.”
He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “I’m Amurov,” he reminded her.
“Not like they are.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“He was up high, and I had to leap to distract him, to prevent him from taking the shot.”
Gorya’s heart clenched. He had been slowly walking her toward the house, but he stopped abruptly. “Tell me you didn’t leap in front of the fucking rifle.”
