No matter how much she might want to have sex with Gorya, no matter how much she wanted to do the right thing for her leopard, she knew she would fail them. The screams in her head grew louder right along with the vicious images from her childhood.
“I can’t. I can’t. I want to. But I can’t.” She could barely get the words out. Her voice was no more than a thread of sound, vibrating with shame and horror and even reflecting terror.
How was she going to repay her beautiful, wonderful leopard for everything she’d done? She would kill her. She would probably kill Gorya and Rogue. All because she was a coward. A sniveling, horrid, weak, worthless woman. How could Gorya stand being close to her? He must loathe her. This strong, powerful,beautifulman had aligned himself with her. Put his faith in her. Trusted her with the life of his leopard.
Her body burned hotter than ever. She cried out, reaching for Gorya, calling his name, her only salvation when she was so terrified. She was condemning them all to death when they deserved so much. Deep inside, just like always, she heard herself screaming. Silent tears were locked away because it wasn’t safe to let go. It would never be safe. If she broke apart, she could never be put back together. Never. She couldn’t trust herself to do the right thing for any of them. Utter chaos reigned in her head and roared through her body. The darkest, ugliest, most brutal memories began to surface in spite of every attempt to suppress them.
“Maya. Be calm. We knew this was going to happen,” Gorya soothed. Steady. He rose above her. Bare-chested. So perfect. All muscle. That glorious male body right there for the taking. Any other woman, any shifter, would have been beyond happy to have him as a partner. But her... She didn’t deserve him. She didn’t deserve Rogue. And she really, really didn’t deserve Wraith.
He touched her with exquisite tenderness. Gathering her close despite how she stiffened and tried to pull away from him. “I’ve got you, baby. I’ll always have you. I promised you I would. I’ll see you through this.”
His palm caressed the side of her face. “You keep looking inward. Don’t do that, Maya. Look only at me. See me. Trust in me. Know who you’re with. You’re with me. You’ll always be safe with me.”
Maya shook her head. “You don’t understand, Gorya.”Her voice wasn’t her own. She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t meet his eyes. She was too ashamed.
“You have your eyes closed, little love. Open your eyes and look into mine.”
His hands. Oh, God. His hands. So gentle. No one had ever touched her the way he did. She tried to feel just that. His hands. Not her body. Not the fire roaring through her veins. She wanted to hear only his voice. Gorya. No one else. Not that taunting laughter. Not those memories slithering like evil snakes into her mind to taunt her and tear her apart. To make her into nothing all over again. Gorya had made her believe that she might be able to live life with him. To give Wraith everything she deserved. Now she knew it was impossible. She was so worthless. Too far gone.
She had to tell him. Make him see. She whispered the truth to him. “I can’t save us. I want to. I want to be everything for you. For her. For Wraith. For Rogue. But I can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t stop this. What’s happening to her. To me. I’m tempting you, but that’s all it is.”
The tears hurt, but she couldn’t shed them. They burned behind her eyes. They burned the way her body did, the well inside like a volcano so close to erupting she feared she would die in the inferno. The ice surrounding her soul couldn’t crumble or she would disintegrate. Implode.
She felt Gorya’s body sliding against hers, sending what felt like lightning strikes throughout her veins as he slowly, with great caution, sat up.
“I’m going to pick you up and put you in my lap, baby. Don’t panic on me.”
She was already panicking. Just the thought of him wrapping his arms around her and setting her bottom over his inflamed cock panicked her. The caring in his voice panicked her. The thought of him holding her against hisbare chest sent her into a frenzy of fear. “You can’t. Gorya, get out of the house. Save yourself.”
The moment he left she would somehow find the courage to take her life. To free him from the claim Rogue and Wraith had bound him to. Her body shuddered repeatedly in an effort to contain the emotions that were as out of control as the rest of her.
Gorya murmured to her soothingly as his hands cradled her as if she were a child, not a sensual woman writhing erotically, enticingly, against his hot skin. He ignored her struggles and protests and held her tight against his chest, his arms protective, not in the least reacting to the way his own body was as inflamed as hers. He settled her on his lap and locked one arm around her while one large hand cupped her chin to lift it when she tried to hide.
“Look at me, my love. Open your eyes and look into mine.”
His voice. That voice. So gentle. So caring. It pierced the ice, sending so many cracks spreading across the glacier, threatening her even more. “I can’t.”
“You can because I asked you, and you always do what I ask you,” he reminded her. “You trust me, Maya. You trust only me the way I do you. We get through things together. You don’t see the way out, but that’s what you have me for—to lead you through the labyrinth when you can’t see the path.”
She clutched at his wrist. Gorya. He didn’t seem to pay the least attention to the heat of her feminine body writhing continuously against his masculine one. She could feel his thick, hot cock against her buttocks, but he didn’t move, not even to rub himself against her. Instead, he held her tight, comforting her. Protecting her.
Just the feel of his palm cupping her chin and then the way his knuckles skimmed her lips sent a shiver of painful awareness streaming through her. Maya forced her wetlashes to lift slowly. She didn’t want to, but this was Gorya. She caught a glimpse just before he opened his hand. The leopard tattoo was there. The one from her childhood. The safety and beauty of that savage, feral leopard that spread across his fingers just below his knuckles. The sight of it shook her. The cracks in the glacier widened. Deepened. Her heart accelerated, beat far too fast. Her lungs squeezed down, driving the air from her so that she couldn’t find a way to breathe properly.
Her lashes fluttered, and she lifted them all the way in total panic, her gaze meeting his. Clinging. Expecting to see loathing. Disgust. Or pure lust. What she saw was Gorya.HerGorya. His stunning frost-gray eyes holding sheer love.Love.She knew it was love. She felt it burning through the heat of Han Vol Dan. Through the sickening memories of her past. Through her own inadequacies and self-loathing. He was there. Her rock. Her partner. He’d said to trust him. That she could count on him. That Wraith could count on him. A small part of her hadn’t believed.
It felt as if her entire chest split apart. Her heart and soul shattered, broke into millions of pieces, just as she always feared they would if the ice inside her ever cracked. Tears poured down her face. Once the storm broke, she couldn’t stop that either. The sound of her sobs was horrific even to her own ears. Not at all Maya. Raw. Unrestrained.
Gorya simply held her tighter, his arms and body surrounding her with a tower of strength, a fortress no one could penetrate. It didn’t seem to matter that she was completely falling apart. She didn’t understand how he could have fallen in love with her when she had so many flaws, but she felt the emotion surrounding her the way she did the security of his body.
After a few minutes of wild crying, some of the things he whispered into her mind began to slip past the wild emotion raging in her.
That’s right, little love, share with me. All of it. We promised to be there for each other. When I need you, you stand for me. When you need me, I’ll always be here. That’s what we said, and we both meant it.
It wasn’t so much that black-velvet voice smoothing the dark edges of pain spreading through her mind, it was the very essence of Gorya’s strength filling the jagged, empty cracks her ugly past had created. He didn’t flinch away from her memories, not one, but then she’d never flinched away from his. She’d accepted everything about him—everything she’d ever glimpsed in his mind.
Why would you think I could ever think less of you? You are courageous and strong. You saw my past, every bit as brutal and ugly as yours, and gave me unconditional acceptance.
His fingers moved on her scalp, a soothing, loving touch she couldn’t help realizing held nothing but care. There was no doubt he felt passion for her or the terrible fire of the Han Vol Dan. It didn’t seem to matter to him. He stayed in control. She had no idea how he managed when she had heard it was impossible for the female or male shifter to control their leopards’ brutal sexual needs, but although Gorya was as hard as she’d ever felt him, he made no move to take advantage of her despite the way her body moved over his.
