A strobe went off. He turned, without seeming to hurry, making his way to the table where his tablet was. Matvei and Kirill were patrolling and had deliberately tripped a wire in the denser woods to the back of the property. He sent them a quick text to indicate all was well, in their prearranged code.
“As I said, you will show respect for me at all times, particularly in front of others. I will expect you to sleep in the master bedroom with me in my bed unless we discuss it ahead of time for other reasons. As you’re very aware, like you, I enjoy a healthy sex drive and like to have you close to me. You will not sleep with others, male or female, as long as we’re mates. I’d prefer to get married, but as you seem violently opposed to the idea, I refuse to make that mandatory and will take that off the table.”
He stayed at the table, looking out the window, completely out of her line of sight. His heart felt peculiarly heavy. He refused to acknowledge the feeling.
“We’re going to be truthful with each other. If you ask me a question, be certain you really want the answer, because I will be giving you the truth. When I ask you a question, I will expect the truth from you.” He pressed his palm on the window, just for a moment, not letting himself breathe. Not letting himself admit that just once he’d wanted something for himself.
There was a long silence. Minutes passed. Sevastyan forced himself to take another long drink of water and then he went to her and removed the rope circling her mouth, gently wiping her lips before holding the bottle up for her to take a drink. Her green eyes had golden flecks in them, and they stayed on his the entire time he took care of her.
“Are you ready to talk to me, Flambé?” He kept his tone the exact same. Mild. Not trying to sway her one way or the other.
“Are you finished with the rules?”
“There are more, far too many to list in one day.”
Her lashes fluttered. A faint smile pulled at her full lips. It was all he could do not to stare at her mouth instead of her eyes. She was so beautiful when she smiled.
“I am afraid,” she suddenly admitted. “I was so shocked when Flamme enticed Shturm to claim her. She was terrified when Franco ran us off the road and he attacked me. He was so much bigger and even with my training, I barely was able to get away. He followed me off the road and into the woods. Had I not had prior knowledge of the terrain, he might have caught me. Flamme felt she put us in that position with her heat.”
“There was Shturm, the biggest badass leopard she’d ever come across,” he supplied.
“Exactly. She chose him and enticed him, luring him to her like a little hussy. She was determined that he would keep Franco and his leopard from claiming us or ever hurting us.”
Sevastyan narrowed his eyes at her, allowing Shturm close so she could see the merciless gold glaring at her. He reached for the bit again. “Don’t fucking talk to me if you’re going to mix lies with truth, Flambé.” He started to shove the knot in her mouth.
“Wait.” It came out muffled. Her eyes went wide. A little wild. A sheen of tears.
Ordinarily, he would have tied off that rope and walked away, allowing the sudden surge of rage-fueled adrenaline pouring through his body to be walked off, but those tears left him stripped of anger and very vulnerable to her. He yanked the knot away from her and just stood waiting.
“She did choose Shturm to protect us. She was so scared. I was too. I was disoriented from the blow to my head and I couldn’t stop her. After that, I suppressed her because I was too afraid to rely on her. I didn’t think she really knew what she was doing. You’re a big man and could easily hurt me, which meant your leopard was big and could really hurt her. She didn’t take that into consideration. I was just so shocked and didn’t know what to do or how to get out of a claiming. I knew mistakes could be made with a first time so there was a huge chance she was wrong.”
“But you didn’t think it was a good idea to share your confusion with me?” He kept his tone mild when that ever-present pool of rage threatened to swamp him.
“I wanted you even more than Flamme wanted Shturm,” she confessed in a small voice, her gaze sliding away from his.
There was no mistaking the ring of honesty or her embarrassment at the admission. She was giving him something back for all the truth he’d given her. He remained silent, waiting for her to gather her courage to speak again.
“As long as I just could keep what we had between us to great sex, I could handle things, but when we’d stop and I was with you, and you’d do nice things for me, or say things I didn’t expect, it was more terrifying than Franco’s attack.” The admission came in a small voice. “I knew better than to let myself believe in you. Shifter men use women and then throw them away. I see it all the time. Maybe it’s just the way shifter men are so primal—I don’t know, and I really don’t care, but I’m not going to get caught in that horrible emotional mess that keeps women in a place they shouldn’t be.” Now there was defiance and anger creeping into her tone.
Sevastyan paced across the room while he turned over and over in his mind what she’d revealed to him. It wasn’t anything entirely unexpected. Ania had prepared him for Flambé’s opinion of shifter males. He’d reinforced that belief when Mitya had told her in front of his men to go back to the office and instead of reprimanding Mitya, Sevastyan had sided with his cousin against her—or at least it had looked that way. He’d explained his reasonings to her, but already he’d had too many sins against him.
He stayed silent, willing her to tell him more. To show her that he expected more, he returned to the spot just a few feet from her and crouched down, looking up at her, his gaze meeting hers. Waiting. She pressed her lips together. He knew it was difficult. He had opened up to her. Told her his truth. The worst of him, knowing he would never have her fully, but accepting it because his leopard deserved to have his mate, and, as humbling as the truth was, he would take Flambé on any terms.
“My father rescued shifters, that much is true,” Flambé said, her voice very low and hesitant. “I think, in the beginning, his heart was in the right place. Maybe it always was. So many of the shifter species’ numbers are so low it’s scary. He thought if he could bring some to the United States and give them a good start here, they could bring others and it would set up a chain to help. The landscaping business thrived and he bought the property so he could build dorms and the big house with multiple bedrooms.”
Her voice broke and she coughed as if to keep from crying. It took discipline not to go to her and wrap his arms around her. He consoled himself with the fact that the ropes were the substitute for his arms. She accepted the ropes when she wouldn’t—or couldn’t—accept his arms.
“He slept with a lot of the female shifters. They were given rooms in his home and sometimes they went into heat, or they were attracted to him. In any case, however it started, for whatever reason, he found himself surrounded with women and he didn’t want to give that up. He became addicted to all that ready sex. He told himself they were willing. Whether they were or just thought they had to give him whatever he wanted because they were afraid in a new country, who knows?”
“Did you hear differently?” He couldn’t let that go.
She took a breath. A deep one. He moved closer to her, again acting as if he was checking the ropes, her temperature, but more to offer comfort. Running his hand over her hair, down the nape of her neck, along her shoulder. Brief touches, but ones he knew she responded to when she was tied.
“Yes. Later. When I asked about my mother. She was a strawberry leopard and he apparently was quite enamored with her.”
Sevastyan could well imagine if she was anything like her daughter. Hot like the sun, all fiery passion in bed. She would have been irresistible to a man like Flambé’s father.
“He had several women housed there, but she was his favorite. He put her through culinary school but when she got a job, he wanted her to mate with him, marry him. He talked her into it. She was . . . like me. She needed sex all the time. It was getting worse, according to her friends, so she said yes. He got her pregnant, but he was never faithful. He kept other shifter women in the house and carried on with them while she was pregnant. It was quite horrible for her because her need never let up.”