“It wasn’t an easy rescue by any means and I had to do it without my usual team. I could only use a few trusted women. She’s safe enough now, but Basil won’t stop looking for her. Franco apparently decided he could figure out how she got away. He started putting it together that I had helped shifters come to the United States and work here, although he had no idea if I was really involved in getting women away from abusive shifters. There just weren’t any other leads. I didn’t know he had anything to do with Basil.”
“You met at the bar.”
She nodded. “I was having a difficult time and needed sex. He thought he was so great at sex that if I was involved in Karisa’s disappearance, he could easily get me to talk. I don’t think he has an idea one way or the other if I’m involved, but he won’t let it go. This was months after I’d helped Karisa. He hadn’t been near Basil either or I would have smelled him.”
“Come on, baby, you need to eat something before the leopards decide to make another appearance. We can talk while I’m warming us dinner.”
“It has to be something light, Sevastyan. I don’t think I can eat much yet.” She stood up, one hand on the arm of the chair.
Sevastyan inspected her carefully in one swift, encompassing glance. She looked tired. He had been careful with the ropes, but the marks were on her body, her thighs and ankles, the marks of the breast harness. His mouth and teeth. Faint bruises from the leopards tussling. But there were no tears in her skin, no signs of bleeding under her skin. She wasn’t squirming uncomfortably or looking terrified or as if she might jump off the nearest bridge.
“What sounds good?” He held out his hand to her and was gratified when she didn’t hesitate to take it. “I can do a breakfast for you or soup, or just sandwiches.”
“S
oup sounds good, although that’s not going to do much for you.” There was a hint of worry in her voice.
That was one of the things he loved about her. She was nurturing by nature. She was always going to look out for him whether she was in love with him or not. She did little things no one else had ever done for him. He didn’t take anything for granted.
“I’ll have a sandwich with the soup, Flambé,” he assured, feeling her hand in his. She had a firm grip despite her hand being small. That was another thing about her he loved. She might look delicate, but she was leopard, her core was strong, her muscles, her backbone both flexible and steel.
“The moment I realized something was off about Franco, I got away from him, covered my tracks and made my way back home. I don’t think it was that hard for him to find me. We do bring shifters here legitimately all the time. They work here. Go to school. Become citizens. Set up their own businesses. He was trying to track Karisa. That’s what took so much time. I made certain there were multiple places for Basil and his leopard to hunt for her. Franco had to have gone to each of those places first.”
She perched on one of the high stools, her blanket slipping open to reveal her breasts with the faint marks of his mouth and teeth over the generous curves and the reddish marks of the rope knots in the valley between her breasts. His cock stirred in sheer male satisfaction. He opened the refrigerator and took out the cannister of homemade soup the chef had already prepared.
“You always prepare for every contingency. I noticed when you do your drawings for clients you make several, no matter how good the first one is. And when you were doing the ones for this property and you were creating escapes for the leopards, you made certain there were dozens of possibilities to choose from.”
He’d been proud of her for that way of thinking. She was like him in that regard, a general planning out a battle yet in a completely different way, he’d thought at the time. Now, he realized, she wasn’t all that different.
She gave him a small smile. “It’s difficult enough for human women to get away from their abusers or stalkers, but shifters? They have leopards who can track them. That can make it nearly impossible. Depending on the country, it can be impossible.”
“There is a difference between a mating pair, real mates, and mates who come together like your parents did for the wrong reasons. You know that, don’t you?” he said carefully. He didn’t look at her, keeping his attention on the soup instead.
There was a small silence. “I’m not certain what you mean.”
“Real mates, those belonging together, will find each other over and over. They won’t tolerate any other mate during their life cycle. It would be impossible to be abusive. Surely you can see that Shturm wouldn’t harm Flamme and would protect her with his life. That means he would do the same for you.” He glanced at her in order to read her expression.
She had her chin propped up on the heel of her hand, her gaze on his face as he worked.
“I feel the same way about you. I told you that. I would never hurt you, nor would I allow anyone else to harm you. There was no mistake when Shturm and Flamme found each other. I was drawn to you and I think you were drawn to me, whether you want to insist it was all sex or not. Maybe for you it is, and that’s enough.” He shrugged his shoulders, trying not to feel the piercing ache in the region of his chest.
Flambé sat up straighter, the blanket slipping off one shoulder just a little more. “It’s not just about sex. I think you know that. You scare me. The things you make me feel scare me.” She sounded a little reluctant, cautious, almost shy, a characteristic he didn’t usually equate with her, but she didn’t find it easy to admit her emotions to him.
He poured the soup into two tall, thick mugs and made himself a quick sandwich while he thought over her soft confession. She clearly didn’t want to talk about how she felt. He was willing to let that go until he was in bed with her, or at least until they weren’t eating.
“Let’s take the food outside and you can tell me the rest about your underground railway for shifter women. It had to be very difficult to set up.” He poured genuine admiration into his voice.
She looked so relieved as she slid off the stool that he couldn’t help smiling. She left the blanket behind as they went out onto the back patio where the large awning shaded their bodies from the sun’s rays.
“I was fortunate in that there were several women already in place across the United States who had their own businesses,” Flambé said. She sipped at the mug of soup and shaded her eyes as she looked out toward the woods with long branches. “See how the branches reach toward one another and nearly touch? I kept looking at all the various trees that had been planted over the years for the shifters and how they were shaped. My father showed me how to work with them when we were molding and growing them on our property before transferring them to a client’s. That stuck in my mind. I flew to a city near each of the women and then rented a car and drove to their business and just talked with them. Visited.”
He could imagine his cautious Flambé doing just that. She was personable. Talking about her landscaping business, steering the conversation around to her mother. Listening to them about their past with her. She’d chosen women who hadn’t mated and preferred not to. She didn’t broach the subject of helping abused shifter women disappear immediately, but she did talk about how more and more she was seeing their women with nowhere to go.
“I could judge the level of sympathy,” she said. “And also, whether they were willing to do something about it. Or at least if I thought they could. I went back a second time to the ones I thought might be willing to help.”
“You would need a scent blocker so a leopard would never be able to catch your scent or be able to track their female’s.”
She nodded. “I’d heard rumors about a woman in New Orleans who was amazing with perfumes. Really amazing. I went to see her. I thought it possible she could come up with a product that could drown out our scents. I was very nervous talking to her at first. I told her I needed everything to be strictly confidential and she agreed. She was very sympathetic when I told her what I needed. She said she’d accidently come up with a scent blocker that worked on leopards, although it wasn’t perfect. She asked when I needed the product. I told her as soon as possible and she sent me a sample three weeks later. Within a month, I had something that has worked to perfection. So far, as long as I’ve had the time to use it properly, I’ve gotten my client and me both away without incident.”