“I brought them right to your door,” Ashe said. She’d done that and she was ashamed. Evangeline had been a friend, one of the few she’d ever had. They hadn’t shared much about their lives, but they’d had fun that summer and the friendship meant something to her.
When she’d first arrived, and told Evangeline she was in trouble, Evangeline hadn’t hesitated at all. She hadn’t betrayed Ashe’s confidence or turned her back on her, she’d given Ashe everything needed to survive. A home with no ties back to her. A job without paper. She’d even done so without first consulting the security force.
He shrugged. “They were bound to find us anyway. Fyodor’s picture has been plastered all over the place. He changed his name back to Fyodor Amurov. It was a matter of time. We planned to draw them out so we didn’t have to be looking over our shoulders for all time.” He wrapped his arm around her. “Baby, I’ve told you this several times. You need to get past feeling guilty. We expected them to come.”
Ashe wasn’t certain she could get past the guilt, especially if any of them got hurt. “Have the others found any more of them?”
Timur nodded. “Kyanite killed one. Rodion and he have the other one locked up. He’s raging and trying to scare them with his killer leopard, but he knows me. At least according to what Rodion and Kye say, this one is from our lair and probably was supposed to have done the identifying for sure.” He indicated a fallen leopard.
“It’s been a few years, hasn’t it?”
He nodded. “But we have the Amurov features. Same as Lazar. He’ll know if he’s seen us before.”
“What are you going to do with him?”
Timur’s cold eyes held no emotion. She wasn’t looking at his leopard, this was all man. That ice in his veins was really there. He could go so quickly into that state that it shook her a little and scared her even more.
“I’ll question him and then kill him.” He toed one of the dead leopards. “They came looking for us, Ashe. We stayed out of our homeland, but they came looking.”
“I’m not disturbed by you having to kill him, Timur,” she admitted. “I came here with the idea of getting help to find those who murdered my parents. I didn’t want to take them alive and turn them over to police. My parents were shifters, and we don’t go outside our world for justice. I understand that it has to be different than human law.”
“What disturbs you then, because I saw that little shiver that went down your spine.”
That was impossible because she was facing him. Still, she didn’t argue with him. “You go so easily from looking at me with warmth to that ice-cold place. If you’re angry with me, or something happens between us …” She trailed off.
She didn’t want to put the words out there, to acknowledge that it was even a possibility. She didn’t think he was a psychopath. She thought his father had been one. Maybe not born. Maybe made, but his father had tried to shape him into the same thing. In her opinion, he hadn’t succeeded.
Timur remained silent, so she decided to ask her question—the one she’d been turning over and over in her mind. “Did your father ever talk to you about his mother’s death?”
Timur nodded slowly, his eyes never shifting away from her face. “Often.”
“Did he try to save her?”
“No.”
The coldness in his voice made her shiver again and remember that they were talking about his grandmother.
“He helped. He took great delight in telling us that he helped and that’s what was expected of us when the time came. He wanted grown men like his brothers. He wanted Lazar’s admiration. That was important to him. Apparently, Lazar delivered the killing blow to his mother.”
She couldn’t decide what disturbed her the most. It could have been his lack of emotion when he told her, but more likely it was simply that he’d been raised by such a cruel, despicable man.
“There’s your answer, Timur. Your father was the psychopath, not you. You knew what they did was wrong and you tried to fight against them. You were young, and he had all the fighting experience and power.”
Timur shook his head. “Don’t think I didn’t have training, Ashe. I had it constantly and I used it, just not quite as effectively as my father. I fought him. Gorya fought him. If it hadn’t been for Fyodor, we’d both be dead. My father wanted us to stop, to admit that what he did was the right thing, but we wouldn’t. Either of us. I hated that man for killing my mother. I hated him with every breath I drew and I still do even though he’s dead now.”