Leopard's Fury

  She looked confused. Puzzled. "Why would I? I don' want anything from them."

  "It wouldn't have mattered," he said truthfully. "But it would have caused complications. Come here."

  She heard the note of finality in his voice and she knew she was in danger. His woman. Smart. She stepped back. He stepped forward, maneuvering her toward the wall. He stalked her like the leopard he was, gaze focused on her, his mouth set in grim, determined lines. Deep inside, his beast surged toward the surface over and over in elation. So close. They were so close.

  Her back hit the wall and she held up her hand as if that would ward him off. Stop a leopard. Stop an enforcer. Stop a man like him. He was a big man. He towered over her, his shoulders wide, his chest broad. He dwarfed her in size. One of his hands easily spanned her throat, his thumb tipping her head up. He stood close, so close he could feel the brush of her soft breasts against his ribs. So close he felt every breath she took.

  "You. Are. Mine." He enunciated each word carefully so there was no misunderstanding. He knew she would protest, but he didn't want to argue. There was no arguing with fate.

  He bent his head and took her mouth. Her lips were soft and trembled beneath his. She didn't part her lips for him so he coaxed. Gently. Rubbing his lips over hers. Tiny kisses when no part of him had ever been gentle. He caught her lower lip between his teeth, that bitable lip he fixated on often, and he did exactly what he'd been fantasizing about for months. He bit down and tugged. She gasped. He took instant advantage, both hands cupping her face, fingers sliding around to find her thick hair while he kissed her. Deep. Hard. Passionately. Sparing neither of them. It was a claiming and they both knew it.

  She wasn't very experienced, but that made it all the sweeter for him. Her untutored mouth, the taste of cinnamon and spice, did something to him--something extraordinary. He came from a family of users. The men used women to get what they wanted. He'd been no different. He'd fucked women to get off and he'd made certain they were women who were willing but knew he'd walk away immediately after. And he had--to save their lives. He'd done that. Got up. Got dressed. Left without a word. Fast.

  He'd never enjoyed kissing. It was too--intimate. He took a woman from behind so he didn't have to look into her eyes. So he didn't have to pretend to smile. To pretend he felt anything at all but his body's reaction. He took her hard and fast. He was every bit as savage as his leopard, and he found women who enjoyed that sort of thing. Getting off as he got off and just walking away.

  He hadn't touched a woman for a long while before meeting Evangeline and he certainly hadn't wanted to touch one since. First, it was because his leopard hated the women, and Alonzo had begun to fear that in that moment of climax, his leopard would leap, shredding his tattered control and killing the woman. Then it was because neither man nor leopard wanted any woman near but Evangeline.

  Kissing Evangeline opened up an entire world to him. He had felt protective of her. He wanted her body with every cell in his. She brought him to life. He hadn't known she would give him gifts. Of tenderness. Gentleness. Of slow, leisurely exploration. Coaxing her response. Reveling in it. Feeling that first glide of her tongue along his. Savoring it. In a way kissing was a first for him as well, and she gave that to him.

  The fire started with a slow burn and spread like molasses through his veins. Blood pooled. Low. Wicked. He had never been so hard or so in need. He pressed close, snug, wanting to lift her up, but he didn't. He was careful of her. Found a gentleness he didn't know he had. Had never seen before. Never felt before.

  She moaned into his mouth and the fire went from molasses to molten lava. Still burning slow, but hotter than hell. Every nerve ending came alive until not only his mind and body knew she was his--he knew it deep down in his soul. She was the woman who would center him. Be the center of his world. Hell. Who was he kidding? She already was.

  He didn't know the first thing about relationships. He'd been born into a family of killers. Men. Women. Children. None of those lives mattered. Only wealth. Power. Only the male members of the lair. He had no idea what he was doing, but he knew he wouldn't survive without her. She was the one. The only one.

  He kissed her over and over. Exchanged breath. Took the kiss from gentle to passionate but was careful to keep his wild nature in check. For her. He could do that for her. The fire began to rage. Her breasts pushed against him. Her hands slipped up his ribs, fingers digging in.

  Alonzo forced himself to lift his head, lips inches from hers. He stared down. Waiting. Her lashes lifted and he saw heat and something far stronger than mere affection in her eyes. For him. There was passion to match his. Need. Hunger. That changed to confusion. Wariness. Not quite a protest but building. It was too late. She'd already shown him those gorgeous green eyes and all the emotion any man could want to see for a lifetime. He couldn't wait to look into her eyes when he claimed her body.

  He kept possession of her, refusing to allow her to move or look away. "When we're alone together, you call me Fyodor." He was so close his mouth was a whisper from hers. His voice so low that she had to use her leopard senses to hear him. "That's my name. Fyodor. Only for you. Just you. When I make love to you, that's the name you call me."

  Before she could answer, before she could protest or say a single word, he spun her around, her front to the wall, holding her there, his body pressed tightly against hers. He kept his face close to hers. "I'm giving that to you and it's my life in your hands. Do you understand, solnyshko moyo?"

  One hand stayed on the nape of her neck, pressing her face forward while the other unzipped her camisole and opened it slowly. Her breath hitched and she tried to pull away from him, but his body was too big, too strong, and she couldn't move.

  "Trust me, devochka moya, I am only going to claim you. Do you feel her inside of you? Right now, is she pushing to rise?" He whispered each word into her ear.

  She tensed even more as his hand pushed the material of her camisole up her back until he gathered it into the fingers at her nape, leaving her back exposed.

  "What are you doing?" she whispered, matching his tone.

  "Answer me. Do you feel her?" He bent his head, holding her in place as he kissed his way from the little indentation at the base of her spine all the way up to her shoulder.

  "Yes." Her voice trembled. Her body did as well.

  "Trust me. This is for them. For us." He felt the joy in his leopard. He'd never felt that before. He didn't know his leopard could feel anything other than sheer savagery. The beast leapt for the surface.

  For just a moment Alonzo hesitated. What if he was wrong and the leopard killed her? Could he take that chance? He bent his head to her shoulder and kissed her. Once. Twice. His leopard was so close he felt the ache in his bones. In his jaw. In his mouth. So close.

  Evangeline moaned and suddenly cinnamon and spice were wild. Female. Wanton. Her cat was close and throwing off enough pheromones that his leopard feared the other male leopards would scent her and come bursting in. At once he raked and clawed for freedom and Alonzo partially shifted. Fur slid along Evangeline's bare back and his cat rubbed up her spine and over both shoulders, scent marking, and then he sank his teeth into her shoulder, pinning her in the way of their kind.

  Evangeline cried out, a soft plea of shock and pain. His leopard was being gentle. Like he'd been. Unnatural for his beast, but Alonzo felt him, was monitoring closely just to be safe, but he shouldn't have worried. The leopard held her with care, waiting for her female to rise. To accept him.

  5

  THE leopard's teeth hurt, but not nearly as bad as Evangeline had expected. She couldn't move, not with Alonzo's big body pressing against her, holding her pinned to the wall. She couldn't scream for help. The only ones that would hear her were Alonzo's men. Other leopards. Tears burned in her eyes. He was claiming her. His leopard was claiming her female. That meant her female would be bonded to his male. There was no going back from that.

  Bebe, I'm sorry, I couldn't
protect you.

  She held herself very still, pressed her forehead into the wall and closed her eyes tightly against the memories flooding her. Sounds of the swamp. Her heart pounding. The slide of fur against the walls of the tiny building she was huddled in. She had only her blanket to cover her small little body. She wasn't yet four, her mass of hair in tangles around her face. She remembered putting her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. She didn't have that luxury now. Her hands were trapped against the wall.

  Her heartbeat was a drum of fear as the leopard rubbed his face so gently against her, his fur almost comforting. But the teeth were steady. Unrelenting. The sounds of her screams deep in her head filled her ears. She remembered those same screams in her head when the large cat had pushed against the flimsy door of the tiny structure her father locked her in at night--a structure deep in the swamp. He locked her in and left her. She begged and cried but he told her to be quiet. To not make a sound or the bad leopard would come for her. And it had come. Night after night.

  Way back then that wild thing inside of her had unfurled and reached out to comfort her--to try to keep her from going insane with fear. Even then, at the age of four, she knew that hideous cat pawing around the building was looking for her--for what was inside of her--and she had to protect it. They had to protect each other. She stayed very still, that little child, her fist jammed in her mouth, eyes closed, and waited for the thing to go away.

  There was no waiting now. It was too late. She had never told anyone about her leopard. No one. Not even Saria, her best friend. Not Pauline, the woman who had taught her to bake. No one. Saria and Pauline had both explained that women didn't know if they had a leopard or not until it began to emerge, but she knew. She just didn't say a word to them. Still, this man had known. His leopard had known.

  Her legs trembled until she knew she would have fallen to the floor had Alonzo not been holding her up with his body. The moment the leopard sank his teeth into her, pinning her in the way of the shifter so the male could bond with her female, Evangeline felt the extreme power and danger in the animal. It was savage and feral. The leopard was a brutal, relentless killer. Bad-tempered, jealous, a brute of an animal in its prime, and nothing, no one but his human partner, no one but Alonzo, was strong enough to stop its formidable nature. What did that say about Alonzo?

  A shudder went through her. A small sound escaped her throat when she'd been so certain she was too scared to make any noise. Despair. Pain. Anger. This leopard was far worse than any of the leopards she'd ever encountered. She'd wanted Alonzo, but all along she'd known she couldn't have him. She'd longed for him, fantasized over him, dreamt of him--but she knew there was this. The leopard. The worst of the worst. A killer. Another sob welled up and escaped before she could stop it.

  The leopard pinning her with his teeth did a very strange thing. She felt her female rise to accept him, sealing the bond and then he slowly opened his mouth, his tongue lapping gently over the bite mark in her shoulder. He rubbed his face along the bite, the fur soft and warm. He purred. It was soft and gentle sounding. Strange. Unexpected. From such a savage animal, the soothing touch seemed totally against his nature.

  She felt the slide of fur as it disappeared and then Alonzo's mouth was moving over her shoulder, taking away the last of the sting. Very slowly, keeping her in place so she wouldn't fall, he pulled down the camisole and zipped it back into place. Because she was shaking so much, he slipped his arm around her body, right below her breasts, and locked her body to his as he stepped back.

  "It's done, solnyshko moyo. It's over. Come over here to the table and sit down for a moment."

  His voice. She hated that she reacted to his voice. So low and mesmerizing. Commanding. Yet careful of her. She didn't want him to be careful or sweet. She wanted him to be what she knew he was--savage and cruel.

  "Let go of me." She kept her voice low, her back to his front, head down, not wanting him to see her face. She'd learned to pitch her voice very low from the time she was just a child. Don't ever let anyone hear you talking or laughing. Stay secret. Stay quiet. If you don't, the leopard will come. Her Bebe had taught her that.

  "Malyutka, if I let you go, you'll fall down."

  "I'd rather fall down than have you touch me," she sniped.

  She meant it too. He'd found her leopard and he'd captured her. No one, not her family, not her friends, no one had ever known about her leopard. She had sworn to protect her and she'd failed. All because she was weak whenever she looked at Alonzo. So weak. Even now, being so close to him all she could do was smell his scent, the one that took her away from everything and sent her head spinning and set her body on fire. She couldn't look at his mouth without remembering how he'd kissed her.

  "Go away and do whatever it is you do and leave me alone. I don't care what your leopard did to me. Or that mine accepted yours. I refuse to accept you. Or it. I mean it, Alonzo, just go. What you did was wrong. So wrong."

  She detested that she had tears on her face and he would see them the moment he turned her around. She couldn't wipe at them either, not without him seeing. It was humiliating. She didn't cry. She'd learned not to cry a long, long time ago in that tiny shack out in the middle of the swamp when she was a toddler. Alone. In the dark, afraid the leopard would come for her.

  "What I did was necessary and you know it. There was no choice. They . . . belong."

  His arm unlocked around her, setting her free for a moment to turn her around to face him, but when she swayed unsteadily, his hand immediately went to her arm and then slid down to her wrist.

  She jerked at her arm, intending to get away, but his fingers wrapped around her entire wrist shackling her to him. Gently. But there was no escape.

  "I don't care if they belong. She'll do as I wish. She always has. If I say no, she won't accept him, bond or no bond, and I say no. You had no right."

  He didn't respond to her threat, but led her to a kitchen chair. "Where's your first aid kit?" His voice was pitched low. So soft. So without emotion when she was all about emotion.

  "I don't want your help. Just go away."

  He was as gentle as ever, but he forced her into the chair and leaned down to wipe at a tear on her face with his thumb. "Don't cry, Evangeline. I can take a lot of things, but I don't have the first clue what to do when you cry. It tears me up inside. Let me take care of this bite for you and then we'll talk."

  She hated that he sounded so reasonable. Almost sweet. The ring of truth was in his statement and that made her want to cry more. She took a deep breath and forced her emotions under a semblance of control--another thing she'd learned as a child in the dark.

  "The kit is in the bathroom under the sink. Just see to the bite and go. I don' want you here ever again." She sounded like a broken record and she didn't know if she was trying to convince him or her. The thought of what he would lure her into was horrendous to her. Impossible to even contemplate. A lair of vicious leopards. Cruelty. Depravity. He was a criminal and that just made it more certain. And yet . . . she couldn't imagine never seeing him again. That was equally or even more terrifying.

  She watched him go into her bathroom and crouch beside the sink. She should have run for the back door and made a break for it. Brice was most likely somewhere outside. He or one of the other two cops were usually around if Alonzo was in the bakery.

  "Don't try it, malyutka. You won't make it and then you'll be even more upset than you already are."

  He didn't even turn around and he'd known what she was thinking. She didn't bother to confirm or deny that he was right. Instead, she admired the silent, fluid way he moved. She saw the leopard in him, the way his roped muscles rippled beneath his immaculate suit as he returned to her and opened the first aid kit.

  "If you can't stop lying to me, don't speak, Evangeline," he said, sweeping the hair from her shoulder to expose the bite. "I hear the truth, the same as you."

  "I don' understand. You were determined to leave me alone
. All those months you kept comin' into the bakery. You barely spoke to me." That had hurt. Really hurt. She had convinced herself the interest was all one-sided. And then he'd been gone for those weeks. Endless weeks. She counted the days. The hours. Even the minutes at times. She worried about him. Couldn't sleep at night. Wondered if he was with another woman. Afraid he'd been killed.

  "You know why." His voice was a thread of sound. "This may sting."

  After the claiming bite of his leopard she doubted it would register. That brought her up short. She knew Alonzo was a scary, dangerous man. He was fast. He was some kind of crime lord leading other leopards, all scary, dangerous men. She knew his leopard was the same, even worse, driving him all the time, yet when the cat had claimed its mate, it had been weirdly gentle. Everything it had done had been done to soothe her while it held her pinned. It didn't rake her or claw. It gave her a low purr that was strange in a leopard.

  "You were goin' to let me go."

  "I wanted to let you go. You deserve a white knight, Evangeline. I'm a dark knight, not like you deserve. I'll never be that man. I can't give you the life you crave. You made up your mind to live among humans and stay away from shifters. More, you were so determined to live clean you turned your back on your family name. I wanted that for you. I tried to give it to you, but I couldn't stay away. When I'm close to you, my leopard is calm. In all the years of my life, he's never been that way. I've never been that way. When I'm with you, there's peace. I need that and crave it the way my body craves you."

  He couldn't say those things to her. She didn't want to hear them. She couldn't hear them, not if she was going to stay strong. She knew what a vicious leopard could do to its human counterpart. Alonzo was a violent man. He just was. There was no getting around that. His leopard drove him, and once unleashed, the savagery of a leopard had few comparisons. It wouldn't matter how calm she made him, he would go his own way. She could see that in him just like now, when she told him to leave and he didn't.

  She shook her head as he applied a triple antibiotic cream and then put a large round Band-Aid over the bite.