“About damn time,” he groused. “I’m going to ground that kid.”
“Timur,” Gorya cautioned. “Don’t break him the way we were broken. We could never do anything right, although we both know that was an excuse to beat the holy hell out of us. Your father enjoyed making us feel like shit. Just be careful of following his patterns. I have to fight it every day, and I imagine you do as well.”
Timur swung around, ready to do battle with Gorya. Every muscle in his body, every single cell, wanted to protest his words. He wanted combat, ripping and tearing at flesh, pounding it with his fists, anything to escape the thought that he could be anything like his father—and yet, there was the proof. He not only wanted those things; he needed them.
He stared at his cousin for a long time, seeing his father standing there, waiting for his son to fuck up so he could beat him. One wrong word. The lack of a word. One wrong move, or lack of one. It wouldn’t matter, the pounding would start.
Eventually Timur liked those encounters because he could fight back. He knew his father would beat him within an inch of his life, but every punch he got in, he made count. He needed the satisfaction of knowing he’d managed to hurt his father with those blows. Every one of them.
He doubled his fists and stared down at it. “I liked hitting him,” he admitted. Finally. Aloud. He’d said it and he’d meant it. “Sometimes I hated him so much that I would start a fight just so he would come at me. I knew he’d kick my ass, but I could hit him. I began counting how many good blows I got in. How hard I hit. I always used the maximum force possible. If I was as strong then as I am now, I would have broken his bones.” There was satisfaction in knowing that. He would have liked to break his father’s bones.
“I always wondered why you taunted him while I cowered in the corner. I hated those nights when he went after you.”
Timur grinned at him, a show of teeth more than a smile. “You never cowered in the corner. The moment he laid his fists on me, you came out swinging.”
Gorya shrugged, a casual roll of his shoulders. “That never lasted long. I was on the ground with my head ringing.”
“It gave me the opportunity to punch him. I used that bastard as my punching bag. I actually pretended I was training.”
“You still do. Train, I mean. Every day.”
“We all do, you included. We know what’s coming and we know the war is going to be gruesome. You don’t like letting your leopard free, but that’s the reason we have to, Gorya. You say I can’t be like my father, but by holding your leopard at bay every second, we both are exactly like him. And like your father. And Lazar. Our leopards need freedom and, yes, the fighting as well. We have to train them until their skills are every bit as good as our own.”
Gorya shook his head, sadness in every line of his face. His handsome features revealed in that rare moment the torment Timur felt. “My leopard is a killer, Timur. I’m afraid if I let him loose, he will kill everyone before I can take back control. Mitya has this same concern. I work at getting stronger, more disciplined, so that my leopard will have no choice but to obey me. I am not there yet. He’s that strong.”
Timur swore and turned back to the window. Gorya was the most easygoing, good-natured one of them. He laughed more readily and would often calm Timur or Fyodor when they were angry with each other. He was the peacemaker, when they were the ones ready to fight at the drop of a hat. Yet now, seeing his cousin’s stark, raw, emotion, he knew Gorya fought, every single day, the same demons he did.
“There is no end to this, is there?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Gorya answered honestly. “Fyodor and Evangeline provided a small window of hope for me. I thought if he could find a woman who would take him as he was, then perhaps I could do so as well.”
“Evangeline.” Timur breathed her name with reverence. “I thought her the enemy, that she would get Fyodor killed. Sometimes, because she lives her life so filled with joy and happiness, I think she still may get him killed. She refuses to see the ugliness in the world. She lived with her own set of demons as a child, and yet to see her now, you would never know anything ugly ever touched her.”
“I don’t like having only a couple of men watching her. And she insists they take breaks and go walk around outside. She’s a bossy little thing,” Gorya said.