/> Sevastyan really loved the large, spacious room with the high ceilings and great stone fireplace. He waved Flambé toward the coziest chair. Most of his furniture had been purchased for a big man. His cousins were all large like he was and when they came to visit, he wanted them comfortable.
“Flambé,” he said, when she stood by the chair. “Sit down. We have a lot to get through. You may as well be comfortable. If you’re cold, I can get you a blanket or start the fire.” He poured persuasion into his voice. He wasn’t asking. He wanted to know who this man was and why he thought he had any right to her. She looked fragile, as if she might fall down at any moment. Her face was pale and the swelling on the side of her head was alarming to him. Her eyes were overbright, almost as if she was a little dazed.
Flambé sank into the chair. “Mr. Amurov, are the rumors around the Amur shifters true?”
“The lairs where my cousins and I grew up? Yes. Absolutely they are true and worse than anything you’ve heard. The worst criminals want nothing to do with the lairs, for good reasons. My cousins and I broke away and came here, and we have death sentences hanging over our heads.” He shrugged his shoulders. “They’ve made their try a couple of times, but so far they haven’t succeeded. Call me Sevastyan. Not Mr. Amurov. I prefer Sevastyan.”
“Our shifters come from South Africa. We’re strawberry leopards. There are so few of us that researchers believe we are mutations with recessive genes producing an overproduction of red pigments or an underproduction of dark pigments. Poachers go after us, hunting us relentlessly the moment one of our kind is spotted in leopard form. Researchers don’t have a chance to actually find out we’re our own subspecies, not a mutation.”
Sevastyan sank onto the love seat across from her chair and leaned toward her. He had heard rumors, of course, of strawberry leopards. They all had, but no one had seen one. Most thought them a myth, or like the black leopard, a leopard born with an overproduction of red pigments like researchers believed.
He felt his heart accelerate and did his best to get it under control. For his sake. For Shturm’s. There were fewer than a dozen strawberry leopards to his knowledge. At most, perhaps under twenty. Chances were good she was unmated. Her female had risen, responding to Shturm’s presence. Sevastyan was attracted to her physically. In fact, the chemistry between them was extremely strong. He could make it work. He just had to proceed with care.
“Your father brought the shifters into the country and taught them his business and then when they could work on their own, he allowed them to move on and he brought in more.” It was a guess—an educated one.
She nodded. “Yes. He sponsored them. When the first had their businesses set up, they brought in others and sponsored them. Most, of course, weren’t strawberry leopards. It wasn’t like we had very many. Our species is nearly extinct. Poachers love a strawberry coat. We were hunted nearly to death. Unfortunately, recently, as many as twelve leopards were spotted in various places at one time in South Africa and it was on the world news. We’re trying to get the females with babies out of there to safety, but it isn’t easy. There are less than thirty of us left alive in the world that I am aware of. If we can’t save the ones exposed in South Africa, we’ll lose a third of that number.”
“I presume that your father sponsored both male and female leopards of all different species here in the United States.”
“Yes, of course he did. He tried to get as many as he could regardless of age or sex. They became citizens and owners of their own businesses. That way they can continue to help other shifters find safety. It wasn’t only strawberry leopards he brought in—most weren’t.”
“Are there any other strawberry females here?”
She hesitated just for a moment, but he caught it. “Yes.”
“Have the females gone into the Han Vol Dan?”
She frowned. “I don’t know exactly what that is.”
“The emerging of their leopard?”
“I believe my father said one or two have married. I don’t know if they have a leopard or not. I would hope so.” She rubbed her hand up and down her left thigh restlessly.
“When did you become aware of your leopard?”
Her gaze jumped to his face. She moistened her lips. “About two weeks ago. She told me her name was Flamme. I can feel how restless she is.” Again, she hesitated. “I’ve been restless as well. I wake up in the middle of the night and have to go running. I’ve been afraid ever since . . .” She trailed off.
“Who is he?” Sevastyan demanded.
“Sevastyan. It isn’t a good idea to get mixed up in my problems. He comes with some big resources, which is why I think the cops don’t want to do anything about him. They won’t even talk to him.”
“That is not what I asked you.”
Silence stretched between them. She lifted her chin stubbornly. That little gesture got him right in the gut. To a man like Sevastyan, that was the same as issuing a challenge. She wasn’t going to tell him for whatever reasons—or at least she didn’t think she was. He wasn’t going to allow her to get away with it.
“I actually came out here to discuss landscaping and what you wanted or needed on your property,” Flambé said, looking very determined. “You said the project would be quite extensive.” She rubbed her temple and winced. Swayed. She wasn’t in any condition to work.
Lulling her into a sense of security was always a good thing. He could mesmerize with just his voice. Control with it. Sound very gentle or equally as harsh. Any dominant worth his while could do so, and Sevastyan was particularly good with his voice. “That is very true. This property belonged to my sister-in-law’s family, the Dover family. I own it now and need the trees planted all the way from the woods in back to Mitya’s woods with the arboreal highway extended from my home to his. I want a clear path both on the ground and in the trees for me to get to him if he’s in trouble. A good portion of the acreage was planted in grapes. I had a third of that pulled up. More will eventually be taken out as well.”
She nodded and looked around her, looking a little helpless. Again, she lifted her hand to the lump on her head as if it hurt. “I usually have my notebook but I left my car out on the road some distance from here.”
He rose at once and retrieved a pen and paper from a rolltop desk in the wide hallway. “We’ll have to make do with this.” He gave it to her and paced across the gleaming hardwood floor to the wide expanse of window. “I like to see what’s coming at me at all times. The house is sitting lower than I’d like. The road is just a little above it so any plants added for looks could take away from security. I had the gardener pull out the ornamental bushes that were planted up close to the house. He wasn’t happy, but he did it.”
“I noticed that there weren’t any plants at all around the front of the house and it seemed very stark to me. I can come up with something pleasing that wouldn’t take away from your need for security.”
He kept a smile from showing on his face, his back to her as he continued to stare out the window. Your need for security. She had deliberately worded it that way to get to him. Needling him. She was restless because her leopard was. Both hands were rubbing her thighs now. She shifted in her seat more than once, her legs moving. She didn’t understand that her female was driving her, making her edgy, moody.
Her leopard was pushing her hard, throwing off her scent to call the male to her, insistent, urgent, demanding, flirtatious. The closer she pressed to the surface, the more Sevastyan and Shturm were affected, unable to resist the lure of the females. Every movement Flambé made was blatantly sexual, although she didn’t seem to be aware of it. She touched herself, her hands moving over her body, and her fragrance, filling the air so that he breathed it in with every lungful he took, was enough to put him over the edge.