Leopard's Run

by Christine Feehan

  The lights were on and Evangeline was already there working. Ignoring Timur, Ashe hurried over to her boss. “I’m so sorry I’m late, Evangeline.”

  Evangeline’s gaze drifted over her, clearly noting her disheveled clothes. Ashe blushed, remembering the wet spot on her T-shirt. She looked around for a full-sized apron and hastily tied one on.

  Evangeline glanced past her to Timur. She shook her head. “Coffee’s on, Timur, I still have some pastries in the oven. I’ll fix your drink when I’m finished here.”

  “No worries,” Timur said and went from the heat of the kitchen to the cool of the shop.

  “I really am sorry,” Ashe reiterated. “It won’t happen again.”

  “He’s a good man, Ashe,” Evangeline said. “But scary dangerous. Be very sure you know what you’re getting into.”

  “It was a one-time thing,” Ashe assured. “Really. It just happened, but I’m not looking to start anything with him. He’s not into relationships. He told me he doesn’t buy breakfast or dinner for his women. Of course, it may have been said a little cruder than that.”

  “Sheesh. I ought to go out there and kick him or something.”

  That made Ashe smile because Evangeline probably would really do it. “It was worth it. Seriously. And I’m not looking for a relationship.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  Ashe washed her hands and then pulled on tight gloves so she could begin putting the freshly baked pastries in their trays. “It isn’t here,” she said gently. “I thought it might be, but I’m going to have to go.”

  “Timur?”

  Ashe shook her head. “Life, I guess. I can’t seem to settle.”

  “What kind of trouble are you in?” Evangeline asked. She wasn’t looking at Ashe, but at her oven as she slowly opened the door.

  The fresh scent of cinnamon hung heavy in the air. Ashe inhaled. She loved the way the shop always smelled of freshly baked goods. “The bad kind. The kind that could get the people around me killed.”

  “Did you come here for help, or were you targeting my husband?”

  The voice was very, very mild, but Ashe wasn’t deceived. For the very first time she realized Evangeline would defend her man against any threat.

  “Evangeline, please look at me,” Ashe said.

  The woman she respected so much turned her head, not moving any other part of her body, hands still around the tray.

  “I came here because I thought he was a criminal. I’m in trouble and I needed help. You’re my only friend and you just happened to marry someone I thought might be able to help me. Don’t worry, I told Timur I would leave. He said no, but I’m still going in spite of his orders. I hope you can forgive me.”

  “What kind of trouble?” Evangeline asked.

  “The men after me are the real deal. They are criminals and will stop at nothing to get what they want.”

  “What is it they want?”

  “Me dead.”

  5

  ASHE was going to run. She had that same look on her face that Evangeline had when she’d tried running from Fyodor. That hadn’t worked, and Timur wasn’t about to let Ashe get away any more than Fyodor had allowed Evangeline to run. They were going to have to work things out, which meant whatever she was holding back, she was going to have to give him.

  His phone buzzed. He glanced down. He’s on the move, heading straight toward Evangeline’s home to put the mark on the door.

  His gut tightened. He glanced toward the kitchen as he texted back. Pick him up. You know where to take him. Make certain he has his phone on him.

  If Ashe was in league with the messenger, then he was going to have to rethink his plan, but for the moment, he was going to believe she had nothing to do with Apostol Delov and that the messenger had been after her all along, not Evangeline. He caught up his jacket and went to stand in the doorway leading to the kitchen. He paused there for a moment, watching them work with a quiet efficiency that looked so smooth—as if they’d been at it for years.

  “Got things to do this morning, Evangeline,” he informed her.

  Evangeline spun around, nearly knocking into Ashe, but Ashe moved, just like he knew she would, avoiding the collision easily. He liked the way she moved, so fluid, a sensual flow of muscle and bone, her skin glowing beneath the overhead lights. She was close to the emerging, the Han Vol Dan that would have her leopard insisting on shifting, insisting on coming out to meet her mate. He had to stay close to Ashe in the event that it happened.

  Not yet, Temnyy, his leopard, claimed. The cat gave a lazy yawn. Soon, but not yet.

  The male had mellowed considerably now that he’d claimed his mate. Ordinarily, he was at Timur night and day, demanding blood, hating everything that moved. He was bad-tempered and mean, but now, with his mate so close, he wasn’t nearly as difficult. For that alone, Timur wanted to kiss his woman.

  “Is something wrong? Fyodor?” Evangeline asked anxiously and pulled her cell from her back pocket.

  “If something was wrong, mladshaya sestra , I would have told you straight up. I’m not the one always cushioning you. That would be my brother.” He spoke the truth and saw the worry drain from her. Who knew truth could be such a distraction? He didn’t want either of them thinking too much.

  “Will Fyodor be coming in today?”

  He shrugged. “You know we don’t have set days we come here, and we never use the same routes. He changes his mind often, Evangeline, and that’s a good thing. We don’t want anyone getting a read on him. We’re careful. As of this morning when I checked in with him and Gorya, he wasn’t planning on it.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the room behind him. It was empty of customers, but not for long. They would come in for Evangeline’s pastries and coffee drinks. Some would come for the atmosphere. Others for the thrill of possibly rubbing shoulders with crime lords. The cops would come.

  “I’ll have two men in the shop and two on patrol.” She didn’t need to know about the man on the roof across the street, the one with a high-powered rifle. “Both of you stay inside.”

  Ashe’s chin went up. He didn’t give a damn whether she liked his orders or not. She’d just better follow them. He pinned her with an ice-cold gaze. “Don’t think you’re going to run off, Ashe. I don’t have the time to go chasing you down, which I’d do, but then we’d have a reckoning you wouldn’t like.”

  He saw all kinds of protest in her eyes. She was careful enough to keep them out of her expression, but she wanted to tell him to go to hell. She didn’t. That meant only one thing. She thought she could lull him into a false sense of security.

  “Evangeline, she’s going to try to enlist your aid in helping her run off. She’s my male’s mate. He won’t like it. You know what will happen if she takes off, so when she asks, you say no.”

  Evangeline looked from one to the other, and then she sighed. “I understand, Timur.”

  He stalked across the kitchen, straight toward Ashe. She backed up until she hit the far wall. He pinned her there, using his larger body and a hand on either side of her head. She dipped her head low so he could only see the top with all that thick hair gleaming like silk beneath the lights.

  “Look at me.”

  She shook her head and put both palms on his chest as if she could push him away from her, but she didn’t try. “Go away. I mean it. We’re not doing this.”

  “Look at me, Ashe.” He kept his voice low. This close to her, his body reacted. Even his cat reacted, rising, purring, wanting to be even closer to his mate. How could either of them help it when her scent enveloped them?

  “I can’t.”

  “I’m not going anywhere without kissing you.”

  “You know what happens when you kiss me.” She mumbled it, a small sigh of resignation in her voice.

  “Do you know what happens when I don’t kiss you?” He dipped his head and brushed little kisses into the silk of her hair. “My cat is a mean bastard. I’m just like him. You
mellow us both out. You don’t want me shoving commuters off the train, do you?”

  Her laughter was sweet music and some of the tight knots in his gut unraveled at the sound. “Look at me, baby.” He coaxed her rather than ordered her.

  She tilted her head and those long lashes lifted so that he found himself drowning in her eyes. He took her mouth immediately, his tongue sweeping across her silken lips to demand entry. At once she gave it to him, as if she couldn’t help herself. He took over, needing the fire she stored there, feeding on it, feeling the burn spread like a firestorm through his body.

  It took discipline—and a few minutes—to raise his head enough to press his forehead tight against hers. “Don’t leave, Ashe. Give me some time to sort through all of this. Just stay here with Evangeline where I know both of you are safe and let me do what I do best.”

  She was silent, struggling, like him, to catch her breath. He pulled her into his arms and held her. Close. Wanting to shelter her. Needing to know she was safe. She was already becoming something he knew he would never give up. Not because of his cat, but for himself. He’d never expected to have a woman. He’d never expected to feel the things he was feeling. He wanted to think it was all physical because the chemistry between them was so explosive, but he had to admit, if only to himself, that other emotions were suddenly overwhelming when he was close to her.

  What was it about her that appealed to him? Her fight? Her abilities to shift gears, sliding from one skin to the other so easily? One moment she was all feminine power and the next she was a clawing cat, fighting her way out of a bad situation. Then she could be compassionate, genuinely worried about the problems she might have brought Evangeline, but she had brought those problems deliberately. He liked all of that in her. He needed a woman who could be ruthless and yet yield to him.

  “Don’t steal my heart, Timur,” she whispered against his chest. “I know your type. You say all the right things and you do them—” She broke off and shook her head, once more looking up at him. “You’re a dangerous man. Very scary. Evangeline and her husband might not be what I was looking for, but you’re that man.”

  He wouldn’t lie to her. “I am.” He knew what she meant. He was exactly that man. He’d always be that man in order to keep his brother, Evangeline and now Ashe safe. He was the kind of man who could kiss his woman, laying his heart at her feet, and then go torture and kill an enemy to ensure those he loved survived another day.

  “I don’t want this life. I don’t. It killed my parents. It will kill all of you, and I don’t want to watch that happen.”

  “Don’t run from me, Ashe,” he cautioned again, something seizing hard in his chest. It was an actual pain and he had to resist rubbing his chest. “We’ll work things out. Just stay here for right now. I need you to help protect Evangeline just in case the hit team slips through the ring of protection I have around her.” He watched her face carefully and he could see by her expression she’d feared all along she’d brought a team of killers down on Evangeline and Fyodor. She wasn’t going to protest or act as if she didn’t know what he was talking about. He could hear Evangeline working in the other room, putting pastries in the display cases. She needed Ashe’s help and he was holding her up.

  “You’re just saying that.”

  “Give me your word.”

  She sighed. “Fine, then. You have a few hours, but I can’t stay all day. I need a head start. Running right now is my only option. This was the plan, leading him here and hoping your people would take care of him.”

  “He isn’t the hit team. Apostol Delov is his name, and he is a messenger. He tracks and then fingers the prey, and the real killers come in and do the actual killing. It’s always under the guise of justice. In this case, your parents had done something to bring down the wrath of someone powerful on them. That death sentence extends to you.”

  She shook her head. “How do you know so much about it?”

  “I’m part of that world. I was born into it. I will die in it. I never had the chance to get out.”

  She held his gaze steadily. “But you wanted out.”

  “Of course, I wanted out.”

  “Then let’s run together, Timur. I’ll drop my vengeance plan and you drop whatever it is you’re planning and let’s go. Together. I’ll go with you right now. We’ll run so far they’ll never find us and we can live free, away from this kind of thing.”

  The temptation was strong, but he could hear Evangeline moving around in the next room, trying to give them privacy. His brother’s innocent woman. Even if he could abandon Fyodor to his fate, he couldn’t leave Evangeline.

  “What of her?” He nodded toward the shop room. “You brought this down on her, but you would expect me to leave her to whatever fate happens?”

  “No, they’ll follow us. That’s why I’m leaving. He’ll follow me. It’s me he wants, not Evangeline or Fyodor.”

  “You led our worst enemy straight to our front door, Ashe. Believe me, if he’s sent word to his master, they will forget all about you and concentrate on killing Fyodor, his woman, me, Gorya and our other cousins. We committed unforgivable crimes against our family and they want us to pay for those sins.”

  Her face went very pale. “What are you talking about? I led him here because I thought, when he made his move, Evangeline’s husband would kill him. Why would he suddenly switch his interests? You’re wrong, Timur. You have to be wrong.”

  She was pleading for him to be wrong, but he knew he wasn’t. “Apostol Delov isn’t a real name of a real person. He is ‘the messenger.’ My uncle Lazar Amurov has a very bad sense of humor. He wants his victims to know they are living on borrowed time, so he sends a man who calls himself Apostol Delov to his prey. That man marks the door of the house they live in. This morning, he was on his way to mark your door, the door of Evangeline’s house.”

  “See?” She grabbed hold of that eagerly. “He was after me, not Evangeline.”

  “He knows who we are. He will have sent word. We left Russia under very bad circumstances, and the rewards for our whereabouts are hefty. Lazar has been looking for us for a long time.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t feel too guilty, we made certain we were prepared before we came out of hiding and Fyodor took back the family name.”

  “What can I do?”

  She didn’t question whether or not he told the truth; she heard it in his voice. He was grateful she didn’t ask him questions he didn’t want to answer. He stepped back, away from the warmth of her body.

  “You can stay right here so I don’t have to worry on more than one front. Give me your word.”

  “I’ll stay.”

  There was the strange little twist to those two words that made him think she wasn’t telling him the exact truth. She wasn’t exactly lying, but she wasn’t telling him everything. He didn’t have time to puzzle it out.

  “I mean it, Ashe. I won’t be happy if you run and I have to go after you.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t live my entire life with the idea that everything I do should make you happy.”

  It was difficult to keep every expression off his face, but he managed. “Well, work on it, baby. It will make life easier all the way around for both of us.”

  She laughed again. It wasn’t her real, full-blown laugh, but it was there all the same. She shook her head and stepped away from the wall. “You’re ridiculous. I’d better get to work or I’ll get fired and then I won’t have a choice.”

  He stared down at her for a long time, trying to read the truth in those two little words she’d given him. The twisted ones. I’ll stay. How could they be both truth and lie? He stalked to the doorway of the kitchen. “No matter what Ashe does, don’t fire her until I get back, Evangeline.”

  She pushed past him to grab another tray of pastries. “Do you plan on doing something that will get you fired, Ashe? Because I really need the help. Today is always one of my busiest days.”


  “I hadn’t planned on it,” Ashe said.

  He heard the ring of truth, glared at her, just to make certain she knew he meant business, and he hurried out. I’m on my way, he texted Kyanite.

  Did you contact Fyodor?

  He didn’t want his brother anywhere near this mess. And it was a mess. By claiming Ashe, he’d made it even messier. Still, Fyodor needed to know what was going on. He called his brother’s number—the one nearly impossible to trace. They used short bursts and always talked in code.

  “Yeah?”

  He heard the worry in his brother’s voice. He knew Timur wouldn’t be calling on that phone unless they didn’t want cops—or anyone else—to overhear.

  “Heading to visit an old friend. Want to come along?”

  “Busy.”

  “Message me if you can get away later to join us.”

  There was a short silence. “I can probably get away. I’ll put work off.”

  “There’s no need. I’ll ask him to come around tonight.”

  “That sounds good.”

  They both hung up. The conversation was seconds only, but it told Fyodor that the messenger had arrived and Timur was going to interrogate him. They didn’t want Fyodor to be followed to the old building where they brought in the occasional prisoner they needed information from. Timur knew a million ways to extract information. He’d grown up learning from the best. His father and two uncles enjoyed their work and they’d made certain to teach their sons everything they knew.

  He pulled on his gloves and slid into his car. There was rarely a tail on him. The cops were much more interested in his brother. Sometimes they had someone watching Evangeline’s bakery, but more likely they just went in for the pastries and coffee. Nevertheless, he took evasive action, maneuvering through streets, changing lanes and turning abruptly. He went down two long alleys and made a circle of the outskirts of the city before finally reaching his destination.

  He pulled the car under cover. They never parked on the streets. The warehouses had been part of the business Fyodor inherited when he took on the mantle of Antonio Arnotto. There were two auto body garages, one tire shop and a towing company, all strictly legitimate. The cops had investigated often and still sniffed around, but they weren’t going to find anything.