Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 127461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
All his life Gedeon had known he was superior to other shifters. He’d been careful not to take it for granted, but he’d known. He hid his gifts from others. Now he sat across from a man who was relaxed while knowing Meiling was in position to shoot him. Gedeon sat across from him within striking distance. Gorya hadn’t so much as flinched.
“To answer your question, Meiling, over the years, I developed the need to feed the brutality inside me. Whether it comes from the skills I got from my mother or the DNA I got from my father or the combination of both, it’s very strong in me. Far more so than my brothers. The beatings Rogue and I were subjected to so early and the way we had to survive by secretly plotting to kill only fed that side of me—of us. I can be very sadistic, and I don’t feel remorse. I know my cousins often thought of themselves as psychopaths, but they are not. They are good men. I am not.”
“If that’s the truth, how did you end up here in the States with your cousins?” Meiling asked.
There was a quality to Meiling’s voice that had always brought Gedeon peace. For the first time, he hoped it brought Gorya and his leopard peace as well. He remembered the days of believing that he was a psychopath and there was no hope for survival. It was possible it was too late for Gorya, but clearly the man was determined to find a way to keep those around him safe by hiring Gedeon to kill him after he cleaned up the territory he’d been given. That didn’t strike Gedeon as a man who was completely unredeemable.
For the first time, Gorya hesitated. He wore his black hair slicked back, so it was impossible for Gedeon to tell how long it was on top, but it was thick, as all shifters’ hair was. The sides of his hair were kept shaved. He wore a short, trimmed beard and moustache. He looked young, with few lines in his face until you looked very close, then you could see the faint signs of burden and exhaustion from the life he’d led taking their toll.
Gorya pushed his fingers through his hair and shook his head. He gave Gedeon that faint smile that was as cold as ice and as fake as a three-dollar bill. “I told myself I would answer your questions honestly. There’s always that one moment in life when you must make a choice. My choice, until then, had been to keep Patva alive and torment him by slowly stripping him of everything he had. He was bringing in women and young girls and selling them or giving them to his trusted men before selling them. He had one of his enforcers take me along with him to inspect a house where they were keeping some of the women.”
There was no expression on Gorya’s face, but he picked up the bullet again and looked at it for a long moment. “I sometimes wonder, if I had just killed him, would I have spared that child the things done to her? But then I would never have been sent to that house of horrors.” He looked up again and met Gedeon’s gaze.
Gedeon could barely look at him. For some unknown reason, he had the feeling Gorya knew about his past, about his mother in just such a house. About Gedeon in just such a house. No one other than Meiling knew about Gedeon’s past, so that would be impossible, but those frosty gray eyes seemed to see inside him, into the secrets of his dark past.
“The men openly raped and beat the women and children right there in front of one another as if they weren’t human beings. They laughed and egged each other on. One little girl wasn’t more than five or six. She had all this white-blond hair and blue-gray eyes. I could see she had a leopard, although I knew the men were too smug to see. She’d already been raped numerous times. There was no doubt she was gearing up to force them to beat her into submission again. I think she was going to make them kill her.”
Gorya shook his head as if back in that house of horrors. “I don’t think I’ll ever get the sight of those women and children or the sounds or smells out of my mind for as long as I live. I think I went a little berserk. I know Rogue did. One minute we were looking at that little child, and the next I was shifting and tearing them all apart.”
He sank back into his seat and regarded Gedeon, once again relaxed, accepting who he was. The change was slight, but Gedeon read it easily.