Beastly Passions (17 page)

“Better?”
Taras queried as Asha strolled from the bathroom, swiping a towel through her thick hair. He’d been forced to wait
outside
because according to his wife, she wasn’t interested in gods-damn child supervision during bathing.

“Leagues,” she answered, tossing the towel before making a face. “But I can already feel the stitches pulling.”

“Ahh, that will happen from time to time as you heal and Magdalena had Sophie bring me this,”—he held out a jar—“antibacterial cream that will help with itching.”

“Itching? That sounds awful…and kind of diseased.”

He snorted. “It does good work. Scar will barely be noticeable in a few weeks.”

She looked down at her hip and lightly ran her fingertips over the area. “I suppose I’ll have something in common with you now.” His expression was obviously confused so she explained, “Scars, that is.”

“No,” he softly said, correcting her at the implication. He had no desire for her to ever bear the weight of what he carried. “No scars like mine. 
Never 
any scars like mine.”

Before Asha could speak another word, he went on. “Alexei sent out to have the men retrieved.”

Upon coming home, Alexei had met them halfway with a small team, having gotten view of Taras and Asha’s return on security footage. From there he’d told him of what had transpired and informed him of the men that had been left alive to sit at the bottom of the pit and hope for rescue.

Alexei, ever watchful, had examined them and questioned as to if they were to
remain
alive. To that Taras had simply said,
“Yes”
at the way his wife’s stare had turned pleading. He then commanded that they be as far removed as possible from his general vicinity.

Going to follow directions, Alexei only stopped when Asha had called his name from where she remained in Taras’ arms.

“Make sure that they understand they’ve been given an opportunity today. Advise them not to squander it,”
she’d told him, her golden irises went molten and burning with a warning.
“Because if they return, Taras will be the least of their concerns. I extended a courtesy once. I will not do so again.”

The threat that Taras’ diminutive, diplomatic, enigma of a significant other had just issued didn’t go unnoticed and he wasn’t surprised to see the respect in the gazes focused their way.

“She is small, but frightening, that one,”
he’d heard someone whisper as they continued on.

Indeed, Asha was. Smaller than him she may have been, but his wife wasn’t any less fierce. There had been something there; something eerily familiar in her eyes when she’d charged that man. It was the same look he’d witnessed the day they’d been introduced and she’d warned him away from any fanciful thoughts concerning her…assets. She hadn’t wanted him to believe that he had the right to touch anything belonging to her. He liked to think that had been her attitude when he’d almost been gunned down—that she didn’t want anyone touching what she considered to be her own.

“Hopefully their experience will discourage them from returning,” she said now, coming to take a seat next to him on her bed.

Taras grunted and twisted open the jar. “Men like that? No, it won’t. They will gather their weaponry and face the mountainside again in search of game to bring home. And they will not halt until someone stops them.” Reaching over, he undid the belt to her robe and lifted it. “But they are someone else’s worry now. My concern lies with making sure that you do not pick with stitches.”

She frowned at him, tugging the fabric. “I think I can apply the cream myself, thank you.”

He ignored her and nudged her back to lie down. “Don’t care.”

“Taras—”

“Do. Not. Care,” he interrupted.

“I’m not a child.”

“Believe me,” he replied calmly, deftly avoiding her reach. “I am aware of this.” Taras scooped some of the substance out of the jar. “I haven’t stopped staring at breasts or hips since you disrobed.”

She growled and the heaviness in his groin only increased. “Your undulating does not help my distraction in the least.”

Asha finally stopped moving and he grinned. In answer, her lip curled. “You’re such an opportunistic bastard.”

“I am predator,” he retorted, gently beginning to rub over her stitches. “Just as you are predator. We take what openings we are given.”

“The only reason I haven’t been able to fend you off is because I can’t get a clear shot at your eyes.”

That made him chuckle. “You haven’t been able to fend me off because you exerted your energy on sad male humans and have to now be tended to.”

Wincing as she turned so that she could angle and look at him, she told him, “I almost wish I had let you take the head of the one who shot me. This really fucking hurts.”

He kissed the line forming between her brows and cupped her hip, continuing the caress of his palm as she settled down. “Will be distant memory in twenty-four hours.”

Asha’s mouth formed a moue and her eyes began to close under his ministrations. “Because I have a little bit of dignity, I will not whine the way I want to right now about how long twenty-four hours truly is.”

Taras pulled her into him when she yawned. “With a nap, it would be much shorter.”

“Don’t need a nap,” his wife grumbled, nestling closer although she was clearly fighting it.

Brushing his lips across her nose and cheeks, he replied, “You do. Then you will stop sounding like cranky cub that Alexei claims I regularly imitate.”

She went to speak but he silenced her with a firm, “Quiet.”

Her lids parted a fraction to reveal a glare. “I’m being quiet now because
I
want to be quiet and not because you told me I
had
to be quiet.”

“So much talk of silence, but I have yet to witness it…”

Asha swatted at him. He caught her hand and placed it against his chest. “Asha?”

“Hmm?” she hummed.

“Thank you.”

“For?”

He searched for the words to articulate how it felt to watch her stand in his defense. “Not allowing my head to be splattered all over the ground. No one has tried to protect me in years. It’s not something I take for granted.”
 

Taras waited for a reply, yet he received none; at least not one that was intelligible enough to call a statement. Instead there were soft sighs and the occasional growl or snarl that may have disturbed the average male. But he
was no average male. He was Taras Anatoly Verochka. A beast. A pride leader. A mogul. And the only reason, the absolute
only
reason, he shifted Asha’s head away so that her mouth was no longer just beneath his jugular as she slept was for her comfort. Yes, totally and completely
her
comfort.

Eleven

Chennai Port, Bay of Bengal…

“You fidget 
like frightened rodent, Shankur, stop it.”

Nirav straightened his shoulders, pulling them back as he stood next to Grigoriy in the early hours of daylight, distracted and harassed by his thoughts. What he’d committed himself to—the lengths he’d gone through to be here—only served to leave him in a constant state of anxiety. He was no stranger to lying, no stranger to playing with the lives of others to get what it was that he needed, however this instance felt different. He didn’t hold all the cards. Nirav didn’t know the fates of everyone involved. He’d dirtied his hands all for the promise of more and he had no idea if he’d live to see it. Should he back out and return to the comfort of his home, the embrace of his wife’s arms, Grigoriy would have him dead within days. Should he continue down this road, stupidly following after his in-law as he rose up against a terrifying ordeal of a man, his head could most assuredly find itself on a spike outside the gates of Taras’ expansive property as a warning. At the end of each road lay doom and he could no more halt the movement of his feet than he could chip away at the very foundation of his home to see it crumble atop of all his possessions. So he stopped fidgeting. He stopped fidgeting and faced the consequences of his needs.

Grigoriy’s hand came down on his shoulder and squeezed. His in-law leaned in and gestured towards the ever-moving waters of the Bay of Bengal. “Look,” the other tiger said. “Look at what is coming.”

It was a moderately sized boat. Not overt like the others at the port, but not so small that it would raise the eyebrows of those surrounding them as they toiled away at their work, bringing in imports from places around the world. And yet, nothing any of them had was as valuable as what was floating their way.

Laughing low, Grigoriy patted Nirav’s chest. “You should be feeling excitement, my friend. Pride even. We have accomplished what we set out to do. Now the rest will be made easier. Now you will have everything you’ve ever wanted.”

Yes, but at what cost?

“You are speechless when you should rejoice,” Grigoriy went on, stepping past Nirav and towards where the boat would soon come to rest.

“No matter my quiet, I am just as excited as you to see what happens next,” Nirav replied.

Grigoriy turned back, his eyes glinting as he smiled. “Excellent.”

Finally, the boat docked and Nirav watched as two men filed off of it, lions from the scent of them, meeting Grigoriy and his own men just feet away. An exchange of words commenced. Some in broken English, others in what he thought to be Arabic, but it was so rapid that he couldn’t follow the thread of conversation. And then, without warning, to Nirav’s horror, his in-law stepped back a bit and waved his hand, motioning for the tigers surrounding the foreigners to come forward. There was a flash of machinery as it aimed and fired, not a sound heard but a subtle pop that made his stomach roil while the contents of the lions’ skulls spilled.

Nirav shook his head, feeling almost as though he were moving at a drugged pace as Grigoriy rounded in his direction to lift his arms in triumph. His smile soon faded as he saw the paleness in Nirav’s face.

“Why do you look so disturbed?” Grigoriy asked, walking in his direction. The lions were drug away by their murderers who would do the unknown with the remains.

“Y-you just ordered those men killed,” Nirav pushed out between stiff lips. “You ordered them killed.”

“Well, yes,” the other tiger retorted casually, shrugging. “This is a part of what and who I am, Shankur. I take. I give bits and then I take more. Right now,” he said, motioning to the loads of crates now coming off of the ship. “I am taking. 
You 
are taking.”

Nirav’s head moved faster now. “No, you told me nothing of this. Nothing.”

“Because I feared you would react poorly as you are doing now. You shake like cold kitten and expect for me to give you every detail?”

“Because you just murdered two of our own in cold blood!” Nirav thundered. “Not in self-defense, not because it was necessary. This cannot be explained away!”

Grigoriy moved and took Nirav by the shoulder, gripping with obvious purpose. “Lower your voice. Do not cause a scene.”

“I want no parts of this, Verochka. I thought we were simply here for imports. For what you promised.”

“And that is what we are getting,” Grigoriy argued vehemently. “Do you not see that? Now not only do we have what we desire, but we don’t have to pay for it.”

“I consider the lives of others to be a high price.”

His in-law regarded him closely for a moment, his brows dipping a fraction. “The way you speak worries me, my friend. It makes me…uncomfortable.”

Nirav realized that he suddenly had his answer as to what the cost was for everything he wanted—his life if he didn’t tread carefully. Was he truly ready to lose that? To leave Ishana behind? No. Not when he still had an out. Not when he could still change things.

“I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Nirav quickly countered. “Excuse my outburst. I was simply caught a bit off guard. But I can see now why you would fear my reaction. We come from two different worlds and I’ve never seen this,”—he motioned to the port—“in mine.”

The tension faded between them and Grigoriy released him, pursing his lips as he nodded. “On this you are right. However, I want you to remember that soon enough this will be
our
world. You just have to trust me.”

He didn’t and he never would. Not after the volatile action he’d just witnessed. And yet, he wouldn’t voice this.

“I trust you,” he forced out. “And I’m ready to do what’s necessary to see that we both get what we deserve.”

As Grigoriy smiled, Nirav saw the insanity hovering there in his eyes and remembered how little Taras’ gaze perturbed him in comparison. The boy could still be crowned the king of the underworld, but Nirav was coming to conclude that the devil you knew was often times so much better.

***

“Looking
 for husband?”

Really, Asha hadn’t meant to swing. She truly, honestly hadn’t meant to. But she was startled!