Beastly Passions (29 page)

It wasn’t until she was sated that she realized what had occurred. The disturbing burden that could strike at any moment had been laid at her feet because apparently the exchange of vows she’d been shoved into wasn’t enough in comparison to the primordial games the gods had chosen to inflict on their creations. Once in every female’s lifetime, they received the curse—or gift depending on the recipient—of mating heat. It was a frenzying compulsion to copulate and mark the one who had been chosen by their beast. And apparently it had been her time.

All of these weeks, all of her impulses, had been driven by both instinct and emotion, finally coming to a head when she gave herself over to the wave of urgency. Apparently her tiger had known long before she had what it was that would quiet her desperation. And it was put to rest just as the sun fanned across the sky. Sadly, that was the moment Alexei had come calling and they’d been forced to drag their weary bodies from the comfort of their bed and venture downstairs.

“None of us have had the benefit of sleep,” Alexei announced, entering the room. “It is just that our reasoning is not as festive as that of others.” He gave both her and Taras a poignant look. “Congratulations. After so many years of delivering sage wisdom, my advice has finally been taken.”

“And we’re incredibly grateful for said sage wisdom,” Asha replied around a yawn. “But would you like to inform us of why we’re all here in Taras’ laboratory?”

“Workshop,” her husband corrected from where he stood.

She waved him off.

“Mischa?” Alexei hedged.

The tigress stepped forward and revealed, “We know who sent the floppy disk.”

“Floppy disk?” Asha questioned.

Taras looked to her. “An encrypted message was delivered to the head tech office in the city. Mischa and I were both able to determine what was trying to be communicated.”

“It was a list of Girgoriy’s offshore accounts along with sums of what he had been pilfering with Igor’s assistance,” Alexei filled in.

Asha nodded languidly, her suspicions confirmed. “So
that
is why you killed him.”

“No,” Taras argued. “I originally had no plans to do such. I was simply going to force him out and strip everything from him that he had earned from association. However, he made a fatal error.”

“And we were forced to make sure he was never found,” Mischa interjected. “I
really
enjoyed beating him with shovel before he was hidden away.”

She gave her attention to the other tigress with newfound recognition. “That
is why I recalled your voice when I hit you. I saw you and a few others desecrating Igor’s remains.”

“You say it is desecration, I say it is penance for his trying to corner me in hallway bathroom after overindulging at bar…”

“Did you not receive your penance when you removed a portion of his scalp with canines and unholy willpower?” Alexei ventured.

Mischa glared. “We are far too focused on
my
wrong doings when we should be explaining how that witless dick proved to be more useful in death than life.”

“You should,” Taras agreed, his brows curving.

“He sent the disk,” Alexei related.

Her mate frowned. “Not possible.”

“Very
possible,” Mischa disagreed. “I followed the trail the original package and came to find out it was mailed from private post box under the name that he used when entertaining whores.”

“
Women,”
Alexei and Taras amended simultaneously.

Mischa regarded them oddly for a moment but continued. “It is my guess he was aware—just as Nirav became—that he could not trust Grigoriy for very much longer and decided that if he were going to die by his deeds, your father would join him. So he set aside arrangements for warning to be sent if he was not seen or heard from by a certain date.”

Taras smirked. “A paradox like nothing I have ever seen. I kill the man and he leads me to evidence that will aid in stopping the man who pointed out his betrayals to me although he was a part of them.”

“Yes,” Alexei responded dryly. “A Hamlet play just waiting to be written.” Walking forward, he reached Taras’ desk and retrieved a small stack of papers. “What did it
also
lead us to? A number of Igor’s hidden properties ranging from mountain sides in the Swiss Alps, to beaches of Morocco.”

“I thought these had been foreclosed and reclaimed,” Taras stated, taking what Asha could now see to be photos.

“Most, but not all,”—Alexei tapped one of the pictures—“this one has had much activity over the last month or so. Men coming and going as told by locals.”

“Grigoriy.”

“Precisely.”

Taras lifted his eyes. “So then we have them. We know where he and Matveev have holed away like sewer rats.”

“Correct and we also have…options on how to handle this.”

“Options?”

Alexei gave Asha what appeared to be a cautious glance. “We can simply allow those who work by law to moderate or we
can carry out
Verochka
law.”

Now she had three pairs of eyes carefully examining her.

“What?” she queried when it got to be unsettling.

Her spouse handed over the photos and strolled her way, kneeling when he reached where she sat. “My law—Verochka law—means extermination, Asha. It is something that seems to disturb you.”

Ah. So that was his concern? That she would be perturbed by his decision?

“I told you on the day that we tussled with human hunters that I deal in variables,” she rejoined in a sotto tone. “I evaluate what I can see with the naked eye and move from that point on.” Scooting forward, she pressed her palm to his jaw. “And I can see that Grigoriy has been your greatest source of suffering. He has tried his hand at wiping you from the face of the earth time and time again because he is just as threatened by you as my people were by me. However, where their cowardice won’t allow them to murder me in cold blood, your father is fueled by resentment and fear. And just as you said, men like him don’t halt until someone stops them. The variables are clear here, Taras.” With her free hand, she tapped her shoulder. “You belong to me. This pride
belongs to me. Which means that Verochka law is now
my
law. Carry. It. Out.”

Seventeen

It was
soft and lilting what stirred him from his sleep. A familiar sound that he’d spent his younger days intuitively listening to regularly. The cause? He wasn’t sure. Grigoriy sat up in his bed with a grunt, his eyes searching the darkness of his room and coming away with nothing. Annoyed, he took a glance at the clock on his nightstand and barked out a curse in his own language. What fool would he be forced to publicly humiliate at this hour? Who would be stupid enough to disturb him?

It was the first full night of comfortable sleep he’d had in weeks after so much travel and so little stillness. Each tactic had carried over as needed, laying brick after brick in his path. Even the retrieval of Nirav was fairly simple. No matter what the coward had attempted by sending his son off to do his bidding, it hadn’t worked in his favor. Grigoriy had told him so days ago as he sat adjacent to his palette on the floor of a locked room in the basement.

“
Did you think my boy would become your savior, Nirav?”
Grigoriy had lightly asked of his in-law, watching him tranquilly from his very comfortable position.
“That he would swoop in on mighty gust of wind like a hero and rescue your poor, misguided soul?”

The other man didn’t reply. Just remained where he was, resting on the cold concrete floor beneath them, gazing blankly at the wall ahead.

“I am saddened by your disloyalty,”
he'd sighed, settling back into his chair.
“Such a thing seems to be in short supply these days. It is disheartening to say the least. If you cannot trust family, who can you depend on? Who can you turn to?”

“Perhaps horribly disfigured men who are as mentally unstable as you happen to be?”
Nirav had volunteered snidely.

Amusement only tickled at him. Nirav’s anger was much like watching a kitten unsheathe its claws to swipe at an annoyance. Sad and adorable were the words that came to mind. He had honestly thought that by sending his son screaming like a babe to Taras he could cover himself,
save
himself. Sadly, he’d been wrong. Grigoriy’s worry of the boy discovering his plans was nonexistent. Because there wasn’t a gods-damn thing Taras could do to stop him. He'd reminded Nirav of this. He then informed him that he had a very short period of time to get him the proper documentation for the boatyard before Grigoriy grew impatient and chose to geld him like an adolescent horse.

Finally, after much activity and effort, his vision was being realized. Now he would have to waste minutes of relaxation to beat someone in front of an audience. Grigoriy rose from his bed to find his slippers and marched towards his door.

“What in the
fuck
is—” His words were stopped in the midst of him realizing that no one stood outside as he jerked it open. His security detail was absent. Snarling, he stormed down the hall, shouting as he went, “The first whelp I find languidly lying about will be the first to feel the butt of my gun across his skull!”

Turning a sharp corner, he came to an immediate halt as the stench of death permeated the air. He stared in confusion at what lay before him. A sea of bodies. Limbs ripped from some. Heads lolling about as blood deeply stained the floors.

Mouth gone dry, he gazed at the faces of his and Artur’s men, multiple expressions of horror plastered across each. Not one pulse could be heard. Not one chest moved with inhales or exhales.

Grigoriy’s face twitched in fury. Someone had invaded what he’d claimed as
his.
Someone had entered his den to lay waste to his pride. His lip curled, his hands fisted at his sides and he contemplated who or what could have been so bold as to cross territorial marks and transform his home into a graveyard.

That is when he heard it again. More prominent this time in the quiet. Stark and unyielding in clarity. Schubert’s
Ave Maria.
Grigoriy then felt something he had come to loathe. A sensation that he’d refused to claim because it made him feel fragile. Terror. He felt absolute terror. That song. The melody. He knew every note, every string. And he knew the source.

Shaky, unsteady steps were taken to step over torsos, arms, and organs. It became progressively worse as he reached the end of the hall, coming to stop outside of the office he and Artur had used to strategize for weeks now. Grigoriy reached out with a trembling hand and pushed the partially cracked door open, stopping in the doorway as he focused on Artur. The leopard’s eyes stared listlessly at the ceiling, his lips were parted, dried crimson trickling from the corner and his throat…his throat had been gutted so that only enough muscle remained to allow his head to remain attached to his shoulders.

Grigoriy closed his own eyes and released a breath that could be interpreted as no more than utter defeat. The strings of Schubert slowly died in a lyrical arc and he looked to the corner, where they’d been coming from.

“Hello, boy,” he greeted quietly, very much so aware that somewhere along the way he’d faltered. He would go to his grave with this and a host of other failures carried in on his shoulders. And he knew one of them to be his decision to make his son an enemy as opposed to an ally.

Taras cleared the shadows, his gaze as chillingly blank as it had always been, his pale face reddened by the blood dotting it. His clothing, arms and hands didn’t fare any better in that regard. In his palms? The instrument Grigoriy had forced him to play repetitively for hours on end from the ages of nine to nineteen.

“Papa,” Taras answered, referring to him in a name that he hadn’t even whispered since he was nothing but a cub.

Grigoriy gave him a sharp glance and the boy walked further into the sparse light of the room, venturing towards the window. “It is interesting the conceptualization of a monster,” Taras told him softly, placing down the violin. “They are never born, never placed here by the hands of a god purposely, but always created,
shaped.”
He exhaled. “Frankenstein was not sure of what would become of his own child. He did not think his wants to be unnatural or selfish. He did not think his dreams to be abhorrent, twisted
.
What would this thing come to do? Would it stand upright properly? Speak with sophistication? Would it be intelligent or unable to form simple sentences?
What
would it be capable of?” Taras turned away from his previous focus. “Could he train it? Teach it? Would it bring glory to his little known name and show his small world how incredible his genius was?” He took a step in Grigoriy’s direction. “He did not assume it would tear the walls down around them.” Another step. “That it would steal the lives of others after receiving a life of its own.” Another. “He did not believe that this thing he thought to be so beautiful while stitching it together, could possibly do him so much harm.” Another. “He mistook his ability to play god as
permission
to play god. This cost him in tears and agony. It stripped him of all hope on what humanity truly means.” The final step brought them mere inches apart. “And as I said, Frankenstein came to deeply regret the monster he made.”