Evgeni (Siberian Ambush Book 1) (3 page)

Mustering her full strength, Celia jammed her knee into the beast’s stomach, causing it to lift away just long enough for her to place the heels of both feet against its chest, forcing it off her.

She took advantage of the miniscule window of freedom and rolled onto her hands and knees, crawling a short span before finally scuttling to her feet. Making a run for it, Celia prepared to vault, close enough or not. Hoping she could make it at least halfway up the fence. She could climb the rest of the way.

Just as Celia lunged, the tiger swiped at her thigh, throwing her off balance. Unable to stop the inertia behind her jump, she slammed into the fence, the impact jarring her jaw and neck. With a thud, Celia landed flat on her back in the snow. She fought to hold onto consciousness, but it was impossible.

“Bianca…” she whispered helplessly.

The moonlight slipped away, and darkness ensued.

Chapter Three

Still in tiger form, Evgeni pushed the sheathed blade between the thief’s vest and chest. He gingerly bit the collar of the vest so as not to pierce the tender flesh beneath and dragged the limp body through the snow and back to the mansion. From its size and shape, he could tell that it was a woman. Even so, he afforded her the same treatment he would have a male intruder, showing little concern for the small bumps along their path.

When were they going to learn?

How many thieves who had attempted to steal the blade throughout the ages had escaped with their lives?

None.

Over the centuries, the blade had become an entity within the family, with each generation inexplicably connected to it. Whenever it was in danger, Evi, as the last Leshnikov scion, experienced an overpowering sense of urgency. If he failed to protect it, one of his many male cousins would have come after it and the thief. Without mates and families, the entire Leshnikov line had little else to do…

Because there was no chance of a thief succeeding, he left the vault relatively unprotected but ensured that escaping the grounds was most difficult. Like his shapeshifting ancestors, Evi, more than anything, enjoyed the chase. He rarely permitted himself to unleash his feral side, but when he did, the bloodlust to hunt and subdue his prey was intoxicating.

Sheltered by the marble pillars forming the portico, Evi finally caught a whiff of the thief’s scent. It seemed familiar. His heightened senses separated the hints of vampire and werewolf blood mingled with the overwhelming earthy perfume that all hereditary witches perspired. Her ability to hurl energy balls had been the obvious clue that she was a witch, a fact that infuriated him. As a member of the underworld, she, of all people, should have realized how foolish it would be to attempt to burglarize his house.

A mortal’s stupidity was excusable, but as a sister of their close-knit society, hers was unforgivable.

As they approached the front entrance, the gilded front doors opened wide. Evi hauled her body across the threshold, releasing her momentarily to toss his head in the direction of the butler, who nodded understandingly and locked the doors behind them. Once more gripping the woman’s vest, he pulled her up the black granite staircase. Her tactical boots knocked on each step, but her head was protected from further injury by the angle of his jaw.

At the second-floor landing he turned left, dragging her to the office attached to his master suite. Evi dropped her body onto the gold and cream carpet in front of the roaring fireplace before padding away a few feet to transform back into his human form. He’d long ago mastered the act of morphing from human to tiger, and although he still experienced a twinge of discomfort along his spine and jaw, it was nothing compared to the excruciating agony he had endured as a teenage boy trying to improve his technique.

Completely naked and glistening with sweat, he pulled the blade free from behind the woman’s vest and stalked to his desk. Flicking on a lamp, he placed the blade on the desk and yanked open a drawer to retrieve his father’s old set of handcuffs and an ampoule of ammonia inhalant from a small stash of interrogation supplies.

From the corner, he grabbed a simple wooden chair without armrests and plunked it down next to the unconscious woman. Rather gruffly, he hefted her from the floor and plopped her onto the seat. Holding her head with his elbow, he unzipped the vest and threw it aside. The moment he removed his elbow, her body slumped forward, her masked chin bouncing between her delicately outlined breasts.

Smiling mischievously, Evi considered what he would do with her now that she was his. It was a terrible hunger that the tiger blood within him awakened. He couldn’t help himself. He liked to play with his prey. A little pain, a nip, a bite and then pleasure. So much pleasure.

An erection stirred between his legs. This was one interrogation that he would enjoy immensely.

Tearing the gloves from her hands, he wrenched her wrists behind the chair and fastened them close together by feeding the cuffs around one of the chair slats. Tethered to the chair’s back, she wouldn’t be able to move.

Curious, Evi reached out to touch the strange black fabric of the suit, allowing his lecherous fingers to follow the curve of an ample breast, feeling its full weight through the silky cloth. He lightly pinched the fabric where he judged her nipple was located and smirked when a firm point pressed against the cloth. His fingers rode the flat expanse of her stomach and as they turned down her left thigh, he felt the faint outline of her panties beneath the suit.

When he removed the gun holster from her left thigh, the sound of ripping Velcro echoed in the room. He studied the gun for a moment. It was a SWAT-grade weapon and disproportionately large for so small a woman.

With the gun holster dangling from his hand, Evi stepped back and scrutinized his catch. In that position, with a skintight outfit and face mask obscuring her dangling head, her hands bound, her body helpless, she was a provocative vision of fetish art, almost as if she were his personal
tableaux vivant
.

He guessed her height to be somewhere in the neighborhood of five and a half feet. Hardly a waif, this one had the well-defined body of a person who depended on agility and endurance to earn a living. He tried to imagine what was hidden beneath the catsuit. Flushed skin, a wet mouth and a nubile body, no doubt. Enticed, he watched her swollen breasts rise and fall beneath the restrictive material.

Intrigued, Evi snatched the hood from her head, revealing wavy jaw-length blonde hair. He tipped her chin for a better look at her face—and dropped his jaw in shock.

Despite the haggard look to her olive-toned face, the resemblance to a child he had once known was unmistakable. But it was her scent—the smell of woman and witch and that hint of shifter blood—that confirmed it for him. Her smell had matured and changed slightly, but he would recognize it anywhere.

His captive was none other than Celia Ladrón, the younger sister of his long-deceased best friend.

Jesus, what had happened to her? Where was the spunky adolescent who had tortured him and Homer—who were then just floundering college boys—with hours of incessant pestering? Where were the long blond curls and the messy little braids? The brightly colored dresses and the fancy little shoes her mother always insisted she wear? How had Celia ended up here? Stealing from him? Chained to a chair? His prey? His captive?

Guilt turned his shocked expression grim as he considered how he had largely abandoned the Ladrón family after Homer’s death. Mutual friends had kept him apprised of Celia’s father’s spiral into depression and gambling, his eventual loss of a nine-billion-dollar business empire that had thrived for centuries, the subsequent bankruptcy and later, his messy suicide.

Like any self-absorbed twenty-seven-year-old, he had convinced himself that a relative would step in to care for Celia, only seventeen at the time, and the youngest daughter whose name escaped him. Apparently, he’d been very wrong. It appeared that Celia had resorted to the career that had always been reserved for the male members of the Ladrón family, that of a professional thief.

Burned by her skin, he yanked his hand away and strode into his bedroom, his path lit by a low fire. As the idea of her waking and finding him nude was suddenly less appealing, he hopped into a pair of jeans. Remembering her as that sweet, curious child, Evi felt almost dirty and ever so guilty for lusting after her.

But Celia wasn’t that little girl anymore. She was a woman grown now, but still young. Certainly, he’d fucked younger women, but never the little sister of a man he had once considered his brother.

Even so, his erection refused to disappear. Visions of her bound form, those pink lips and heaving breasts, flashed in his mind. His stomach burned with desire and he adjusted himself in his jeans to minimize chafing. And her smell? God, he could smell her even in here. It was a tantalizing scent, something earthen and delicious that made him want to taste her, to fuck her, to mark her.

To keep her…

Shaking his head, he strode back into the office and stared at her unconscious form. Seeing Celia unearthed long-dormant feelings of guilt, but even so, he didn’t experience the tiniest desire to free her from the restraints. A strong sense of betrayal riled him. Whatever his faults, Evi couldn’t fathom how Celia could have rationalized stealing from him—and the Blade of Amrita, no less!

Incensed by her treachery, Evi crushed the ampoule of ammonia and waved it beneath her nose. “Wake up!”

Chapter Four

Celia gasped and sputtered, blinking as her wild gaze attempted to focus on the angular face framed by a mess of dark brown hair. When she regained full consciousness, she automatically lunged forward but something snapped her back against the chair.

Handcuffs, she realized as cold steel bit into her tender wrists. Not quite in control of her faculties, she twisted from side to side, fighting to gain her freedom as she spewed a vile string of verbal abuse.

Seemingly tired of her behavior, her captor stomped forward and clamped a hand over her mouth. Her furious blue irises clashed with Evi’s hazel eyes, and she felt his breath on her cheek when he spoke. Lowering his voice to its most intimidating timbre, he chose his words carefully, his English carrying a light Russian accent.

“Yell like that one more time, Celia, and it will be the last thing you ever do. Understood?”

Convinced of his sincerity, she stiffly nodded. He removed his hand and retreated to his desk, leaning back against it. Head pounding, Celia quickly assessed her current situation. The handcuff key was sitting on his desk, and she could see her holster and vest but they were too far out of reach. Had he fully patted her down?

Surreptitiously rolling her left ankle, she realized he hadn’t. Her trusty Fairbairn-Sykes dagger was still sheathed between her sock and boot. Better yet, when she wiggled her wrists, she could feel her lucky bobby pin tucked into the slim-fitting left cuff of the suit. As long as the handcuffs weren’t one of the newer sets, she had a fair chance of escaping. With the tiniest of movements, she worked the pin free, hoping that she could keep him occupied long enough to free herself.

“To meet again like this, Celia,” Evi said, clearly disappointed. “Why are you stealing from me?”

“Because it’s what I do, Evi,” she testily replied. Behind her back, the fingers of her right hand opened the bobby pin. Always prepared for the worst, she had removed the plastic tips from the pin years ago when preparing for her first job and had carried it ever since. But she had to keep him talking. “In case you haven’t heard, my father suffered a complete breakdown after Homer died.”

“I heard,” Evi softly replied. After a short pause, he said, “I can’t begin to explain what I felt when I learned he had hung himself.”

“Yeah, well…it wasn’t exactly peachy discovering him twisting in the conservatory or having to explain to my nine-year-old sister that not only were we orphans, but we didn’t have a pot to piss in.”

Celia maintained eye contact with Evi as she very slowly fed one end of the bobby pin into the keyhole of the left cuff. She bent the pin to the left before removing it, spinning it a complete turn and silently sticking it back in the keyhole. This time she bent it to the right, creating an angled L shape with the pin.

“You say that as if I had some hand in your family’s bankruptcy and your father’s suicide,” Evi defensively said, his eyes narrowed.

Still working on the cuffs, Celia chortled sarcastically and jammed the angled end of the bobby pin into the keyhole, jiggling it slowly and quietly to find the perfect placement. Stalling, Celia baited him. “Well, Evi, let’s examine the facts. Everyone knew that Dad was struggling with Mom’s death and Bianca’s diagnosis, and what did you do? You took Homer to Amsterdam and got him killed.”

Evi bolted from the desk and marched toward her. “I didn’t purposefully get your brother killed! He was my best friend, my
only
friend, Celia. What happened in that alley was just a misfortunate accident. No one could have guessed that we would have been mugged—”

“True,” Celia conceded, interrupting him. “But had you not been stoned off your asses, you would have been able to defend yourselves. You’re a
shapeshifter
, and Homer was a Ladrón. There were more than enough special powers between the two of you to fend off an attack!”

As she yelled at him, the pin slipped into position and released the ratchet, opening the jaw. Her left hand was free!

“Is that why you’re stealing from me?” Evi demanded. Chest expanding, he stabbed his finger in the air. “Because you think I’m responsible for everything that’s happened to you? Is this for revenge?”

“Not really.” She grasped the empty cuff with her right hand so that it wouldn’t knock against the wood. Hastily formulating a plan of attack, Celia decided that it was now or never. “It’s complicated, Evi.”

Yanking her still-cuffed right hand free of the slat, Celia jumped from the chair, landing just to the left of it. Evi’s shock provided the split-second that she needed to pick up the chair and swing it at him.