He wanted this woman to trust him. To give herself to him. To let him into her life.

My woman has a temper?”“I prefer to say I have a sense of justice and when someone crosses it, it is at their peril.

He had the feeling she hadn’t ever felt loved. That was going to change. He knew he loved her. He didn’t know when or how it started, it just crept up on him, but he wasn’t going to let her feel alone. She would always know she could count on him.

I need you, malen’koye plamya, just to breathe, to live . I’ve never said that to another human being, but it’s the truth. Not for Shturm, but for me.

He wanted to mesmerize her. To bring her under his spell. She was completely captivating him. Ensnaring him when he hadn’t thought it was possible for anyone to do such a thing.

She looked at him with an expression far too close to reverence. Bordering on real adoration. Real. He didn’t get real. He didn’t even deserve it.

She had taken him over when he wasn’t looking . When he’d been so busy binding her to him. Wanting his own woman for all the wrong reasons and realizing when he had her, what the right reasons were.

She didn’t have to love him back. He probably wouldn’t know what to do with it if she did. No one ever had.

Sometimes, Sevastyan thought his leopard, whom he affectionally called Shturm, meaning assault, would end his life by literally ripping him open and climbing out of him rather than shifting the normal way they exchanged forms.