Fyodor scowled and drummed his fingers against his thigh. “I worry and she says I’m being silly and that quite a few women have the problem she’s having and they get through it. I read the statistics on it. There’s not a lot of help other than IV fluids, which the nurse gives her. There’s some medication, but so far, she hasn’t had much relief.”
“Is it true that birth control doesn’t work on shifters?”
“It doesn’t work during a heat cycle.” Fyodor met his brother’s eyes. “Don’t even think about dictating whether or not you’re going to have children. Think about all the things they give up for us. All the things we force them to do, the friends they can’t have and the danger they’re in. Don’t be stupid, Timur, and try to take away something so fundamental as having children. You’d find yourself without a woman fast.”
“Maybe she won’t want them.”
“Good luck with that. And what about you? Do you want children?”
He’d never dared to hope that he could have children. Never. Sometimes, he’d fantasize about having his own woman and there was sometimes a baby in her arms, but he hadn’t really believed it would ever happen for him. Now there was Ashe and he wasn’t going to lose her.
“Don’t hold her too tight,” Fyodor cautioned. “Sometimes, with Evangeline, I have to tell her that I need to know she’s safe. That she won’t disappear and nothing is going to happen to her. I’m lucky that she understands I’m having one of those days. Sadly, I have them often, but she gives me that. At least talk to Ashe before you handcuff her to the bed so you know where she is and that she’s safe.”
“I’d be more likely to handcuff her to me,” Timur said. He needed to be with her. Maybe it was the talk about their women and their safety that had him so uneasy. He needed to get this done so he could lie in bed beside her and listen to her breathe. There was something very soothing about hearing Ashe breathe.
“I curl my hand around her throat so her heart beats right into my palm,” Fyodor confessed as if he could read Timur’s mind. “Even that isn’t enough. I can hear my own heart beating right over top of hers because I’m terrified living with the idea that I could lose her.”
Timur knew what he was talking about. He knew what real terror was. He’d grown up in a monster’s household. He’d had no chance at life. None. His father had beaten humanity out of him in his hope of creating a dark, twisted being that would be useful to him. Even after he’d gotten out, he’d take that legacy with him. He couldn’t escape who he had become. But none of that held a candle to the soul-deep terror that came with even the thought of losing Ashe. Ashe was a light shining right into him. If he was going to write poetry again and enter it into his secret journals, every poem would be about her.
“We’re going to have to kill Evangeline’s father and uncle,” Fyodor said abruptly. Rage crept into his voice and there in the darkness, his eyes glowed with a crimson fury. His leopard stared at Timur through Fyodor’s eyes. The dangerous cat was very close to the surface. He probably had been prowling there, his temper smoldering as man and beast turned over and over in their minds the danger to Evangeline and where it came from.
“I’m very aware of that,” Timur agreed. “In part, by killing them, we’ll also be cutting off the opium line to Lazar. With Ulisse gone, we’ve also cut off his trafficking. He’ll have to start hunting around and that might mean he’ll make an approach to Joshua, or if we’re lucky, you.”
“I’m not killing them because it will help us with our plan to get Lazar and Rolan into the United States where we have the chance at wiping them off the face of the earth. I’m killing them because they betrayed Evangeline. My Evangeline. No one touches her. No one sets her up. That’s why they have to die.”
Timur agreed wholeheartedly. He loved his sister-in-law. She had managed to make them all a family. That family included his cousins, Mitya and Sevastyan and Gorya. All of them were protective of her.
“She can’t go in to work,” Timur made it a decree. “Now that we know the danger is to her, above anyone else right now, she’s got to stay where we can protect her.”
“I’m well aware of that. She’s so sick, day and night, vomiting. Scares the hell out of me. This was one of those times I had a talk with her and explained, if she wanted to continue this pregnancy, there were certain things I needed. One of them was for her to stay home. I’ve already told Ashe that I’m not going to allow Evangeline to go to work. She volunteered to open the bakery for us.”