Alonzo hadn’t said anything about his life in the lair, in the bratya, as he’d called it, but she could imagine what he’d done. What was expected. If at six he was forced to kill, then that had been his way of life.

“All right, Bebe, we’re in trouble. You get that, don’ you?” she whispered aloud to her leopard, and her female rose immediately, rubbing fur along her insides to comfort her as she’d done since Evangeline was a toddler. “It isn’t goin’ to be just about sex for us, no matter how much that’s what we want it to be. I’ll fall for him. Not a little. A lot. I’ll drown in him.” She pressed her closed fist to her mouth and rocked gently back and forth.

He’d been six. She knew he hadn’t told her so she would be sympathetic. He wanted her to know exactly who he was. What she would be living with. But she couldn’t help but think of that little boy and what he’d been forced to do. Tears burned behind her eyes and clogged her throat—tears she hadn’t shed when Alonzo was with her. She didn’t dare. He would have tried to comfort her, and she couldn’t get that close.

“What are we going to do?” she asked her leopard.

Alonzo might say she was the only one safe, but living with him would be difficult at best. He was as dominant as a man could get. She wasn’t in the least submissive. She loved her bakery and she didn’t want anyone telling her how to run it or interfering in any way. What if he suddenly decided she couldn’t work?

Evangeline pressed her fingers to her eyes and shook her head, still rocking, trying to work out what she should do. If she stayed, she’d never get away from Alonzo. He’d made that clear, and she was too weak around him. Wanting him. Feeling for him. He hadn’t just aroused her physically; what she felt was emotional as well. He was tying her to him in so many ways.

“We have to go, Bebe,” she said reluctantly. “We have to walk away from all of this if we’re going to survive. He’ll eat us alive. I know he will.”