Her legs weren’t going to hold her up anymore. Blood trickled down her face and onto her T-shirt. Her ribs hurt with every breath she drew. In her life, no one had ever raised a hand to her and to have a man she knew, one she thought cared about her, beat her so severely was terrifying.

Siena wrapped her arms around her middle to try to ease the burning pain, breathing shallowly in an effort to control it. She was swaying, trying to hold herself upright.

Paolo took her arm and she winced, trying to pull away from him. She hadn’t heard him move, but she knew, she didn’t want him touching her. She jerked again, a slow hiss escaping. “Get away from me.”

“Let me help you, cara,” he insisted softly, his fingers tightening, although his hand was gentle as he tugged her to the chair beside her grandfather. “Listen to him, Siena, but if you don’t sit, you will fall down.”

“Please don’t touch me. Not ever again,” she whispered. “I mean it, Paolo. You raise your hand to me again, and you’d better kill me.” She didn’t look at him. She didn’t care if he believed her or not, but he wasn’t ever going to touch her again and live through it unless he killed her.

3

“YOU must forgive Paolo, Siena. We are not what we seem,” Antonio informed her. “We are much more. We are shifters. Leopards. The leopard lives inside of him, and we have those passionate traits. Good and bad. Paolo knew you had been with Lospostos because he smelled him on you, and the scent was offensive to his leopard. His leopard reacted, driving him with his hot temper.”

Siena closed her eyes and shook her head. Her grandfather’s voice was matter-of-fact, as if he were telling her a truth and not something totally crazy. Now she was supposed to believe in fairy tales. Shifters. Leopard people like in a Tarzan novel. Did he think she was a silly schoolgirl, ready to believe anything he chose to tell her to justify Paolo’s reasons for beating her? He had justified his own actions of murdering his friends, so she supposed he would believe anything and expect her to as well.

“The next thing you’re going to tell me is that you had to kill those men, using me as a distraction because some leopard made you do it.”

“You do not believe me.”

“I lived in this house for years, Nonno. At no time did I ever see a leopard.”

“You lived in boarding school. You came home on holidays. We have control of our leopards and we made certain they stayed locked up tight.”

“Control?” She spat the word at him. “Is that what Paolo had tonight? Control? Because if that is what he had, I’d hate to see him lose control.”