Nischal [leopard spots 9] (2 page)

Nischal lost track of Suraj’s scripted speech. People tended not to see past the slick surface of the man, and Nischal had long ago grown weary of watching them fall under his spell. A handsome face and a big smile seemed to convince people of what they wanted to believe anyway. He and Sabin knew the truth.

Chapter Two

Preston watched the two snow leopards just lie there. It was too hot for them to be out. South Texas and snow leopards were two things that should never be together. Preston didn’t know much about the big, pretty cats, but he knew that at least.

He listened half-heartedly as Suraj droned on in what Preston guessed was supposed to be a warm voice. To Preston it just came across as the annoying buzz of a predator.

A murderer
. Preston was certain he had the right man. Now he just needed to have the balls to bring his brother justice.
And I want to survive, whatever happens. I don’t want that fucker to kill me, too.

Preston closed his eyes for a moment against the pain he always felt when he thought of his twin Paul. The pain always began right in the centre of his chest and spread out to every damn inch of his body. Losing Paul had nearly destroyed him. The guilt still threatened to.

A muffled sound from one of the leopards had Preston opening his eyes again. The one closest to him, the one that hadn’t eaten, had rolled over from its side onto its belly and was now looking at him. There was intelligence in those golden eyes, and Preston shivered, wondering if he looked like a tasty dinner to the cat. “Probably taste like ginger,” he murmured as Suraj kept spewing his line of bullshit to the rest of the crowd.

Crowd was an overstatement. There were a dozen people counting Preston at the Johnsonville fairgrounds. Suraj had rolled into town the night before with the trailer he hauled the leopards and fencing supplies around in. How he’d got permission to set up on the grounds wasn’t Preston’s problem. All that mattered was that he was here.

The leopard stood up and Preston missed neither the very slow preciseness of the cat’s movements nor the way it almost fell right back over before stiffening its legs. His gaze was drawn to the paws on the beast. They were huge and tipped with big black claws. From there he took in the length of the feline’s body and the long, furry tail. He’d bet that’d knock someone for a loop if it caught them just right.

The leopard’s head was a work of art, the way its ears were pointed and lined in black, the wisps of hair and the uptilt of those golden eyes… Preston could see why Paul had been fascinated with the creatures. They truly were majestic. Maybe these two even more so because of their white coats, but Preston was drawn over and over to the closer one’s eyes.

If that cat ever got out and came after him, Preston would likely just stand there and get eaten. He couldn’t seem to look away from the thing.

“He is a beautiful creature, is he not?”

Preston jolted and barely kept from shooting a nasty look over his shoulder at Suraj. The man was entirely too close to Preston—he could smell Suraj. The hot day had not been Suraj’s friend, and apparently deodorant wasn’t either. Preston thought he was probably just smelling the evil slipping right out through Suraj’s pores.

Suraj gave him a heavy-lidded look that Preston figured was supposed to be seductive. To Preston, it was merely calculating. “Now, perhaps we could discuss your questions over a private dinner?”

Preston tried his best not to sneer. That wouldn’t get him what he wanted. Instead he carefully controlled his features until he hoped his hate was buried. “You’re just going to leave the leopards here?”

Suraj shook his head and chuckled. “Of course not. Dr Yangani will be arriving soon to help me get Sasha and Bijay back into their kennels. Before you enquire about
those
, let me assure you the leopards love them. Much like a dog, the leopards feel safe and cosy in a small area, much like a den for them.”

Preston doubted that. One of the leopards made an odd sound and Preston turned back to look at them. He almost pissed himself when he found the leopard he’d been admiring standing only feet away on the other side of the fencing. “Jesus, I didn’t even hear it approaching.”

Suraj moved to stand beside him. “Ah, yes, they are quite the hunters in their native land. Here, they are dependent on charity to survive. Isn’t that right, Sasha?”

The leopard ignored Suraj and watched Preston. “Why is he watching me like that?”

Suraj startled him by caressing Preston’s nape, a too-familiar touch that had Preston struggling not to move away and punch Suraj. “Perhaps he’s as entranced by your hair as I am.”

“It’s orange,” Preston said flatly. He and Paul had been teased often enough about it. Preston had made peace with his appearance, mostly, but Paul had fought off the ginger stigma with wax, dyes and fading kits.

“Soft, honey gold,” Suraj purred by his ear. “The curls at the end are incredibly sexy.”

There was no ‘honey gold’ to Preston’s hair. It was orange. “Thanks. So…” He moved his head so that Suraj wasn’t touching him. “About the leopards.”

“About dinner,” Suraj countered.

Preston couldn’t look away from the leopard as it moved closer. “Uh…”

“Get back, Sasha. You’re making Preston nervous, and while I find that cute, I don’t think he enjoys it.” Suraj used Preston’s discomfort as an excuse to rest his hand right above Preston’s ass. “I’d much rather have you nervous wondering what
I
was going to do with you instead of what a restrained leopard would do. I assure you, you’ll enjoy my plans much more than being leopard food.”

Rage was an emotion Preston had become intimately familiar with in the past fifteen months. It would probably always be with him, but hopefully, after tonight, Paul would have some peace. Preston knew he never would. While he and Paul had grown apart somewhat as they’d entered the world of adulthood, there’d still been that bond between them. Now there’d always be an ache, a longing that couldn’t be sated.

Preston averted his gaze, unable to look at the leopard, because frankly he felt like the cat was peering right into his thoughts and that was disturbing. First that he’d think that way, and second…that he couldn’t help believing it was true.

As for Suraj, Preston feared he’d ruin everything by giving away the hatred he felt for the man. Preston wasn’t an actor—Paul had been the artsy one to Preston’s logical and boring self. Pretending he didn’t wish the leopard would soar over the chain link fencing and eat Suraj was becoming increasingly difficult.

“Ah, I see you have found a straggler.”

Preston tensed upon hearing the sultry female voice behind him.
‘Doctor’ Yangani. She’s no more a doctor than I am the President of the US.
Preston wasn’t talented when it came to creative, artsy stuff, but he was a damned good researcher, which he hoped would make him a damned good journalist once he graduated. If he graduated.

A soft, snuffling sound along with a warm, moist gust of breath very close to his crotch had Preston’s gaze darting down to look into the golden eyes of the snow leopard. His heart raced and his cock tried to crawl into his body when he realised the feline could reach him through the fencing. Claws, teeth—the beast was powerful even ill. Preston stumbled back, his gaze still tangled with the cat’s.

Suraj’s laughter infuriated him almost as much as Suraj’s hand on his lower back did. Preston scowled.

“Sasha has quite the sense of humour, does he not?” Suraj asked in a syrupy voice that made Preston want to vomit, or punch him—or both. He wasn’t picky. Suraj’s cackled laughter was joined by the woman’s softer tones.

“But who could blame Sasha?” Yangani purred. “This one is so…delicious.” Her hands were on him then. She started at his shoulders and swept the length of his back with her touch before moving around to pause her hands right above his groin. “Oh, he has a nice body, Suraj. Not thin—you know I do not like the thin ones.”

Preston’s cheeks heated with anger and embarrassment. No, he wasn’t thin. He had to work out like mad to keep from being pudgy. As it was, he was sturdy. That was what he called himself. That wasn’t all he was, though.

“Please stop,” he said, affecting a modesty he wasn’t feeling. What burned in his veins was disgust and a bitterness that bordered on violence. Keeping it hidden was killing him. “I d-don’t—” He hissed when Yangani palmed his cock and balls over his shorts. It was all he could do not to pull away and deck her just as he wanted to do to Suraj. “I don’t like women like that!”

“Which is part of why I like touching you like this,” she retorted, giving his parts a painful squeeze. “But…” She released his cock and balls but rested her hands at his hips. “It is my brother you want. Then that is fine. Watching is as good for me as doing is, and I already have touched you. Out here, in the open, where anyone can see. In small towns, it is best to have the small minds think you are like all of them, is that not true?”

Preston didn’t even try to figure out what the hell she was babbling about. He just twisted away from her and his feet got tangled up around his ankles somehow. He heard a muffled sort of yowl that had every hair on his body vibrating in alarm. Then he tipped over and flailed his arms for balance that wasn’t showing up to save him.

His back hit the chain link and pain streaked down to his heels as he fell. The metal fencing scraped him through his shirt, and he heard ripping. The material gave and his ass hit the ground hard enough to knock the air from his lungs.

“Sasha!” Suraj yelled just as a wet, hot, rough tongue was dragged across a few inches of Preston’s back.

Preston thought he was just going to die as a cacophony of alarms screeched in his head. His skin heated and his cock hardened. Preston’s chest ached and he gasped in a breath that left him dizzy. Or it could have been the sensation of that tongue scraping over another part of his back.

Why couldn’t he get up? Preston knew the leopard was going to tear into him any second instead of licking him like a lollipop. It’d be like that candy commercial he’d seen once. How many licks until the leopard bit him in half?

Suraj grabbed his wrists. “Get up! Up!”

Preston found Suraj’s touch so distasteful his gut clenched and bile shot up from his belly. He squirmed and wondered why his entire brain seemed to have shorted out. His instincts were to lean back towards the wild beast instead of letting Suraj touch him.

It was crazy, or not, he realised. Suraj and his sister were killers, as was the leopard. At least the leopard was honest about it—the nature of the beast and all of that.
Instincts
. Again the word came to him. If only people had the survival instincts wild animals did. Then maybe Paul wouldn’t be gone—

“Come on!” Suraj jerked so forcefully that Preston’s wrists popped and he almost yelped. The feline behind him growled, a low, deadly sound that called to the core of Preston, stoking fear and something else he didn’t understand.

He came to his feet and the leopard’s growl intensified.

“Shut up, Sasha,” Suraj snapped.

Yangani smirked, her eyes narrowing as she looked from Preston to the cat behind him. “It seems that Sasha wants this man for his own play toy. Felines are so interesting to watch with their toys.”

Preston’s blood turned to ice. Was that what had happened to Paul? He’d been…fed to the leopards? A body had never been found, just blood—
just blood, my brother’s blood. Fuck these people!
The leopards, too, if they’d killed Paul. Predatory instincts in the leopards or not, Preston would do…something if they’d killed Paul, though he didn’t know what.

“Yangani, you are being too provocative,” Suraj snapped. “Preston is a guest who has questions about the leopards’ care, and yes, I intend to seduce him if he’s agreeable to it. He is not some idiotic boy to be mocked and teased!”

The defence startled Preston, and confused him. What was going on between Suraj and Yangani? That they were siblings, he was almost certain of. He couldn’t simply go by what she or Suraj said, because he trusted neither of them to tell the truth. He’d spent hundreds of hours tracking down information on them, and short of going to Nepal himself to investigate more, he thought he knew them as well as possible for having never met them. Something very odd was going on between Suraj and Yangani, something very, very odd as evidenced by Yangani’s talk of watching him and Suraj together.

Perhaps he’d been wrong about them being related. It wasn’t like he’d had birth certificates or anything of that sort. He’d just taken what he’d found and run with it. Had he even looked to disprove their relation?
No, and that makes me a shitty wannabe journalist! God, I can be so fucking stupid sometimes!

But not always.
He was almost certain the claim of being related was a lie. What he didn’t doubt was that Suraj and Yangani worked together to seduce and kill.

Preston hadn’t been paying any attention to the bickering between the two. His attention had been on his own thoughts, but he snapped out of them when the leopard yowled in what he could only interpret as a warning. Preston jerked his wrists from Suraj’s grip and, strangely enough, took a step back towards the beast.

Suraj’s eyes widened, the irises as dark as the pupils. Yangani smirked like she’d won some sort of victory over him. Preston held his head up. No one had beaten him. No one would get away with taking Paul from him. “I’m not interested in fucking either of you,” he said tonelessly. “My interest here is in the leopards and your failure to care properly for them.” He worked hard to keep from snickering at the twin looks of anger on Suraj’s and Yangani’s faces.

Preston focused on the woman. “Dr Yangani, where did you receive your veterinary degree? I’ve been unable to find anything out about where you attended college at all—”

“Why are you looking?” Yangani said in a cold voice. Her eyes were lighter than Suraj’s and flecked with bits of mossy green that should have been pretty but only added to her creepy appearance. “Who are you?” She narrowed her eyes more. “There is something familiar about you.”