Blown Away (Rogues Shifter Series Book 4) by Gayle Parness Page A

sure we learned a lot more than we would have with someone less experienced on board.
    While we waited in between interviews, I had a chance to ask him some questions of my own, deciding this was a perfect opportunity to learn a little about his history.
    “So what did you do before Eleanor found you?”
    Sasha was hesitant at first, looking almost shy. Finally he shrugged. “I painted.”
    “Houses?”
    He smiled wryly. “No, portraits and landscapes. I particularly enjoyed painting portraits of beautiful w omen.” He grinned , then his expression turned wistful. “I also loved painting mothers with their children.”
    “You made a living doing that?” I didn’t mean to sound so shocked, but this information didn’t jell with what I’d seen of the amazing warrior sitting next to me.
    “Actually I did. I was much sought after in Moscow, believe it or not.”
    “Of course I believe you. But how did you learn to fight?”
    “At sixteen, I was a soldier in the Imperial Army. I had a natura l gift for weaponry and hand-to-hand combat, but I hated the waste of human life, always for causes only important to the royal house and the wealthiest families. Too many peasants were killed for their small plots of land, their women raped and their children left to starve.
    " When I was released, I took up painting, studying with a local artist to improve my skills. I wanted to create something beautiful, something original, but all I was able to do was take what was beautiful already and put it on canvas in my own feeble way. The loveliest married and unmarried women from all the best houses came to my studio and commissioned me to paint them.” He gave me one of his devilish looks. “It was my pleasure to accommodate them.”
    I was fascinated by his tale. “How did you meet Eleanor?”
    “She came to me one evening and asked to be painted in her home. I preferred to use my own studio but she insisted. Eleanor was exquisite and I easily fell under her spell and couldn’t refuse. By that time, I had become a rather shallow excuse for a human being and I arrogantly believed that she’d not only pay me well but also be seduced by my twenty-six year old charms as so many others had.”
    He turned away and looked out the window, painful memori es darkening his expression. “I came to her home for seven nights to paint her, intending to draw it out for as long as possible. I never suspected that anything was odd about her. She used a rented and furnished house as her base, leaving her nest elsewhere, except for Antoine who answered the door when I'd arrive, behaving like a perfect servant. She'd easily glamoured me into believing that I’d fallen in love with her.” He smiled sadly as his voice grew soft. “I’d bring her white roses when I came to her each evening and she’d make a fuss over them like it meant so much to her.”
    He turned away again, as if he was still embarrassed after all this time by his naivety. “When the painting was finished she took me into her bedroom and turned me. There was no discussion. She'd chosen me and I was now her property to do with as she pleased. I woul d have rather she’d killed me.”
    He was silent for a few moments , shaking off those memories before continuing. “The next month we moved to her mansion in Louisiana. She’d lived there on and off for two years and had already decided to take Garrett and his family for her little ‘experiment’. We brought them in chains to her villa in Carmel, California. One week later, Garrett was a member of our nest and the rest of his family was dead.”
    Moved by his story as well as the trust he'd placed in me, I looked at his long graceful fingers and asked, “Why don’t you paint anymore, Sasha?”
    “The painting I’d done of her was my last. She hung it over her mantle so I was forced to look at it daily. She liked to torture us that way. When Heinrich was turned, he had a picture of his daughter and his wife in his