“I didn’t know him. He looked about forty. He was in good shape, had a tattoo on the back of his hand. I sketched it. Someone had stabbed him in the stomach, but that wasn’t what killed him. A leopard had bitten his throat and suffocated him. It was a kill bite.”

He bunched the T-shirt at the hem and slowly worked it up over her firm, rounded bottom and those intriguing pink-striped boy shorts. Higher still, over her waist and up the expanse of her back until he had the shirt raised to her neck, exposing all that soft skin.

Saria swallowed hard and started to turn her head to look at him, but he gently stroked his hand down her hair, preventing her. “And because he was both stabbed and bitten, you were afraid it was one of your brothers,” he ventured. He began idly tracing circles on her back, between her shoulder blades, occasionally sliding caresses over the long, nearly healed furrows.

It took a few moments before she once again began to relax. “I’ve lived here all my life. If I hadn’t accidently seen my brothers shift, I don’ think I would have ever found out about leopards. It seems so far-fetched. Even now I have a difficult time actually believing the entire thing and look what’s happened to me.”

“So you didn’t tell anyone.”

“No. I know that was wrong, but Remy is a homicide detective. What if it was him? And maybe they had no choice.”

He blew warm air over her skin and nuzzled her shoulder over the vicious bite the male leopard had put there. “And the second body?” He brushed little kisses back and forth over the puncture wounds.

“That one scared me. It was about two months after the first one and it was a little different. Only one boat and there were beer bottles nearby. I thought maybe they’d come there together, the killer and the victim, friends—and they got into an argument. The first man, I was certain it had something to do with criminal activity, but the second one didn’t look that way, although he was stabbed in the stomach and suffocated with a leopard bite.”

Drake felt the tremor that ran through her body. “We’ll figure it out,” he said softly and pressed a kiss into the sweet spot where her shoulder and neck joined. She shivered and he felt the sudden electrical current surge between them. “What happened then?”

“I wrote Jake Bannaconni a letter. I tried to word it so that if he really was aware of shifters or was one himself, he would realize what was happening and come out to Fenton’s Marsh and investigate himself. I took the letter to the post office and put it in the outgoing mail. Two days later the letter was pinned with one of my fishin’ knives to the bottom of my pirogue.”

“A warning.”

“I certainly took it that way. I was angry with myself for not being more careful with the letter. Anyone could have seen it.”

He took his time exploring that soft expanse of skin, kissing his way along her shoulder, his teeth teasing, scraping back and forth to send shivers down her spine before nipping gently. “And the third body?”

“I couldn’t help watching Fenton’s Marsh, and about two months to the day after the second killing, the third body was there. This time it was in the water, anchored down. No one I recognized as a friend, but I’d seen him before, maybe in the French Quarter. I couldn’t place him, but his face was familiar. I knew I couldn’t just let it go, so I took a letter to the priest and asked him to get it to Bannaconni.”

“So the bodies have turned up every couple of months. Could there be others?”

“Of course. There’s a lot of water out there and alligators tend to eat anything they can find, especially if it’s rotting meat.”

He tasted her soft skin, his tongue trailing over her shoulder, his lips following. He shifted position, keeping his hands on her shoulder as he partially shifted, allowing his leopard to emerge. He knew she would feel the sudden slide of thick fur against her skin, the hotter breath of the cat, but he was already sinking his teeth deep in the holding bite of the male leopard. He felt the female rise just below Saria’s skin.

Saria cried out, throwing her head back, her body writhing beneath his, but his legs trapped her thighs, holding her down. Her breath was shocked, gasping, her body burning under his touch. His male lunged for the female. The moment he felt the female leopard’s acceptance, he shifted back, lapping at the punctures and pressing kisses along Saria’s shoulder. Breathing deep, he pressed his forehead against the back of her neck.

“It’s done, honey. Your female will accept my male.” There was no way she couldn’t feel the urgent need of his body. He was pressed tightly against her, but he stayed very still, breathing away the lust that had risen sharp and fast and all too raw. He waited for her tears, for the recrimination he was certain would come. He refused to move from her, holding her close, trying to comfort her, when he knew he must have scared the hell out of her.

She l beneath him, breathing hard, trying to still her hips as she pushed back against him, her breathing ragged. “Why was that so erotic when you did it?”

He closed his eyes and breathed a silent prayer of thanks. Very carefully he eased his body off hers, retaining his hold so he could roll her over against his side, wanting to see her face. She looked up at him with an enormous, wide-eyed stare. Her eyes were nearly all gold, and she looked a little dazed. Her mouth was parted and she was panting a little. She looked as if she’d just been made love to.

“I don’ understand what you do to me.”