“Are you certain it was a body?” Conner asked.

“Positive. I got close to it. Something—an animal—had been digging. There were insects and the smell of decomposition. I saw a finger. It was a body. I backed off and removed all evidence of my presence. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t trust Alberto or his guard. He didn’t give any indication that he was anything but a nice old man, but my cat didn’t like him touching me and I just had this feeling . . .” She pressed her hand to her stomach and looked helplessly at Conner.

He reached for her hand and brought the tips of her fingers to his mouth. “I’m sorry, honey, I should never have allowed you to get mixed up in this. If I’d been thinking, I would have stashed you somewhere safe until it was over.”

“I wouldn’t have gone. I started this, Conner, and I’m going to see it through. Someone has to stop them.”

Elijah took a sip of the coffee and made an appreciative sound. “She’s done great, Conner. She walked right up in the middle of a leopard fight and shot the son of a bitch. She found a dead body in a garden and didn’t scream her head off. She kept her cool and removed all evidence of being there.”

Elijah’s assessment of the situation steadied her. She flashed him a quick smile. “I was leaving and Ottila showed up. He cut off my escape. We were in deep brush and I was pretty sure Jeremiah didn’t have a good shot at him. What I didn’t know until later is that the two rogues had assumed you’d put a shooter in the canopy, and Ottila was the bait to draw Jeremiah out while Suma did the hunting.”

Conner covered her hand again to still her fingers as they tapped nervously on the tabletop. “No one could have known, Isabeau.”

“Maybe, but you probably would have caught on to what he was doing. He talked instead of acted. He knew Harry and Alberto might walk up at any moment but he kept talking to me. I should have put it together. I didn’t know until he taunted me with where Suma was. I tried drawing him into the open by talking and taking little steps backward. He followed, but then he grabbed me, and when I gave the signal, Jeremiah didn’t take the shot.”

She bit down hard on her lip, the memory of that moment terrifying her. At the time, she couldn’t give in to fright, but now, safe with Elijah and Conner, and far away from Ottila, she found herself trembling. She lowered her eyes, ashamed, but determined to tell Conner everything. “And then she got all amorous on me.”

Conner straightened in his chair. Elijah took another sip of coffee. “Keep going,” Conner encouraged.

It was only his fingers on hers that gave her the courage. “He got really ugly, and then she—my leopard—swiped at his arm when he tried to force me to go with him. She marked him. He said something about it that made me think I’d done something wrong—that it was more than just protecting myself. It was the way he said it.”

Conner’s eyes met Elijah’s over her head. He lifted her fingers to his mouth again and bit down gently on the tips. “It’s all right, Isabeau. You got away. You used whatever means you could and you didn’t panic.”

“But what does it mean?”

“He has the right to challenge me for you.”

Her heart jumped. Ottila was strong. He had confidence in himself. She thought it was significant that he hadn’t shot her. She’d been out in the open. The two leopards were rolling together in a wild scramble, but she’d been the one exposed most of the time. She had a rifle in her hands and he had to have known she was trying for a shot at Suma, yet Ottila hadn’t shot her.

She leaned her head into the heel of her hand. “I’m tired, Conner. I just want to lie down for a few minutes. Maybe take a shower first. I swear those people made me feel dirty just being in the same room with them.”

“Back in the forest, there’s a resort owned by the doctor’s son. Mostly leopards stay in the area because it isn’t well known, they don’t advertise, it’s mostly word of mouth. We can stay there tonight. They have individual cabins. We’ll be close enough to Jeremiah to keep an eye on him and yet still be safe. This road looks as if it dead ends, but there’s a small side road about a mile up, swinging deeper into the woods. Most of the time it’s passable. Not always after a good rain.”

The doctor walked into the room, looking tired. He drew up a chair and sank into it. “He’s going to live, but he’ll have a very different voice. And he’s going to have to do some swallowing therapy. He’s breathing and that’s what counts.” He sighed and looked directly at Conner, his eyes demanding. “Do you want to tell me what you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in? You didn’t do that to that boy, did you?”

Conner looked a little shocked. “No. I should have known it would look that way. He was attacked and I jumped in. Elijah pulled him out. You don’t want any part of this, Doc.”

“You made me a part of it by bringing that boy here.”

Conner shrugged and glanced at Elijah. “Imelda Cortez kidnapped children from Adan’s village. She took my half brother as well and killed my mother.”

“Ah.” Few things shook the doctor, but he was visibly shocked. “In that case, let me call my son and get you a place to stay. Your other men are going to need something hot to keep them going while I clean you up.”

15

THE cabin Conner chose was the greatest distance from all the others and deepest in the forest. He needed to feel the safety of the trees around Isabeau. Her leopard had marked another man, and that gave that man the right to step forward and challenge his claim on her. Their species was an old one and they followed the higher law of the wild. It wasn’t Isabeau’s fault. She hadn’t been raised leopard and she didn’t know how it all worked. She didn’t yet know how to fully control her leopard. The girls living in the villages were taught from the time they were little so when the Han Vol Dan occurred, they had a better chance of keeping their leopards under control.