"Take a look at my head before you go and feel sorry for that ass," Lojos suggested indignantly. "He nearly killed me."
"It's a bump," Mahieu corrected, but he once again checked his brother's head.
"Pour a little of Saria's disinfectant over it," Drake suggested. "It'll fix him right up."
"Go to hell," Lojos grumped.
"This disinfectant is good stuff," Saria said. "In any case, I need to take a look at your back, Drake. Roll over."
He groaned. "I don't want to move."
"You should have thought about that before you got in the fight."
Drake opened one eye and looked at her. Her eyes had gone liquid as she looked at the injuries. His heart began to pound. "Baby," he said softly, uncaring that her brothers--or anyone else heard him. "You can't cry. Not now. You'll break my heart."
"You did this because of me."
"I did this for me," he corrected. "My leopard and I are one and the same. Fuckin' idiots think they can intimidate the world. They shoved and I shoved back harder. That's all. It will happen again." He studied her slightly averted face. "Did I scare you?"
She shook her head, but Saria didn't want to lie to him. She lifted her chin and looked him directly in the eyes. "Maybe. A little. I've never seen anything like that before."
He wrapped his palm around the nape of her neck. "I was careful for the most part. I didn't want to really hurt anyone, just more like teach them a lesson." He pressed his forehead against hers. "I'm not a violent man."
Joshua, Jerico and Evan choked dramatically and began coughing.
Remy snorted. "And if you believe that, Saria, I've got a sinkhole I can sell you for farmland."
"You're not helping my cause," Drake complained.
"Ignore them. I always do," Saria advised. She swallowed, leaned closer and brushed her lips over his. The lightest of touches, but his body stirred--and damn it all--it hurt.
He swore there was a snicker coming from somewhere, but when he glared around the room, everyone was looking away. He rolled over very carefully, his breath hissing out of his lungs, his body on fire. "Fucking jackasses. I should have done a lot more damage."
"Oh, I think they got the point," Remy said. "When you stop fussin' over that man, Saria, you can tell me where the photographs are. This time, I'll get them."
"I put them in the left top drawer in a case and hid the negatives away from here, just in case somethin' happened."
"Like someone killed you?" Remy demanded.
"Yeah. Like that," Saria admitted, shrugging.
He swore under his breath, something about stubborn women who needed a man to take them in hand, as he stalked out. Drake turned his head and flicked a look at Joshua, who immediately trailed after him. Drake wasn't about to take the chance that someone from the lair--or a killer--might try another sneak attack, not when his body needed time to recover.
Gage and Mahieu exchanged a long look. "No one would try to jump Remy," Gage said. "He's got a rep around here."
"Maybe, but a bullet doesn't care much about reputation and I've seen several of your neighbors all too ready to use a gun." Drake didn't bother to lift his head up again. His belly burned with every movement. He was getting too old to fight three or four challengers. Foolish males feeling their leopard's drive did that sort of thing--or someone insane enough to crave leadership--which was not him.
He had to smile when he heard Remy's voice. "What the hell are you doin' tailin' after me? You think I need a damn babysitter?"
Remy stalked back into the house, Joshua trailing behind him. Joshua hadn't replied, nor would he, Drake knew. He'd been given an order to keep Remy safe and he wasn't about to be intimidated by the Cajun snarling at him. Joshua simply sent the affronted homicide detective one level look from eyes that said it all. He moved on past the man and stood to the side of the window facing into the swamp.
"Your men are downright hostile."
Drake snorted. Remy had the photographs and he had to see them. Gritting his teeth, he righted himself. The lacerations along his ribs and across his belly burned like hell, but he'd sustained far worse injuries. No broken bones this time, only minor gashes and rips that would heal fast. His leopard blood would see to that.
"Yours aren't?" Jerico demanded, turning to face the detective. "I've never seen a lair like this one, not in all my travels. Drake could have killed all three of those men and maybe he should have. In the rain forest, men act without honor, there are consequences."
Joshua stiffened. "This lair has been without honor for a long time."
The Boudreaux brothers bristled, coming to their feet.
Drake swung his feet to the floor, holding up his hand for silence as he waited for the room to quit spinning. "A lair needs strong leadership to control the leopards, all of us know that. And something else is going on here. I don't know what, but I intend to get to the bottom of it. We all felt it out there in Fenton's Marsh. We're not turning on each other. The only people we can count on right now are the ones in this room."
"Sadly I have to agree with that," Remy told his brothers. "Although I'd put my life on Gaston and Jules. Right now, however, I can't risk it." He handed the photographs to Drake.
Saria had carefully catalogued each body, the wounds and the surrounding scene. The stab wound was the same each time, a straight puncture to the abdomen the victim had never seen coming. The knife hadn't killed him. He'd been awake to see his attacker shift and probably look right into his eyes as he delivered the suffocating bite. The victim had to have been terrified.
Drake looked up at Remy and saw the same understanding in his eyes. Whoever was killing these men had done so cruelly and deliberately, needing to see the life leave their bodies. A serial killer then. A shifter who enjoyed killing for the pleasure of it.
"The crime scene almost looks as if two people went there together, had a couple of drinks and one killed the other." Remy frowned as he studied one of the photographs. "You say you couldn't find a hint of another male? A leopard or human?"
"I picked up Saria's scent, but nothing else," Drake confirmed. "There was a strong scent of blood in the ground in several other places. I don't think Saria found all the bodies. If I had to guess, maybe six."
Remy shook his head, his teeth snapping together as if he wanted to bite down hard on something. "This makes no sense. The wounds are almost exactly alike every time. The stab wound is very precise. It enables the killer to take the fight out of his victim fast and yet keep them alive to spend as much time as he wants terrorizing him--or her."
"This is the work of a leopard--a shifter," Drake said heavily.
Remy scrubbed his hand down his face as if removing something oily and thick. "I was so certain it was someone who couldn't shift tryin' to put blame on us."
"You didn't want it to be a friend or neighbor."
Remy shook his head. "No, I didn't, although I checked up on everyone. My brothers first." He shot Saria a small smile. "You can stop feelin' guilty for thinkin' it might be one of us. I will admit, I doubted it, but I checked all the same."
"Great, bro," Lojos said. "You didn' tell me that."
"I didn't think it was necessary. I'm a detective, Lojos, and I take my job seriously. The first thing I do is clear my family and then move on to a pool of suspects. Because I thought the women were killed by someone with shifter blood that couldn't actually shift, the suspect pool was large. This narrows it down."
"Off the top of your head, Remy," Drake said, "who would be your first suspect?"
Remy's gaze shifted just for a moment to Joshua and then he shook his head. "You know it doesn' work that way."
"Sure it does," Joshua said. "My grandfather was a monster. Why your leader didn't take him down years ago, I have no idea, but he beat my grandmother continually and then started on his sons. You know why my mother left, right?" He dared Remy to state the reasons out loud.
Remy frowned and shook his head. "I was gone for years. Most o
f us were. We only started hearing rumors about a daughter recently, and Saria met her in the swamp a time or two. Her name is Evangeline. We thought her mother had died in childbirth, not committed suicide. No one goes on the Tregre land. It borders Mercier land and even Charisse and Armande don't go there."
"And no one thought to check? Teachers? Anyone?" Joshua demanded.
"Check what?" Remy snapped back. "The boys went to school and no one thought they had any oer children. They kept to themselves and had a reputation for scaring off trespassers. They had the right to live the way they wanted."
"Not like that," Joshua snapped. "He abused those women."
"And the men," Remy said. "Yes, he should have been stopped, but no one knew it was goin' on until after he was dead. Your father's death was reported as a huntin' accident. Here in the swamp, accidents happen all the time. No one liked the old man, and we made up stories about him, but he rarely came out of the swamp and none of his sons did. All pere ever said was to stay away from them. Mercier told his children the same thing."
"So when Saria came home telling you there was a female child, a young woman no one knew about, you didn't think it was worth investigating?" Joshua demanded.
Remy's gaze was steady. "I did go see her. She's twenty, and she told me she was homeschooled and that her brothers, father and uncle have watched over her. Yes, at times she's lonely, but she said she had Charisse as a friend and that more and more they're takin' her out of the swamp. She's nervous, but after meetin' Saria, she thinks she'll be fine. What more could I do? She claims no one has ever laid a hand on her. She saw the old Buford a time or two, but he never saw her. It was drilled in her to stay hidden from him."
"And you believed her?" Drake asked quietly when Joshua made a derisive noise. "Old man Tregre was leopard. How the hell would they hide the scent of a leopard . . . ?" He trailed off, his eyes meeting Remy's.
"How would they hide the scent?" Remy asked thoughtfully. "That's a damn good question."
"Could the Tregre brothers have found a way to hide the scent of a leopard from everyone? And what about DNA? Surely there had to be some saliva in the bites of the victims you found, something on the body to indicate a leopard attack," Drake said.
Remy shook his head. "That was why I thought it was a simulated attack. How could a leopard deliver a suffocating bite without leaving either scent or saliva behind?"
"No one could do that, could they?" Lojos asked. "We have a tremendous sense of smell."
"I think someone did do just that," Remy said, "but how it's possible, I have no idea."
Saria shuddered and slipped onto the couch beside Drake. "Then it's possible it wasn't Armande who attacked me after all. It could have been anyone--the killer. Maybe that's why my leopard didn't accept him. She was confused with no scent or other identifying markers."
Drake slipped his arm around her, making a determined effort not to wince at the movement. "Maybe the Tregre land should be our next visit."
"I'll take you," Remy said. "We can go tomorrow. My brothers will come along with your team, just to make certain we have enough men to look thoroughly around."
"I will take him," Saria sent her brother a steady look. "He hired me and I do my job."
"I don' want you in the middle of this," Remy growled.
"She's already in the middle of this, Remy," Drake said. Weariness crept in. All he wanted to do was get back to the inn and crash in a bed. "The killer knows she's onto his dump site and half the men here have lost all good sense. She can stay right where I can keep an eye on her."
"I don' need protection," Saria protested.
Drake laughed softly and brushed a kiss into the thick sun-bleached hair. "You can't have it both ways, honey. Either you're guiding me to the Tregre swamp or you're staying home."
"Of course I'm goin'," Saria said.
"I'm keepin' these pictures, Saria," Remy said. "You did a good job on photographin' the scene. I'll get the bottles collected for prints if any are left."
"Most of the places were in the marsh, with the ground impossible to walk on, but there's tracts of land that are rich in soil and very solid," Saria said. "I think the two men went there, shared a drink and then one killed the other and moved the body to the marsh."
Drake shook his head. "The leopard dragged his victim to the marsh. There was a trail of blood from one site to the place where Saria found the body. I'm heading back to the inn. Let's do this tomorrow."
Remy nodded. "Don' go gettin' in any more fights or I'll have to arrest you."
Drake heard the faint humor in his voice. "You can always try."
12
DRAKE made his way to the entrance of the inn, his team sweeping tirelessly behind him. Joshua circled the inn while Evan went ahead and Jerico trailed him. It was quite frankly annoying. He knew how Jake and Emma Bannaconni felt when they left their home surrounded by bodyguards, but damn it all, he was the bodyguard. He headed up his own teams for hostage rescue both for Bannaconni and in the rain forest. He glared at Evan. It didn't help that he was certain Evan hid a grin.
He swore under his breath and Saria glanced up sharply at him.
"Are you all right?" She sounded anxious. "I could ask one of the men to help me get you upstairs."
Great. She thought he was about to fall down. Suppressing the groan, somewhere between annoyed and amused, Drake dropped a kiss on top of her head. "Just don't like our escort. Fucking idiots thinking they have to guard me."
She coughed. He searched her averted face suspiciously. "You'd think my own woman might have a little sympathy for my situation. These men are never going to let me live this down."
Pauline Lafont stood at the front door, her hands on her hips, a stern look on her face as he came limping up. "I hear you went chargin' to Saria's rescue and got yourself in a bit of trouble," she greeted.
Drake sighed. "News travels fast around here."
Pauline stepped aside to allow him entrance. Evan, already in the room, stood just to the right of the large living area, gun loose but ready in his hands. His gaze met Drake's over the top of Pauline's head and flicked to his left, toward the corner Drake didn't have a visu on. His hand signed subtly. Pauline was not alone. Drake forced his body to straighten and he stepped just a little ahead of Saria, sweeping her back with one arm, signaling Jerico with another subtle hand movement as he did so.
Saria didn't protest, nor make a big deal out of it. He loved that about her. She had a measure of trust in him he wasn't altogether certain he deserved yet, but he was determined to live up to it.
"He definitely has heroic tendencies, Miss Pauline," Saria chattered, as if Drake just hadn't signaled possible danger.
She'd read him, he knew she had, but she didn't miss a beat. His heart swelled with pride. The more he was around her, the more he knew absolutely that she was the one. She would stand with him, no matter the danger, or the hard times. Saria Boudreaux was the kind of woman a man kept forever.
He stepped past Pauline, already turning to face whoever was hidden behind the corner. The scent of blood and sweat hit him immediately, providing identification. Amos Jeanmard lay on the sofa, an ice pack pressed to one cheek, his chest heavily bandaged. He didn't bother to try to get up, obviously very conscious of Evan's weapon. The barrel was down, but still pointed in his direction.
Joshua came in through the kitchen, gun ready, his gaze on Jeanmard. He signaled all clear to Drake.
"Jeanmard," Drake greeted.
"Lickin' my wounds and lettin' my woman fuss over me a bit," Jeanmard said. "You hit like a freight train."
Drake nudged Saria. "See that? His woman fusses over him. She doesn't call him a big baby," he whispered, overly loud.
Jeanmard snorted. "You won' be gettin' sympathy from me. I tried to get you out of it, but you went all Rambo on me. Now you're stuck with her." He grinned, self-satisfied. "Me? I'm retirin' on the front porch and rockin' with my woman."
Pauline pushed past Drake an
d sank down in a chair opposite Amos. "I put supper out after I tended to Amos, so please feel free to eat. I'm sure you're all hungry."
Joshua nodded. "Thanks, ma'am."
"Don't think for one moment I believe your crap, Jeanmard," Drake said, towering over him, hands on hips. "You knew exactly how I'd react. You played me. You and Remy."
Jeanmard grinned at him. "Not Remy. I knew either you or Remy would come at me. I wasn't expectin' such a violent attack and thought I could put on a bit of a show before handin' over the reins. Instead, I think you broke all my ribs."
Drake glanced at Jerico and then to Joshua. Both shook their heads. The house and grounds were clear of any enemy. Jeanmard was alone. Drake signed his crew they could stand down and eat. They sent him a small, taunting grin, knowing he had gotten himself in over his head here in the Louisiana swamp--for a woman. He wouldn't be living it down any time soon.
"Take a seat before you fall down," Jeanmard suggested. "There's no need to play the tough guy around me. I've felt you hit and I'm already suitably impressed."
Drake might have believed him if he hadn't caught the note of laughter and knew he'dn played for a sucker. The old man had wanted out and he'd found a sure way to do it. "I might have killed you," he pointed out, sinking down into one of Pauline's comfortable chairs. It felt a little like heaven to him.
"I'll get you some food," Saria offered.
He caught her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. She was worth it, although a little sympathy might have added to the deal. He felt Jeanmard's scrutiny and let her hand slide away. "You've got a few problems here, Jeanmard."
The older man gave a small derisive laugh. "Actually, there are a lot of problems, but they're all yours now, not mine. The broken ribs are worth it. And call me Amos."
Drake glanced at Pauline. She hadn't said a word, but she obviously knew Drake and Jeanmard had fought.
"She knows everythin'," Jeanmard said. "I never lied to her, not once in all the years she waited for me." There was genuine love in his voice. "I knew she was my mate--my leopard recognized her--but she had no leopard and I was afraid our lair would eventually disappear. It was a mistake. My mistake. I wanted to keep all the shifters here instead of sendin' them out as I should have." He groaned as he moved to try to ease his position a little. "I did my duty and I never cheated on Adrienne. My loyalty was the only thing I could give her. She was a good woman and good mother. I loved her in my way, but she deserved more." He looked at Pauline. "You deserved more."