Savage Nature (24 page)

Remy didn’t flinch. “We’ll take care of this matter.” He lifted Saria’s chin so she was forced to look him in the eye. “Do you know what his claim on you means? Did he explain that to you? You don’ have to accept him, Saria, even if your leopard does.”

“I’m aware of that. I chose him. I still choose him.”

Remy sighed. “If he’s your choice, Saria, then we’ll stand with you. In the meantime, I need to know who attacked you.”

“I don’ know. I really don’. I couldn’t get a scent. Just leopard. I was so scared.”

“You should have come to me.”

She swallowed hard, ducked her head and nodded. “I know I should have, but I couldn’t, Remy, not then. I have reasons.”

His eyebrow shot up. “Are you goin’ to enlighten us?”

She lowered her voice. “At home. When we’re alone, Remy.”

He studied her face, his jaw set. He gave a small nod. “You are comin’ home then.”

“We have to get this done and then we’ll come right away,” she assured.

“What done?” Remy demanded. His eyes narrowed on his sister, that deep cobalt blue that seemed to pierce through every cover.

“Jake gave me a job,” ake answered, bailing out Saria. She didn’t want to answer in front of the other members of the lair, but she didn’t want to lie. He took the matter out of her hands.

Remy sent him an irritated look. “Call your team in. No one’s goin’ to attack you.” He managed to make it sound like Drake was a little kid and his mama bear was in the woods ready to protect him should there be need.

Drake stared at him coolly. “You don’t have to like me, Boudreaux, any more than I have to like you. You let this happen and you can blame me if you can’t stomach shouldering the responsibility, but don’t think for one minute your intimidation tactics are going to work on me. I’m not a girl wishing her brothers loved her.”

Saria gasped, whirling around to face Drake. “What are you doin’? You’re pushin’ him to fight you.”

Maybe he was. He couldn’t get his leopard to calm down. The animal ripped and clawed, wanting to get at Saria’s brother. Remy appeared to have the same problem, and if the tension emanating from the rest of her brothers was anything to go by—they were fighting for control as well.

Drake frowned, shaking his head, trying to clear away the red haze. He glanced over at the two fallen leopards, torn beyond belief, Elie crouched low, trying to aid them. His mind felt heavy, leaden, thick and dense, as though the red haze had penetrated his brain, making it impossible to think clearly. For one brief moment, his eyes met Armande’s.

Armande Mercier and Robert Lanoux lay in puddles of blood, their bodies shredded, ribs broken, both fighting for each breath. The Boudreaux brothers looked at them with deadly intent, still not satisfied with the punishment Remy had inflicted, yet there was something off. An alarm bell shrieked at Drake, yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on what was wrong.

“Something isn’t right here,” he said aloud to Remy. The man was a homicide detective, obviously a leader. Surely he could feel it too.

Remy opened his mouth, closed it again and looked around. Yeah. He was feeling it too. He signaled to his brothers to finish dressing. Drake sent the signal to Joshua to call them in, but he was uneasy.

Joshua Tregre stepped out of the brush, automatic weapon ready, although he looked relaxed. He skirted around the brothers to close in to one side of Drake, about twenty feet out. Joshua’s sun-bleached hair, worn shaggy, made him appear more of a surfer than a leopard, until you looked into his piercing blue-green eyes. His gaze held a stormy, turbulent sea, rather than a calm one, belying the laugh lines around his eyes. He had the deep chest and upper body strength of most of his kind. The weapon he held so comfortably appeared part of him.

A second man emerged from Remy’s right, only thirty feet from the fallen leopards. Drake sent a small salute. Jerico Masters nodded. He was head of security at the Bannaconni ranch when Drake was gone, which was a good deal of the time. A quiet man, he was dark-haired with green, watchful eyes. Drake was a little worried to see him there. With Jerico gone, who was watching over Jake, his wife Emma, and their children?

The last man surprised Drake. Evan Mitchelson was a very quiet man, big and muscular, a former prizefighter with a major speech impediment. He rarely spoke, but used sign language. He never shifted in front of others and Drake had often wondered if he could. He held a gun as if he were rn with one.

“Nice to see you boys,” Drake greeted quietly. “We have a little situation here. I need to know if your leopards are acting strange. Enraged. Pushing for supremacy, goading you to pick a fight or fire your weapon.”

Remy sent him a shocked look. He looked at the three newcomers. Joshua nodded. “Almost from the moment we came into the marsh. We all discussed how edgy we were. We put it down to you being in danger. We just double-timed here.”

Evan signed frantically. His leopard was rarely let loose because he was a killer, very difficult to control under the best of circumstances and Evan was fighting just for survival right now. He wanted to leave the marsh.

Jerico nodded his own confirmation.

“How did you know where to look?”

“We followed your scent—well,” Joshua looked guilty. “
Her
scent. Her leopard is putting off some major pheromones.”

Saria rolled her eyes. “Great. You can smell me throughout the swamp. Just what I wanted to know.” She moved a little closer to Drake as if for protection. He could see the subtle movement was subconscious.

“Sorry, ma’am,” Joshua apologized. “Your leopard is rather alluring.”

Drake’s leopard clawed so hard, his muscles contorted and his jaw hurt. He felt the change sliding over him almost too fast to comprehend. His vision banded and he just happened to glance toward the two injured men. Armande’s eyes met his. The man stared back at him with despair and something else—something indefinable. The strange look steadied Drake as nothing else could have. It was if the two fallen shifters knew something the rest of them didn’t and were waiting for a catastrophe to happen.

He risked a glance at Remy and saw he was battling as well. “I think it’s this marsh.” He spoke loud enough for his voice to carry to the wounded shifters, watching them from the corner of his eye. Both looked uneasy, but they were as troubled as the rest of them.

Remy frowned but signaled to his brothers to work at controlling their leopards. “Perhaps we should all leave this place immediately.”

Drake glanced at Saria. “What about you, honey? Is she quiet, or giving you fits?”

“She’s extremely quiet. In fact, if it wasn’t for all of you talking about pheromones, I might not even know she exists.” Her gaze slid away from his, and for the first time, he knew she lied to him. Her leopard was reacting, but she didn’t want to admit it.

“Remy, I want my men out of here. Evan is having great difficulty with his leopard.”

“I am as well,” Lojos admitted.

“Same here, Remy,” Gage said. “If I don’ shift soon, he’s goin’ to tear me up inside.”

Remy looked to his other two brothers. Mahieu and Dash both nodded their agreement. “Elie, the boys are goin’ to help you move those two. If you have a painkiller, give it to them.” He glared down at the two wounded shifters. “We’re goin’ to pack you out of here, but all of us are havin’ trouble with our leopards. Shut the hell up and stay that way. Neither of you had better give a reason to killecause it isn’t too late dump your sorry asses in the swamp.”

Gage and Lojos immediately went to help Elie get the wounded men on their feet. There was a lot of hushed cursing, but neither of the punished shifters was stupid enough to protest. They began walking back toward the dock where the Boudreaux brothers had left their high-powered boat, picking their way carefully around all the hazards.

Remy and Mahieu remained behind. They waited until the others were completely swallowed up by the brush before they approached Drake and his team members.

“Boss, do you need us here?” Evan signed.

Drake shook his head. “I’ll meet you all back at the inn.”

Joshua sent a hard look toward Remy and Mahieu, but he followed Jerico and Evan after the others.

“I’m Remy Boudreaux, Saria’s oldest brother. This is Mahieu,” Remy held out his hand.

Drake took it. “Drake Donovan. Jake Bannaconni sent me to check into some things for him. I hired Saria to guide me in the swamp and things just got out of hand fast.”

Remy nodded slowly. “I can see how it could happen, and if you’re her choice, we’ll stand with you. We need new blood here. Our lair has dwindled down to nothing. Most of us have no choice.”

“You might consider heading into the rain forest and seeing if you can find a mate,” Drake said. “Although I’m fairly certain you’ve already done that.”

Remy shrugged his shoulders. “I tried. I’m sendin’ my brothers as soon as things settle down here. We didn’ believe Saria had a leopard.”

Drake opened his mouth to snap a reply. As far as he was concerned, that was no reason to neglect their little sister, but he didn’t know all the circumstances and he honestly couldn’t be certain if his leopard was driving his wrath at Saria’s brothers.

“I do have one,” Saria said unexpectedly, her eyes shining.

Drake wanted to smile. He slipped his arm around her shoulders and brought her close to him. “Yes you do.”

“She’s a little tough to control in this place,” she added, again avoiding his eyes.

“You’ve been here before,” Drake said. “What’s different?”

Saria frowned and looked around her. “I don’ know. It’s beautiful, but it always was. More flowers and plants than I remember, but it changes all the time dependin’ on the weather and the storm surges. You can see all the water. Sometimes it washes away the top soil and other times the water deposits rich soil here. This marsh is very wild and natural. Of all the places, this land has the most diversity of life and even terrain. All of this is marshland, but, although we call it Fenton’s Marsh, it’s a huge piece of property. The land firms up the more you go inland.”

“Are you goin’ to explain what’s goin’ on, Saria? All hell’s broken loose in the lair. If Elie hadn’t contacted us, I’d be in jail right now for killin’ those two,” Remy said.

“I don’t think anyone expected me,” Drake said. “Saria needed help and I was there. Our leopards definitely recognized one another. When the other one attacked her, her leopard hid from him.”

Remy’s eyes went ice-cold. “Who was it, Saria, and don’ tell me you didn’ recognize him. You had to have smelled him. And when he marked you . . .”

Drake felt a surge of anger at the words. He turned Saria around and raised the hem of her shirt, revealing the long marks, still red, although scarred over.

Remy and Mahieu both snarled, almost simultaneously, their leopards reacting to the sight of Saria’s wounds. It mattered little that the furrows were nearly healed and had happened some time ago.

Remy moved closer, inhaling deeply in an effort to detect a scent. Saria shook her head and yanked down her shirt, glaring at Drake.

“I couldn’t tell who it was. I don’ know why I couldn’ smell him, Remy. Maybe I was too scared. I thought he was going to kill me. I never had a leopard attack me before. I’d never been that close to one.”

“You should have come to me immediately.”

“And say a leopard attacked me? The only leopards I knew about were my five brothers.” She made the statement staring him steadily in the eye.

“You knew?” Remy asked.

She nodded. “I saw all of you when I was a kid. At the time,
Pere
was still alive and I watched him carefully after that. I watched all of you. It was excitin’ and scary. There were rake marks in the house some times and I saw all the signs. I’m good at trackin’.”

Remy shook his head, clearly shocked at his younger sister. “If you’d come to us, we would have talked to you about it.”

She pressed her lips together for a moment, but Drake could see she was distressed, although she quickly hid it with a casual shrug. “I thought maybe you didn’t come around me much because I wasn’t one of you.”

She tried to hide the pain in her simple, honest statement, but Drake felt it—and so did his leopard. The big cat leapt so hard against Drake, his entire body shifted position, his muscles rippling and contorting. He had to breathe deeply to keep the animal at bay. Evan had said he kept his leopard under strict control, rarely letting it loose, and only then when they were completely alone because his animal was so violent. Drake was beginning to think his cat was following suit—at least around Saria’s family.

Remy stepped back, drawing Mahieu with him. “Do you generally have problems with your leopard?” he asked in a low voice.

Had Remy sounded taunting or snide, Drake was fairly certain nothing could have stopped his leopard, but there was a note of worry there and Remy was once again looking around with wary, assessing eyes.

“No. Never. My leopard is always calm, otherwise I could never lead the teams into combat situations.”

Remy nodded his agreement. “Somethin’s not right. I can still feel it and it isn’t Saria’s leopard,” Remy said. “I don’ think it’s safe here for either of you.”

“It’s important, or I wouldn’t keep her here,” Drake said. “I might be able to make it back on my own if you . . .”

Drake sent Remy a rueful grin. “She’s hard to argue with.”

“She’s always been like that. I’ll expect the two of you back at the house.” Remy gave his sister a stern look. “And talkin’, Saria. I want to know everythin’ goin’ on, you hear me?”

“I hear you,” Saria said, then muttered under her breath, “I think the world heard you.”

“What was that?” her brother snapped.

Drake could see the amusement in his eyes belying his tone. “We’ll be there.” His palm slid down Saria’s arm to her hand, his fingers tangling with hers. He gave a little tug. He wanted away from Fenton’s Marsh as quickly as possible.

Saria looked up at Remy, still a little shocked that her brothers had come to rescue her. “
Bien merci,
I had no idea you’d come.”