“Get him here. Let him see the dead leopard. We’re going to need an explanation for all of this. Conner, hang in there until I get Emma situated. I need to see how bad her wounds are.”

“I’ve got this under control,” Conner assured.

“Fucking bastard,” Jake muttered as he bent down, preparing to set Emma on the couch.

She gripped his neck. “I’m bleeding. We’ll ruin it.”

“Don’t be silly. Who gives a damn about the couch? I need to look at you. Hold still, honey.” His hands were gentle as they probed at the wounds marring her soft skin. There was no arterial blood. Most of the rake marks were deep enough to draw blood but not to leave scars. The bite marks on her neck and throat had a few punctures that worried him, but Rory had been careful to miss anything vital. He hadn’t wanted to kill a female.

He tossed a blanket over her, heedless of her blood getting on it, and crouched beside Conner. “How long has that tourniquet been on? You don’t want him to lose his leg.”

“I already lost it a long time ago,” Drake said tiredly. He closed his eyes. “My leopard can’t hold on forever, Jake, and this isn’t a bad way to go.”

“Fuck that,” Jake snapped. “I told you, we’re fixing that leg. When you wake up, you’ll be stronger. I’ll have the surgeon I’ve been talking to about this problem of yours on standby.”

Drake’s eyes flew open. “You cannot talk to a non-species doctor about us.”

“I’m well aware of that,” Jake said. “Have a little faith.” He tapped Conner’s shoulder. “You’ll be going with him?”

Conner nodded. “Leave him to me, Jake.”

Joshua rushed in, clad only in his jeans, still barefoot. He tossed Jake a pair of jeans and another to Conner. “We’ve got to load him on a gurney and get him moving. We’ve got a short window, according to the pilot. Now or never. Evan’s on the way up. He says it pretty bad at the stables.” He placed lanterns in the two rooms and lit a few candles to help. “The generator’s been tampered with. I’ll have to fix it later.”

“Go up and get the kids out of the room. Get some light up there first. They’ll be scared. Tell Susan to put them both to bed together and to stay with them. Tell her Evan will be there in a couple of minutes, and Mommy and Daddy will be up to reassure them. Evan can let them know Drake was injured and that’s the reason we can’t come right away.”

Joshua nodded and raced up the stairs to follow the scent to Emma’s room where he grabbed the first thing he found, gathered towels, soaked washcloths and then called down the stairs to Jake. “Here’s Emma’s robe and everything else.”

Jake caught the robe and then the towels and wet cloth. “We’ll have to put antiseptic on, as well as treat you with antibiotics so you don’t get infected. Cat scratches and bites can be lethal just from infection.”

Emma nodded. “I’m fine, Jake, just take care of Drake.”

“There’s nothing we can do until we get him to the helicopter. I want to clean you up and put you in a robe so we don’t scare the kids any more than they already are.” He wanted to check out every single square inch of her body to make absolutely certain that there were no serious wounds.

He washed each slash, each puncture, poured fiery iodine into the wounds so that she came off the couch and clawed him, and then he bandaged each one as best he could before slipping her into the soft robe.

“We’ve got to go now, Jake,” Joshua yelled. “The kids are in bed, crying a lot, but safe, and Evan’s here. We’ve got to take Drake while the weather’s calmer. The pilot says move it.” He crouched beside Conner, and the two men slid a backboard under Drake before placing him on a gurney.

“Stay with the kids, Jake,” Drake said.

“Shut the fuck up, Drake,” Jake said, hating the lump in his throat. “I’m taking you to the helipad and making certain you live whether you like it or not.” If he had one man he could call his friend, it was Drake. And after all he’d done, Jake wasn’t about to let someone else see to his care.

Jake ran ahead of them, trying not to hear the sobbing of his children upstairs, but the sound stirred his leopard just as it did him. Rage swept through him, shaking him as they rushed through the rain with Drake toward the helipad.

Below the kitchen, in the large wine cellar, something moved in the dark, creeping up the stairs as the sounds of activities faded and the stench of male leopards receded. Silently the animal padded up the stairs and lifted one giant paw toward the doorknob. He had followed Drake from the stables, intending to kill him, but he’d caught the scent of the others as they shifted on the run, and knew he had to stay out of sight. It had been easy enough to slip through the open doors and secret himself in the wine cellar.

The scent of the female was a powerful aphrodisiac, and the leopard kept lifting his head and curling his lip, taking her into his lungs. The sound of crying children bothered him, but the overpowering scent of blood beckoned to everything wild in him. His priorities had been laid out. The adult female first. The infant female second. The male child was the last resort. His paw shifted, became fingers and settled around the knob. With great stealth, he turned it and opened the door a crack and crept out.

There was one bodyguard, the one called Evan, and Susan and Emma were left in the house with the two children. He crept through the darkened halls, avoiding the spills of dim light from the lanterns. The group was at the top of the stairs. The babies were sobbing and Emma tried to comfort them, pacing back and forth with both in her arms.