“Saria, cher, how good to see you,” she greeted, with genuine affection in her voice. “Armande, I gave Saria permission to picnic here.” She smiled at Drake and offered her hand. “I’m Charisse Mercier and this is my brother Armande.”

Drake took her hand. She was trembling, but trying to hide it. There was no lie, she was genuinely happy to see Saria, but she was shaking with fear for her brother. News traveled fast in a lair and the intruder had taken down two of their best fighters. She didn’t want him attacking her brother.

“Drake Donovan.” He identified himself and moved his body subtly. Saria, bless her, took the cue and moved up beside him, offering Charisse a kiss on both cheeks.

“Thanks for letting us use your land, Charisse. It’s so beautiful here.”

“Bien merci. I think so,” Charisse said easily. She put her hand on her brother’s arm and looked up at him. “I’m sorry, Armande, I should have let you know Saria would be here today.”

He jerked away from her and Charisse looked as if he’d struck her. She turned away from them, but Drake caught the sheen of tears in her eyes. Armande gave Drake a threatening stare, looked at Saria and spit on the ground before turning away from them. Deliberately he stepped on his sunglasses, smashing them before walking away.

Charisse gasped and dropped to her knees, gathering the pieces of the broken glasses into her hands. Drake frowned and looked at Saria. She shrugged, sending him a look that said Charisse was different and no one could predict her strange behavior. She went to the woman and put her arm around her, comforting her.

Drake repacked the picnic basket and folded the blanket, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Charisse seemed under her brother’s control, yet she had stopped his leopard from attacking. How? If she wasn’t the dominant sibling, how had she managed to stop a male leopard in a fury from an attempted kill? Armande had acted jealous, yet if his leopard had been so enamored with Saria’s leopard, no one, not even his sibling, could have stopped him. He’d acted more the petulant child than a jealous lover.

Again, Charisse’s tears appeared genuine, almost childlike, when just a few moments earlier, she’d been a self-possessed, very confident woman. Something about the situation made him uneasy. His cat was hyperaware, studying the situation, every bit as tense as Drake. He took a careful look around as he packed the picnic gear into the boat. The two women were whispering together, Saria holding Charisse as she might a child, patting her back and stroking her hair.

Drake inhaled, shifting position, allowing his cat to rise close to the surface to process information. Armande hadn’t gone far. He was in the trees, watching, and now he wasn’t alone. Robert Lanoux was with him. They were being hunted. Was Charisse a distraction? Did she know? A third man was moving into position on the other side of the trees.

“Saria.” He kept his voice low, but the command carried. “We have to go now.”

She turned her head and saw him pick up her rifle and check the chambers. She didn’t hesitate, but ran to him. “It’s loaded.” She started engine. “Armande?”

“And Robert Lanoux. A third man. I think it’s the first challenger.”

Charisse, looking puzzled, ran down to the dock and waved, blowing kisses at Saria. She appeared to be completely oblivious of anything wrong.

“The first challenger?”

He kept his eyes glued to the island and the butt of the rifle snugly fit to his shoulder, finger on the trigger. He had Armande in his site and the bastard was dead if he made one wrong move.

“They came at me last night. I recognize his scent.” He never took his eyes off his target, letting Armande know he was dead if he moved. “Get us out of here, Saria.”

“Did Charisse set us up?”

Yeah, that was his woman, quick on the uptake, but there was hurt in her voice, and that tugged at his heart. “I don’t know, baby, maybe. Or maybe they used her.”

She took them out into the channel fast, speeding around the bend and away from the beautiful, but treacherous Mercier land. Drake slipped the rifle back into her custom-built case and sank down. He had to bring in his team. Things were going to hell fast and he hadn’t even gotten to Fenton’s Marsh yet.

“Take me out to the marsh now,” he said. “I need to get a look at it before they do anything else.”

“I think we need to go to my brothers,” Saria said. “They might not like us bein’ together, Drake, but they won’t allow any harm to come to you.”

Her brothers’ first loyalty should be to her, but after some of the things he’d heard, he wasn’t certain it would be and did he dare risk being anywhere near Saria when the lair launched a full assault on him? He needed to choose his own battleground. The locals would have the advantage in the swamp. They’d grown up there and knew every inch of it.

“Is this my fault?” Saria asked. “Because I chose you instead of one of them?” She turned her head to look into his eyes. “Tell me the truth.”

“I don’t know what it’s about, Saria. And the bottom line always with a shifter, is whether your leopard will accept your choice as a mate. Female leopards can be extremely difficult.”

“She seems like a freakin’ hussy to me,” Saria muttered. “She would have been all over you if she could have.”

“Don’t remind me,” he flashed her a small rueful grin, hoping to ease the tension. “I must have been out of my mind trying to be gallant.”