“Anywhere else?” Drake asked.

Saria shook her head. “I’m all over the swamps and bayous. Most everyone has given me permission to take photographs. I don’ go on the Tregre’s property and I always ask Charisse before I go onto Mercier land because I don’ want to disturb their work and I never know when they’re harvestin’ somethin’. I’ve only seen those flowers in two places. I photographed them and had intended to ask Charisse about them. It’s possishe doesn’t know they somehow got out of her greenhouse.”

“They couldn’t have walked out,” Drake said. “Did she know the reaction the smell has on the male leopards?”

Pauline’s frown turned into a scowl. “Of course not. The fragrance is beautiful, almost heavenly. I love it, that’s why I asked my sister for an arrangement for my house. Saria said her leopard doesn’t stir . . .”

Saria made a small sound in the back of her throat, drawing attention to her. Her face flushed with color. “That’s not strictly true, Pauline. My leopard stirs . . .”

“You said she didn’t react,” Drake said.

“I know I said that. She didn’t react with aggression or hostility so I didn’ connect her reaction to the flowers and I was embarrassed to say anything.” Her gaze met his steadily. “She gets amorous.”

Immediately the memory of Saria on her knees in the swamp, her mouth on his cock, flooded his mind. He hadn’t thought about flowers. He hadn’t thought about anything but that fantasy mouth and the pleasure surging through his body. The place could have been overrun with flowers for all he knew.

“It could be that you’re close to the emerging,” Drake said, holding her gaze, letting her know silently he was proud of her courage for telling him in front of the others.

“It isn’t the same,” she said. “At first I thought it was too, but in the parlor, well, let’s just say it was a good thing we were surrounded by company.”

She was painfully honest and once again, Drake felt a surge of pride in her. It couldn’t be easy confessing she wanted to jump him in front of the woman she considered a mother—or the other men for that matter.

Pauline glanced at Amos and then cleared her throat. “I did have that reaction as well. Now that I think about it, when I’m near the flowers I definitely feel more amorous, for want of a better word.”

“This is crazy,” Joshua said. “Flowers? You’re telling me that a flower makes women want sex and men want to fight?”

“The leopards,” Drake said. “And in a way it makes sense. When a woman is close to the Han Vol Dan, every male within miles becomes belligerent and aggressive. The male leopard responds both aggressively and sexually to her scent. If Charisse managed to reproduce the scent of the female leopard during the emerging, the flowers would drive every male shifter crazy and enhance the female’s sex drive.”

“I can’t believe a flower would do all that,” Amos said. “It’s just a flower.”

“It’s a scent,” Drake pointed out. “Leopards are all about scent.”

“I’m going with Mr. Jeanmard on this, Drake,” Joshua said. “It’s a flower.”

“And that’s why we’re not leaders of the lair,” Amos said. “What other explanation is there? It seems ludicrous, but all of us felt our leopard’s reaction. If it happened out in Fenton’s Marsh as well . . .”

Jerico nodded. “We all felt it. There was something out there, something making our leopards belligerent and aggressive.”

“So what does it mean?” Saria asked. “Charisse can’t know how the males react, or she would have destroyed the flower. I know her. If she’s been slowly perfecting this plant, she’s looking for a fragrance to manufacture—probably a signature fragrance worth millions.”

“How long have the flowers been growing on Tregre land?” Drake tapped his finger on his thigh, his mind racing. If Charisse had been experimenting for years, then the flowers could have been subtly influencing the lair.

He had traveled extensively and had seen many lairs. None had the degree of inner destruction this one had. Something was terribly wrong, but, like Joshua, it was difficult to imagine that a flower’s scent would be responsible for the slow disintegration of an entire lair.

“I only went there for the first time a couple years ago,” Saria said. “The old man was scary and mon pere would have switched me had I gone near him. When he died, I braved it, and met Evangeline. I honestly can’t remember when I saw them for the first time, but I always take photographs and I’ll have those in an album somewhere. I always record dates and places and time of year when I put them in my albums. Seriously, though, I doubt more than two years.”

“Talk to Charisse. She should be able to tell you,” Pauline encouraged. “She always writes everything down, she has to.”

Drake shook his head. “I don’t want you telling your sister or Charisse.” He gave Amos a hard look. “Or Elie. Nothing that’s been said here can leave this house, not until we complete our investigation. We’ve got a serial killer on the loose and he’s one of us. Finding him has to be our first priority. I’ll talk to Charisse myself. Agreed?” He wasn’t asking. Technically, Pauline wasn’t a member of the lair, but Amos was and he had sworn his allegiance.