How could she not cry? They didn’t know her and yet they seemed so willing to accept her.

Malichai can’ be too enamored, either that or you’re losin’ your touch. He’s shovelin’ food in faster than Grand-mere can make it.

She knew he was trying to save her, to make her laugh. His hand slid over hers, pressing harder. He leaned toward her, his lips against her ear, although he spoke telepathically, not aloud.

You’ve got this, Pepper. We’re in it together. Just relax and go with the flow. I’ll deal with it. They’ll deal with it. If you cry, I’m goin’ to pick you up and carry you back to bed. That will get us both in trouble eventually.

She’d never had anyone care whether or not she cried. She could feel his distress. It rolled off of him in waves. He detested that she was upset. She knew Wyatt Fontenot was a danger to her in ways she’d never even considered. Her heart could be in jeopardy and that was unacceptable – wasn’t it?

Pepper glanced at Nonny. She didn’t know anyone else she might be able to talk to about things she didn’t understand. She was highly educated, but in this situation, she was educated in all the wrong things.

Wyatt threaded his fingers through hers and brought her hand to his mouth. The warmth of his breath sent a shudder through her body. He actually drove pain back for a moment with that simple movement. She was beginning to think he was the one trained in seduction.

She nodded her head. I’m all right, but fading fast. Let’s keep going. She needed the distraction. Not from the pain, but from his presence. She’d never been in a setting like this one. She could feel the camaraderie surrounding her – the good will in the room. All three men and Nonny helped with Ginger’s food, cutting it into small pieces and feeding her with a small spoon, almost without thinking.

Their kindness to the child was automatic. Several times Ezekiel brought a glass of warm milk to Ginger’s lips and held it for her, talking quietly to her, encouraging her in learning to drink from a cup rather than a bottle. Wyatt reached out with a napkin and just as gently wiped her lips free of her milk mustache.

The sight of these men, so big and rough, being so caring and gentle to a baby – one that hadn’t known any love or consideration other than from her – melted Pepper’s heart. She wanted to draw her knees up and just watch them all. It was better than any movie she’d ever seen, which wasn’t difficult. She’d only seen training films, including techniques on sex. None were about family or caring or love. She didn’t know a thing about those topics, but she knew she was witnessing it right there.

Wyatt brought Pepper’s hand to his mouth again, biting gently on the tips of her fingers to distract her from her thoughts. He could feel her confusion and knew tears were burning close. He had no real idea why it upset him so much that she felt the need to cry, that she didn’t understand that all of them were flawed in some way. It wasn’t only Pepper. She had to get over the notion that she wasn’t as good as they were.

“Pepper, were they givin’ you other venom as well?” Wyatt asked, keeping her knuckles against his mouth. “From various other snakes?”

She nodded. “I’m capable of killing just the way the children are, which is why the cobra venom doesn’t affect me. The idea was to seduce the male and inject the snake venom and leave. No one would ever suspect I had anything to do with the death.”

Wyatt ignored the fact that Ezekiel and Malichai both looked up from their dinner and then exchanged a long glance with each other. Pepper had obviously made an effort to tamp down the seductive quality of her voice, but it was almost physically impossible to do. Her voice was her own. When she spoke aloud, everything she said sounded like an invitation to hot sex.

“That doesn’t make sense, Pepper,” Wyatt said. “You can’t possibly have been in vitro with a cocktail of snake.”

“In vitro has been around since the first test tube baby was born in the late 1970s,” Pepper pointed out.

“But not genetic altering. That’s rather new and advanced. What are you, twenty-two, twenty-three?”

“Twenty-three. I trained with five other girls as a soldier from as far back as I can remember. I didn’t have parents. Whether Braden created me or picked me up off the street, I have no idea, it’s difficult to believe anything he said, but all of us were flown to various countries to learn how to survive in hostile terrain. We also went to school daily, no matter where we were, to continue our educations. I excelled in languages, but all the girls had to learn the same things.”

Wyatt had to set his teeth against the temptation of her voice. He studiously avoided looking at his friends, hoping time might dull the impact. He had one hell of a hard-on and didn’t want to know if they were struggling with the same effect.

He’d been right all along about a woman like Pepper. Sexy. Hot. Trouble with a capital “T.” He had always known he was a Cajun through and through. He lived hard, loved hard, worked hard and played hard. When he fucked up, he did it royally, such as joining Whitney’s GhostWalkers, although truthfully, he was beginning to think maybe he wasn’t going to regret his decision so much. Why? Her beautiful ass was parked in his kitchen chair and one of his beautiful little viper daughters was laughing with Nonny at his kitchen table. What more could a man ask for?

His passions were intense, his temper, his love, his protective instincts, his jealousy. The thing was, none of those traits had been engaged until Pepper. He’d never been jealous around Joy and other men and that should have told him something right there. His brother Gator spent a great deal of time with his teeth clenched when his woman was in a bar with him. Wyatt should have known that was just part of their nature. Living and loving hard meant skating the edge of control or just plain losing it sometimes.