“It was not stealing, Elder, I would have given it all freely to save the life of a child.” Rio caught Rachael by the shoulders. “You’ll be here when I return.” He made it a statement. A command.

“I’ll be here.” She kissed the side of his mouth, his jaw. Her lips moved gently against his ear as she whispered to him. “You’re a good man, Rio.”

“I’ll follow as soon as I’ve rested,” Delgrotto said.

“Sleep here, Elder. I’ll return quickly,” Rio said and went out to the verandah, pulling off his shirt as he did so. Rachael hobbled after him. “Do you want me to go with you?”

“No, I can travel much faster alone. I want you to stay off your leg for a couple of days and give it a rest. I’ll be back as soon as possible.” He tucked the shirt and then his jeans into a small pack that he secured around his neck.

“Clever.” She realized they all had to travel with a small pack, the elder included. “Good fortune, Rio.”

“Be safe, Rachael.” He caught her head and dragged her to him, kissing her with fierce possession, with tenderness. She felt the fur rushing over his skin, felt his hands curl into huge paws and marveled at his ability to be so precise in his shifting.

She blinked and the black leopard melted into the forest. “Great. Leave me to entertain the guests.”

She took a deep breath and went back inside. To her relief, the old man had already sunk into a fitful sleep. She covered him with a thin blanket and went out to sit on the verandah with the small leopards.

The rhythm of the forest changed at various intervals during the day. Dawn activities were quite different from the lull in the afternoon. She read a book and listened to the continual chatter in the forest, trying hard to study which bird sang which song and what sounds emerged from the various species of monkeys.

She heard the old man stirring as the sun set, and she forced herself to go back inside to be as pleasant and accommodating as she was able. “I trust you slept well.”

“Please forgive an old man’s rudeness. Traveling the distance really took more strength than I realized.”

“I can imagine. Rio was very tired when he arrived home the other night after packing Joshua all those miles by himself. Without food or drink or medical attention.”

The elder looked at her, his expression as calm as ever. “Touché, my dear.”

She pulled open the vegetable bin, slapping vegetables on the counter. “I’m not your dear. Let’s just get that straight right now. Are you hungr y? I haven’t had dinner yet, and Rio wouldn’t want me to let you starve.”

“By all means, I would enjoy sharing a meal with you. You shouldn’t be on your leg. I make a decent soup; why don’t you let me fix it?”

Rachael hesitated, unsure if she should let him have the run of Rio’s home. The elder seemed unshakable even in the face of her distrust.

He took the decision out of her hands by going through the pantry. She retrieved the knife from the chair cushions while his back was turned and replaced it in the sheath. As casually as possible she put the weapons out of sight.

“You don’t think much of me, do you?” he asked as he began chopping vegetables.

She picked up a second knife and helped. “Not much. I can’t see much wisdom in your sentence of banishment. It smacks of hypocrisy if you ask me, which technically you didn’t so I guess I shouldn’t offer my opinion on the subject.” She hacked a tomato into tiny little pieces. The sound of the blade hitting the chopping board beat out a fast tattoo of annoyance.

Delgrotto paused in the act of cutting up wild mushrooms. “You’ve used a knife before,” he observed.

“You’d be surprised what I can do with this baby. Working in a kitchen can be damned boring, and we women just think up things to hurl the cutlery at. In South America, we pride ourselves on target practice.” She gave him a chatty smirk. “Sometimes it was the chef if he was particularly obnoxious.”

“I see.” Delgrotto raised his eyebrow. “What might constitute being obnoxious, just so I don’t make the same mistake.”

“Oh, you may as well be as obnoxious as you like. You’re already in my book of evil and obnoxious people. I think I even underlined your name a couple of times.” She slashed an onion until it was nothing but sauce.

“I’m certainly not evil, my dear. I may have made one or two mistakes in my life, but I don’t think I’ve ever been evil.”

She shrugged. “I suppose passing that sort of judgment is all subjective. It depends on the point of view. You don’t think you’re evil, but someone else may very well think you’re the devil incarnate.”

Delgrotto paused to watch in fascination as the knife chopped through the remainder of the vegetables so fast her movements were a blur. “I suppose that’s true. If one turns the view even slightly, there is always a different slant. Where were you raised? You are obviously one of us.”

Her hands stilled and she looked up at him. There was a moment of silence. Only the sound of the rain on the roof could be heard. Even the wind stilled, holding its breath. Delgrotto glimpsed the fury in her eyes. In her heart. “I am not one of you. I will never be one of you. I don’t like people who play god, not in this lif e, and not in any other life.”

“Is that what you think we did?” His voice was gentle.

Rachael dropped the knife and put distance between them, going to the door and staring out into the darkness. She didn’t trust herself or her over-the-top fury with this man who had presumed to judge Rio so harshly. She would like the old man to meet her uncle, to show him what true evil was.