Furious, Rachael reached for her intellect, her human brain, her human body. Rio might have the upper hand as a male leopard, but he wasn't going to boss her around as a human woman. She should have seen that he was circling back to the house. She should have recognized what was in his mind and taken steps to stop him.
Already she could feel the change start. She didn't want it. Didn't want to go back to human form and face whatever was going to happen in her future, not after running free in the forest, but it was already too late. She felt it first in her head. The need for her human body. She felt the contraction of muscles, the sudden burning in her leg. She heard a cry escape her throat, half human, half animal as the pain in her shoulder increased.
Rio released her immediately but didn't make the mistake of stepping away. The huge leopard stood over her as she thrashed for a moment in the miracle of the change, then sprawled beneath him in human form. She lay on the ground, facedown, her shoulders shaking slightly, and he knew she was crying. He touched her with his muzzle, rubbing along her back to reassure her.
Rachael rolled over, punching him hard, her eyes blazing with fury. She pummeled the male leopard, uncaring that he could rip her throat out. Uncaring that leopards were notorious for their tempers. Rio leapt sideways away from her, shifting as he did so, catching her wrists when she followed him. He swept her feet out from under her, tumbling her back to the ground, going down with her so that his larger body pressed hers into the thick mat of vegetation.
"Calm down, Rachael." He bit back laughter. The last rays of the sun hit her face, the soft sheen of sweat on her body. Leaves and twigs decorated the riot of curls and she was surrounded with a bright aura. She radiated fury and sex. He couldn't help seeing her that way. She made him happy, even when she clearly wanted to scratch his eyes out. "Did you really think I was going to go crawl in a hole and live a miserable life without you? What kind of a man do you think I am?"
"You're an idiot, that's what you are," she spat back, although his words took most of her fury. She hated that, hated that he could defuse her justified anger with a few charming words, his brilliant eyes, so intensely hungry when he looked at her, and his blazingly sinful, wicked mouth. "Damn you, Rio." She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
Lightning streaked in his veins, sizzled through his bloodstream. He was alive again, his heart beating and his lungs working. He lifted his head, his green gaze burning over her face. "Damn you back, Rachael. You left me. You made me feel and then you just left me. You didn't even have the guts to talk it over with me first. Damn you to hell for that." He caught her head, held her still and devoured her. Kiss after kiss.
She tasted his anger. It was hot and spicy and ferocious. She tasted his love. Tender and hungry and consuming. And she wanted him. Forever. For all time. As short a time or as long a time as she could have him.
Rachael lay in the pine needles staring up at his beloved face. "I'm sorry, Rio. I didn't mean to hurt you. I should have had the courage to talk it over with you. I thought I could live here in the forest, in my other form. I thought they wouldn't find me if I was a leopard. At least I could still be close to you."
He shook his head. "If you're one of us, then so is your brother. The sniper, the one they called Duncan, he had to be the one who put the cobra in your room before you went on the river. And he had to be the one who tried to kill you a couple of nights ago. He shifted into the form of a leopard. Only a few of us around the world can do that. He had to have known you're capable. They would bring in hunters. Eventually they would kill you. We can't run scared. If I've ever learned anything in this life, it's that we have to think something all the way through."
The needles poked into her bare skin. She stood up gingerly. It was far easier maneuvering through the forest in leopard form than human. "I don't want you hurt."
"And you think your brother will try to hurt me?" He took her hand, tugging until she walked with him toward the house. He pulled twigs and leaves from her hair and tossed them aside.
She flashed a small smile. "I feel a bit like Adam and Eve."
His hand tightened on hers. "You have to talk to me about him. I don't want to harm the man, but you have to give me something to work with, Rachael. You either trust me or you don't."
She stood at the bottom of the large tree, staring up into the canopy where his house was hidden. "Do you think it's a matter of trust?"
He rested his palm on her bare bottom, helping her up to the lower branches. She pulled herself up using the creepers hanging like streamers. Rio stood back watching her body, the flexing muscles, the curves and hollows. She had a beautiful butt. He grinned as he leapt up to the lower branch easily, caught the creeper, his hands above hers, his body caging hers between his and the tree trunk. He pressed against her, much in the way of a dominant cat, his teeth nipping her shoulder, his breath teasing her nape. "I know it's a matter of trust."
Instead of pulling away or stiffening as he expected, she leaned back against him, rubbing her alluring derriere against his thickening groin. "I do trust you. I trust you completely with my life. I'm here with you. I've chosen you. I've always chosen you."
And she had. She knew it. She had always chosen him. Would always choose him. "Don't you feel it, Rio? We've always been together. I know we have. Somewhere else, somewhere good."
He shook his head, urging her up to the house. "It wasn't somewhere different, Rachael. There's always been blood and bullets and things to fear. But we managed them together. That's what we do. We live our life the best that we can, together, facing whatever comes our way."
She pulled herself up to the verandah. Her clothes were lying in a heap where she'd stripped. She picked up the shirt, held it to her. "I love him, Rio. I know he's done things, horrible, hideous things. People think he's a monster and they think I should help destroy him. But I can't. I won't. I understand how he came to be what he is." Very slowly she pulled on the shirt. Rio's shirt. It seemed everything came back to Rio. "Do you really think we were together in another time?"
His brilliant green gaze drifted over her. "Don't you?"
She leaned against the chair and smiled at him. "I think you're beautiful, Rio. I thought it then too, wherever we were. I remember that much."
He stepped very close to her, his body crowding hers. Tall, muscular, broad shoulders and incredible strength. He caught her chin firmly and tilted her face up to his. There was no laughter in his eyes. "Don't ever do that again. Don't leave me. I think you tore the heart out of my chest with your bare hands." He felt like an idiot saying it. He didn't write poetry and he didn't know the first thing about romance, but he had to find a way to make her understand the enormity of what she'd done.
She lifted her hand to map his face, her fingertips very gentle. "I won't, Rio. If you're willing to take the chance, I'll make my stand, here, with you." She stepped back when he reached for her. "I want you to know about me before you make up your mind."
"Rachael." He said her name softly, lovingly. "I have made up my mind. I would want you in my life no matter what the circumstances. I lay beside you the other night and thought about whether I would want you if we could no longer have sex. I have to tell you, sex with you is amazing. I look forward to it and I think about it a lot."
"That's a surprise." She managed a small grin.
"The point is, I would want you in my life, in my bed. I want your laughter and your temper. It's you, not your past, not even your body, amazing as that is." His hand skimmed over the swell of her breast. "Not that I want that to change."
"My brother and I inherited a drug empire."
Her gaze was fastened to his face. He felt the hit somewhere in the region of his gut, but he didn't flinch. Didn't change expressions. She was waiting for that. Waiting for rejection. For betrayal. He didn't even blink.
She waited in silence for his reaction. For his disgust. Her mouth was dry with fear of losing him but she went on. He had to know. He deserved t
he truth. Rachael spread her hands out in front of her. "It's actually worse than it's portrayed in the movies, Rio. There are the fields and the workers and the laboratories. There are endless supplies of cocaine. There are guns and murder and treachery. We live in a house that has everything money can buy. We wear the best clothes and have the finest jewelry. The cars are fast and powerful and the lifestyle is decadent. We can have anything we want. Especially if you overlook the bodyguards and the guards at the gates. If you can overlook the corruption of officials and police departments and the murders when some poor man tries to steal to feed his family. When you can overlook the addicts and women selling their bodies and their children, then I suppose, it would be a great life."
She turned away from him, unable to have him look at her. She couldn't look at herself. "That's my inheritance, Rio. It's what got my father and my mother killed." Rachael felt behind her for the chair. Her leg throbbed and burned from overuse, but that wasn't what made her legs shaky.
"My brother told me that our father fell in love with our mother and he wanted out of the business. Once she found out, she would have left him, so he wanted to go legitimate. I have no idea why we moved from South America, but we have estates there as well as in Florida." She sank into the chair, grateful to be off of her leg. "I think he thought it would be different in Florida, but they were still in the business there. No matter what he did, he couldn't change anything."
Rio fixed her a cool drink. He could see pain eating her from the inside out. Two small children thrown into the middle of a world of violence. He knew the strict rules of the society their mother had grown up in. She must have tried to pass her morality, her honor and integrity to her children. He handed her the drink and sat on the floor, taking her injured leg into his hands.
Rachael looked down at his face. She couldn't find evidence of a judgment. There was nothing but acceptance in his expression. There was compassion in his eyes and she had to look away from that. Tears burned too close. She didn't dare begin to cry. She was afraid if the floodgates opened, she'd never be able to close them.
She sipped at the cooling nectar, trying to think how to tell him. What to tell him. She'd never told anyone. People died over the kinds of information she carried with her. Rio's fingers were gentle on her skin as he bathed her leg, elevating it while he examined the puncture wounds. His hands were sure and steady and her heart did a funny little flip. She touched the top of his head, the thick shaggy hair. "You're a good man, Rio. Don't let your elders or anyone else tell you different."
Her heart was in her voice. Rio leaned down to press a kiss against the largest scar. "What happened to you, Rachael? What happened to your brother?"
"My uncle Armando ran the business with our father. They were twins, you know. Very close we thought. We spent so much time with him. He came to dinner all the time. He treated Elijah as his own son. He even took Elijah to ball games and into the Everglades. We thought he loved us. He certainly acted like he did. I never heard Armando and Antonio fight. Not once. They always hugged one another, and it seemed genuine."
Rio looked up when she fell silent again, frowning into her drink. He waited. Whatever trauma she'd experienced, he had the patience to wait for the telling. She was trusting him with things he was certain no other knew.
Rachael took a deep breath, glanced toward the door. The windows. "Are you certain no one is around? Could Kim be within hearing distance?" Her tone was low, a ghostlike whisper, and there was a childish quality to her voice. "In our home they sweep for electronic devices every day. Sometimes a couple of times a day. And Elijah has them sweep every car for bombs before we ever get into them."
He circled her ankle with his fingers, wanting to touch her. Wanting to be an anchor for her. "It must be a terrible way to live, always thinking someone might want you dead."
"I was nine years old when I walked into a room and saw my parents murdered. Armando was stabbing his brother over and over. Mom was already dead. He cut her throat. There wasn't a spot in the room free of blood."
Rio could see she was far away from him, was still that little girl, walking innocently into a room, perhaps coming home from school and wanting to show her parents something special. His fingers tightened, holding her to him.
"He looked up and saw me. I screamed. I remember I couldn't stop screaming. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make the sound go away. He came toward me with the knife. There was blood all over it, all over him and his hands. I just stood there screaming. I know he would have killed me. He couldn't do anything but kill me. I was a witness. I saw him murder them."
"Why didn't he?" It was like pulling teeth. She revealed something and then fell silent. The trauma ran deep and it would never go away. He knew her life couldn't have gotten much better in the intervening years, not with a million-dollar price on her head.
Rio lifted her, slid into the chair and cradled her on his lap. Rachael snuggled into him, wanting the comfort and safety of his arms. She turned her face into his throat. "Elijah came in. He wanted Elijah alive more than he wanted me dead. Armando had no family, no one to run his empire, no one to carry on his work. He had taken Elijah with him on small things, let him see what a big deal he was. He stood there in that room with my parents' blood pooling around his feet, holding a knife to my throat, and he told Elijah to make up his mind. To swear loyalty to him and be his son or he would kill me right there."
"And Elijah chose to keep you alive."
She couldn't look at him. "Our lives were hell, especially Elijah's life. Armando wanted Elijah to be mired in so deep, with so much blood on his hands neither of us could ever go the police." Her eyes filled with tears. "I knew Elijah did it for me, to keep me alive, but it wasn't right. It was never right. He should have let me go. I should have had the courage to save him."
"By doing what? Killing yourself?" He turned her arms over to run the pad of his thumb over the scars on her wrists, scars he'd never mentioned. "He couldn't let you do that. So he joined the man who murdered your parents."
"And he learned from him. And he grew stronger and more powerful and more cold and distant every day."
Rio felt tears, rain-wet, against his skin. Her body trembled. "It was always us against everyone else, but suddenly we began to have terrible fights. Elijah became very secretive. He wouldn't let me leave the compound. He had someone with me all the time and drove away every friend I had."
"He was splitting with your uncle. Starting a war."
"I had a friend, Tony, the brother of my girlfriend. We hardly knew each other. I met Tony at her house. He'd recently moved back to town. I had dated a couple of times and it always ended in disaster. Once it turned out to be an undercover cop, and another time I found out the man I was dating had been paid by Elijah to take me out." Utter humiliation clogged her throat. "I don't think I can remember a man having an interest in me as a woman. The police wanted information to convict Elijah, and I guess they thought they could send in an undercover man to romance me. Armando wanted a way to get close to Elijah again to be able to kill him. He was so furious, so absolutely furious with Elijah. He's done everything he can to try to kill him."
"Tell me about this man." She was avoiding it. Rio knew her now, knew her every little sign of agitation and distress. She was burrowing deeper into his body, trembling, her breath coming in hard gasps of despair.
"I didn't tell Elijah about Tony because I knew he would never allow me to go out alone with him. I couldn't go anywhere alone. He seemed a nice man. Marcia, his sister, and I were good friends. He moved in with her and when I went to visit, he was there. At first we just talked, played Scrabble, that sort of thing. I just wanted a few ordinary hours, a place I could go where I wasn't Elijah Lospostos's sister. Where no one carried a gun and plotted to kill each other."
She dragged her hands through her hair. "I wasn't in love with Tony. I wasn't sleeping with him and telling secrets. I would never sell Elijah out. I'd never give him up. I saw
all those years when he was forced to do terrible things. I can't tell you how often Armando threatened me. How many times he would shove a gun in my mouth and scream at Elijah, how often I wanted him to pull the trigger just to take the pain and rage off Elijah's face. It was a hellish existence until Elijah was strong enough to move against him. But Armando got away. And then the war started, and it was hell all over again."
"Why would Elijah object to your friend's brother?"
"I don't know, but I didn't want Tony to know about that part of my life. Marcia didn't know. We met at the library one day, ended up having coffee and became good friends. She didn't know who I was and I didn't want to tell her. She was a nice woman from a nice family."
"What does she do?"
"She teaches school, for heaven's sake. She teaches sixth-grade science. I went to see her as often as I could. Her home was like a sanctuary to me. Elijah always sent someone with me but they waited outside, in the car. Marcia thought they were my chauffeurs. She joked about it a couple of times. And then her brother moved back home. I got to know him and he was just as nice. One day he asked if I wanted to go to see an opening at an art museum. He was really into art." She hung her head. "I said yes."
A chill went through Rio's body. He knew what was coming. Death had a feeling to it, a presence. It was in the room. It was in her eyes. That stricken look she carried that never quite went away. He tightened his hold on her and rocked her back and forth gently, trying to give her a sense of peace, of comfort. There was neither in betrayal. "And your brother found you."
16
RACHAEL took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "I went to Marcia's house and had the guards stay outside. Tony and I got into Marcia's car and drove away. I bent down as if I were looking for something when we drove out so the guards wouldn't see me. For a few miles I thought it was safe. The next thing I knew, we were in a high-speed chase with cars on either side of us. They were Elijah's men, not Armando's. I knew them all. They forced the car to the side of the road. Elijah opened the door and yanked me out. There was shouting back and forth and then suddenly Elijah emptied a gun into Tony." She covered her face with her hands.