The American shifter hunter—his competition—glared at him throughout the day, no matter how much Lucien smiled at her and turned on his Gallic charm. His charm had always worked for him in the past. His sisters teased him about the power his hypnotic smile had over women. He always tried to defend himself by saying it wasn’t on purpose and he couldn’t help if people naturally reacted to him in a positive way. It certainly came in handy for his job.

Unlike other members of his profession, Ryenne looked like a porcelain doll, with perfect skin and perfect hair. A small, unprofessional piece of him wanted to find out if her body lived up to its promise. He’d never met anyone who filled out a pair of jeans like she did and carried off wearing a knife sheath without looking like a man.

Their new boss talked at them for much of the day while leading them through the house and grounds and village. It was all useful information. They needed all the background they could gather to help figure out who was trying to hurt Muteti.

“Let me show you my business,” Muteti said after finishing the tour of the house, ushering them into the car with John behind the wheel.

John sped off down the one paved street, a cloud of dust from the gravel compound they’d just left trailing behind. And he’d thought his mother’s hometown in the Massif Central of France was small. It had four paved roads, so it was huge compared to this one.

The dust cloud followed them out of the village and down a long, winding dirt road shaded by tall trees. Through the trees, Lucien spied wave upon wave of green coffee plants. He loved coffee, drank several cups each day, but had never thought much about where it came from and how it was produced. The plants were beautiful with glossy, dark green leaves drooping toward the ground. The plants grew so thick, he could barely see the patches of brown earth between the rows of plants.

Eventually, they drove into a clearing. A large and stately white wooden house with a covered porch sat to one side. It was so different from Muteti’s squat cement structure with its peaked slate roof and brown wood door and window frames. The architecture reminded him more of Europe than of the village he’d toured earlier that day.

“This is beautiful,” Ryenne said. “Is it yours?”

“Yes.” Muteti opened his door and stepped out into the harsh sun. “My mother and younger siblings live here. I prefer my compound in the village. It’s closer to the warehouse where I keep an office. And safer.”

The last words were muttered under his breath as he walked around the house.

There was something not quite right about Muteti but Lucien hadn’t figured out what, yet. In other circumstances he might have guessed Muteti was a shifter. But he wouldn’t have needed to hire hunters, then.

Beyond the back of the house and a protected patio and backyard area, the ground sloped down toward what looked like some kind of industrial enterprise, and Lucien realized there was no wall protecting this property. No wonder Muteti thought his walled compound was safer. The smaller property would be easier to patrol and there were limited entrances to guard. This place was wide open.

“This is where we used to roast the seeds,” Muteti explained. “Back in my father’s time. Now we have a modern factory closer to the village where we’ve been able to grow the business exponentially.”

“Seeds?” Ryenne asked. “We call them coffee beans in English.”

“Mmm, yes, but they are actually the seeds of berries of the coffea plant.”

They walked around raised rectangular frames and Lucien could imagine the shallow interior filled with red coffee seeds.

Muteti gestured to one raised frame with a wide gesture of his arms. “We dried them first in the sun before moving on to the roasting process.” He smiled as if at a memory. “Even in my father’s time we exported our coffee to New York and across much of the United States.”

Ryenne suddenly turned her head away from the expansive view and to their host. “Have you been to New York?”

“Sure, sure, a few times. I like the excitement but always look forward to returning to my small and quiet corner of the world.”

“Did you ever meet my father on one of those trips? Maybe you worked with him.” Her perfect face had such an earnest expression, Lucien felt drawn to her. His own body strained forward, hoping for the right response.

But a shadow passed across Muteti’s hard-edged face and Lucien knew Ryenne wouldn’t get the answers she sought.

“Cavanagh? No, I can’t say I ever met him.”

Ryenne looked down, clearly disappointed. “Well, what were the odds, in a city of eight and a half million people, right?” She laughed it off and stomped toward a dilapidated shed.

“That’s the old roasting shed,” Muteti said, scrambling after Ryenne.

Lucien wondered what had made her ask. Why would she think Muteti was connected to her father?

Within minutes, they had finished their plantation tour and trudged back up the sloped path toward the house. Muteti invited them for a cup of tea on his mother’s back patio. “Although we grow coffee, it is for export. We drink tea here.”

“Gladly,” Ryenne said, wiping a hand across her glistening forehead.

So, the perfectly poised hunter sweated like everyone else and wasn’t perfect after all. The thought made Lucien smile. He didn’t yet know if he was willing to see her as anything more than the competition, but it was comforting to know she was as human as anyone else.

Well, as human as any other human.