They ran toward the sound of screaming. Eleanor stood in front of Innocent’s open door, the hand over her mouth failing to hold in her screams.

“What happened?” Ryenne asked.

“Are you hurt?” Lucien asked.

She shook her head and pointed into the room. Ryenne stepped inside. Innocent was lying curled on his side facing the door, arms still pulled behind his back by his handcuffed wrists. But now, his eyes were open and a tiny bullet hole stood out on his temple.

“Crap.”

Lucien, who had been comforting Eleanor, pushed in behind her. “Merde.”

“I should have thought of this,” Ryenne said. “We should have kept him guarded. Of course, the rogue would want to silence him. Innocent could identify him. Shit. I’m such an idiot.”

Lucien put an arm on her shoulder and she shrugged it off. “It’s not your fault. He was injured and you were concerned for his healing and keeping him away from everybody else.”

“Yeah, and John was standing here when I went into my room. I guess I assumed he would stand guard but considering our suspicions, that was yet another act of stupidity on my part.”

“He wasn’t here when I got back. Only Eleanor, cleaning the blood on the floor.”

“It is true,” the housekeeper said, voice calmer. “John left as soon as Miss Ryenne closed her door.”

“Where did he go?”

She shrugged. “He left the compound, in a car. I thought he was going to pick up Master Muteti but they haven’t returned yet.”

“Thank you, Eleanor,” Lucien said. “You have had a difficult day. Go home and we’ll take care of the rest.”

“Please have two of the men outside walk you home,” Ryenne said.

Eleanor nodded and headed toward the kitchen.

Ryenne waited for the older woman to turn the corner toward the kitchen before rounding on Lucien. “And where were you all day? It didn’t escape my notice that you haven’t answered this question yet.” She stood with arms folded across her chest, one boot tapping the floor in annoyance, anger, and impatience.

He took her arm and attempted to steer her down the hall.

“Let go of me.” She struggled out of his grasp. Shit, he was strong. Damn shifter.

Lucien sighed. “I just want to have this conversation in private. Can we please go to my room?”

“Fine.” She strode down the hall and waited outside his door.

Once inside, she patted her pocket to reassure herself with the presence of her lipstick stunner, and she could feel the dagger at her back. She didn’t fear Lucien, but she wasn’t naive either. He was a shifter and could turn on her in a heartbeat. She’d be ready for anything.

“So? Where have you been all day?”

“In the woods.”

She snorted. Hours in the woods? She knew she shouldn’t trust a shifter. Especially a wolf shifter like those who killed her brother and father. He could have done all of this—kidnapped Innocent, turned him, set him on Ryenne, and killed him before dinner.

Then again, he couldn’t have turned Innocent or Innocent would have been a wolf. But he could be working with the leopard rogue.

Lucien pushed a hand through his thick hair. She remembered the feel of his hair through her fingers, on her chest. Stop it!

“This morning, after we...I couldn’t sleep so I went out for a run. I’ve been keeping an eye on the village most nights, which we accomplished together last night, but if I go too long without running as my animal, it becomes painful.”

Ryenne frowned. She didn’t know the animal inside a shifter could cause him pain. But she wasn’t sure she was ready to feel sympathy for the kinds of creatures who had destroyed her family.

“I snuck out of the compound and went to the woods.”

“To the woods where we know the rogue leopard hangs out? Do you have a death wish?”

He gestured for her to lower her voice and she took a couple of deep breaths.

“Yes, but he wasn’t there. I didn’t smell him. I’m not completely stupid, you know. I walked through the woods, almost to the other side, found a place to hide my clothes and shoes, and shifted. Then I ran free, following the smells of small animals, staying within the shelter of the trees so no one would see me.”

“What if someone had wandered into the woods?” So many other questions ran through her mind. As a wolf, did he have blood lust? Could he control himself in his animal form? Since there had been no other reports of attacks than the ones they knew about and attributed to the leopard, she assumed he was perfectly safe. Except, maybe, for her heart.

He nodded. “I know and I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. Next time, I’ll only shift at night, as I’d been doing in the previous nights.”

Next time. Damn shifter.

“Okay, we can’t continue like this. We need to stop this rogue so he doesn’t keep picking off men from this village one at a time. What if next time he chooses a child?” She shook her head. The thought was too horrific. “We need a plan.”

“We should attempt to eliminate Steven and John as suspects,” Lucien said. “If they haven’t returned from the warehouse, let’s search their rooms.”

They went to Steven’s room and Ryenne, always in the lead, tried the door. “Locked,” she whispered.

“Should we pick the lock, force the door, or come up with Plan B?” Lucien asked.

“We don’t want them to know we were here so forcing the door is out. They could be back any minute.”

And as if to give truth to her statement, they heard the gate creak open and the crunch of tires on gravel.

They retreated to Lucien’s room.

“Didn’t you say you could smell the rogue in the backyard?” Ryenne asked.

Lucien’s face brightened. “Yes. I would recognize the smell of him.”

“Have you smelled it on John or Steven? This seems the easiest way to eliminate or confirm them as suspects.”

“It’s not John.” He had a faraway look in his eyes. “I haven’t seen Steven since we fought the leopard in the woods.”

It had been the night after Kyeri’s death. Steven had been grieving and had stayed in his room after the accident.

“What about the car accident? It was Steven’s reason for staying in his room for days and the injury may have covered the wound you gave him. Was it real or staged to throw us off track?”

Lucien shrugged. “Innocent got hurt in that accident, too. One of his own men.”

So, either he really had been grieving and got himself and Innocent hurt by accident, or he had been staying out of Lucien’s way on purpose. And he didn’t care about his men.

“So, the rogue who was after Steven targeted his best friend,” she said. Reason enough to grieve. He might have felt responsible for Kyeri’s death.

“The rogue could still be out there.”

“Hmm.” Lucien’s forehead wrinkled. “It doesn’t smell right. Kyeri and Steven led very different lives. How would someone outside of their immediate circle even know Kyeri meant anything to Steven? And the rogue targeted you, too. How did anyone else know we’d been hired? And the very guard who’d been injured in the potentially fake accident is the one turned by the rogue. Too coincidental.”

“But you met Steven before we fought the leopard,” she said. “Can’t you tell if he’s the rogue?”

He shrugged. “This place is filled with so many scents, some new to me, some not. Steven, and everyone, smells like various animals and plants. Chickens wander the yard. Cows are herded down the village’s main streets. Some of the men walk around barefoot and drag the animal smells everywhere they go. I just can’t separate them all out.”

Ryenne nodded but she couldn’t imagine all that Lucien could smell. However, she agreed with him about all the scents here. Some of the men clearly didn’t bathe often and their body odor sometimes overpowered the unfamiliar smells of nature in the air.

“Now that we’ve fought the leopard and I’ve smelled him up close, I can separate his scent from the others and will be able to pick it out when we encounter the shifter,” Lucien explained.

She paced the room, mulling over all they’d learned, the accidents, the coincidences, and the inconsistencies. “Holy crap, Lucien. It must be Steven.”

Lucien nodded, a smile quirking up the corners of his lips. The desire to lick mango juice off his lips hit her again and she forced it away. Was Lucien telling the truth about John’s smell and not seeing Steven? She didn’t know, but if he was working with Steven, then figuring out the rogue’s identity would force the issue. Force a confrontation.

“But why?” she demanded. “Why the hell would a rogue hire hunters? He must want us here for a specific reason.”

“And it must not be just to kill us or they could have done it already,” Lucien said. “In fact, if they tried killing you with Innocent, why did John stop him?”

“Dissension in the ranks?” she asked.

Lucien shrugged again.

“John doesn’t seem to care about me one way or the other,” she continued. “I don’t know why he’d disagree with his boss’s plan to murder me.”

It didn’t matter. She was ready to create a plan. She’d trust Lucien for now, but take precautions. This was it. They were going after the rogue, once and for all.

“It’s easier to fight a man than a leopard, so we have to keep him from shifting,” she said, pacing past Lucien’s bed.

“How?”

She stopped moving and glanced at him. “Drugs. Sleeping pills, specifically.”

“And you just happen to have sleeping pills with you for such an occasion?” His voice had become like steel.

Ryenne swallowed past the nerves and lifted her chin. “Yes. They are one of many weapons in my shifter hunter arsenal. You have a problem with that?”

“It feels underhanded.”

“I’ve worked hard to become stronger and faster but I’m no match for the supernatural strength and speed of a shifter. So I use anything and everything I can to gain the upper hand.”

The hardness in his eyes softened. “I guess it makes sense. Sorry for doubting you.”

She answered with a curt nod and resumed pacing his room. They needed to figure out how and when to slip the sleeping pills to Steven and John. The best way would be to crush the pills and mix them into food or drink. But Steven hadn’t joined them for a meal in days.

Ryenne and Lucien talked out the details and when to set the plan into motion. Then Ryenne went back to her own room, ignoring the remnants of lust lurking in her gut.

The next day, she gave another self-defense lesson to the men in the yard. This time they all greeted her with excitement and big smiles. By the end, they were again exhausted and sweating.

On her way to the shower, she stopped in the kitchen to visit with Eleanor. “Will our illustrious host have lunch or dinner with us today?”

Eleanor greeted her with a wide, bright smile. “No, he went to work again and will be home late. I am to leave a tray in his room with his dinner before I leave tonight.”

Ryenne grabbed a guava, thanked the housekeeper, and dashed off to her room. The plan was coming together.

She updated Lucien during lunch and gave the men another lesson in the afternoon, but in the living room with the furniture pushed out of the way. It was too hot to do much in the afternoons here. Even predators took a break.

The men were coming along. They were starting to internalize her lessons and tomorrow they could start on practicing with weapons.

They all had a refreshing drink together while the men teased each other about their sparring.

“Eh, Daniel holds my wrist like he is shaking my hand,” one man said.

“Go shake your matches over there, Michael. You cannot kick without falling over.”

The men cackled and continued ribbing each other. Ryenne ignored her confusion over their unfamiliar expressions and waved goodbye. She needed to update Gavin on the plan.

“I know you do this sort of thing all the time,” he said, “but now you’re halfway around the world and I’m not around to back you up or call Scotty to call in the cavalry.”

“This has to end, Gav. Four people are dead and many more in danger. My safety is irrelevant.”

He sighed. “You’re such a martyr. Just...don’t die. Okay?”

She didn’t intend to.

After dinner, Lucien distracted Eleanor, and Ryenne added crushed sleeping pills to the pot of beef stew on the stove.

They went up to the roof patio with a drink.

“Now what?” Lucien asked.

“Now, we wait.”

Eventually, they heard the gate creak open and voices calling to each other in the yard. Steven and John were back.

Lucien glanced at Ryenne with raised eyebrows. “How long do you think before they’re asleep?”

“It could be a while. He might not eat right away and then the drug will take at least an hour to work. So, kick back, enjoy your drink.”

A slow smile spread across his face. “I’ll enjoy the view.” His eyes didn’t waver from her face and she felt warm in all her private places.

Even if she could get past her feelings for shifters, now was not the time to lose focus. It was too important to carry out their plan, to see it to its conclusion, and put this rogue down.

Inactivity was usually her enemy and tonight was no different. Every few minutes she’d glance at her watch, stand up and pace around the roof, stare off into the distance, and plop back in her seat.

After two hours of this, she decided they should move on to the next step: grabbing their supplies and peeking at John.

In her room, a ponytail holding her hair out of the way, she filled her pockets with her smallest stun guns and her handcuffs. She wouldn’t be able to climb with anything else.

“Are you sure about this?” Lucien asked. “Maybe I should climb into his room from above.”

“Do you think a woman can’t do this job as well as a man? Or is it because you’re a shifter and I’m human?”

“No, no. You are the toughest hunter I’ve ever met. I don’t doubt your skills or motivation at all. But I care about you, Ryenne, and if something happens to you, I’ll...never forgive myself.”

He cared about her? She didn’t have time to explore her own feelings, which were complicated by years of hatred, suspicion, and grief. But in case one of them didn’t come out of this alive, she kissed him. “You got the rope for his legs?”

He nodded, stunned into speechlessness.

“Then let’s do this.”