Ryenne woke to a scream and pounding. She sat up, disoriented, and looked for the source.

Her door. She was in her bedroom in Steven Muteti’s house in Kenya and the pounding was coming from the door.

She knew she should open the door and find out who was pounding, but tendrils of her dream still clouded her mind. There had been blood—so much blood—and a body.

Her door crashed open and Lucien fell into the room, panting.

She sat up straighter on the bed.

He looked up at her from the floor where he’d landed. “Are you okay?”

“You’re the one on the floor.”

“You were screaming.” He rose from the floor, gripping a dagger similar to the one still at her back. She’d have a nasty bruise from sleeping on it.

“No, I wasn’t.” Was she?

He scanned the room, eyes narrowed, alert for danger. “You alone in here?”

She frowned. “Of course, I’m alone.” Annoyance replaced the earlier disorientation, in turn quickly replaced by fatigue. She collapsed back down to the bed, her hair spreading out around her.

He leaned against the wall, slid down to the floor, his knees up in front of him. “I thought you were in danger. Sorry about your door.”

“I can take care of myself, you know.” Yes, dammit, she was a shifter hunter, after all. She pulled the dagger from the holster at her back as if to illustrate her point.

He eyed the dagger and nodded. “Are you hungry? You slept through dinner but I’m sure we can find you something.”

She glanced at her watch. It was a little past midnight. Why was Lucien awake?

“Can I ask you a personal question?” he asked.

They weren’t friends. They weren’t anything. But he was damn hot in a skin-tight t-shirt and poured-on jeans. His shaggy brown hair reminded her of Jim Morrison. But her natural sense of suspicion won out. “No.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Who’s Cody?”

She jumped off the bed and held the dagger to his throat. “How do you know about Cody? Did you check me out? Did you know I’d be here before you arrived?”

He went very still and met her gaze. “You screamed his name. It’s why I broke down your door. I worried a man was in here hurting you.”

His gaze was unwavering, direct, and sincere. Ryenne sat back on her heels and let the dagger drop to the floor. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

Neither said anything more and the silence stretched between them, filled the room, until Ryenne couldn’t stand it. “Cody was my brother.”

“Was?”

She nodded. “He was killed by shifters when he was sixteen and I was twelve. He’d snuck out of the house against my parents’ wishes to meet his girlfriend. He barely made it a quarter mile.”

Lucien’s eyes had gone wide and dark and his lips tightened. He didn’t say a word.

“I still miss him every day,” she continued. “But, it’s the event that led me here. The single moment in my life that changed everything. At twelve, I wanted to be a chef.” She laughed. “Now, I can barely boil water. Back then I was small and scrawny and wouldn’t have been able to protect myself from a storm let alone a shifter. Now...” She gave a wry smile. “Now, I can take down anything that comes at me.”

“I believe it.”

They stared at each other for a moment and this time the silence became fraught with a different kind of tension. Heat built in Ryenne.

“Will you be my partner?” he asked.

“What?” Had he been reading her mind or did he feel it, too?

“In this case. Can we work together and split Muteti’s second payment?”

Ryenne swallowed the embarrassing lump forming in her throat at his original question. Obviously, he meant for them to work together on this case they shared. Obviously, he didn’t mean what had jumped into her mind and made her panties wet.

A roar from outside her window broke the tension and made them both jump up from the floor and rush to the windows. Ryenne threw open the heavy curtains and reached for her dagger, but it wasn’t there. On the other side of the glass, a huge leopard with glittering green eyes stood over a man’s mangled body.

“Is he still alive?” Lucien muttered next to her.

“I can’t tell.”

Lucien took a step back, holding his knife. “I’ll go see.”

“Okay, I’ll get the beast away from the man.” A dagger wouldn’t do her much good from this side of the iron bars protecting her windows. Keeping her eyes on the animal, she reached into her suitcase for the telescoping cattle prod her mother designed for her. Then she slowly opened the window.

“Nice kitty,” she said in a soothing voice.

He growled—judging from the size of the creature, it had to be a male. Nature was sexist.

She stared him down, bringing her right arm around from behind her back.

The leopard growled again and put one massive paw on the man’s chest.

In one fluid and rapid movement, Ryenne swung the cattle prod into position between the bars and jabbed the beast.

He didn’t move.

She pushed the prod into his chest, trying to push him away from the man.

The clang of a gate echoed in the still night and the leopard swung his head toward the sound.

“Ah!” She yelled to draw his attention away from Lucien and back to her.

The leopard leaped at her and swiped a paw through the bars, grazing her arm holding the cattle prod.

She gasped in pain and fought the instinct to drop the weapon. To the sound of pounding footsteps, she turned on the voltage on the prod and jabbed the leopard.

He whimpered, fell away from the window, and ran off into the darkness.

Lucien appeared in his place. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

“I’m fine.” The scratch stung but she’d suffered worse. “How’s he?”

Lucien felt for a pulse. “Dead.” He bent as if to lift the man.

“Where are Steven’s guards?”

“Cowering behind the wall.”

She snorted in disgust. “Let me grab a throwing dart.” She swept a hand through her bag again and pulled out a leather drawstring bag. “Go ahead. I’ll cover you from here.”

Lucien hefted the man and jogged back to the gate and she followed his progress from behind her bars. Once the gate clanged shut behind him, she ran from the room to meet him. He was in the front yard of the compound, the dead man at his feet, and surrounded by guards. Guards muttering behind their hands.

“Thanks for having my back,” Lucien said with a head nod.

Ryenne nodded in return. It was a strong back, despite his slim build. And he wasn’t squeamish, carrying a dead body to protect it from further desecration by a leopard.

A leopard who stared her in the eyes and happened to drop a body outside her window. First an ear, now an entire person.

Like a gauntlet.

The men continued to mutter over the body.

“What are you thinking?”

She turned to Lucien, stared into his warm brown eyes. “I’m thinking you’re right. We should work together.”

***

The man turned out to be a neighbor, a farmer who wasn’t important enough to live behind walls. But important enough to have friends in high places.

Steven came outside wearing satin pajamas and a short robe or smoking jacket type of thing. A swath of smooth, dark skin showed between the lapels of the top.

One look at the body at their feet and he dropped to his knees next to the man, a hand on the man’s arm. “Kyeri,” he wailed. “Oh no, not Kyeri.”

The muttering of the guards grew louder.

John, Steven’s right-hand man, materialized next to Ryenne. Where had he come from? He hadn’t made a sound as he approached and she hadn’t noticed him come through the door.

“Steven knew him?” she asked.

John nodded, a short jut of his chin. “They grew up together. Like brothers.”

They watched Steven’s grief in silence, Lucien and Ryenne occasionally throwing each other a glance behind John’s back.

Eventually, Steven spent himself and arranged for his men to guard the body, now covered by a blanket. None of them were willing to touch the body to move it inside. They weren’t thrilled to stay outside with it either, but based on the looks they gave Steven, they were afraid to disobey.

“Should I offer to move him?” Lucien asked her in a whisper. “Would it violate some cultural beliefs?”

She shrugged. “It may be better to leave them to it.”

“Ouais.” He gestured toward the house with his head. “Ready?”

She nodded and led the way inside. Exhaustion weighed down her limbs and the narrow corridor stretched out in front of her like the longest tunnel she’d ever driven through.

Ryenne stopped in front of her door. “We need a plan. The leopard might come after one of us next.”

“Tomorrow. Sleep well.” He started to walk away and then stopped. “Will you be okay alone? I mean, I know you’re all tough and everything, but you...don’t seem to sleep well. If you want, I could sleep in the chair in your room.”

Ryenne stood rigid in her doorway. It was a nice offer but she resented it. Hopefully, she was too tired now to dream. “I’m fine,” she said, and closed the door on him.