Wild Rain

Chapter Seventeen

PETER Delgrotto was tall and thin, a tough, sinewy man with lines etched deeply in his face. His eyes were a strange amber, glittering with some hidden fire, a focused, haunting stare that carried a great degree of menace. Rachael had expected a wizened, elderly man staggering under the weight of his years, but Delgrotto carried power and danger in his piercing eyes. He stood straight, fully clothed. The only sign of the long, arduous trip was the sheen of sweat on his skin and the breath moving in bursts in and out of his lungs that he couldn't quite hide.

"You honor us with your presence, Wise One," Rio said formally.

Rachael made a small strangling noise in her throat and then covered her displeasure by coughing when Rio tossed a quick warning glance her way.

Rio stepped back to allow the older man entrance. "If you wish to come in, please do so." He felt awkward, uncertain what to say or how to act. By all of their laws, the elder should not come near him, acknowledge him or speak to him, let alone enter his dwelling. Rio had no idea whether he was being discourteous in inviting the man inside.

Delgrotto bowed low. "I must ask you for a glass of water. I have not traveled so fast, or so far, in years. My lungs are not what they used to be. Forgive me bothering you, when I have not properly greeted you in many years." His gaze settled on Rachael.

There was a small silence. Rio stood very still. Rachael lifted her chin, her dark eyes alive with distaste.

"This is obviously your woman. You've found her. You must introduce me."

"I'm sorry, Elder, forgive my lack of manners. I'm so surprised by your visit I've forgotten basic courtesy." Rio handed the man a glass of water. "This is Rachael. Rachael, Peter Delgrotto, an elder in our village."

Rachael managed a smile but she didn't murmur pleasantries. She was pleased that Rio thought to protect her, that he hadn't given away her infamous last name. Sensing how nervous Rio was, she stood up and casually crossed the room to stand just behind him, wanting to be close in case he needed her.

Delgrotto inclined his head, returning her smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Very nice to meet you, Rachael." He turned to look at Rio and the smile faded.

Rio felt the impact of the elder's stare. It had been many years since any other than his unit members had looked at him or spoken to him. He felt behind him for the sink, something to grip out of sight of the elder. Rachael slipped her hand into his. A show of solidarity and support. "What is it, Elder? What is so important that you would break the law of our people?" There was little point in beating around the bush.

"I have no right to come to you, Rio. Not after the sentence handed down by the council." Delgrotto met his gaze steadily. "By me. I have removed myself as a council member and am prepared to pay the consequences of my actions. I told the Seat of Power what I intended and asked they withhold sentencing until it is done. They agreed."

Rachael could see the pride on the older man's face. Rio reached out and took his arm, led him to the most comfortable chair and seated him. "What is it?" Delgrotto suddenly looked every bit of his eighty years and then some.

"My grandson lies near death. No one can save him without your blood. None of us carry the rare blood you have. Without you he will die. I lost my firstborn son to poachers. He had no children. I lost my only other child and his mate to an accident. I have no other family left. I don't want to lose him. Not out of pride or stubbornness. Not for any antiquated law. I'm asking you to save him."

"Where is he?"

"He lies in the village at the small hospital there."

"I'll leave now, Elder. I can go faster alone. Will they allow my help?"

"Joshua said you would come." Delgrotto nodded his head. "They're waiting for you, keeping him alive with fluids. We used the blood you had stored for yourself." He looked down at his shaking hands, tears glittering in his eyes. "It was my decision to steal from you, no one else. Without it, he would have died. It isn't enough, only to prolong his life until you manage to arrive."

"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 hungry? 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 bitting 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 life, 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.

Rachael took a deep calming breath. Her bad temper was beginning to affect the small leopard under the bed. Fritz snarled and showed his teeth, but remained still. She looked down at the forest floor. Somewhere out there Rio ran, flat out, expending every drop of energy he had, risking his life to save the life of the child. And the child's grandfather had condemned him to a life of banishment.

"You think we take advantage of Rio." There was no inflection whatsoever in his voice, no anger, no denial. No remorse.

"Of course you take advantage of him. You're doing it now, aren't you? You came here knowing he wouldn't hesitate. Knowing he would risk everything for your grandson. You knew what his nature was when you condemned him, yet you did it anyway. You put the yoke of service around his neck and kept him chained to a society, to a people who used him, but weren't willing to associate with him or lift a finger to help him. You need him and what he's able to do, but you don't want him to taint your perfect society."

Tears burned in her eyes. She kept her back to him and her fists clenched tightly at her sides while the anger swirled in a black knot in her stomach. "He was injured often, I've seen the scars. He must have been so alone and depressed at times. You left him to live always feeling ashamed and not good enough no matter what he did. And all the time you knew what he was on the inside. You knew his true nature."

Fritz emerged from under the bed and rubbed along her leg, wrapping his tail around her. He glared at the elder, hissed and spit before slipping out into the night. Rachael caught a glimpse of Franz waiting in the shadows of the canopy.

"Yes I did know him," Delgrotto admitted.

She could hear the sounds of him dumping vegetables into the broth, but she didn't turn around, disgusted that she was in the same house with him. "Power is a strange thing. It seems so innocent on the surface, yet it twists and corrupts until the user is no longer anything but a weapon." There was a lash of contempt in her voice.

"It does seem so when viewed from a distance," Delgrotto said mildly. "Yet just as you observed, turn the view slightly and you see something else. Rio stood before the entire village. Not just the council. He was young and strong and filled with power. He was covered in the blood of the man whose life he took."

"He was covered in his mother's blood." Rachael whipped around to face him, her dark eyes flashing.

Delgrotto nodded, conceding her point. "That is true also. Rio had skills far beyond his years. He was an expert marksman even as a young boy. Few of our strongest men could defeat him in the mock battles we have. He was popular with the young crowd, everyone looked up to him. And he violated our most sacred law. We work at teaching our children that hunters did not come into our forests, our home, with the intention of committing murder. We eat meat, and we kill animals to eat it. They hunted for fur. This man did not stalk and kill Violet Santana in cold blood. He had no idea she had a human side. He would have been appalled at the idea of killing a woman."

"And because he didn't know, that lessens his crime?"

"How could it be a crime if he didn't know what he'd done?"

"He was poaching. The leopards are protected."

"It was still an animal to him, not a human. How can we teach our children otherwise, Rachael? We are a lethal species, with cunning and intelligence and gifts beyond the ordinary, but we also have the mood swings and temperaments of our animal cousins and that makes us far too dangerous without laws to guide us. What would you have us do? He was a hero to the young men. Where he went, they would follow."

"He didn't obey you, that was his crime. He stood before you with his head unbowed and his shoulders straight ready to accept responsibility for his actions."

"Without remorse."

"The man killed his mother."

"And you believe an eye for eye is logical? Is justice? Where does it stop? Do we then carry on feud after feud until we no longer exist? Rio chose his path with full knowledge of the consequences and full knowledge that he was in the wrong." Delgrotto pulled two bowls from the cupboard. "We spent a hundred years to try to convince our people we could not brand hunters and poachers as murderers. In one day, Rio Santana changed all that. Our people have been divided ever since."

"Because they see into his heart. They see what he does for them. For all of them. For you, for your grandson, for Joshua. Even the local tribesmen seek him out because they see into his heart and know he's worthwhile. He's extraordinary." Rachael, in her frustration, wanted to shake the calm demeanor of the elder. How could he stand there and possibly think he was fit to deliver a judgment against Rio? She seethed with frustration and anger and she didn't understand how Rio had accepted and lived with their blatantly unfair sentence.

"The young men saw Rio as a leader, as a man with skills and the ability to take charge. Some of them followed him. They separated themselves from the village, living outside the protection of the community yet stayed involved. Rio committed murder on a human being. Whatever the circumstances, whatever the reasons, he hunted the man, using his skills as one of our people, and he deliberately took that man's life. He not only put all of our lives in jeopardy from possible reprisal, from someone finding our species, but he put our very way of life in jeopardy. We have laws for reasons, Rachael. Should he have gone unpunished? Rio knew and accepted the laws of our society."

Rachael watched as the elder set the table and lit a candle as a centerpiece. She couldn't quite, leave the doorway and the night. Rio was a presence everywhere, but out in the darkness, he was in his element. She knew he was far from her, yet she still felt him. All the nights she woke to find him gone, or just returning, he had been running free, running in his other form. She longed to be at his side instead of debating an issue neither could resolve.

"Come sit down and eat," Delgrotto said kindly. "You have great courage, Rachael, and you protect those you love fiercely, just as Rio does. I'm grateful he found you. You've brought him happiness."

"He would have been happy if you hadn't taken everything away from him."

"We spared his life. It was the only choice open to us. Banishment or death. No one wanted it, and no one was happy with the sentence, but we felt we had no choice. We spared his life and lived without him. We caught glimpses of his greatness, this son to our people. A born leader. We saw what it did to him. You can't see what it did to us."

"I hope you don't want me to feel sorry for you." Rachael limped across the room to the table. She left the door wide open. There would be no sleeping until Rio returned safely and the sound of the rain soothed her ragged nerves and made her feel closer to him. Rio's rain songs. The sound made him closer to her.

"Not sorry for us. Perhaps understanding. We lost him and his mother. Banishment means he is dead to us. We can't see him or speak to him, yet he gives his money to us for the preservation of the forest."

"How could you take it?"

"If we can't see him or speak to him, how could we return it?"

"So you could see the money, just not the giver."

Delgrotto smiled at her ferocity. "You must promise me you'll have many children with him. We need them."

The soup was delicious. She hated to even concede him that much and it annoyed her. A faint grin stole over her face. "I think I have a closed mind where you're concerned. I don't want to see your point of view."

"At least you can admit that." He seemed to savor the taste of the broth. "You would make a good member of the high council."

Rachael managed a rude noise around the next mouthful of soup.

Delgrotto's eyebrow shot up. "You don't think so? One has to look at a problem from every angle. Before you can do that, you have to acknowledge there is more than one angle. I didn't agree with banishment, but the alternative was beyond our capabilities to impose on him."

"Well for heaven's sake, did you consider another punishment? Something not quite so harsh? Live a little, make a few laws up, that's what every other governing body does."

He nodded his head politely, considering her suggestion. "What do you believe is a fair punishment for murder?"

"It wasn't murder."

"What was it then?"

"I don't know, but I've seen murder. I've felt the malevolence of a cold-blooded murderer, of someone truly evil, and that is not Rio."

An owl hooted in the distance. The elder lifted his head and stared toward the door for a long moment. "I'm sorry you've had to be exposed to such a thing, Rachael, and, of course, you're right. There is nothing evil about Rio." Delgrotto ate another spoonful of the soup. "We can agree he took a life."

Somewhat mollified, Rachael nodded. "I can't very well deny it when he told me so himself." She sighed. "He doesn't blame you for what you did."

"No, he doesn't, because he understands the need for laws." The owl hooted a second time. Delgrotto leaned forward and blew out the candle. "Close the door and be very quiet."

"The birds aren't sounding off, neither are the monkeys." But Rachael obediently closed the door and dropped the bar in place. "What's wrong?" Always before she'd heard the clear warning of the animals as an -intruder moved through their territory. "Maybe it's Rio coming back." But she knew it wasn't. Cold fingers touched her spine, sent a chill of fear through her body.

"It isn't Rio. Do you know the way to the village?"

Rachael shook her head. "I've never been there."

"You might be able to follow Rio, using scent, but I know him. He'll have tried to go to water several times to throw anyone off. He's very careful. He must have an escape hole other than the front door."

"Yes, but we don't even know what's out there."

"If a man was out there, the forest would have been in an uproar. It's a leopard, and he knows the ways of the animals. He knows to soothe them as he passes by, careful not to look as if he's hunting. And he must be hunting to want to come to us so silently."

"I came here hoping to escape the trouble I was in," Rachael confessed readily. "They sent someone after me once already. You should go, I can show you the escape door. You shouldn't be here with me."

"I may be an old man, Rachael, but I am capable of helping you protect your life. I would never slink back to Rio and tell him I left his woman alone to fend off an attacker. I could never live with myself."

She had an idea Rio might not look too kindly on him either. "Kim Pang came by earlier and told Rio his father had a vision about a party of researchers entering the forest looking for medicinal plants. Tama is guiding them, but his father was still very much worried. He didn't believe they were researchers."

"An ordinary man would not be able to keep the animals quiet. Nor would he be able to escape the eye of one of Pang's sons."

"He also said the man who approached him asking for a guide knew the traditions and honor system of the forest. I think he suspected he was of the same species as Rio." She took a deep breath. "It could be that my brother is hunting me."

"Your own kin?"

"It's a possibility. There's a price on my head. I think it best that you go while you can."

"To trade the life of my grandson for your life? I will not. I doubt it's safe in the forest. We're better off here, with Rio's weapons. If we must escape, we'll do so when we know it's our only option," Delgrotto decided.

A leopard moaned quite close. She recognized the haunting call of the clouded leopard, Fritz warning her. Somehow the small leopard's acceptance gave her hope. Rachael shoved a knife, sheathed in leather, into the waistband of her jeans. She picked up the smaller of the two handguns.

Delgrotto reached out and drew her into the center of the room, away from the windows. "Don't move."

She heard the soft thud of something heavy landing on the verandah. Something walked around the house, fur whispering along the railing, brushing against the creeper vines and sliding over the window. Shadows moved, dark enough to make her heart leap into her throat.

They waited. Rachael did what she always did when the tension was too much. She counted. It was a mindless, silly habit, but it worked to keep her brain calm, allowing her to think clearly. There was silence again. The wind sighed through the canopy and the rain poured down steadily. The tip of a knife appeared along the inside edge of the door beneath the bar. It slowly began to rise.

Rachael moved to the side of the door. "Here's the thing about night visitors." She spoke very matter-of-factly. "If they don't have manners, we figure they aren't worth keeping around so we just shoot them. Take your knife out of my door and knock like a normal person or I'm going to empty this gun into the wall."

There was a brief hesitation and the knife disappeared. Another moment of silence and the knock came on the door.

Rachael signaled to the elder to take a gun and move into the shadow of the bedroom out of sight. Only when he had merged into the gray did she reach out and lift the bar. "Only one person better step through that door and you'd better step through with your hands raised." She moved again, so they wouldn't be able to get a fix on her voice if they came in shooting.

The door swung open slowly. "I'm not armed, Rachael."

For a moment she couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. Her heart pounded like a runaway drum and her mouth went dry. She stood there, fighting for air, uncertain what she would do. Rachael cleared her throat and forced the words out. "Come in, shut the door and bar it. I want to see your hands every second."

"Damn it, Rachael. You know who I am." The door was slammed just that bit too hard. Elijah dropped the bar in place and swung his head to glare at her. Tall, muscular, broad-shouldered, his black hair fell in the same riot of waves as hers did. "What the hell were you thinking, taking off like that?"

"Why are you here?" She didn't lower the gun an inch.

"Put the damn thing down before you shoot yourself. You wouldn't shoot me, not in a million years, so quit pretending you're tough." He took a step toward her.

"She might not shoot you, but I have a very clear shot and I won't hesitate," Delgrotto said in a low, disembodied tone.

Rachael watched her brother stiffen, watched the shock spread over his face. He'd always been so careful, paid attention to every detail. "Rachael, tell him who I am."

"Elijah Lospostos. My brother. You have a lot of explaining to do Elijah." She was looking at his bare feet, jeans, and unbuttoned shirt. "You shifted into the form of a leopard, didn't you? How long have you been able to do that?"

He shrugged. "I've been traveling fast, Rachael. It wasn't easy picking up your scent, not until I found it in the leopard form. I had a hell of a time getting away from camp with that guide always watching my every move. I could use something to drink, and I wouldn't mind sitting down. And put the guns down. What kind of welcome is this? I traveled a thousand miles to save your butt."

"No one asked you to, Elijah," she said softly. "I never asked to be saved." She blinked back tears. "Do you know a man named Duncan Powell?"

Her brother went ramrod stiff. "Has he been here? He's a killer, Rachael and he's one of us. He'll be able to track you anywhere. Duncan is one of Armando's hired guns. If he's here…"

"He's dead," she interrupted. "He left a cobra in my bedroom and then followed me here." She lifted her chin and glared at him. "Why did you come?"

Elijah pulled out a chair from the table and sank into it. "I told you why. Why do I always come after you? You can't go running around unprotected, Rachael. If Armando gets his hands on you…"

"He'll have me killed? He's been trying to do that since I was nine. You should have let me disappear, Elijah. I didn't go to the police, I didn't say a word to the authorities about Tony and I wouldn't. I just want out. You should have let me go."

"You think Armando's going to believe you drowned in a river without seeing the body? Hell, Rachael, you've forgotten everything I taught you. He knows you're here. He's coming after you with everything he's got."

"And so you dropped all your business and hastily rushed off to the wilds of the rain forest to save me the way you always do."

"Rachael, what's this about? Why didn't you come to me, talk about this? Of course I followed you. I'm not going to allow him to kill you."

Rachael placed the gun on the sink and pressed her back into the wall beside it. She looked small and vulnerable instead of the woman who had been so ready to fight just minutes earlier. Tears glittered in her eyes. "No? I thought it might be a help to you. Isn't that what you said, Elijah? Didn't you hope he'd find me and take the burden off your hands once and for all? Didn't you tell me yourself your life would be so much better, so much easier if I were dead?"

He stood up so fast the chair went over backwards, taking a step toward her. The elder, deep in the shadows, stirred, reminding him to be cautious, and Elijah stopped. "Rachael. Do you honestly think I came here to kill you?"

"There's a price on my head."

"To keep you alive. Armando moved fast. He picked up the girl who wore your clothes and a wig. She was sent to me via messenger and it wasn't a pretty sight."

Rachael turned her face away, her hand going to her throat in a protective gesture, a sound, much like strangling, emerging.

"This gun is getting heavy Rachael" Delgrotto said. "I think you and your brother should be alone. I doubt if he poses much of a threat, but Rio might come back unexpectedly. I'll go onto the verandah."

"Rio couldn't possibly return before dawn."

"He travels with those small leopards. It's likely one went to warn him."

The color drained from Rachael's face. "You have to go, Elijah. Get out of here right now."

Elijah waved her words away. "Look at me, Rachael. Turn your head and look at me. I want to see your face when you tell me you believed I sent those men out to kill you. Damn it." His fist hit the tabletop. "I spent my life fighting to keep us alive."

"You said you wished I was dead."

"I never said that." He glanced at the elder, frustration plain on his face. Delgrotto took the hint and slipped outside to leave them alone. "All right, the truth is, I don't know what the hell I said to you that day. I was terrified for you and angry at you for not confiding in me. I had to shoot Tony right in front of you." Elijah swept a hand over his face. "I knew what that would do to you, shooting him in front of you."

Rachael faced her brother across the table. "You killed him, Elijah. You killed Tony because he was with me. You became the very thing we both abhorred."

"You aren't thinking, Rachael." He dragged his hands through his hair in agitation. "He knew about us. He knew what we were. Worse, he belonged to Armando's crew. He was feeding him information."

"You don't know that."

"Who was he Rachael? How did you meet him?"

"Marcia Tolstoy is his sister. She introduced us. We weren't dating. He was just a nice man, lonely like me."

"He wasn't a nice man, and he wasn't Marcia Tolstoy's brother. Armando paid her to tell you that, and before you say she would never do that, remember everyone has a price. Armando found hers. If you'd told me about Tony, I would have checked him out quietly and let you know to break off the friendship. By the time I found out about him, you were already in the car with him. I didn't have time to take him down easy. He was taking you to one of Armando's warehouses."

"We were going out to dinner."

"Have I ever lied to you? Never, Rachael. It's always been the two of us, ever since we were children and there was only us."

"How do I know you're telling me the truth? How do I know what's the truth and what's a lie? My uncle murdered my parents. I thought he loved us. I thought he loved Mom and Dad. Dad was his brother. What does that tell a child, Elijah? The world isn't a very safe place and you can't trust anyone. Not even family." Rachael swung around and filled a glass of water for him, needing something to do.

"I would never, under any circumstances, order your death. You're my sister, my only family, and I love you. You don't have to believe me, Rachael. I know you're hurt and angry and very mixed-up. I didn't have time to talk to you."

"You had time to pull me out of the car before you killed him. And you had time to lock me in the house afterward."

"You were hysterical. He went for his gun, Rachael. You didn't see him make his move because you were fighting me as I pulled you out of the car. You wouldn't listen to me and you were threatening to go to the police. I did my best to carry out Dad's wishes and make the business legitimate. It hasn't been easy. I know too much about Armando, just as you do. He can't allow us to live. As long as he thought I was with him, that I could control you, we both were safe. Once I made my move against him, Armando wanted to kill you not only to punish me, but to silence you. You should never have talked to Tony."

Her dark eyes flashed. "I would never tell an outsider our business, certainly not a man I knew nothing about."

"And he never asked you questions about me?"

"He asked if you were my brother and I said yes. You are. It's common knowledge. It shouldn't have gotten him killed."

"Rachael, let's start with something we know. Tell me you know I love you. You must know everything I've done in my life I've done for you. For us. To keep us alive. I was a child too. I had no power. No one to help us. I had no choice if we were to stay alive. I had to join with Armando or he would have killed us both on the spot. I traded my soul for a chance for both of us to live."

She flung herself into his arms. "I know you did. I know you did it for me. I knew you could have gotten away if you didn't have me to try to protect."

"Does it really make sense to you that I spent all those years protecting you and now I'd suddenly want you dead?" He wrapped his arms around her, hugged her hard.

"It was so awful. I felt responsible and I didn't know why you would do such a terrible thing. Power corrupts, Elijah. I've seen you fight it. You tried to make the business legitimate, but at the same time, you had to do the things that allowed Armando to think you were a part of the business."

"I had no choice but to run the business the way Armando wanted. We inherited half of everything, Rachael. Armando wanted it all, and he wanted it to remain his. When he found out Dad wanted to get out from under it, he had them followed. He discovered Mom could shift into the form of a leopard. He found his perfect assassins. Stealthy. Cunning. Intelligent."

"So Dad took us all to Florida."

"That was because Mom was afraid her people would harm Dad. So he moved us to the Glades. Mom could still run, and he was out from under the business. But of course it didn't work that way. He owned too much and knew too much. He was slowly trying to get out from under the companies. Armando wasn't going to let that happen. All the while I was out with my wonderful uncle, doing his little tasks for him because he let me ran free. I was so stupid. I told Mom and Dad that Armando knew about me shifting, that I did it all the time in front of him. Mom had been so secretive and I wanted her to know it was okay, that he didn't mind. They were both so upset, and they must have talked to him. Armando arranged to meet with Mom and Dad and he killed both of them."

"And I saw it." Rachael pulled away from him. "I'll never forget his face when he turned and saw me standing there."

"Do you think I liked doing the things I had to do? He held you hostage, Rachael. He never bothered to hide what he did from you. The more you knew, the more of a liability you were to him and the more I had to do to make it worth his while to keep you alive. He needed me. I was like Mom and a tremendous asset to him. And he knew that he couldn't kill both of us and get away with it. As soon as possible, I made certain he knew there was proof, if something happened to either of us."

"But Elijah, I saw you do things just like he did them. You're not the same. You've grown distant and colder. I tried to talk to you about it land you brushed it off."

"He was making another move against us. And I was planning to kill him. I didn't want you involved." He said it bluntly. "If you knew, you'd be as guilty as me. You couldn't know the things I had to do. One of us had to be something Mom would be proud of." He looked down at his hands. "If it makes you feel any better, I never killed an innocent. I never stooped that low."

"You ran drugs, you smuggled weapons. You trained assassins." She flung the accusations at him, stepping away, pain breathing in her lungs.

He took a step toward her, wanting to shake her. "Damn it, Rachael. If you don't want to believe me about Tony, don't, but don't look at me as if I'm some monster you don't know. Armando isn't going to let you live. He can't. You're a knife poised over his head. You're an eyewitness to murder. I have no intention of leaving here without you. Armando's men are swarming up and down the river. He imported a couple of the best trackers. Men like Duncan. You can't stay here, Rachael. Come home with me where I can keep you safe."

There was no sound other than the wind and rain. The door was partially open and the wind blew in, stirring the mosquito net, setting it dancing. Rachael felt the wind on her face. Elijah felt the blade cut into his throat. Hot breath fanned his cheek. A soft growl rumbled dangerously close to his ear. "She isn't going anywhere with you."