Eli sighed and pushed his fingers through his hair. “Baby, I don’t want to have this conversation with you. I know you can’t help but think I’m speaking on behalf of the DEA, but I’m not. Rafe Cordeau can never be taken into custody. There can be no prosecution. When he’s found, he’s got to die and his body be burned. He’s leopard. A shifter. A rogue. We have no choice but to hunt him. That’s what we’ve been doing. Jake’s men and me, trying to get a line on his whereabouts. We have to find him before the law thinks they have enough on him to arrest him.”

She kept looking at him. Watching him. She didn’t blink and he could see her leopard there. The stillness. The focus. Eli cursed silently. Cursed Jake. Cursed himself for ever mishandling the situation with her. For betraying her trust.

“Jake takes down businesses. He takes them apart. He hunts and destroys differently than the law. He can bring down Cordeau’s business partners and find the money with your help. That’s it. That’s everything. I don’t like it, but it can be done if you want to cooperate. We’re not talking a court of law here. We’re just saying we can take down that entire network Cordeau built so no one else can step into his shoes when he’s gone.”

Her lashes swept down, veiling the look in her eyes, but her face was pale. “I can’t breathe right now.”

His heart stuttered. He reached out to touch her but she drew back, shaking her head. “Kitten. Let me help you.”

She shook her head. “I can’t breathe. I just can’t.”

His heart broke for her.

Abruptly, Catarina stood, a fluid, easy movement, all cat. She pulled the shirt over her head and flung it onto the chair even as she leapt off the porch into the rain. She was fast. He was faster. She ran, naked, shifting on the run just as Eli had taught her. A thing of beauty. A creature who had come into her own. She was running on bare feet one moment and on four paws the next.

He shifted with her, keeping pace just behind her, the larger male protective, but staying back to let her work it out in her mind. Eli knew she had submerged herself in the little female. She needed time to process what he’d told her. He wished she would have flung herself into his arms and clung to him, but whatever she needed, including space, he would provide. He didn’t have to like it, but he’d do it.