She felt her leopard rise close to the surface, fur pushing at her skin as the animal tried to save her. Not yet. Not yet. She tried to soothe the little female. She needed just a few more minutes. Rafe wasn’t going to kill her. He planned on killing Eli, probably in front of her, that would be the only way he’d be satisfied. She would take whatever punishment Rafe gave her in order to give Eli the chance he needed to escape.

Rafe dragged her up by her hair. “You’re coming home with me. That bastard is going to die, and it will be a very long time before I forgive what you’ve done. Don’t you ever threaten your own life again, Catarina. I can hurt you in ways you can’t even imagine, and I will if I have to. There are other people you don’t want dead. Think about them before you ever do something like this again.”

Pain crashed through her. She could barely think. She allowed him to shove her toward the screen door, keeping her hands wrapped around her middle, her fingers settling on the side zipper of her camisole. She’d practiced. She was fast. Very fast. Eli had been relentless, making her practice stripping and shifting on the run over and over for hours each day. She had thought he was a little overboard but now she was grateful.

Rafe kept his fingers around her upper arm. Hard. Digging into her flesh. A vise she knew she couldn’t just yank away from. But her leopard could. She just had to figure out a way to rid herself of the camisole.

He opened the screen and thrust her outside, coming right behind her, never losing contact. Dawn had spread light through darkness. Her gaze went straight to Eli, his body still hanging, battered and streaked with blood. For a moment her heart pounded. She thought he was dead. She bit back a scream of denial.

Rafe shoved her toward the end of the porch. She stumbled, keeping her gaze on Eli. When she stumbled, Rafe let go of her. She tore the zipper down and ripped the camisole over her head, shoved the skirt from her hips and kicked it away as she leapt past one of Rafe’s lieutenants who was sitting absolutely still in the chair on the porch. He hadn’t even registered in her vision before.

Already she was shifting, catching the scent of blood, of death. She took one leap and landed on the wide wooden railing just in front of Eli. Only it wasn’t Eli hanging there. It was another of Rafe’s lieutenants. She saw that in an instant and knew the one sitting so still was also dead.