Gage laughed, a taunting, annoying sound that made Remy wish he wasn’t always striving for control. He had the urge to shove his brother out of the airboat.

“Well, Bijou is no little girl anymore. She’s stop-traffic, drop-dead gorgeous.”

Remy’s heart stuttered and, deep inside, his leopard snarled and unsheathed his claws at the note of interest in Gage’s voice. He still felt protective over that child and he was damn well going to look at her like she was a child, even though he knew Gage was right about the way she’d grown up. Something in Gage’s smug, secretive attitude raised an alarm. He was missing something. His head went up and he fixed eyes that had gone a cobalt blue on his brother.

“Saria didn’t bring that girl out here, did she?” He knew the answer before his brother answered. A snarl escaped, a low sound that set the swamp into a frenzy of warning calls. “She’s not home two minutes and they’re already in trouble together.”

Gage shot him a look and then hastily turned his attention to picking his way around a cypress grove. He cut the speed of the boat and maneuvered around the large broken knobs sticking up in the water. “They found a dead body, bro. They didn’t actually kill the guy.”

“Fils de putain,” Remy snapped, swearing under his breath. “It’s bad enough to have Saria runnin’ the swamp at night, but draggin’ Bijou with her is ridiculous. Don’ think for a minute those two aren’t goin’ to get into trouble. Damn Drake anyway.”

“Well, you can take it up with him,” Gage said. “He’s guardin’ the vic, keepin’ the gators and other creatures off the corpse.”

Bright lights lit up the swamp just ahead as the boat eased its way around the bend. The sound of a generator matched the steady drone of insects. Alligators bellowed disapproval from various directions, reminding them that every step they took on solid ground or in the water was dangerous. Cypress trees rose out of the water, long tails of moss hanging from nearly every limb, draping the branches and swaying with the slight wind.

Remy stepped off the airboat onto the semisolid ground. His boots sank a few inches and he hastily moved to firmer ground. The swamp smelled of decay and death. The scent of blood was strong. Drake Donovan greeted him with a firm handshake.

His brother-in-law always surprised him with his strength. He was rugged-looking, with his permanent five-o’clock shadow and his wide shoulders and thick chest. It wasn’t that Drake didn’t look strong, it was that his grip was crushing, and Remy was an extremely strong man himself.