There was something steady and enduring about Drake, a calm most leopards couldn’t quite achieve. Drake not only had the hot passion and temper of the leopard under control, but he could lead a lair of alpha males and keep them loyal and working together. Remy considered Drake a fair man, as did the other leopards, which went a long way when the law of the jungle prevailed.

“Saria okay?” Remy asked.

Those cool green eyes went a little gold. “She’s just fine, thanks. Finding the body was a bit of a shock, but Saria doesn’t spook easily.”

That was Drake’s way of saying Saria was his and no one else was going to tell her what to do. A definite back-off warning.

Remy met those glittering eyes with a stare of his own. “She’s your responsibility, Drake, as is her guest.” His chin nodded toward the vomit on the ground a few feet from him. “That’s not Saria, so I’d say it was Bijou. Neither should have been out here without an escort, and you know it. That body could have been either of them. I don’ want my sister or any other woman seein’ this kind of thing.” Remy refused to drop his stare, something that could be construed as a challenge to the leader of the lair. Damn it all, Saria and Bijou had no business in the middle of a gruesome murder scene.

Drake didn’t blink. “Saria is Saria, Remy. You and your family are responsible for the way she is. I don’t beat my wife because she was allowed to go her own way from the time she was in the cradle, nor will I ask her to change. I fell in love with an independent woman.”

Remy shrugged, refusing to take the blame for his sister’s shenanigans now that she was married. “Perhaps you should accompany her into the swamp at night, at least until this killer is caught.”

A slow grin softened the hard lines in Drake’s face. Laughter lit the green eyes, so that the gold was nearly gone in an instant.

“You’re trying to get me killed, because you know if your sister thought for one moment I was protecting her in her precious swamp she’d probably stick a knife in me. If you want leadership that bad, Remy, say the word. It’s all yours. You tricked me into it in the first place, you and your hell-raising brothers.”