Drake studied Elie Jeanmard, standing passively as he watched the leopards fight. Scent told Drake the man had been Drake’s first challenger the night before and the third man pursuing him on the Mercier property. He watched the severe beating with a grim face, but made no move to stop it. This was Amos Jeanmard’s son and if Drake was right and Jeanmard was the leader of the Louisiana lair, Elie didn’t want any part of leadership. It was understandable. Elie had seen his father do his duty to the lair, but he’d been unhappy, and most likely his mother had been as well. Still, when he realized Armande and Robert were hunting Drake and Saria, he hadn’t looked the other way, he sent for Saria’s brothers.

“Uh oh,” Saria whispered softly. “Maybe you’d better get behind me, instead of the other way around.” She made a move to sidle around him, to protect him.

Drake caught her arm in a steel grip, holding her in place. His body partially blocked hers from the battlefield. One by one her brothers shifted their gazes from Remy and the torn and bloody leopards to Drake. He could feel the tension stretching out like a thin wire, until even the black leopard noticed and slowly turned his head. Red eyes fixed on Drake. The black leopard went low to the ground in the freeze-frame stalk of his kind.

“You won’t find me easy prey like those two,” Drake said, calmly peeling off his shirt. He flexed his shoulders to loosen his muscles as he kicked off his shoes. “Wouldn’t be a fair fight, Boudreaux. You’re tired and I’m still fresh. I could kick your ass anyway, but if you insist on making a fool of yourself in front of those two dirt bags, I’ll oblige.”

He kept his voice low, amused, a little taunting and it carried to the black leopard. The animal snarled, ears flat, teeth showing in a grimace. The killing rage was still on him and this time he had a target—a stranger—one who had dared to claim his sister. He knew he shouldn’t throw the challenge back in Saria’s brother’s teeth, but damn it all, he was tired of this lair’s out-of-control, strike-first-and-ask-questions-later policies. Someone needed to teach them a lesson.

He was still hanging on to his intellect enough to know his own leopard was driving him a bit, enraged over the attack on Saria, but he’d had it. He wanted to give in to his leopard’s savage nature. His hands dropped to his jeans, slipping the buttons open quickly.

“What are you doin’?” Saria demanded, putting a restraining hand on his wrist. “Are you insane? That’s my brother.”

It was too late for Saria to stop anything. Her other brothers were flinging shirts off and stepping out of shoes. This wasn’t going to be a one-on-one fight with Remy. Saria was their sister and as far as each of them was concerned, she’d been stolen—kidnapped—forced to accept a man they didn’t know as a mate. They could smell his scent all over her and it maddened them. Remy continued forward in that slow stalk preceding an all-out attack.