Did Saria realize the implication? No shifter could go to jail. They wouldn’t survive in captivity and they couldn’t die in jail where a doctor would autopsy their body. He was leader of the lair. It would be up to him to pass sentence and carry it out. Remy might be a problem. If his first loyalty was to the human law rather than lair law, Drake would have to find a way to handle the situation without any harm coming to Saria’s family. The shifter code had to be placed above all else. He sighed. Things were going to hell fast. The possibility that one or both of the Tregre brothers were serial killers was growing by the moment. Certainly depravity ran in their family. Their father had been cruel and if the rumors were true, he’d murdered his own son.

“Drake,” Saria said quietly.

His gaze locked with hers.

“Don’t worry about me. Do what you have to do.”

He would have kissed her, despite her black-streaked face, if all his men hadn’t been grinning like monkeys.

They had arrived at the inn through the waterway, so it was rather startling to have cars driving up to the house, reminding him they weren’t on an island. Remy leapt out, rushed across the lawn to his sister, yanking her up off the ground and into his arms in one move.

“You all right, Saria?”

“I’m fine. All of us got out.”

“This is bullshit.”

“I thought so too,” Saria agreed with a small smile. She carefully extracted herself from her brother, brushing at the smears of black on his shirt.

“I’m sendin’ you out of the country if this keeps up,” he threatened, turning to glare at Drake. “You keep puttin’ her in harm’s way and the two of us just may end up dancin’.”

“Any time, Remy,” Drake spat out, disgusted. He was damn tired, angry and ready to kick the ass of every member of the lair. “How the hell did you allow things to get to this point? You had to have known what was going on right under your nose. I suppose you looked the other way because it was convenient, just as you did when Saria was growing up.”

Behind Remy, his brothers spread out and behind Drake, his men did the same. Saria made a move as if to get between them, but Drake snagged her wrist and pulled her behind him. He raised glittering eyes to the Boudreaux brothers, his leopard clawing for supremacy. His chest was already bare, as were his feet, so hands dropped to the buttons of his jeans, ready to strip.