He was a distance from Siena, something his leopard didn’t like and he liked even less, when he caught the first scent. Instantly his leopard lifted his lip in a silent snarl. Paolo’s leopard. There was no mistaking that odor. The leopard’s scent had clung to Siena’s body after it had mauled her so badly. Even after she’d showered repeatedly, it had taken awhile before Elijah didn’t smell him on her anymore.

He’d never said a word to her, but more than once he’d gone into his workout room and pounded the heavy bag because the need for violence in him was too strong to ignore. He moved into the grove, keeping to the higher grass, and the scent of Paolo’s leopard was even heavier. With it was another one. Paolo hadn’t come alone. They were scouting the house, using the trees to do it.

Elijah knew this breech was his fault. Drake had pulled security in closer to the house, patrolling the surrounding grounds, but not the acreage itself. There was a lot of territory to cover and they just didn’t have the manpower. But Elijah knew about that grove of trees and how a leopard could climb up there and see the house and any activity. They should have put someone on it.

He knew the tree one of them would be in and he guessed at that other. He couldn’t get up the tree without being seen, not any of those, but he knew the tree on the far side of the grove had branches that looped and shaped long-reaching limbs toward the ground. Not only could he get up easily to the leopard highway in the trees, but he would be coming in from behind them. He made his way there.

Using pure stealth, his male ascended to the overlaying branches that formed a labyrinth in the canopy. His male knew every branch of every tree and exactly what branch could hold when it came to weight. He began his stalk through the trees, toward the leopard Paolo had brought with him. The trees reeked of their scents. They were male and they clearly wanted to claim territory, especially with a female in the area. Both had marked the tree trunks. The scent of Paolo enraged his male.

The large cat moved above his prey, the shifter Paolo had brought with him, looking down at the tawny cat, grateful for the stillness so the male hadn’t scented him yet. His attention was fixed in the direction where Siena’s little female was nestled in the deep grass. Elijah spared a moment to look that way. He couldn’t spot her and his whiskers, eyes and nose picked up no movement or scent, so the male must have heard her.