“I’ll look after you, Siena. Go back to sleep.”

“Paolo? If he was a leopard, a shifter like you, won’t they find out when they do an autopsy?”

He brushed back her hair with his fingers. “Don’t worry, cara, your grandfather’s body will never be autopsied. There will be a fire tonight. Now, go to sleep.”

She closed her eyes obediently and was a little surprised when his thumb slid over the bruises on her face and the two cuts, as if he could erase them. She waited until she sensed he was gone and then she waited a half hour more, her heart pounding. If she did this, if she tried to escape and he caught her, he would be furious, worse than when she’d come home with Elijah’s scent on her.

She could stay. Stay with a man who beat women. Who murdered her grandfather. Who wanted her for the money and power she could bring to him. Siena threw back the covers and sat up gingerly, one arm around her middle. It wasn’t happening. She’d rather die trying to get out than be forced into a situation that would be that intolerable.

She packed her clothes, rolling them into a tight pile and slipping them inside a backpack she’d found in her closet when she was packing. That had given her the idea. She included her driver’s license and credit cards and all the cash she had in her wallet. Makeup, hairpins and a brush followed, and there was really no room for anything else.

Stringing the backpack loosely around her neck, she stripped and moved to the window, raising it up quietly. She stood there listening. Scenting the air. She knew Alonzo was out there, on the other side of the house, by the front door. Outside the bedroom window, the manicured lawn stretched out for several feet to the strips of plants and then behind that, the wilder, bushier plants before the roses and grapes of the vineyards extending behind that.

She called up her leopard, uncertain what she was doing. Coaxing. Needing. At once the animal responded, pushing to the forefront. Siena had forgotten the agony as the cat pushed against her sore ribs. It hurt so bad this time she saw spots on a field of black and had to blink rapidly to clear her vision.