Just as two of the men dressed in black reached Marcos and Elijah, Conner emerged from the shadows, placing his body solidly in their path. Rio, Felipe and Leonardo were there as well. They’d moved so fast she had thought she must have blinked. Elijah very gently drew her behind him.

Conner stared directly into those mirrored glasses. “I don’t think so.” His voice was quiet, but it was a whip, a challenge.

“We’ll be searching everyone.”

Conner’s smile was slow, and there was no humor in it. “You’ll be dead before you lay a finger on the three of them. But you’re always welcome to try.”

Isabeau’s mouth went dry. He was provoking the guards deliberately. They were sending their own message to Imelda. The woman was known for her insanity. She could order her men to open fire with the automatic weapons, killing everyone in the room. The other couples in the room were clearly shocked, gasping. One woman began to cry but her partner quickly shushed her.

Conner never broke off his stare, his eyes pure cat. He looked relaxed. He looked . . . lethal. He made the men he was facing look small.

The man closest to him spoke into his radio. “Martin, we have a problem in here.”

Almost immediately two men entered the room. Both had the build of the leopard and moved with fluid power. Isabeau’s cat reacted with a snarl and leap. She saw, because she was watching him, Conner’s fingers flex just once when the man who was reputed to have killed his mother entered the room. Isabeau recognized Suma from the village and her stomach rebelled at the sight of him, almost as much as her cat did.

Used to instant obedience and the cowering of any opposition, Martin Suma and Ottila Zorba shoved their security force aside and were almost toe to toe with Conner before it hit them what exactly they were facing. Martin found himself staring into the focused eyes of a killer. Conner smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. The tension in the room stretched nearly to a breaking point as the two stared each other down.

Ottila, not the one locked in combat with Conner, surveyed the security for the two visitors, recognizing them instantly as leopard. He inhaled sharply and drew the scent of a female close to the Han Vol Dan into his body. At once his cat reacted, all male, hunger invading, a dark need that was all encompassing. He looked past the others and focused on the object of his desire.