A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I watched you letting him fuck you in the forest and then again on the porch. I’m well aware of what your body looks like. I want his scent gone. Now. I’ll scrub you down myself if you don’t move. You’ve got four minutes now.”

She told herself she was leopard and there was no modesty in that world. She didn’t want to provoke him into showering with her and possibly raping her. If she could, she would stall enough to allow Rio and Conner to pick up his trail and realize he’d circled back to the cabin. She wanted to keep her back to him as she stripped, but she needed to see him. Because if he moved to touch her—she wasn’t going down without a fight.

She got under the water, her gaze on his, fixed and defiant, daring him to try to come near her as she soaped off under his intense scrutiny. He reached for the water at the same time she did, his fingers brushing hers, and she jerked her hands back, both coming up defensively.

That seemed to amuse him. He handed her a towel. “Do you really think you can fight me and win? Don’t be silly. I’m not a man who would deliberately hit a woman. There has to be a very good reason.”

“Why in the world did you ever work for Imelda Cortez, let alone kidnap children for her?” she asked, rubbing the water—and Conner’s scent—as best she could from her skin. Keep him talking and calm, she reminded herself. Be interested in him.

She pushed past him and found her backpack, jerking out a pair of jeans and yanking them on quickly. She glanced at him over her shoulder. “You sold out your own people.”

He watched her with the unblinking eyes of a cat. “They aren’t my people. They threw me out. I owe them no loyalty.”

She frowned as she pulled a T-shirt on and turned to face him, doing her best to look a little sympathetic. “Why would they do that?” She was interested, that part wasn’t a lie. She hoped she was staying close to the truth. She’d admitted she was scared of him. Maybe he’d make allowances.

He shrugged, but for the first time a ripple of emotion crossed his face. “Our laws are archaic and make no sense. If a hunter kills one of us in leopard form—even though it’s against the law of man—we’re to just allow them to get away with it. One killed my baby brother. I hunted him down and killed him. The elders called it murder and banished me. In other words, I’m dead to the village. I figure if I’m dead to them, they are to me and I owe them no loyalty.”