Conner circled the boy’s wrist with gentle fingers. “For a very long time after I figured out that my father didn’t want anything to do with me, I thought it was because something was wrong with me. That it was my fault.” He shook his head. “It was his fault. There’s something wrong with him.”

The spiked, tear-wet lashes lifted and the boy looked at him solemnly. “That’s what my mom said.”

“You know she never lied, Mateo. We’re leopard. We can smell a lie. She told you the truth. About him. About me. I do want you. Isabeau wants you as well. We’re family.”

The boy’s mouth tightened and he shrugged.

Conner glanced helplessly at Isabeau. She brushed her hand along his thigh. A soft commitment of faith. “I hunt bad guys. That’s what I do. I get in fights and sometimes I win and sometimes the other guy does . . .”

“Mostly you win,” Isabeau interjected.

Conner nodded. “I have to win if I want to live. But the point, Mateo, is that for a long time I thought to be a strong man I couldn’t show emotion. I couldn’t ever lose control. Certainly I could never cry, no matter what the circumstances. But I was wrong about being emotional and not being a man. A real man knows it’s okay to show when he’s hurt. I’ll never get over our mother’s death. Not ever. I’ll think about her every day, and at night, I cry when I’m missing her. Isabeau puts her arms around me and then I don’t feel so alone.”

Mateo pulled his wrist away and wrapped both arms around his middle, as if hugging himself. “I don’t cry about it.”

“About what?” Conner prompted.

“My mom leaving.”

“She didn’t leave you, Mateo,” Conner said. When the boy remained stubbornly staring at the floor, Conner put a thumb under his chin and forced his head up. “Look at me.”

The eyes flashed at him. Anger. Unbearable sorrow. Fear. Conner’s heart contracted. “She didn’t leave us, Mateo. Someone took her from us. Isabeau and I killed him.”

Isabeau gasped, pulling her hand away from his thigh. Conner didn’t look at her, knowing she would disapprove of his methods, but he had been this very little boy with that same rage, that same fear. And he felt the same unbearable sorrow.

“We’re leopard, Mateo, and it isn’t always easy to contain that much hatred and rage, even though our mother told us we should be forgiving. We can never justify taking a life because we’re angry, but sometimes it’s necessary, we have no choice. Do you understand? Our mother wouldn’t want us to harm others, not even when we’re hurting, but we have the right and the obligation to defend ourselves and our families.”

“I hate him.”