His voice was gentle, a slow drawl—like a drug to her, something once experienced, always craved, like his touch. Like the focused, piercing stare from his eyes. So intent. So completely locked on to her. It was exhilarating and unnerving all at the same time. The brush of his fingers against her skin sent tremors through her body, ripples of awareness through her until her very core turned a heated liquid. Surrounded by death and danger, she was more susceptible to him than ever.

“I know you will.” She kept her voice low, afraid of giving herself away. “Those were leopards, weren’t they?”

“Friends. I warned them they had two more coming at them. Rio’s got Adan safe.”

“The leopards aren’t real leopards,” she guessed. She should have known it was Conner’s friends answering his call. Isabeau let her breath out. Friends. They had friends in the midst of this madness. “Are they like you?”

“Like us,” he corrected and reached to pull leaves from her hair. “They’re like us, Isabeau.”

She didn’t move, absorbing the feel of his fingers in her hair. He had a way of making her feel special and cared for—protected and loved—yet she knew it was an illusion. She’d hired him for those traits—to seduce another woman with that magnetism. Now she wasn’t so certain she could watch him do it.

“I shouldn’t have brought you here.” The confession slipped out in spite of her resolve not to engage with him over the past.

His roughened palm cupped the side of her face, the pad of his thumb sliding seductively back and forth, nearly mesmerizing her as completely as his voice did. “No, you shouldn’t have, not if you wanted to be safe. But it’s too late for regrets. We’re already here and we’re in this mess all the way. We can’t leave those children to Imelda Cortez and we can’t pretend we’re indifferent. I expect a little hate, Isabeau, but that’s not all you feel for me and I expect honesty between us.”

Fire flashed through her, a storm of such heat she shook with it. “You expect honesty between us? You?” She poured contempt into her voice. “You wouldn’t know honesty if it bit you in the butt. Don’t you dare lecture me. You lied to me. Used me. Made me believe you loved me and we were going to have a life together. And then you killed my father. Everything about you is a lie, an illusion. You aren’t even real.”