He looked up to the towering trees, the thick canopy shutting out the sunlight. Flowers wound up the tree trunks, a riot of color, vying with moss and fungus, all reaching toward the light above. Birds flitted from branch to branch, the canopy alive with constant motion, just as the spongy floor was with millions of insects. Beehives hung in great chunky masses, hidden by broad leaves, and snakes wound around the twisted limbs, nearly impossible to see amidst the multitude of interlocking branches.

He wanted to drink in the beauty of it all. He wanted to forget what he’d done to his own mate. She’d been so young and inexperienced, an easy target. Her father, a doctor, had been the way into the enemy camp. Get close to the daughter and you had the father. It was easy enough. Isabeau had fallen under his spell immediately, drawn to him not because of his animal magnetism, but because she had been his in a previous life cycle. Neither had known.

Unfortunately he’d fallen just as deeply under her spell. He was supposed to seduce her into caring for him, not sleep with her. He’d been obsessed with her, unable to keep his hands off of her. He should have known. She’d been so inexperienced. So innocent. And he’d used that to his advantage.

He hadn’t considered anything beyond his own pleasure. Like what would happen when the truth came out—that she didn’t even know his real name. That she was a job and her father was the mark. He groaned and the sound came out a soft rumble.

He had never crossed the line with an innocent woman. Not once in his entire career until Isabeau—human or leopard. She had not yet experienced the Han Vol Dan, a female leopard’s heat, nor had her leopard emerged. It was the reason he hadn’t recognized her as a leopard or as his mate. He should have. The flashes of erotic images in his head every time she was close, the way he couldn’t think when he was with her: These facts alone should have tipped him off. He was only in his second life cycle and he hadn’t recognized what was in front of him. The need burning in him so strong, growing stronger each time he saw her. He’d always been in control, but with her a wildfire had swept through him, robbing him of common sense, and he’d made the ultimate mistake with a mark.

He’d needed. He had burned. He’d tasted her in his mouth. Breathed her into his lungs. He’d slept with her. Deliberately seduced her. Reveled in her until she was stamped into his very bones. He’d given in to his instincts and he’d done irreparable damage to their relationship.