“I am looking.” She sounded amused and for some reason, his stomach did that idiotic flipping thing he knew to associate with her.

“Go to sleep, Rachael,” he ordered sternly. “I’m going to try the radio again, see if I can get you some help. I may be able to pack you out of here to an open area where we can bring in a chopper to take you to the hospital.”

Rachael frowned, shook her head in obvious alarm. “No, don’t do that. I’ll stay here with you.”

“You don’t understand. You could lose your leg. I don’t have the proper medicine or the skill you need. As it is, you’re going to have a mass of scars—and that’s if I manage to save it.”

She continued to shake her head, her bright eyes pleading with him silently. His gut tightened. Abruptly, he stepped outside into the night, dragging air into his lungs. She was tying him up in knots. He didn’t know why. Didn’t understand it. Didn’t like it or want it. He didn’t know who she was or where she came from. He didn’t need the complication or the danger.

“Damn woman,” he muttered as he stretched his arms up to the driving rain. The drops fell on his hot skin, cool and tantalizing. His veins sizzled with life, thrummed with need. Even away from her, he felt her presence.

He was not wholly human, nor was he leopard. He was a separate species with characteristics of both. And he was dangerous; capable of killing, capable of great jealousy and outbursts of temper. The animal in him often dominated his thinking, a cunning, intelligent creature, but very flawed. He needed to be alone, a secretive solitary being by choice. Few things touched him in his carefully guarded world. There was something about Rachael that made him restless. Moody. Fear shimmered in him, blurred the edges of his control. “Damn woman,” he repeated.

He stretched again, wanting the freedom of the change. Wanting to go out into the night and simply disappear. The wildness rose in him like a gift, spreading so that his skin itched and his claws lengthened. He felt the muscles running like steel through his body. He smelled the feral scent of the cat, reached for it, embraced it. An extraordinary means of leaving behind Rio Santana and all that he was, all that he had done. Fur rippled over his body. His muscles contorted; bones cracked as his spine became supple, flexible, as his body took the form of the leopard.