Rachael didn’t voice the protest welling up in her. She was certain Rio wasn’t being melodramatic. She didn’t think he was capable of drama for drama’s sake. “I’m sorry, I’m not certain exactly what you’re saying? A new species of leopard here in the rain forest that hasn’t been discovered? Or a genetically engineered species?”

“A species that’s been around for thousands of years.”

She rubbed the clouded leopard’s ears. “How are they different?”

He looked at her then, turning the full focus of his strange eyes on her. “They are not animal, yet not human. They’re both, yet neither.”

Rachael went very still, pulled her gaze from the power of his, her mind racing with possibilities. “A long time ago, when I was a little girl, my mother told me a story about a species of leopards. Well, not leopards, they were a species able to shift into the form of a leopard, or large cat. They had some of the attributes of the leopard, but also attributes of humans and of their own species, sort of a three-way mixture. I’ve never heard anyone else ever mention them until now. Is that what you mean?”

Few things shocked Rio anymore, but his hands stopped in midair and he stared at her. “How would your mother have heard of the leopard people? Few people, outside the species, know of their existence.”

“Do you realize what you’re saying, Rio? That there is such a species? I thought it was simply a story my mother liked to tell me at night when we were alone together. She always told me tales of the leopard people when I went to bed.” She frowned, trying to remember the old stories from her childhood. “She didn’t call them leopard people, there was another name.”

Rio stiffened, his brilliant gaze slashing at her face. “What did she call them?”

The name eluded her as hard as she tried to remember. “I was a child, Rio. I was only a young girl when she died and we went to live with…” She trailed off, shrugging her shoulders. “It doesn’t matter. Are you saying there’s a possibility that the species exists? And if it does, why would one of them want to harm you? Or me for that matter?”

“I’m on a hit list, Rachael. I’ve stirred up the bandits a few times, taking back what doesn’t belong to them and costing them a lot of money. They don’t like it and they want me dead.” He shrugged his shoulders and patted the cat, straightening tiredly. “Hold him a couple more minutes while I fix a bed for him.”

“And I’ve made it worse for you by coming here, haven’t I?”