"Come sit down and eat," Delgrotto said kindly. "You have great courage, Rachael, and you protect those you love fiercely, just as Rio does. I'm grateful he found you. You've brought him happiness."
"He would have been happy if you hadn't taken everything away from him."
"We spared his life. It was the only choice open to us. Banishment or death. No one wanted it, and no one was happy with the sentence, but we felt we had no choice. We spared his life and lived without him. We caught glimpses of his greatness, this son to our people. A born leader. We saw what it did to him. You can't see what it did to us."
"I hope you don't want me to feel sorry for you." Rachael limped across the room to the table. She left the door wide open. There would be no sleeping until Rio returned safely and the sound of the rain soothed her ragged nerves and made her feel closer to him. Rio's rain songs. The sound made him closer to her.
"Not sorry for us. Perhaps understanding. We lost him and his mother. Banishment means he is dead to us. We can't see him or speak to him, yet he gives his money to us for the preservation of the forest."
"How could you take it?"
"If we can't see him or speak to him, how could we return it?"
"So you could see the money, just not the giver."
Delgrotto smiled at her ferocity. "You must promise me you'll have many children with him. We need them."
The soup was delicious. She hated to even concede him that much and it annoyed her. A faint grin stole over her face. "I think I have a closed mind where you're concerned. I don't want to see your point of view."
"At least you can admit that." He seemed to savor the taste of the broth. "You would make a good member of the high council."
Rachael managed a rude noise around the next mouthful of soup.
Delgrotto's eyebrow shot up. "You don't think so? One has to look at a problem from every angle. Before you can do that, you have to acknowledge there is more than one angle. I didn't agree with banishment, but the alternative was beyond our capabilities to impose on him."
"Well for heaven's sake, did you consider another punishment? Something not quite so harsh? Live a little, make a few laws up, that's what every other governing body does."
He nodded his head politely, considering her suggestion. "What do you believe is a fair punishment for murder?"
"It wasn't murder."
"What was it then?"
"I don't know, but I've seen murder. I've felt the malevolence of a cold-blooded murderer, of someone truly evil, and that is not Rio."
An owl hooted in the distance. The elder lifted his head and stared toward the door for a long moment. "I'm sorry you've had to be exposed to such a thing, Rachael, and, of course, you're right. There is nothing evil about Rio." Delgrotto ate another spoonful of the soup. "We can agree he took a life."
Somewhat mollified, Rachael nodded. "I can't very well deny it when he told me so himself." She sighed. "He doesn't blame you for what you did."
"No, he doesn't, because he understands the need for laws." The owl hooted a second time. Delgrotto leaned forward and blew out the candle. "Close the door and be very quiet."
"The birds aren't sounding off, neither are the monkeys." But Rachael obediently closed the door and dropped the bar in place. "What's wrong?" Always before she'd heard the clear warning of the animals as an -intruder moved through their territory. "Maybe it's Rio coming back." But she knew it wasn't. Cold fingers touched her spine, sent a chill of fear through her body.
"It isn't Rio. Do you know the way to the village?"
Rachael shook her head. "I've never been there."
"You might be able to follow Rio, using scent, but I know him. He'll have tried to go to water several times to throw anyone off. He's very careful. He must have an escape hole other than the front door."
"Yes, but we don't even know what's out there."
"If a man was out there, the forest would have been in an uproar. It's a leopard, and he knows the ways of the animals. He knows to soothe them as he passes by, careful not to look as if he's hunting. And he must be hunting to want to come to us so silently."
"I came here hoping to escape the trouble I was in," Rachael confessed readily. "They sent someone after me once already. You should go, I can show you the escape door. You shouldn't be here with me."
"I may be an old man, Rachael, but I am capable of helping you protect your life. I would never slink back to Rio and tell him I left his woman alone to fend off an attacker. I could never live with myself."
She had an idea Rio might not look too kindly on him either. "Kim Pang came by earlier and told Rio his father had a vision about a party of researchers entering the forest looking for medicinal plants. Tama is guiding them, but his father was still very much worried. He didn't believe they were researchers."
"An ordinary man would not be able to keep the animals quiet. Nor would he be able to escape the eye of one of Pang's sons."
"He also said the man who approached him asking for a guide knew the traditions and honor system of the forest. I think he suspected he was of the same species as Rio." She took a deep breath. "It could be that my brother is hunting me."
"Your own kin?"
"It's a possibility. There's a price on my head. I think it best that you go while you can."
"To trade the life of my grandson for your life? I will not. I doubt it's safe in the forest. We're better off here, with Rio's weapons. If we must escape, we'll do so when we know it's our only option," Delgrotto decided.
A leopard moaned quite close. She recognized the haunting call of the clouded leopard, Fritz warning her. Somehow the small leopard's acceptance gave her hope. Rachael shoved a knife, sheathed in leather, into the waistband of her jeans. She picked up the smaller of the two handguns.
Delgrotto reached out and drew her into the center of the room, away from the windows. "Don't move."
She heard the soft thud of something heavy landing on the verandah. Something walked around the house, fur whispering along the railing, brushing against the creeper vines and sliding over the window. Shadows moved, dark enough to make her heart leap into her throat.
They waited. Rachael did what she always did when the tension was too much. She counted. It was a mindless, silly habit, but it worked to keep her brain calm, allowing her to think clearly. There was silence again. The wind sighed through the canopy and the rain poured down steadily. The tip of a knife appeared along the inside edge of the door beneath the bar. It slowly began to rise.
Rachael moved to the side of the door. "Here's the thing about night visitors." She spoke very matter-of-factly. "If they don't have manners, we figure they aren't worth keeping around so we just shoot them. Take your knife out of my door and knock like a normal person or I'm going to empty this gun into the wall."
There was a brief hesitation and the knife disappeared. Another moment of silence and the knock came on the door.
Rachael signaled to the elder to take a gun and move into the shadow of the bedroom out of sight. Only when he had merged into the gray did she reach out and lift the bar. "Only one person better step through that door and you'd better step through with your hands raised." She moved again, so they wouldn't be able to get a fix on her voice if they came in shooting.
The door swung open slowly. "I'm not armed, Rachael."
For a moment she couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. Her heart pounded like a runaway drum and her mouth went dry. She stood there, fighting for air, uncertain what she would do. Rachael cleared her throat and forced the words out. "Come in, shut the door and bar it. I want to see your hands every second."
"Damn it, Rachael. You know who I am." The door was slammed just that bit too hard. Elijah dropped the bar in place and swung his head to glare at her. Tall, muscular, broad-shouldered, his black hair fell in the same riot of waves as hers did. "What the hell were you thinking, taking off like that?"