“You should have asked first, but you’re right. I trust your judgment. Don’t count on that too heavily. Wouldn’t want you getting cocky.”

His lips curved. “I would never be so foolish.”

He wasn’t surprised that it was Dev, a man close to the natural cycles and life of the bush, who’d realized Elisa needed objective eyes. Time and again, Mal had accepted cats that, because of past abuses, people had wanted to coddle and cocoon to excess. It turned the creature into a permanent victim. Through good intentions, the caretaker could trap the creature into that mind-set, such that they could never become like any other wild creature. A well-adjusted animal, even if it couldn’t be fully rehabilitated, viewed the world the way a wild animal was intended to view it.

“So who am I supposed to really be helping here, Danny? Her or them?”

“I hope both. But she may be the only one you can truly save.”

He thought about it for a while after hanging up. As he sat back in his chair, boots propped on the desk edge so he could tip the chair back, knees bent, fingers laced behind his head, he reviewed everything he’d learned while getting the fledglings settled. The ferocity in Leonidas’s eyes was easy to interpret. He responded to intimidation, but he’d keep looking for any opportunity to strike. Mal had already told the hands no one was to come within ten feet of that cage without his presence, and he’d waited until every staff member acknowledged the order.

Whatever had been done to Leonidas had pushed him right into psychopathy. The chances of reaching him, of ever getting him to a point where he could be trusted to follow a code of behavior, were probably lost. His days were numbered. However, the others weren’t as obvious a decision. Elisa thought he wasn’t listening or paying attention, but Mal paid attention to every detail. In the work he did, it was essential, because every nuance of a cat’s behavior told him something about the beast’s state of mind, what he or she needed, whether they were progressing in rehabilitation, or if they were trapped in a dependent state where the preserve had to be their forever home.

His mind turned to the one she called Jeremiah. He considered the expressions he’d seen in the fledgling’s face, particularly as he looked toward Elisa for his cues. There’d been a hunger in his gaze, a yearning for so many things that had been denied him, that Malachi felt a momentary empathy. An entirely dangerous feeling, as Elisa’s current state showed.

Pushing it away, he took his feet down and opened the thick file that Thomas had brought with him from Australia. It was filled with Danny and Dev’s meticulous notes. Because he’d second-marked all his staff so he could know their minds as well as communicate with them telepathically, it was second nature to toss out a request to Kohana. Instead of simply following it, however, Kohana appeared at his door a moment later. “You wanted the monk?”

“You deaf as well as one-legged?”

“Well, seeing as you spoke inside my head, being deaf would hardly keep me from hearing you. Else I would have faked that a long time ago.”

Mal gave an absent grunt, still studying the paperwork. “Something you want to say? You wouldn’t be darkening my door like a bear woken from hibernation otherwise.”

“She’s sleeping deep. I don’t think she’ll wake for some time. She wasn’t interested in the food. Thomas said she threw up what she had on the plane. She’s not well.”

“Well, we’ll just have to get her stronger. She has a lot to do over the next few days.” Mal raised his gaze and met Kohana’s. “Once she has a proper rest, I’ll meet with her here. There are things I need to know from her.”

“I think there are things she needs from you as well.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Mal waved him away irritably. “Danny said as much. Hell and damnation. Babysitter to a bunch of foul-tempered cats, fugitive Indians and now one puny Irish maid.”

Kohana didn’t smile, not technically. He never really did, but there was a rearrangement of the muscles of his face that gave away mirth. “I’ll leave you to your reading, Mr. Malachi.”

The thunk of the hunting knife sinking into the heavy paneling next to the doorframe was a familiar threat, one that Kohana ignored as he withdrew. Mal’s accuracy was impeccable, a uniform pattern of slits up and down either side and along the top of the door.

Kohana wondered how good his employer’s aim was going to be on this new lot of rescued “cubs.” The large Lakota had an uneasy feeling and didn’t like it, but he knew it was best to let time show where danger lay before one reacted too hastily to it.

However, Kohana suspected the greatest challenge to Mal lay in the bed upstairs. Maybe it was a good thing. Malachi had been on the preserve for a long spell now, turning down any offer to go with the others to the mainland for R & R. Might be time to remind him of the world outside. And it had been a remarkable moment, the way the little miss had stood toe-to-toe with him, trying to give him what for.

“Winds of change,” he noted to himself. “Good or bad, only time will tell.” Heading back to the kitchen, Kohana started mulling what he could scare up for a breakfast. At the end of this long work night, the hands were sure to be extra hungry.

5

SLEEP did help, but Elisa wasn’t sure anything would truly prepare her for her meeting with Mr. Malachi that following evening. She was glad Kohana had woken her a few hours before, coaxed a couple bites of something into her, then let her go back to sleep. When she finally put her feet on the floor and stumbled into the small bathroom to splash herself awake, nervousness took away her appetite. She brushed her unruly dark brown curls back from her face and slipped a band over them, then ironed the modest dress she pulled from the suitcase Danny had bought for her. She should have done it when she arrived, but in truth, she remembered little once they’d gotten her to this room.

But that was yesterday. She checked herself in the mirror. She was ready to go to work, and it was best to think of Mr. Malachi as her new employer, meeting to discuss her duties. If she could remember that, stay calm, maybe he’d let her see the children today. The thought gave her courage as she made her way through the house.

The architecture was log cabin, so the walls were smooth-surface logs, fitted together and caulked. The gray-brown color was balanced by large windows that made it seem they were outdoors, or peering out from the cocoon of a cool forest. Several pairs of French doors led out to the wide wraparound porch. It was sunset, the sky red and gold with wisps of dove gray. One set of windows faced east, the other west, so it would lack for natural light only in the most heated noontime. There were electrical lights, but she saw enough lanterns they must use kerosene in the evenings to save the power source.

It was definitely a man’s haven, very little indicating a woman’s touch, though even Mrs. Pritchett would approve of the cleanliness. The wood floors were swept and the rugs, in interesting designs she expected were Indian, were bright and clean.

The main sitting area was an open layout with chess- and checkerboards. That and packs of cards, a left-behind coffee mug, suggested staff members might gather there during off-hours, which she found interesting since she recalled a bunkhouse outside. While Danny treated her men well, they weren’t encouraged to come sprawl in her home, on her lovely mahogany furniture and needlepoint pillows.

The furniture was sturdy and natural-looking, the chair arms retaining the knotted appearance of the trees from which they’d been created. The back of the sofa was woven sapling branches. She wondered if they’d ever considered weaving fresh flowers into them, so whoever lay there could inhale their sweet scent. Despite the rustic appearance, thick, deep cushions scattered about made it all look appealing and comfortable. Warm fleece throws were tossed over the backs of a couple chairs.

The kitchen had a pass-through area and a radio. Currently, it played Big Band against a layer of static. Like on the station, the hands probably passed their leisure hours listening to the radio while mending, telling stories, playing cards and the like.

A stairwell led to a lower level, subterranean for vampire guests to sleep without worry of the sun. For capricious reasons of her own, Danny sometimes chose to sleep in an upstairs room, the curtains securely closed. Dev always slept with her then, refusing to leave her so near the damaging morning sun without his watchful guard. When Elisa brought in a breakfast tray near twilight, Dev’s meal as well as a glass of juice to mix with his blood if Danny chose to take it that way, her lady would be lying across Dev and slumbering peacefully. Her blond hair would be a beautiful sweep of gold along immodestly bared shoulders, her naked breast concealed only where it was pressed against Dev’s chest. He’d be stroking her hair to aid her sleep, and would nod at Elisa, giving her a faint smile and a gesture to show her where to put the tray. She’d never walked in on Dev asleep. He was alert as a cat.

Watching that large, capable hand soothe her lady’s brow, stroke down the bare spine, Elisa hadn’t wondered that Danny felt so secure that close to the sun, so safe. For some reason, Elisa remembered standing against Malachi in Leonidas’s cage. Since that made no sense, she pushed it away as the product of an overstressed mind.

Just like humans, most vampires didn’t have a Dev or a Willis. They looked after their own safety. Hence, most slept on lower levels where the sun couldn’t be an immediate threat. Besides that, she knew from Dev that younger vampires had a harder time getting a good night’s rest if they weren’t deeper in the earth. Mal was younger than Danny was, and she was still considered young by vampire standards, at a little more than two hundred. So he likely slept in that subterranean level.

All in all, seeing a world similar to the one in which she’d lived for the past few years made Elisa feel a little better. No one was in the main room or visible out in the yard through the large windows, so the staff was either sleeping in the bunkhouse—there was no telling whether humans in a vampire’s employ kept his hours or their own—or had risen long ago, going about their duties. She hastened her step. She hadn’t meant to sleep the day away.