Leopard 03 - Burning Wild

here and not move, or make a sound.” She pressed his little body into the deeper grass.
    He looked up at her with his eyes, so like Jake’s, eyes that seemed to have more intelligence than possible for his age. He took a deep breath and nodded his head slowly. Emma covered him with nearby branches and twigs and swept up the grass around him, taking only seconds as she hid him.
    Then she ran toward the scent, shifting as she went, her body going down to the ground, on all fours, fur sliding over her skin, muzzle rounding and expanding to accommodate the teeth bursting through.
    The experience was becoming less painful, and faster, and she was getting used to the roped muscles and sinewy body that allowed for much easier travel.
    She circled to come at him from behind. There. In the tree, he was easing his weight along a thick tree branch, to try to get a better shot. She could imagine the chaos he was viewing through his scope. Four leopards, three humans fighting to the death in a rolling, clawing, tooth-filled battle. He set the rifle to his shoulder and his eye to the scope, settling his finger on the trigger. She came up behind him silently, stealthily, her gaze fixed and focused, hunting the hunter.
    “I see you, you big son of a bitch,” the man said softly, satisfaction in his voice.
    She leapt, making the jump easily into the tree, landing on his back, her weight slamming him down hard against the knotted branch. He grunted, maintaining his hold on his gun as she bent her head and bit down on his shoulder, easily tearing through the thin skin and muscle, puncturing deep. Blood filled her mouth and she recoiled, horrified.
    Emma pulled back and the man rolled, falling from the tree to the ground, discharging the rifle. She felt the bullet burn through her fur and she launched herself again, her weight hitting him full in the chest.
    He tried to bring the rifle up, and when he couldn’t, he used it as a club, slamming it into her shoulder to drive her backward. The leopard raked her claws down his belly and gripped his throat, biting hard more out of fear than aggression.
    Emma held on to his neck grimly, tears running down her face. She wanted to throw up, the bile rising.
    She was so distressed, she had to fight her body to keep from shifting back to her human form. The man struggled, slamming the sides of the leopard with his gun, trying to get it around to fire off a shot.
    Just when she was certain she couldn’t make herself hold him another moment, Jake came rushing at them.
    He was on the man in seconds, and Emma fell back, exhausted, sick, disgusted and horrified all at once. She staggered, fell and began to crawl, dragging the leopard’s body through the mud away from the scene of death. She didn’t want to see or hear any more killing. Once away from the terrible struggle, she shifted, sobbing, bending over to relieve her stomach of all contents in protest of the night’s activities.
    She could still taste blood in her mouth and she was desperate to rid herself of it. She turned her face up to the sky, allowing the rain to pour over her, wanting it to cleanse her. She wasn’t sorry, but she hated that she’d had to make a life-and-death choice for another human being. She tried to scrub the blood off her body, shivering continually, although she didn’t know if it was from the cold or from deep revulsion.
    “Emma.” Jake called her name softly.
    She turned to face him. He looked like a warrior, with his glittering eyes and smears of blood decorating him, along with deep scratches, but he appeared to have come out of the battle unscathed for the most part.
    “Where’s our son?”
    She could see the fear in his eyes. His hands trembled as they reached for her. She pointed toward the grassy slope where she’d hidden Kyle. He took her hand and ran, setting a fast pace. In her exhaustion, Emma could barely keep up, stumbling over the uneven ground until he wrapped his arm around her waist and nearly lifted her off her feet, taking them over the last few feet of muddy terrain before he came to a halt, staring down at the little mound. His chest heaved, breath exploded out of his lungs and he sank to his knees.
    “Kyle!” Jake tore through the camouflage Emma had covered him with. He dragged the toddler to him, his hands running over his son, brushing the tears from the boys face, unaware of his own as he saw for himself Kyle was alive. “You have bruises all over you. This was never