Leopard 04 - Wild Fire

adept at hiding her feelings from him. Hurt wasn’t the word for what he’d done to her. He’d shattered and disillusioned her. There was guilt and humiliation mixed with her pain. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Isabeau. I’m the one who acted without honor. You did nothing wrong.”
    “I fell in love with the wrong man.”
    “You didn’t, Sestrilla , I’m the right man. It was just the wrong time for us.”
    She lifted her chin, eyes flashing fire. “Go to hell, Conner. I’m not your job this time. Don’t bother practicing on me; you really don’t need it.”
    Her voice cut like a knife, enough to make him wince. He deserved it, though. His gaze moved over her face with brooding intensity. She looked rebellious, defiant, so beautiful he ached inside. He’d told himself he’d walk away from her, but how? How could he give her up? He was already so in love with her there was no way out. He brought her hand up to his chest, pressed her palm over his heart. “You were never my job, Isabeau.” He was going to find a way to win her trust back. There had to be a way.
    She swallowed hard and looked away from him, but not before he caught the sheen of tears. “Let’s just go.”
    “Damn it, Isabeau. How are we going to get past this?”
    “Get past it?”
    Furious, Isabeau wrenched her hand free and pulled away from him, stepping backward—into empty space. She threw out her hands, but she was already tumbling. Terror gripped her as she looked up and saw the mask slipping from Conner’s face to be replaced by fear. She saw his jaw harden as he leapt from the branch after her. Then she was somersaulting through open air. Panic flooded her body with ice-cold adrenaline.
    Breathe. Reach for your cat. She swore she heard Conner’s voice, as calm as ever, flooding her mind, driving out fright to be replaced by a strange calm.
    She felt her body twisting until her upper body was pointed down, and her legs followed suit. She seemed to be tumbling out of control and she gave herself up to the cat struggling to come to her aid. Her skin itched and fur burst along her body, slowing her descent. Instinctively she spread out her arms and folded in the middle. Her spine flexed. Her ears burned, almost as if her body tuned itself to know which way was up and which was down. Her eyes focused on the ground rushing up to meet her.

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    She found herself tucking her arms in and extending her legs so that her body rotated, the front coming around much faster than the bottom half. Immediately she tucked her legs and extended her arms to bring herself all the way around. She’d rotated completely in midair, just as Conner had said she would. She tried to relax as she felt the burning sensation in her feet and hands, indicating claws breaking through her sensitive skin just before she hit the ground. The pads helped, but she hit hard, her legs and hands absorbing the tremendous fall through the paws.
    Pain crashed through her body, her wrists, elbows, knees and ankles crumbling beneath her as she sprawled out on the forest floor.
    “Don’t move,” Conner hissed as he landed beside her in a perfect crouch.
    She hated him in that moment. He had to be good at everything. She’d fallen from the canopy in the rain forest, managed to right herself and still got hurt. His hands moved over her, examining her quickly and efficiently for damage.
    “We just landed in the middle of enemy territory,” he reminded. “Don’t make a sound.”
    She realized she was moaning softly and forced herself to go quiet, although she couldn’t stop the tears tracking down her face. She winced when his fingers moved over her left wrist.
    “How bad,” he mouthed.
    She looked up at his grim face and tried to look brave when she really wanted to curl into a ball and sob.
    The pads of his fingers brushed gently at her tears, making her heart ache.
    “A sprain, I think. The rest of me, just the shock, jamming everything as I landed. I was lucky.” She remembered to whisper the words, using a thread of sound that his acute hearing could easily pick up.
    Her body was tuning itself once again to the rhythm of the rain forest. She heard the rustling in the underbrush and knew it was a man, not an animal, brushing against leaves quite close to them. Too close.
    She smelled sweat and fear and rot. Her eyes met Conner’s. There it was again, that implacable,