Leopard 05 - Savage Nature

huntin’.”
    “We have guns,” Joshua pointed out.
    “Do you know where on an alligator you have to actually shoot to kill him? Do you have any idea how small the actual target on a gator is? It’s about the size of a quarter and you’d better not miss. All of you may be a big deal out in your own environments, but you’re amateurs here. Just the fact that you came up with this hare-brained scheme without first askin’ someone who knows the swamp shows you’re amateurs.”
    All six men remained silent, watching her with steady, unblinking eyes. Cat’s eyes. Hunter’s eyes. They were unimpressed with her arguments. She sighed, giving up. She just shook her head, caught the rifle Drake threw to her and turned her back on them. Idiots. Even the youngest child in the swamp knew more than they did.
    Shaking off her thoughts, she concentrated on listening. Insects hummed. Bullfrogs called back and forth. The rain kept falling steadily. She hunched her shoulders and blocked out everything but the rustles in the thick foliage. She knew exactly where to step, but she often crossed paths alligators used to slide into the water.
    “Where to?”
    “We need a clear view of Fenton’s Marsh and the best path to follow a boat heading toward the Mercier land,” Drake said. “The leaves are off the poppies and they’ll have harvested the opium. They’ll be destroying the evidence now.”
    She wasn’t going to argue with him. But if by some miracle he was right, what did that mean? Because if dogs couldn’t sniff out the drugs, that would mean the killer would have access to whatever kept him from having a scent. It was virtually impossible for Charisse to be a killer. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body. She was clingy, and she drove everyone a little crazy with her eccentricities, but noone would ever say she wasn’t one of the most compassionate people around.
    She pushed all thoughts of Charisse out of her head. She had to just stay focused on the safety of the men she was guiding. She should have told Drake to shove it. In the swamp, she was the leader—not him. She bit her lip and led the way. They were eerily silent, but she refused to glance over her shoulder to make sure they were keeping up. She set a brutal pace, skirting around poisonous brush, making certain to place each foot carefully on ground she knew was sound. As it was, the rain had soaked in, making the surface far spongier than normal.
    Drake touched her shoulder and she stopped moving automatically. He moved in front of her, and held up his hand, his fingers spread wide. His men appeared to melt into the darkness. One moment she could see them and then they seemed to disappear. There was no sound, no rustling of leaves, no snapping of twigs, they simply were gone.
    She hadn’t heard the sound of a boat nor had she seen lights, but her heart began to pound, and deep inside, she felt her leopard unsheathe her claws. Saria tasted fear in her mouth. The fact that she knew her leopard had actually gone on alert scared her more than the men disappearing around her. She was so out of her depth with these people. She needed time to assimilate the fact that she was leopard too. After all those years of envying her brothers and feeling so alone, she had the very thing she’d wanted, yet she was afraid of it. Now that she was a part of it all, she wanted to curl up somewhere quiet and just be still.
    Drake touched her shoulder and she crouched, wondering how she knew what he wanted. He pointed to his left and something moved in the brush, but she could only hear the rain. There was a long moment of silence. She could count her heartbeats as the tension stretched out. The relentless rain slackened in intensity, slowing to a slow drizzle, a heavier mist that blanketed the swamp and hung in thick drapes over the water.
    Drake crouched beside her. “We have company. North of us, two boats in the water, side by side. They have the lights covered. Can you get us to a trail taking us toward Mercier property without putting us in the open?” He whispered the words against her ear, his lips tight against her skin and a slow burn—a very inappropriate reaction—started in her very core. Her leopard rose to meet his. She closed her eyes, shocked that her leopard would add such complications to an already impossible night.
    Drake’s palm curved around her nape. “Don’t let her escape yet. Keep in control.”
    “Are you kiddin’,” she hissed