Primal Touch

by Amber Jacobs

  “Okay, I’m ready.”

  Leandra looked back to find Ashley had finished her bath and was now dressed and waiting. She had changed into an army green, cut-off tank top and cargo shorts, her blonde hair still wet and tousled about her face.

  “You want to wait here while I take this stuff back to camp?” Ashley asked, holding up her bundle of dirty clothes and the towel.

  “Sure.”

  “Great. I’ll be quick.” Ashley hastened away, and Leandra watched her departure with a wry smile. She happily allowed her eyes to wander over the photographer’s backside until she disappeared back into the forest, enjoying the way the brief outfit displayed Ashley’s slender curves. An unconscious rumble stirred in Leandra’s throat, and she settled down on the rock to sun herself, purring contentedly as she looked forward to the day ahead.

  “So, have your friends had any luck finding tigers?” Leandra asked, offering her arm to Ashley so she could keep her balance as they navigated a treacherous stretch of nearly dry riverbed. Ashley accepted the assistance gratefully, having already slipped twice on the slimy rocks.

  “Some,” she replied. “Apparently, they bagged a young male yesterday morning after I left. Hit him with a tranq gun then collared him, no problems.” They made it past the slippery rocks. She had watched Leandra spring barefoot from one rock to another and envied the unbelievable agility she could never hope to match. “It would have been nice to see him. Simon thinks he’s probably the dominant tiger in this territory.”

  “Actually, he’s a rogue male, just passing through.”

  “How do you—” Ashley stopped, seeing the knowing grin on the Leandra’s face, and rolled her eyes. “Right. Forgot who I was talking to.”

  “That you did.”

  As they made their way farther along the edge of the river bank, Ashley cast her friend a curious look. “So… Just how close can you actually get to a tiger? Seriously, I mean.”

  “Seriously?” Leandra considered. “It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Lots of things. Like, for example, how well the tiger knows me, and what kind of mood it’s in. Plus, some species are more aggressive than others. And I wouldn’t get within a hundred feet of a male during mating season.”

  Ashley absorbed this slowly. “Well, what’s the closest you’ve ever got? Have you ever petted one? Like, a real wild one?”

  A slightly uneasy expression crossed Leandra’s features for a moment, and Ashley noted the way she rubbed at her right shoulder as though it pained her.

  “Let’s just say I’ve been closer than you’d ever want to get.”

  Hearing from Leandra’s tone that she was getting uncomfortable, Ashley smoothly moved the conversation on. “Do you always keep your body painted like that?”

  “Pretty much. The paint makes it easier to blend in and helps to mask my scent.”

  “What do you use for paint?”

  “Crushed ochre and other kinds of clay or mud.” Leandra displayed her patterned arm. “I mix it with fat I take from my kills so it doesn’t wash away so easily in the rain.”

  Ashley studied the grainy, rough texture of the paint, running a finger along Leandra’s arm and feeling the slightly greasy finish.

  “How long does it last?”

  “Depends on how active I am. Usually a week or two, and then I take a bath and wash it off. It takes a few hours to apply again.”

  Ashley admired the intricacy and detail of Leandra’s design. “Must be tough doing your back, huh?”

  “At first, but I got used to it. Now it’s just another routine for me. I could do it blindfolded, if I had to.”

  “Well, I think it looks nice.” Ashley grinned at the self-conscious smile she received for the compliment. “Although,” she added, “you scared the shit out of me the first time I saw you.”

  Leandra nodded. “Yeah, that’s another good thing about it. If poachers do see me, they’re usually so shocked they don’t react quickly enough to save themselves.”

  “Right.” Ashley’s smile faltered at the reminder that her companion was a killer. It was difficult to reconcile the memory of Leandra’s bloody handiwork with the considerate, sometimes charming woman she was coming to like more and more with each passing day. Despite the constant predatory air that seemed to hang around Leandra like a shroud, Ashley recognized that an oddly vulnerable woman lived beneath the primal markings and tangled hair. While there was no doubt in Ashley’s mind that Leandra was capable of extremely savage acts of violence, it was easy to forget that as she enjoyed the other woman’s company.

  Leandra was watching her awkwardly, seeming to intuitively sense where her thoughts had wandered. Before she could open her mouth to offer any kind of reassurance, the sharp report of a distant rifle shot echoed through the jungle. The startled birds in the canopy took to the wing, filling the air with their raucous cries.

  The change in Leandra’s demeanor was immediate: her muscles snapped taut like cords of wire beneath her skin, and she dropped into a low crouch. She cocked her head to the side, eyes ablaze with feral fire. Ashley met her gaze for a moment, paling as she heard an ominous growl rumble from her striped companion.

  “That was too far away to be Tarun.”

  “Poachers,” Leandra hissed, her eyes alight with a fire Ashley hadn’t seen before.

  “It could be rangers—”

  “No. That’s a large-caliber hunting rifle. Only a poacher would have use for one out here.” For a moment, Leandra’s expression appeared conflicted, then she offered an apologetic, regretful smile. “I’m sorry. I have to check it out.”

  “I understand,” Ashley said quietly, cursing the interruption to their day.

  “There’s a bend in the creek up ahead,” Leandra said, clearly every bit as disappointed as she was. “It’s not too far, just watch your step on the rocks. If you want to, you can wait there for me, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Okay.”

  Just as Leandra turned to leave, a moment of gut-level concern made Ashley reach out and grab her arm, pulling her back. The feeling wasn’t something she could place or explain—after all, Leandra seemed more than capable of dealing with danger, and when Leandra met her gaze, questioning, she released her grip with an embarrassed smile.

  “Just…be careful, okay?”

  Leandra flashed her a quick, toothy grin. “Always.” She patted Ashley’s hand, turned away, and ran off into the jungle, her body blending quickly with the shifting shadows and dense undergrowth.

  Ashley watched her vanish, then sighed and continued making her way along the creek bed alone.

  Leandra moved quickly and stealthily along barely visible forest trails, every sense open and alert to the slightest sound or presence. She knew this part of India better than any other, having spent so much of her time here, and she moved with confidence over the familiar ground.

  It wasn’t long before her pace slowed, and she started stalking with greater care as she neared the place she guessed was the origin of the gunshot. Sniffing the air and listening attentively, she found nothing out of place. A quick but thorough search failed to turn up any blood or tracks, and she snarled in frustration.

  This had to be the place. From the echo, Leandra was certain the shot had been fired from here, or somewhere very close by. And she knew from experience that poachers didn’t take idle shots. They fired only to kill, knowing every shot meant the possibility of attracting the attention of any rangers in the area. Leandra didn’t have anything to fear from the patrols, since she could avoid them if they came snooping around, but as she continued searching for some signs of the shooter, she felt a growing sense that something here was wrong. It was nothing she could put her finger on, just a gut feeling of disquiet that made her even more cautious than usual.

  Eventually, her patience was rewarded.
A single spent shell, nestled among the leaf litter, caught Leandra’s attention. She swooped on it immediately, cold eyes searching for and finding faint tracks leading away. There was no sign of a kill, however. In fact, there was no sign of a target at all. Certainly, no animal had been in this area for some time. That thought made her all the more curious about why the shot had been fired. She moved into the deeper cover of the shadows and began hunting her quarry.

  After several minutes of pursuit, the tracks left the comforting shelter of the jungle and moved into more open ground, near a steeply cascading river. Leandra hesitated, not liking to leave her cover and venture into the open while she was hunting. Pacing a few strides back and forth, growling without realizing she was doing so, she felt her anger rise with her frustration. This was her territory. Her hunting ground. Having spent so much time modeling herself and her behavior after the great jungle cats, Leandra had picked up their same territorial possessiveness. This was an invasion, and she didn’t like letting it go unpunished. Besides, if she let this poacher get away, he might actually find what he was almost certainly looking for.

  Unwilling to give up the hunt, she studied the surrounding wilderness carefully, then cautiously left the shelter of the undergrowth, every nerve ending alert and ready to warn her of the slightest danger.

  The tracks followed the course of the river for another hundred-odd paces. For a while, Leandra had little trouble reading them, then all of a sudden they disappeared into the rock-strewn waters. Crisscrossing the swift-flowing but shallow river with remarkable agility, she searched both banks for any continued sign.

  Nothing. The poacher seemed to have vanished.

  Leandra’s senses picked up on something out of place. The instincts that had kept her alive out here through four long years screamed a silent warning, and her striped figure crouched behind a bush and froze for a split second as she searched the surrounding wilderness. There was nothing visible, but the openness of her position made her feel exposed and vulnerable. Trusting her instincts, she leapt up and ran as fast as she could back into the jungle. She wasn’t going to jeopardize her safety for this hunt. She had learned long ago when to give up the chase and wait for a better opportunity.

  Within a heartbeat, Leandra’s figure was just another set of shadows cast by the canopy above, and she started making her way back to Ashley, wondering at the sense of peril that still disturbed her.

  “Amazing!”

  Jack Corbin breathed a quiet, impressed whistle as he watched the distant figure melt back into the underbrush. Even with his powerful binoculars, Jack couldn’t find the woman again once she’d escaped his scrutiny.

  His plan had worked perfectly, however. As he had predicted, the single shot had attracted the attention of the strange tiger-woman, and he’d had little trouble laying a trail for her to follow. Luring the stranger into the open allowed him to watch from a safe distance, where he could verify the threat she posed. And from what he’d seen, Jack had not been disappointed. His only regret was that their ruse might have alerted the woman to danger.

  He turned to his companion with a thin-lipped smile. “It seems I owe you an apology, Shaun,” he said. “As difficult as your story was to believe, I can’t deny the evidence of my own eyes.” He chuckled. “Not quite a ghost, however. She’s as much flesh and blood as you or me.”

  Shaun grunted, his arms folded across his chest. “So why didn’t you just shoot her?”

  Jack shook his head. “She wasn’t still long enough for me to get a clear shot. She sensed us watching and ran,” he said, still marveling at the strange woman’s apparent hyper-awareness. “She’s quick and wary. We’ll need to set an ambush, which means finding her usual haunts and then figuring out the pattern of her movements.”

  “Who is she?” Shaun wondered aloud.

  “Probably some half-crazed vigilante,” Jack guessed. “Some activist who took a bad trip and went nuts. Looks like she’s been living out here awhile, which means she must have developed good survival instincts. More animal than human, I’ll bet. Still…” He offered a confident grin. “We’ll be doing the hunting now, and while she may be fast, I doubt she can dodge a bullet.”

  “That’s if she’s human,” Shaun said. “She’s the one who killed all the other guys. I bet they were careful too, but it didn’t do ’em any good, did it?”

  Jack scowled. “They were taken by surprise. We can do the same to her. She won’t be expecting us to attack her.” The doubtful expression lingered on Shaun’s face, so Jack spoke in a firmer tone. “That woman is all that stands between us and a fortune. We kill her, then we start the hunt for the white tiger. If those scientist people find it before we do, we’ll just go in and take it, nice and simple. Are you gonna let your idiotic superstitions stop you from getting a big fat paycheck?”

  Shaun shook his head reluctantly. “Of course not. But—”

  “But nothing! She’s just some whacked-out loon who’s gone psycho and started killing poachers. We put her down, and then when we get out of here, everyone else’ll thank us for getting rid of the ‘tiger-ghost.’” Jack clapped his brawny companion on the shoulder and turned him back toward their camp. “This is the sort of thing that’ll make for a powerful reputation,” he continued. “We’ll both be legends.”

  Shaun’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And you’re sure we can get her?”

  Jack snorted. “I’ve hunted everything on this planet that walks or crawls. Trust me, humans are a lot easier to kill than big cats.”

  Shaun considered this in silence for a long moment, and Jack didn’t interrupt his thought process. Finally he nodded. “Okay, I’m in. What do we do first?”

  Jack smiled. He knew Shaun couldn’t resist the tempting possibility of bragging that he’d helped kill the “Indian Menace.” Smacking Shaun heartily on the back, he began to outline his plan.

  “Hey!”

  Ashley was sitting on a fallen log, trying not to fidget with concern, when the familiar throaty voice startled her. Jumping up, she breathed a sigh of relief when Leandra’s striped form emerged from the forest. “Jeez, Leandra, what did I tell you about sneaking up on me?” she scolded.

  “Sorry.” Leandra grinned teasingly, not making much of an effort to appear repentant. “I’ll try to remember to make noise next time.”

  “Thanks.” Ashley sat back down and gestured for Leandra to join her. “So, what did you find?”

  “Nothing much. No blood or signs of a kill, only a single set of tracks that died in a river. But there was something strange about it…something wrong.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m not…really sure.” A distant, confused expression flittered across her features, and Ashley realized it was probably difficult for Leandra to translate her instincts into words. “It wasn’t really something I could hear, or smell, or even see. But I could feel something out there, like I was being watched.”

  “I know what you’re talking about,” Ashley said. “I seem to recall experiencing the same thing the first night you paid me a visit.”

  “Can’t blame me for being interested,” Leandra said with a wry smile. “You did set up camp in my hunting ground, remember.”

  “I know.” Ashley considered Leandra’s report. “Maybe the shot was just a signal or something,” she suggested. “It’s pretty easy to get lost out here if you don’t know what you’re doing. Maybe two groups were just using the sound of the gunshot to find each other.”

  “Maybe.” Leandra shook away the memory of the hunt, and Ashley had a feeling she was more interested in turning the conversation back to lighter, more pleasant topics. “Would you like to keep going? There’s a nice little clearing not too far up ahead. We can take a break there and have something to eat.”

  “Sure.”

  The two stood and continued
on down the creek bed, while Ashley told a story of her niece’s last escapade, which had resulted in a suspension from school. Leandra listened attentively to every word, the easy smile on her face making Ashley more than happy to fill the silence.

  The next day, Ashley took her walk down by the river, and as usual, Leandra quickly joined her. As soon as the striped figure emerged from the jungle, Ashley noticed a mysterious smile on her friend’s face and quirked an eyebrow at her. “What are you smiling about?”

  “Nothing big,” Leandra replied. “There’s a small herd of chital feeding a few miles east of here in the grasslands. I found them last night, but there wasn’t time to hunt, so I left it for today. I haven’t been bringing in much prey lately, so this is good.”

  “Why haven’t you been hunting?” Ashley asked, then realized the only possible reason. “Oh.” She smiled self-consciously. “You know, you don’t have to keep me entertained, Leandra. If you need to hunt, that’s fine. I don’t want to cause you problems.”

  “It’s no problem.” Leandra started guiding their footsteps along the riverbank, heading east. “I’d rather spend the time with you. It’s been a nice change for me to have another person around. But still, I could use the meat. I’ve been draining my rice supplies too quickly.”

  “So I guess you can’t do much today, huh?”