by Amber Jacobs
“Actually,” Leandra said, giving her a shy smile in return. “I was going to ask if you’d like to come with me. As long as you stay quiet, you shouldn’t frighten them away.”
Ashley’s face lit up with pleasure at the invitation. She was delighted at the opportunity to see more of how Leandra lived. “I’d love to come. Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Very sure.”
“Well, okay then. Great!”
It took an hour to reach the place where the spotted deer were grazing; by the time they arrived, Ashley’s tank top was dark with sweat and clinging to her lithe figure. She noted with envy that Leandra wasn’t even breathing hard, despite the intense humidity. The striped woman raised a hand to signal a halt just before the end of the dense jungle cover, her eyes intense and alive as she surveyed the open grasslands beyond. Ashley shivered with excitement and watched with interest as her friend sniffed the air.
“All right,” Leandra murmured, licking her lips. “Can you see them?” She pointed.
Ashley squinted, standing on tiptoes to see over the high grass, and shook her head. “Nope.”
“Let’s see if we can get a little closer.”
The two moved very slowly along the edge of the forest, Leandra making less noise than a ghost. Ashley winced every time she stepped on a dry twig or crinkly leaf, feeling clumsy next to the stealth of her friend. When they found a better position, Leandra pointed again and Ashley was delighted to see the small group of chital grazing no more than fifty feet away.
It was difficult to count how many deer there were, since some were sitting and resting, while others cropped at the dry grasses or stood on hind legs to reach the sweeter leaves of the trees above. Also, several of them seemed to be standing lookout. They were well accustomed to being prey for the great jungle cats or packs of scrawny wolves, and were suitably wary of any hunters. Ashley bit her lower lip.
“Can you get close enough without them seeing you?”
“Seeing me? Yes. Smelling me is trickier. But they’re not the biggest problem. Look in the tree branches just above where they’re feeding.”
Ashley looked, her eyes narrowing in confusion. “Monkeys?”
“Uh huh. They might be able to spot me easier, and if they do, they’ll warn the chital. The two groups often form alliances for mutual protection—it always helps to have friends out here, especially when you’re on the bottom of the food chain.”
Ashley didn’t see any way Leandra could get near the skittish deer. It was clear she hunted in the same manner as the great cats she mimicked, and without a gun, or at least a bow or a spear, it seemed a hopeless task. “Maybe you could wait for a better opportunity.”
“No need for that. Here, I’ll help you into this tree so you can get a better view.”
“You mean you can still do this?”
“Sure. I’ve stalked harder prey than this.”
Ashley looked between Leandra and the chital, confused. “But how can you—” Painted fingers pressed against her lips and stopped her questions.
“Watch and learn.”
With a helpful boost from Leandra, Ashley climbed into the lower branches of the stout tree and settled comfortably to watch. The extra height gave her a much better view of the grassland.
“I’ll be moving into the wind,” Leandra explained softly. “Just keep your eyes on that stretch of grass over there,” she said, indicating it with her hand, “and you should be able to see me okay.”
“All right, but I don’t see how you’re going to do this.”
Leandra’s eyes were predatory, yet playful. “You will.” Then she turned and vanished silently into the jungle.
Ashley settled herself into a better position and waited, busying herself with checking her camera and getting ready to take photos, should the opportunity present itself. Recalling what she’d read of the hunting techniques of tigers, she thought it would be a miracle if Leandra could bring down one of the deer. The dark-haired woman was agile, and certainly stealthy, but she was trying to use the same methods as a creature that must outweigh her by at least a hundred pounds. A tiger could use its weight and strength to bring down prey, but Leandra had no such advantage. Also, tigers had teeth. Leandra had only a set of claws, which, while they were long and sharp, couldn’t compete with the gifts nature had provided the predator cats. According to Ashley’s reading, only about one in twenty tiger attacks were successful. How could Leandra match them? Full of questions, Ashley looked through the viewfinder on her camera and waited for her companion to reappear.
After a time, Leandra’s tawny form emerged from the undergrowth. On all fours, she held her body only a few inches off the ground as she stalked the unsuspecting deer. Seeing her friend in action for the first time, Ashley now understood the merits of the body paint. The stripes blended in with the golden hue of the grasses, camouflaging Leandra very effectively. It took a while for Leandra to gain ground on her wary prey, and she paused often to lie flat in the grass, making sure the vigilant monkeys didn’t spy her. Ashley could only marvel at Leandra’s endurance. She was sure she couldn’t have held her own body up like that for more than a few minutes, yet Leandra seemed capable of maintaining her position indefinitely.
Damn, she’s good, Ashley thought, snapping a few quick shots and admiring the display of primal cunning before her. Through the camera, she could see the muscles along Leandra’s thighs and arms stand out beneath the paint like steel cords, and she admired her in amazement. She’s certainly got the body for this stuff—all muscle and sinew, barely a hint of fat on her whole frame. Tough, lean…sexy as hell.
Wait a minute. Sexy?
Ashley blinked in confusion at the unusual assessment that came unbidden to her mind. Then her eyes narrowed in honest speculation as she reviewed the distant, crouched figure of her friend.
Well, she is sexy, she admitted frankly. She’s got a body to die for and absolutely gorgeous eyes. If her hair was introduced to a comb once in a while, I bet it would look really great. And that husky, throaty voice… God, if she were one of those phone sex women, she’d make a fortune!
Ashley let her eyes roam a little more personally over Leandra, her lips pursing in serious contemplation. Plus, she added mentally, she’s got that whole animal magnetism thing going on, even if she’s not aware of it. And in her case, it’s pretty much the most literal version of animal magnetism you could ask for. I don’t think she has any idea of how sexy she is when she purrs, or stretches herself.
God, I didn’t think I went for the “bad-girl” type. Still, she couldn’t deny the simple truth: Leandra was an intriguingly sensual creature, and Ashley could admit to feeling more than a little attracted to her.
As Ashley was pondering these uncharacteristic thoughts, Leandra had moved to within striking distance of the deer. Crouched in the tall grass on her haunches, she was visibly gathering her energy before she pounced. Ashley thought she seemed particularly cat-like at that moment, and was certain that if Leandra had possessed whiskers and a tail, they would both have been twitching in anticipation. She furiously snapped away with her camera, tense with excitement and awe.
In a sudden burst of movement, Leandra pounced. Her attack was brief and incredibly swift. She threw herself bodily at a small doe with enough power to knock the startled creature off its feet and onto its side. Even before Leandra had wrestled for a grip on her victim’s neck, the rest of the herd leapt away and sprinted desperately from the scene. In the trees above, the monkeys raised a chorus of protest and indignation at the intruder, as they sought cover among the higher branches of their roost. The doe was stronger and tougher than Leandra and quickly tried to regain its balance to flee. But a moment later, Leandra attacked with a devastating, almost frenzied, series of slashing swipes. Her hands clenched tight on the grip of her claws, their wickedly sharp talons extending between her fingers, she to
re out the throat of the terrified deer and held it against the ground until it stopped thrashing.
Ashley’s mouth hung open at the savage display, images of the mauled poachers rising again in her mind. She shuddered, now seeing a more graphic display of Leandra’s killing technique and imagining how she must have used it against the human intruders. Ashley lowered the camera with shaking hands. The attack had lasted only seconds and had taken the deer completely by surprise. They’d never seen it coming.
Swift, brutal, and frightfully effective, Leandra’s hunting style was every bit as awesome a spectacle as a real tiger attack.
Ashley hadn’t been a wildlife photographer for so many years without witnessing up close just how savage and untamed the animal kingdom could be. It was, she reminded herself, simply the way the natural world often worked. Leandra had lived in the wild for four years, making her home among some of the most effective predators on Earth. She’d had to learn to endure the harsh environment and to hunt and survive, just as the tigers did.
The only difference was that Leandra could defend herself against the one threat the great cats were helpless against: man.
Quickly placing the roll of exposed film in a plastic case, Ashley scampered down the tree and dashed over to her friend. When she reached Leandra, she was surprised to find the woman’s painted skin shimmering under a light sweat and her breath coming hard—almost panting. Trying to ignore the spattered blood that marked her body and her crimson-stained hands, Ashley beamed a brilliant smile.
“That was incredible,” she said, crouching down next to her friend. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Leandra rubbed her side where the thrashing hooves of her prey had struck a glancing blow. “Thanks,” she panted, wiping her bloody hands in the grass and proudly admiring her kill. “It took a lot of practice to get the hang of hunting like this, but…” She shrugged. “It’s how I was taught.”
Ashley studied the slain doe and grimaced slightly at the horribly torn throat. “What now? I mean, you’re not going to start ripping it apart with your teeth, right?”
“Of course not.” Leandra chuckled, the throaty sound rumbling deep in her chest. “I’ll butcher it here, take the best parts with me, and leave the rest for the wolves and the carrion feeders. I can dry and salt some of the meat and eat the rest tonight.”
Ashley looked dubiously at Leandra’s claws. “You can’t carve a carcass with those, can you?”
“No.” Leandra reached into a hidden pocket stitched into the folds of her brief skirt and pulled out a piece of flint. She held it up, displaying a wickedly sharp edge. “When I first came out here, I had a steel knife, but it’s worn down now. I use this instead.”
“Oh.”
Ashley watched Leandra cut away the skin of the doe and begin to harvest the best parts: the haunches, flanks, and chest. Having spent time among tribal people both in Africa and Australia, Ashley wasn’t at all squeamish about the butchering process. She took the slices of bloody meat from Leandra and laid them on a bed of grasses she had made. As Leandra worked, her eyes constantly flicked about them, and Ashley watched her curiously. “You expecting someone?”
“A kill doesn’t go unnoticed out here for long,” Leandra explained. “In a few minutes, something’s bound to find us, and we have to be gone before that happens. I don’t want to have to fight off a pack of hungry wolves.”
Ashley understood and started eyeing the surrounding grasslands with more trepidation. “Has that ever happened before?”
“A few times,” Leandra said. “During the first months I was out here, I didn’t have much luck catching food for myself. I had to scavenge what I could from the kills of others.”
Ashley didn’t want to think about what Leandra must have eaten to survive. “Good thing you got better, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Finishing in a hurry, the two friends gathered the bundles of meat and hastened away from the open grasslands. Both felt much better as soon as they were once more in the shadows of the jungle. Leandra led the way to her cave, where she invited a very willing Ashley to stay for lunch. They enjoyed a simple meal of venison and some kind of root vegetable that was sweet and nutty. Ashley noticed Leandra’s appetite was somewhat voracious.
“You remind me of my niece’s cat,” she said. “Every time you offer her food, she just can’t resist, even if she’s already full.”
“It’s a survival trait,” Leandra said around a mouthful of charred venison. “You eat as much as you can, as quick as you can, before something bigger and stronger comes along and takes over.”
“Will the meat attract anything to the cave? I mean, the animals must be able to smell it from a mile away.”
“They won’t come here,” Leandra said confidently. “A wolf won’t get too close to a tiger or a leopard unless it’s starving, and they treat me the same.” She gave a feral grin. “I have the privilege of being near the top of the food chain.”
“Oh. Right.”
After they ate, Ashley helped her friend start curing the rest of the meat, first cutting it into thin strips and then laying it out on a rock by the fire to dry.
Ashley watched Leandra surreptitiously as she used a rag to clean the blood from her hands and forearms. Curious, Ashley let her dark eyes wander along the tall woman’s body with subtle stealth. She quickly became lost in the effect the rippling muscles had on the patterned skin, dark stripes flexing with every movement. She tried to imagine what Leandra might look like without the paint, and was surprised to find the image difficult to conjure. She was so accustomed to the stripes that she barely noticed them anymore. They were as much a part of Leandra as the claws, or the purring, or the aura of primal power she projected. With a roguish smile, Ashley allowed herself the guilty delight of enjoying the fact that her friend’s outfit left so very little to the imagination, and she was soon trying to mentally fill in the few blanks that remained.
“Ashley?”
“Hmm?” Glassy eyes snapped into guilty focus, and Ashley blushed, realizing her mind had been about to take a happy little jaunt down Fantasy Lane. Fortunately, Leandra was apparently intent on her task of preparing the meat.
“Could you get me the salt? It’s in that small crate on the top of that stack over there.”
“Oh, sure. No problem.” Ashley cleared her throat and retrieved the small paper bag filled with white salt. After handing it to Leandra, she settled down on her rock seat and continued to watch as her friend proceeded to salt the meat, working quickly and easily. Ashley smiled to herself, and tried not to notice just how well-formed Leandra’s hands and fingers were.
She succeeded, but only because her eyes quickly found other, even more interesting, parts of the tiger-woman to study.
It was nearly dark by the time Ashley made it back to camp, and Grady and Tarun were obviously starting to get nervous about her prolonged absence. At first, they greeted her return with relief, but that quickly dissolved into another lecture.
“If you’re going to go traipsing through the jungle with that woman, the least you can do is come back at a reasonable hour,” Grady fumed, towering over her diminutive figure in an unusually insistent stance.
Ashley, however, refused to be intimidated. “I was perfectly all right,” Ashley returned sharply, glaring up at him. “If I want to stay out there all night with Leandra, that’s my business, not yours.”
“Oh really? So you’ll just forget about your friends who are back here, worried sick about you, is that it?” Grady took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. “Look, Ashley, just try to remember that when you’re gone for that long, and we have no idea where you are—”
“You did know where I was,” Ashley interrupted. “I was with Leandra, and that means I’m safe. She’d never let anything hurt me.”
Grady scowled, then pointed to flecks of dark crimson st
aining Ashley’s arms and clothing. “So what’s this? Blood?”
Ashley flushed. “It’s not mine,” she explained. “She took me hunting. I got a little dirty, that’s all.”
“Hunting? Are you going to try telling me that’s not potentially dangerous?”
“No,” she said, her irritation turning to anger. “But it’s certainly no more dangerous than any of the other things I’ve done. Why is it pissing you off so much that I’m spending time with this woman?”
“I just don’t like you taking risks when you don’t need to, that’s all.” Grady sat down next to the fire near Simon and Grace who sat quietly, merely observing. “We’re here to do a job, Ashley, not spend time with the locals.”
“And Leandra’s helping me do my job.”
“Is she? Have you asked her about the white tiger?”
Ashley hesitated, unsure how best to answer without admitting they were on a snipe hunt. “I don’t…I mean, she uh…” She swallowed nervously. “She doesn’t really like to talk about the tigers much. I don’t want to push her about it.”
Grady slapped his thighs, but he looked calmer. “Well, maybe you should. Remember, we’re only here for another week and a bit. Then, we’re flying out, and if you haven’t got the pictures by then, that’s it. You don’t get a second chance at this sort of thing.”
“I know. But I’m not going to do anything to make Leandra uncomfortable.”
“And that’s another thing,” Grady continued. “I think maybe you’re getting too attached to this woman. What happens when we leave? How’s Leandra going to take that?”
“She knows when I’m leaving. It’s good for her to have some company. Some human company.”
“So you’re telling me you’re not getting attached?”
Ashley lowered her eyes, recalling the thoughts she’d had today. “There’s nothing wrong with making friends with her,” she said softly. “I like her, and I fully intend to spend as much time as I can with her before I have to go back home.”