human form, his skin was not nearly as tough as in his animal form and the forest tore up his flesh as he rushed through it.
Rio leapt upon the wide low-hanging branch leading to his home with the ease of long practice and, balancing carefully, made his way along the maze of branches until he gained the verandah. He called out to warn Rachael, hoping she wouldn't shoot him as he shoved open the door with his hip. Fritz, nestled so close to him, turned his head to look up at him in silent fear. The small leopard's sides were heaving, straining for air, too much blood matting his fur.
Rachael gasped, thrusting the gun beneath the pillow. 'What happened? What can I do?' Rio's face was a dangerous mask, fierce, warriorlike, his eyes alive with anger. He turned the full power of his unblinking stare on her, assessing her condition. Rachael met his piercing gaze steadily. 'Really, Rio, let me help you.'
He immediately switched directions, bringing the injured animal to the bed. 'Can you sit up all the way by yourself?'
Rachael didn't bother with speech. She simply showed him, making certain to keep her expression serene when her heart was pounding and pain made her sick. She'd had enough practice hiding fear. The cat was badly injured and therefore far more dangerous than in its normal state. Her mouth went dry as he placed the animal in her lap and guided, first one hand, then the other to the puncture wounds. Rachael found herself with a fifty-pound leopard in her lap and her hands pressing into its neck covered in blood.
Rio lit the lamp and brought his surgical supplies to the bed, kneeling down close to the animal's head. 'Be still, Fritz,' he murmured, 'I know it hurts, but we'll get you fixed up.' He didn't look at Rachael, but worked on the animal, his hands gentle, steady and very sure.
His head was bent, dark hair spilling around his face. There was sweat and blood on his skin, and he smelled wild and of wet fur. His face could have been carved from stone as he worked to save the cat. 'These are deep puncture wounds, much like your leg. I sutured the lacerations on your leg but left the punctures to drain. I'll have to do the same with Fritz. The best I can do is clean the wounds thoroughly, give him antibiotics and hope they don't abscess. If they do, I'll have to put in drains.'
As Rio worked on cleansing the puncture site, Fritz opened his mouth, exposing his long, wicked canines, and yowled horribly. Rachael took a deep breath and kept her gaze locked on Rio, on his face rather than on his hands, afraid if she looked at the cat's teeth she would do a little screaming herself.
Franz answered Fritz, pacing anxiously back and forth in agitation. Without warning, he suddenly leapt onto the bed, nearly crushing Rachael's legs. Pain rushed through her body, took her breath and forced a small, strangled cry from her throat. For a moment the room spun, tilted, went black. 'Rachael!' Rio's voice was sharp, compelling, calling her back. Rio's arm swept Franz from the bed. 'Stay the hell down,' he snarled, his voice rumbling with menace.
To Rachael's surprise, her hands were still in Fritz's fur. She applied more pressure as she shook her head. 'I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting him to do that.'
'You're doing fine,' he said. 'Can you go on?'
'If you can, I can,' she answered. He looked at her then with his vivid green eyes, something she couldn't quite name swirling in the darker depths. His gaze drifted over her face, almost as if he were drawing strength from just looking at her. He turned his attention back to the cat.
Rachael let out her breath slowly, fighting down the bile rising in her throat from the throbbing pain in her leg. She would do anything to see that look on his face. A sharing. A connection. She listened to the sound of his voice as he talked softly to the cat, reassuring it as he stitched the deep wound. She found herself stroking the fur with her free hand as the animal trembled, but stayed still for Rio's ministrations.
Rachael waited until Rio was working on the second puncture wound. 'How did this happen?'
'There was a big, spotted leopard, a male, in the forest. He attacked Fritz. Fortunately he dropped him without crushing the windpipe.'
She looked at the deep angry scratches on Rio's body. 'You went up against a leopard trying to kill your pet?'
Swift impatience crossed his face. 'I told you, Fritz and Franz are not pets. They're my friends, I didn't save Fritz, he was trying to protect me and he put himself in harm's way.'
Rachael bent over the animal in her lap, examining the chunk missing from the ear. 'So this one is Fritz?'
He nodded as he peered closely at his work. 'This puncture wound is not as deep as the other one. I'm going to give him something for the infection. The leopard did this deliberately.'
'Why?' She didn't look at him when she asked. Rio had bitten the words out between his strong teeth, almost as if he said them without thought, angry at the leopard for hurting the smaller cat. She sensed that Rio was on the verge of telling her something very important.
Rio glanced at her. 'I think he was hunting for one of us. I just am not certain which. At first I thought it was me, but now I'm not so sure.'
She heard the thud of her heart and counted the beats. It was a trick she often used when she was in a dangerous situation and wanted to appear calm or when she needed more information and didn't want to react too fast. Something inside her went very still when he turned his direct, piercing gaze on her. There was something there she couldn't quite read. A swirling dangerous mixture of beast and man. Rachael knew cats' eyes contained a layer of reflective tissue behind each retina which allowed them to concentrate all possible light during the darkest nights, or in the darkest forest. Called the tapetum lucidum, the membrane acted like a mirror, allowing the light to bounce back through the retina a second time for maximum ability to see. The membrane also reflected light back in iridescent colors of yellow-green and red, both of which Rachael had observed in Rio and in the clouded leopards.
'Why would a leopard be hunting one or the other of us, Rio?' she prompted. It didn't make sense that the large cat would care which of them he killed and ate.
There was a long silence broken only by the sounds of the moaning wind, the steady fall of rain, Franz pacing back and forth in agitation, Rachael was certain Rio could hear the pounding of her heart.
'I don't think he was a leopard as you know a leopard. I think he was a different species altogether.' Rio's voice blended into the night, held secrets and shadows she didn't want to examine.
Rachael didn't voice the protest welling up in her. She was certain Rio wasn't being melodramatic. She didn't think he was capable of drama for drama's sake. 'I'm sorry, I'm not certain exactly what you're saying? A new species of leopard here in the rain forest that hasn't been discovered? Or a genetically engineered species?'
'A species that's been around for thousands of years.'
She rubbed the clouded leopard's ears. 'How are they different?'
He looked at her then, turning the full focus of his strange eyes on her. 'They are not animal, yet not human. They're both, yet neither.'
Rachael went very still, pulled her gaze from the power of his, her mind racing with possibilities. 'A long time ago, when I was a little girl, my mother told me a story about a species of leopards. Well, not leopards, they were a species able to shift into the form of a leopard, or large cat. They had some of the attributes of the leopard, but also attributes of humans and of their own species, sort of a three-way mixture. I've never heard anyone else ever mention them until now. Is that what you mean?'
Few things shocked Rio anymore, but his hands stopped in midair and he stared at her. 'How would your mother have heard of the leopard people? Few people, outside the species, know of their existence.'
'Do you realize what you're saying, Rio? That there is such a species? I thought it was simply a story my mother liked to tell me at night when we were alone together. She always told me tales of the leopard people when I went to bed.' She frowned, trying to remember the old stories from her childhood. 'She didn't call them leopard people, there was another name.'
Rio stiffened, his brilliant gaze slashing at her face. 'What did she call them?'
The name eluded her as hard as she tried to remember. 'I was a child, Rio. I was only a young girl when she died and we went to live with…' She trailed off, shrugging her shoulders. 'It doesn't matter. Are you saying there's a possibility that the species exists? And if it does, why would one of them want to harm you? Or me for that matter?'
'I'm on a hit list, Rachael. I've stirred up the bandits a few times, taking back what doesn't belong to them and costing them a lot of money. They don't like it and they want me dead.' He shrugged his shoulders and patted the cat, straightening tiredly. 'Hold him a couple more minutes while I fix a bed for him.'
