Moments before I could dig my claws into the boar’s skin, it turned and looked me in the eye.
Fear jolted me.
Those weren’t the dumb fearful eyes of a real boar. They were intelligent and cunning. In that moment I realized it wasn’t just a wild boar.
It was another shifter.
The astonishment broke my landing. Instead of landing on all four feet like I was supposed to, my body twisted, trying to get away. At the same time, the boar reared up with a loud, angry squeal and tossed its head back against my body. It caught my side, and body was thrown across the rainforest floor. I yowled with terror.
“Raja!”
Many things happened at once.
The boar - theshifter- in front of me stopped and stared me hatefully in the eyes. A man jumped out of the bushes with a long gun slung over his back. Someone put a hand on my shoulder, which streaked with pain from my bad landing.
On either side of me were two leopards, snarling and spitting - Koto and Bodi. That meant the human hand on my shoulder belonged to Zumi.
“Stand down,” Zumi stated firmly to the man. “Who are you? Are you Skrofa clan?”
“That is none of your concern,” the man grunted. His hand reached slowly for the gun in the sling. “And you’re in no position to be making demands.”
Before his fingers could reach the gun, Koto darted out with lightning-fast reflexes. He snarled and clawed the man’s hand, leaving bright red gashes in his skin and sending the gun sprawling past his grasp. Bodi instantly leapt on it, shifted back, and kept the firearm safely out of their reach. With his weapon lost, the man spat on the ground.
“You’re poachers!” Zumi snapped. “Are you a shifter, too?”
The man said nothing, but his angry silence was clear enough.
“Despicable,” Bodi growled. “You’re one of us. You baited us into hunting you on purpose, didn’t you?”
The huge boar shifter suddenly squealed and charged. It was a bluff - he stopped before his tusks jammed into any of us - but the scare made everyone leap back, except me. I was still frightened out of my skin and painfully collapsed on the ground. The boar’s sharp tusks were inches from my face and his hot, sour breath filled my nostrils.
In the moment that the boar charged, the poacher man ran to my side and grabbed the scruff of my neck. He tried to haul me towards him - and because of my small size, he was succeeding. Scared out of my wits, all I could do was mewl pathetically.
“Keep the others away!” the poacher yelled to the boar shifter. “This one is black, we don’t need the rest!”
Fear tainted my blood. Was this how I was going to die? Poached for being a black panther, just like my father was always afraid of?
As the boar created a dangerous tusked wall and blocked my friends, the man shook me until I shifted back into human form, terrified.
“You’re an omega, aren’t you?” he grunted, gripping the back of my neck tightly. “You really are a prize.”
“Let go of me, freak!” I yelled.
Adrenaline and my animal instinct took over. I punched him in his most sensitive area, then scrambled out of his grip when he was doubled over and cursing.
“Koto!” I cried out. “Help!”
As soon as the cry left my lips, the rainforest broke out in a chorus of raging leopard snarls. Leopard shifters streamed from every corner of the ferns, all bared teeth and claws. The thicket became a mass of gold and black. Almost all of Pardus clan had come - and they easily outnumbered the poachers.
At the front of the group I recognized my father - a pale gold leopard with fading black rosettes, but wearing the most ferocious expression of them all.
“Shit,” the poacher man growled.
The poachers wasted no time in escaping. They didn’t wait for the leopards to attack before they darted away into the rainforest and disappeared.
“Shit, they got away,” Zumi growled. “Should we follow them?”
“No,” chief Eka growled. “It’s not safe.”
