Gold.
My brain tried briefly to categorize them using my usual logic.
Then they blinked.
Statistically, this is a problem.
“Nick,” I said quietly. “Left.”
His entire body changed the moment he saw them. He didn’t move fast.
He just became incredibly, dangerously still.
He stepped back one controlled pace, placing himself between the leopard and the opening without crossing inside.
The leopard stepped forward.
Just enough.
Muscle shifted beneath spotted fur. A long tail flicked once.
“Back from the opening, Juliette.”
“I’m already behind it.”
“Farther.”
I moved back one step. Then another.
“Do not step through that opening.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
“Then improve your distance.”
The leopard’s eyes slid from Nick to the opening. To me.
A quiet calculation.
Then, as if we didn’t meet its standards for the evening’s dinner, the animal moved sideways and slipped back into the grass. One moment visible.
The next, an abyss.
The ridge exhaled.
Nick did not.
He didn’t holster the sidearm. He stayed on the deck, eyes fixed on the place where the stems had stopped moving. Watching. Listening. Waiting long after my body wanted to believe the danger had passed.
Finally, Nick backed toward the entrance without turning his back on the dark.
“Latch it,” he said.
I latched the canvas.
The click sounded too small for the amount of night it was keeping out.
My body hadn't received the news that we were safe. My pulse kept charging through me, bright and useless, looking for an exit. My hands wanted motion. My lungs wanted more air. Every inch of my skin felt too awake, as if the night had reached through the mesh and rewired me from the inside out.
