Page 76 of Beasts of Mine

I'd been doing it for years.

Tonight, the familiar rhythm didn't have quite the same appeal. I looked through the net toward the entrance. Cat hadn't moved. His ears shifted occasionally with sounds beyond the shelter, but otherwise he remained still. The amber-eyed leopard stretched one paw in his sleep before rolling partly onto his side, somehow taking up even more space, while the darker leopard remained curled near the back beneath the protection of the roof.

Tomorrow, I was supposed to leave this camp. The thought settled somewhere uncomfortable in my chest. Not even because I'd taken some of the best photographs of the assignment here.

I was going to miss this.

Them.

That realization was far more inconvenient.

I rolled onto my back and stared through the darkness at the underside of the mosquito net. A few days ago, Cat had been the strange leopard I visited beside a creek. Now there were three of them woven through my routine so thoroughly that I could already predict where each one would be at different points of the day.

Cat would be somewhere near whichever trail I planned to take. The darker leopard would quietly redirect me if he knew a better route. The amber-eyed menace would eventually appear carrying something I hadn't asked for and would somehow convince me to keep.

Somewhere along the way, their presence had stopped feeling unusual.

I should probably have found that concerning. Instead, I closed my eyes and tucked the blanket closer beneath my chin while the rain continued tapping steadily against the roof.

For the first time since I'd arrived in the rainforest, I wasn't particularly looking forward to leaving.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EVIE

I woke on the fourth morning with rain still coming down and the deeply unpleasant knowledge that I was supposed to pack. For several minutes, I ignored that fact and stayed beneath the mosquito net with the blanket pulled over my legs. The air was cooler after the overnight rain, though cool in the rainforest was a relative term, and the damp smell of earth and vegetation drifted through the open side of the shelter. Insects had started their morning noise sometime before I woke, birds called from different levels of the canopy, and something small rustled through the wet leaves beneath the platform.

Cat was already gone, which wasn't unusual. He often disappeared shortly before sunrise and returned sometime after I was awake, usually smelling like wet earth and whatever section of forest he'd decided required inspection before I wandered through it.

The darker leopard remained curled near the rear support with his head resting across one foreleg. The amber-eyed menace was nowhere in sight either, and considering his recent history with my belongings, that immediately made me suspicious. I pushed myself upright and checked the worktable before my feet even touched the floor. My camera sat exactly where I'd left it, the radio remained beside the battery bank, the food pouch was closed, and the waterproof bag containing my clean lens cloths hadn't moved.

Everything appeared to be present, which somehow made me more suspicious. The radio crackled beside the cot before I could investigate further.

“Field camp, this is base. Morning check. And before you conveniently forget what day it is, you're supposed to come back today,” Mara said through the radio, her voice slightly distorted by static but clear enough to carry the warning hidden beneath the otherwise ordinary greeting.

I sighed and reached through the mosquito net for the handset. Mara knew me far too well.

“Good morning to you too,” I told Mara, pressing the transmit button while the darker leopard opened one green-gold eye from across the platform.

“Morning. Weather held better than expected. River's still fine, trail should be decent, and I should probably see you sometime before dark,” Mara replied through the radio, sounding far too cheerful about my scheduled return while faint voices carried behind her at the station.

“About that,” I told Mara, drawing the words out as I pushed the mosquito net aside and swung my legs over the edge of the cot. The silence that followed lasted long enough that I knew it wasn't the connection.

“No,” Mara replied flatly through the speaker, apparently deciding she didn't need to hear the question first.

“I haven't even asked anything yet,” I told Mara, offended enough that the darker leopard raised his head and turned both ears toward me.

“You said ‘about that’ in the voice people use when they're about to make their problem my problem,” Mara explained through the radio, and I could practically picture her sitting at the station with coffee in one hand and that unimpressed expression she reserved specifically for me.

“That seems unfairly judgmental,” I told Mara as I stood and stretched some of the stiffness from my shoulders, the damp morning air cooling the skin along my arms.

“It comes from experience. What do you want?” Mara asked through the radio, papers rustling faintly at her end as though she'd already accepted that this wasn't going to be a normal check-in.

I looked around the platform before answering. The perfectly straight stick still leaned against one support because I'd lost that argument. Two of the flowers the amber-eyed leopard had brought me were beginning to wilt in the metal mug, although the white one still released a faint sweetness whenever air moved through the shelter. The feather rested beside my camera bag, and the darker leopard had finally risen to stretch beneath the edge of the roof.

I should have told Mara I was packing. Instead, my attention drifted toward the trail where Cat usually appeared.

“So... how attached are you to me actually coming back today?” I asked Mara, attempting casual and hearing exactly how suspicious I sounded. The silence lasted long enough that I glanced at the radio to make sure I hadn't lost her.