Page 31 of Beasts of Mine

“Then tell me what I said,” I told him, smiling when I realized I'd finally found a reliable bargaining tool.

The leopard studied me. For several seconds, neither of us spoke. Then his gaze softened.

You said you were tired of leaving, the leopard answered, his voice losing the teasing edge completely.

My smile disappeared.

I stared at him. The words landed somewhere uncomfortable. I didn't remember saying them. I didn't even remember dreaming.

“I don't know what that means,” I told the leopard quietly, looking away toward the wet forest beyond the roots as unease settled into my chest.

Neither do I, the leopard replied, and when I glanced back, he was still watching me. You were asleep.

I rubbed one hand over my face.

“That's unsettling,” I admitted to him, trying to dismiss the strange heaviness the words had left behind.

The leopard shifted slightly closer. Not enough to touch me. Just enough that the warmth from his body became noticeable again.

Go back to sleep, Evie, the leopard murmured, his head settling over his paws while his large body remained between me and the open forest. It is safe here.

I should have laughed. A woman sleeping beside a wild leopard in the middle of a rainforest was not anyone's definition of safe. I should have checked my watch, grabbed the radio, and apologized profusely to Mara for being out later than planned.

Instead, I looked at the leopard beside me. At the way one ear remained angled toward the forest even while his eyes closed. At the position of his body between me and anything that might approach. At the bandage still wrapped around the leg I'd treated.

I had known him for less than a week.

I didn't know his name.

I didn't know why the surrounding animals seemed to treat him differently or why his answers occasionally sounded like he understood far more about this forest than any ordinary animal should. I didn't understand why being around him quieted something inside me that I hadn't realized was constantly restless.

But I trusted him.

That realization should have frightened me. Instead, I settled back against the tree and stayed beside him until the rain stopped completely.

CHAPTER FIVE

EVIE

By the end of my first week in the rainforest, I was beginning to understand that receiving the ability to communicate with animals had come with one important complication the nature spirit hadn't bothered to mention.

Animals had opinions about absolutely everything.

They cared about the temperature, whether it would rain later, which branches belonged to whom, whose fruit had been stolen, which predators had passed through during the night, and whether the berries on a particular tree were ripe enough to bother fighting over.

They also had opinions about me.

I'd barely made it fifty yards from the research station when a pair of capuchins started discussing the field bag hanging from my shoulder.

She has the bag again, one of the younger capuchins announced from somewhere above me, his voice carrying through the leaves as a narrow branch bounced beneath his weight and scattered droplets from last night's rain.

She always has the bag. Sometimes there is food in it. Sometimes there are those black things she points at everyone, an older capuchin corrected him, leaning around the side of a tree trunk to peer down at me with dark, curious eyes while his tail remained wrapped securely around a higher branch.

I stopped beneath the canopy and glanced at the camera resting against my chest. I'd spent most of my professional life actively searching for wildlife, so there was something deeply strange about becoming interesting enough that the wildlife had started discussing me instead.

“Those black things are cameras,” I explained to the capuchins, keeping my voice quiet as I tipped my face toward them because two researchers were still close enough to the station that being overheard having a coherent conversation with monkeys would create questions I had no intention of answering.

Black things, the younger capuchin repeated stubbornly, scratching underneath his chin with one hand while continuing to inspect the straps and equipment hanging from me.