Savage Nature (2 page)

THE swamp had four distinct seasons and within each she had moods as well. Tonight she wore a mantle of purple, all different hues, dark swirls that filled the night sky and lighter lavenders that crept through the cypress trees. The moon illuminated the veils of moss hanging to the water’s edge, turning them a pale, silvery blue. Crimson and blue made up the color purple, and it was evident in the splashes of dark red slashing through the trees to pour into the duckweed-carpeted water below.

Saria Boudreaux smiled as she carefully stepped from her airboat to the blind she’d set up, building it day by day, a little at a time, so as not to disturb the wildlife around her. She’d grown up on the edges of the swamp and there was nowhere she was happier. The blind was set up alongside an owl’s nest and she hoped to get night pictures, a coveted coup that could possibly bring her a great deal more money. More and more, her photography was allowing her an independence from her family’s store that she hadn’t thought possible.

Going to school had been rather difficult—she’d been miserable—until she’d discovered the world of photography. Most of her childhood had been spent running wild in the swamps, fishing, maintaining the crab pots, even helping hunt alligator with her father when her brothers were gone—which had been most of the time. She wasn’t used to authority in any form, and school was too structured, had too many rules. She couldn’t breathe with so many people around her. She had nearly fled into the swamp to avoid the rules when a kind teacher had pushed a camera into her hands and suggested she take some pictures of her beloved swamp.

There was a bit of a moon tonight, so she wouldn’t need the dim light she had used the last few nights to reveal activity in the nest. The babies made eager sounds as an adult approached, and as it descended, Saria tripped the camera’s shutter release. At once there was a burst of light, much like a lightning strike, as she set off the electronic flash. Used to lightning, the birds never seemed to be bothered by the occasional bright flare.

She caught a glimpse of talons and a beak outlined against the night sky as the owl dropped down to the nest, and her heart sang. At night the swamp had a different music to it. The bellow of alligators could literally shake the earth. Movement was all around her, in the air, under her feet, in the water and through the trees. The natural rhythm even changed from daylight to dark. Sometimes, lately, she thought maybe she’d been spending too much time in the swamp. Her night vision seemed vastly improved, so that even without the flash of the camera, she often caught sight of the adult owls returning with their catch.

Flickering light caught her eye. Someone had to be poaching, or night fishing around Fenton’s Marsh. Fenton Lumber Company owned thousands of acres of swamp and leased it to most of the families that she knew. Seven of the families living in the burrow each leased several thousand acres to hunt, trap and fish, making their livings almost entirely in the swamp. Some of the men, like her brothers, worked on the Mississippi to bring in money as well, but their lives centered around the swamp.

Fenton’s Marsh was considered rather sacred and off-limits to her people. She found herself scowling at the thought of anyone poaching there. Jake Fenton, the original owner, was well-respected by those living there. It was hard to gain the trust and respect of anyone living in the swamp, yet all the families had liked the older man and often invited him into their homes. He’d become a regular fixture in the swamps. More than once, several of the alligator hunters had allowed him along, a huge privilege when it was dangerous work and a greenhorn was never welcome. He had given them generous leases and no one would jeopardize their livelihood by biting the hand that fed them. Fenton was dead, but everyone knew that the marsh contained oil, and his great-grandson, Jake Bannaconni, would be developing it one day. Out of respect for Jake Fenton, they left that marsh alone.

The adult owl took off again, the rustle of movement attracting her attention briefly, but she refrained from trying to get any more shots. The lights in the swamp madeer uneasy, and she didn’t want the flashes from her camera to give her away. She shifted position, easing the cramping in her hip, reaching almost unconsciously for her gear. She had meant to spend the night and go home in the early morning light, but the uneasiness was suddenly full-blown fear, and there weren’t a lot of things Saria was afraid of.

She had begun the climb down from her blind when she heard a ragged scream. The sound was human. Male and ugly, harsh—and terrified. The swamp came alive in an instant, birds protesting, frogs and insects going silent, the normally rhythmic world evaporating into chaos. The scream ended abruptly, a ragged, cut-off note of agony.

Chills slid down her spine as she quietly slipped into her boat. Had an alligator managed to kill the person hunting it? As she pushed off into the carpet of duckweed, a screaming roar of absolute fury cut through the swamp. Spitting growls and deep roaring reverberated through the cypress grove. The world around her froze, every creature going still. Even the alligators fell silent. The hair on her arms and the back of her neck stood up. Goose bumps rose. The breath left her lungs in a rush.

A leopard. She knew the legends and myths of leopards in the swamp. The Cajuns who spoke of seeing one of the elusive creatures referred to them as “ghost cats.” A few naturalists said they didn’t exist. Others claimed they were Florida panthers out of the Everglades, looking for new territories. She knew the real truth, and they all had it wrong.

Saria sat very still in her boat, her body trembling, her hand feeling for the reassuring knife at her belt. She’d carried that knife from the time she was ten years old and she’d discovered the truth. Using careful, deliberate movements, she extracted her gun from the case beside her and checked to make certain it was in perfect firing order. She had begun practicing at the age of ten and was a deadly shot—which had made her invaluable when hunting with her father. She could hit that small quarter-sized spot on the back of an alligator’s neck to kill it every single time.

She moistened her suddenly dry lips and waited there in the dark, heart pounding, hoping the trees and the root systems hid her. The slight wind carried her scent away from Fenton’s Marsh. The roars faded into the night and the silence stretched for what seemed hours. She knew the large predator was still close—the night was far too still.

She had tried to tell herself for years that she’d had nightmares, and maybe she’d actually convinced herself it was true until she heard that sound—that roar. And now she could hear a rasping call and then a sawing cough. She closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her temples, biting down hard on her lower lip. The sounds were unmistakable. She could pretend away many things, but not that. Once heard, it was never forgotten. She’d heard those sounds when she was a child.

Remy, her oldest brother, was sixteen when she was born and was already considered a man. He worked on the river, as did Mahieu by the time she was walking. The boys were in school and worked afterward for long hours while her mother slowly succumbed to some wasting disease and her father retreated further and further into the world of alcoholism. By the time she was ten, her mother was long gone and her father rarely spoke. Remy and Mahieu and Dash were all serving in the armed forces overseas and Gage had just joined. Lojos, at eighteen, ran the store and bar nearly single-handedly and rarely had time to do more than grab a handful of food before rushing out to work.

Saria had been responsible for the house and the fishing lines, running wild in the bayou without supervision from that time on. The boys had come home for a mini reunion before they scattered again, back to the service. They were barely aware of her existence, eating the meals she provided, but not really paying attention to the fact that she cooked. She had desperately wanted attention and felt alienated and left out—not angry exactly, but rather sad that she didn’t really fit in with them.

The night had been warm and humid and she hadn’t been able to sleep. She was so upset at the way her family treated her—as if she didn’t exist, as if she was beneath notice. She’d cooked and cleaned and taken care of their father, but like him, her brothers must have blamed her for her mother’s slow sink into depression and then death. She hadn’t known her mother when she was the vibrant woman they all remembered; she’d been too young when she’d died. At ten, she’d been resentful of their relationships when she felt as if she didn’t quite belong. She had gotten up and opened her window to let in the comforting sounds of the swamp—a world she could always count on, one she loved. The swamp beckoned to her.

Saria hadn’t actually heard her brothers leave the house, they all moved in eerie silence—they had most of their lives—but when, resentful and hurt, she’d gone out her window to find solace in the swamp as she had hundreds of nights, she caught sight of them slipping into the trees. She followed, staying well back so they wouldn’t hear her. She had felt so daring and a little superior. Her skills in the swamp were already impressive, and she was proud of herself for being able to track them without their knowing.

That night had turned into a surreal nightmare. Her brothers had stripped. She’d sat up in a tree with her hands over her eyes wondering what they were up to. Who would take their clothes off in a swamp? When she’d peeked through her fingers, they were already shifting. Muscles contorted grotesquely, although later she’d admitted they’d all been fast and smooth at it. Fur covered their bodies and they were horrifyingly real as leopards. It was just—scary gross.

They had made those same noises as she heard tonight. Chuffing. Rasping, sawing coughs. They’d stretched tall and raked the trees with claws. The two smallest had gotten angry and erupted into a furious fight, swiping at one another with claws. The largest roared in fury and cuffed both hard enough to send them rolling, breaking up the fight. The sound of that ferocious roar had shaken her to her very core. Her blood went ice cold and she’d run all the way back to the house and hid under her covers, her heart pounding, a little afraid she was losing her mind.

Leopards were the most elusive of all large cats and the true shifters were more so, keeping the knowledge even from family members who couldn’t shift—such as Saria. She’d tried to find out about them, but there were only obscure references in the library. She had convinced herself she’d made up the entire thing, but there had been other signs she couldn’t altogether ignore, now that she had seen them.

Her father often rambled on in his drunken state, and she had listened carefully to the strange references he made to shifters. Surely they couldn’t really exist, but sometimes her father made random remarks about running free as he was meant. He’d stumble off to bed and then next morning there would be rake marks on the side of the house, or even in his room. He would be sanding the wood down and resealing it when she woke up. If she asked about the scratches, he refused to answer her.

Sitting in the swamp with only the night to protect her, she knew a leopard was a cunning predator and once on the hunt, he would find her. She could only hope he hadn’t noticed those first few flashes of her camera and come looking. It seemed like hours before the natural rhythm of the swamp began to come back to life, insects humming and the movements reassuring if not comforting as creatures once again began to carry on with their lives.

She stayed very still while the terrible tension drained out of her. The ghost cat was gone. She was certain of it. She immediately left the safety of the cypress swamp and made her way to Fenton’s Marsh. Her mouth was dry, her heart pounding in terror at what she might find, but she couldn’t stop herself.

The body lay half in, half out of the water, right at the edge of the marsh. She didn’t recognize the man. He appeared to be between thirty and forty, now lifeless and bloody. He’d been stabbed in the stomach, but he’d died from a suffocating bite to his throat. She could see the puncture wounds and the raking claw marks clearly on the body. Blood leaked into the water all around him, drawing insects and interest from alligators.

She pressed her fingers to her eyes for a moment, sickened that she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t go to the police. Remy was a homicide detective. He was the police. And could she turn in her own brothers? Would anyone even believe her? Maybe this person had done something terrible and given one of her brothers no choice.

Saria made her way home slowly, dread filling her as she tied up her boat and stepped onto the dock. She stood for a moment, observing her home. The bar was dark, as were the house and store, but she knew with that strange warning radar she always seemed to have that she was not alone. She circled the house, determined to avoid her brothers. As she reached for the back door, it jerked inward and her oldest brother filled the doorway, towering over her, a handsome, dark-haired man with serious, watchful green eyes. Startled, she stepped back before she could stop herself. She knew he would catch the fear flickering in her eyes before she had a chance to cover it up.

Remy’s eyes narrowed, inhaling, as if drawing her fear into his lungs. He swallowed whatever he’d been about to say, concern replacing impatience. “Are you hurt?” He reached to take her arm, to draw her into the house.

Saria stepped back out of reach, her heart pounding. Remy frowned and raised his voice. “Mahieu, Dash, get out here.” He didn’t take his eyes from her face. He didn’t even blink. “Where have you been,
cher
?” His tone demanded an answer.

He looked so big. She swallowed, refusing to be intimidated. “Why would that suddenly matter? You never wanted to know before.” She gave a little casual shrug.

There were no footsteps—her brothers moved silently, but both Mahieu and Dash stood shoulder to shoulder behind Remy. She could see their eyes moving over her, taking in every detail of her no doubt pale face.

“Were you with someone tonight, Saria?” Remy asked, his voice gentle—too gentle. He reached out and just as gently caught her arm when she shifted as if she might run.