She ran across the intervening space, her heart in her throat. Just in her line of vision, Elijah bent and lifted Jeremiah, shifting him to his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Blood dripped down his arm and back. Puncture wounds dotted his body. Elijah flashed past her and to her dismay it looked as if Jeremiah wasn’t breathing.

A blood-streaked Suma leapt, twisting, using the leopard’s flexible spine to turn in midair as Conner went up on his hind legs and anchored claws in the hindquarters, yanking the leopard down. Suma nearly folded in half, slamming powerful claws into Conner’s neck and side. Conner rolled, ramming into Suma, knocking him off his feet so the two leopards were a tangle of fur, claws and teeth. The roar of the two male leopards filled the forest.

Isabeau put the rifle to her shoulder just as a shot rang out and bark splintered from a tree trunk where Conner had been a half second earlier. If he hadn’t rolled, the shot might have hit his head. Her gaze jumped to the trees, trying to find where the shot had come from.

Instantly, Rio and Leonardo sprayed the canopy in the distance, obviously having no problem figuring out the trajectory of the shot.

“Shoot the son of a bitch, Isabeau,” Rio yelled.

She jerked her attention back to the ferocious fight between the two leopards. They were locked together in mortal combat, rolling over and over, their tails lashing, the sounds horrifying. She felt almost surreal, as if she was in the throes of a nightmare and not real life. There was no way to get off a shot and not take a chance of wounding or killing Conner.

“I’m trying,” she snapped back.

With the two bodies wrapped so tightly around one another, she couldn’t distinguish one from the other. They looked like a dizzying sea of spots, blurring as they slammed into one another, broke apart and came together again. The eyes appeared as simply two more rosettes lost in the midst of a thousand spots, except for the intensity. Smoldering fire. Shocking intelligence. Cunning. Rage such as she’d never seen.

This was the man who had killed Marisa Vega, Conner’s mother. The sheer fury of Conner’s leopard drove the other leopard off his feet repeatedly. The claws tore great rips in the sides and belly. Suma shuddered and tried to escape, but Conner’s leopard would have none of it. He seemed oblivious to the rending tears in his own body; instead, he seemed determined to literally tear Suma to pieces. It was only Suma’s strength and experience, a male in his prime, that kept him from being instantly killed. He seemed to know he was in trouble, and Ottila, who, despite the assault from Rio’s and Leonardo’s rifles, kept up his own intermittent fire, trying to aid his partner.

“Damn it, Isabeau, we’re going to get caught out here. Fucking finish him,” Rio snarled.