The leopard raised its head and scented the night. Inhaled the smell of the woman. It should have repulsed him, yet it drew him, just as strongly as in his human form. The cat switched the tip of its tail, padded around the verandah beneath the windows, and then leapt to a neighboring tree branch. In spite of the pouring rain, the leopard ran easily along the network of branches, a highway above the forest floor. The wind ruffled his fur and blew in his face but it couldn’t rid him of the woman’s enticing scent. Every step he took away from her brought uneasiness.

The leopard gave a soft grunting cough of protest, followed it with a sawing roar of temper. She would not leave him alone. Everywhere he went, she went with him. In his mind. In his churning belly. In his groin. He raked claws along a tree trunk, ripping the bark in a fit of foul temper, shredding it into long strips. She clung to him, would not let him go. The rain should have cooled his hot blood, but it did not nothing but fan the embers smoldering inside of him.

Rio should have been able to shed his human concerns and escape into the mind of the animal, but he could taste her. Feel her. She was everywhere he went, everything he did, the very air around him. There was no logic to it or explanation for it. She was a total stranger, without a real name or a past, yet she somehow had consumed him. It was alarming to him. He didn’t trust her, and worse, he didn’t trust himself.

He made his way back to the house in silence, padding slowly along the forest floor to give himself time to think. It shouldn’t matter so much that he thought about her. It was natural. He hadn’t had a woman in a very long time—now one was lying in his bed. Rio told himself that had to be what it was. A simple case of lust. What the hell else could it be when he didn’t even know her? Satisfied that he’d worked it all out, he leapt into the trees and returned to his house using the safer and much faster route.

R ACHAEL floated somewhere between sleep and consciousness. She couldn’t understand where she was. Everything looked strange, not at all like her home. Sometimes she thought she heard voices yelling at her, shouting at her, demanding things she couldn’t tell them. Other times she thought she was lost in a jungle with wild animals stalking her. She tried to move, tried to drag herself out of the strange, hazy world she seemed to be locked inside of.