Primal Touch Page 3

  Her luck held for a few more paces, before her heel snagged a treacherous root. Ashley might have been able to keep her balance, but for the dirty dishes still clasped in her hands. She toppled backward.

  The fall to the soft ground was quiet enough, but the tin plates clattered loudly, despite her best efforts to cushion them. She saw the man’s head turn toward her, and she quickly rolled off the trail and into the jungle.

  Lying in the dense undergrowth, she held her breath as she heard the man coming closer. He was taking his time, and Ashley held herself perfectly still as he passed by her position. Please, don’t let him see me, she thought. Just for a few more minutes, until Tarun and Grady get here with the hide, please let him not notice me.

  Ashley wasn’t the type to get scared needlessly, but she breathed a sigh of relief when the poacher moved past her without incident. Unfortunately, she also shifted her body a little against the ground. Her elbow was pinned against a branch, and the movement caused a noticeable rustle.

  The poacher froze in his tracks. He turned. Through the undergrowth, Ashley saw his eyes home in on her hiding spot and knew she’d been found.

  She took half a second to mentally compare her chances if she stayed put against her chances if she ran. The man was large and thick-bodied, with tangled red hair and a bushy beard. He looked tough, but probably not too fast. Ashley concluded she was better off making a run for it. She got her legs under her and broke from her cover.

  Head down, she sprinted toward camp. She heard a shout, then a string of curses and the sound of pursuit. Chancing a quick glance behind her, she caught another moment of bad luck—a downed tree blocked her path. She hit the obstacle at full speed and went down hard, the wind knocked from her body. Pain flared in her legs, and she tumbled into a headlong roll.

  The poacher was on her before she could recover. Red-faced and sweating, the man grinned cruelly at her “Not so fast now, huh, blondie?”

  Ashley’s dark eyes were wide, and she held up her hands in surrender. “Please, don’t hurt me. I promise I won’t tell anyone you’re here.”

  The man shook his head. “Sorry, lady,” he said gruffly. “Can’t trust no one in my line of work. Guess this is what you get for straying off from the tour group, huh?”

  “I’m not a tourist. I’m a photographer,” Ashley explained, holding up the camera around her neck as evidence. “I have friends, and they’re not far away. If you kill me, they’ll call in help and this whole place will be swarming with rangers.”

  The poacher’s eyes narrowed. “That true?”

  “Uh huh.” She nodded frantically. “Let me go, and I swear I won’t tell them about you. You can just go your way, and I’ll go mine. What do you say?”

  He considered for a long moment, obviously wondering whether to believe her or not. Eventually, he shook his head again. “Sorry, lady, but I ain’t in the market of taking chances. Only one way to make sure you stay quiet, so don’t make this harder than it has to be.” He worked the bolt on his rifle and pulled the butt into his shoulder.

  Ashley started backpedaling furiously away from the man, her eyes glued to the barrel of the gun as it swung up and fixed on her with unavoidable precision. She was drawing breath for a final scream, when a chilling, terrible sound stopped her. The low, rumbling growl, so primal and fierce, drained the blood from the poacher’s face in a heartbeat. The man turned away very slowly, and Ashley was able to see behind him.

  Two sets of eyes widened. Ashley’s jaw dropped. She wanted to finish her scream, but could only stare past the man to the strange figure crouched on the mossy trunk of a fallen tree.

  It was a woman. A woman unlike any Ashley had ever seen before. Even though she was bent in a crouching, feline position, the woman was clearly tall and powerfully built. She wore a brief outfit consisting of a halter top and a short skirt, both made from what Ashley was certain was genuine tiger fur. The outfit was almost invisible, however, for the woman’s entire body was painted in ochre and pale ivory tones patterned with tawny brown stripes. Even her classic, angular face was done up to mimic the mask of a tiger, the stripes framing cold, clear blue eyes that were fixed firmly on the frightened poacher. A mass of dirty black hair tumbled over the woman’s shoulders, much of it woven into a chaotic tangle of thin braids. Ashley noticed the woman’s right hand tapping against the bole of the tree, four hooked talons jutting from between long, powerful fingers. Though the claws were primitive, Ashley had no doubt that they were as effective a weapon for the woman as they would be for a real tiger.

  Hearing a hoarse, strangled gurgle from the poacher, Ashley tore her gaze from the strange woman and glanced at her former adversary. The man’s face was extremely pale behind his thick beard, his eyes bulging from their sockets in abject terror. The hands that gripped the rifle were shaking so badly that Ashley thought for a moment he was about to have a heart attack. Frantic eyes darted left and right, searching for an escape. When the tiger-woman’s rumbling growl rose an octave and her lips parted to reveal pearly white teeth, the man apparently decided to take his chances. He dropped the rifle, turned, and ran into the jungle as fast as his trembling legs could carry him, leaving Ashley behind with the strange intruder.

  Ashley found herself caught in the penetrating gaze of sapphire eyes.

  Uh oh!

  Ashley swallowed hard as the tiger-woman gave a feral smile, revealing what seemed to be uncommonly large canine teeth. The full force of those unsettlingly clear cobalt eyes settled on her, the growl still rumbling, but softer now. Ashley wanted to follow the poacher’s example and run away, but her legs refused to obey her.

  When she heard a quiet snick sound, she looked down and was appalled to realize her hands had lifted the camera about her neck and—entirely of their own volition—snapped a quick shot of the predatory figure on the log.

  The striped woman rose from her crouch and stalked closer. Ashley held perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe. “Shit! What the hell have you gotten yourself into this time?” she muttered under her breath, her eyes trained with fatalistic fascination on the sharp, claw-like weapons held in each of the woman’s hands. The tiger-lady approached along a zigzag path, her expression intense and curious. Ashley remembered watching her niece’s two-year-old cat move the same way when she was stalking a mouse. The comparison was not particularly comforting.

  The woman closed the distance between them, pausing when she got to within a few feet. She leaned forward, her head cocked to the side as she sniffed interestedly, then stepped nearer still, until Ashley could see the grainy texture of the paint that covered her body and make out the highlights in her ebony, tangled hair. The woman circled, sniffing, her eyes roaming up and down. Ashley held herself stiffly under the scrutiny, following the stranger with wide eyes.

  “I really hope I don’t smell like dinner,” she breathed quietly to herself. Then she noticed that the woman was no longer growling. Instead of that low, ominous rumbling, the stranger made a series of short, sharp, barking coughs that Ashley wasn’t quite sure how to interpret. When the tiger-lady finished her inspection and stopped in front of her, Ashley gave her a tremulous smile. It was met with a slight softening of stern features, and she noticed for the first time an expression of wary intrigue and reluctant fascination on the stranger’s face. The woman made the strange coughing bark again, the sound completely inhuman and beyond Ashley’s ability to replicate.

  “You’re not planning to eat me…are you?” Ashley asked.

  The dark head cocked to one side and a crooked smile tugged at painted lips. Before Ashley had time to wonder whether her words had been understood, the sound of crunching footsteps and echoing conversation came from around the river-bend. Blue eyes widened instantly, darting to the forest. The woman gave Ashley a last, curious look, then whirled around and fled back into the jungle, wild hair whipping about her face as she ran. Ashley noticed t
hat her running style was quite unique, shifting unpredictably between short, swift steps and long, leaping strides that carried her swiftly through the dense, unpredictable undergrowth. Within heartbeats, she had disappeared as though she’d never been there.

  A moment later, Grady and Tarun rounded the bend in the river, lugging between them the heavier components of the hide. Behind them trailed Simon, carrying coils of rope. “Hey, Ash,” called Grady. “Are you done there? Give us a hand.”

  Ashley shook her head dazedly, still rooted to the spot. It took Grady a moment to realize something was wrong. Then his eyes fell on the poacher’s abandoned rifle, and he dropped his load and rushed to her side.

  “Ash! What happened? Are you okay?”

  Ashley pointed a shaking finger to the jungle. “Did you see her?”

  “See who?”

  “The tiger-woman.” Ashley finally snapped out of her dazed state and gestured wildly at the jungle. “She ran off when she heard you guys coming. She saved me from a poacher I found here. He was going to kill me, and then she was there, and she scared him off. She had claws, and she was all stripy—”

  Grady grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to stop jumping around. “Hey, slow down,” he said, glancing worriedly at Tarun, who had picked up the rifle. “Tell us what happened from the beginning.”

  Ashley began describing the strange encounter, her excitement building. While she talked, Tarun carefully inspected the rocky ground, then moved over to the fallen log. When Ashley had finished, the tracker pointed to something.

  “There are scratch marks here on the wood,” he said. “No tracks of the woman, but the poacher left a trail so obvious a blind elephant could follow him. He was running from something.”

  “Of course he was running,” Ashley said, planting her hands on her hips. “I just told you about the woman.”

  “And I believe you. I’m just saying she didn’t leave any footprints, only those scratch marks. Did she threaten you at all?”

  Ashley considered. “I don’t think so. She growled a bit, but she didn’t seem to want to hurt me. It was more like… I don’t know. Like she was curious about me.”

  “Did she say anything?”

  Ashley shook her head. “I don’t know if she knew how to talk. She looked like some freaky, female version of Tarzan, only with tigers instead of gorillas.” She sighed, wishing now that she’d had more time with the bizarre woman. “I wonder what she’s doing out here.”

  “Killing poachers,” Tarun stated. He scowled. “Let’s just hope she doesn’t think we’re here to harm anything. Come on, let’s get this hide set up.”

  “Wait a minute!” Ashley glared at the man. “Aren’t we going to report this? She’s out here all alone. Shouldn’t we tell someone?”

  “And what would we report? That there’s a jungle-woman out here who thinks she’s a tiger? Bah! No one would believe us for a minute. We’ve got no proof, no evidence, and no tracks.”

  “We do so!” Ashley held up her camera. “I took a picture of her. If we show it, they’ll have to believe us.”

  “She has a point,” Simon chimed in, catching her excitement. “Imagine it, a woman living out here alone in the jungle! Without any sort of contact with outsiders! She could have been living in the park for years! If we could find her…”

  Tarun considered, but again shook his head. “I’m not calling out the rangers for this. She could be anywhere, and there are too many places she could hide. We’d never track her down.”

  “So we just forget about her?” Ashley spluttered, furious. “How can you be so cavalier about this?”

  “Because there’s nothing we can do,” Tarun said. “You’re here to photograph and tag tigers, not some crazy woman who thinks she’s a tiger. I’m not being paid to track down someone who doesn’t want to be found.”

  Ashley glared at him, about to argue further when Grady stopped her. “He’s right, Ash. We’ve got a job to do. Let’s not get sidetracked. If we try to hunt her down, she might turn nasty. Let’s just do what we came here to do and get out before she decides we’re a threat.”

  Ashley looked at the others, but now even Simon shrugged helplessly. It was clear she was on her own. “Fine. We’ll let it go.” Folding her arms across her chest, she frowned at her companions and gave every indication that she was not pleased.

  Grady sighed. “Should we at least report the poacher?”

  “I suppose. But the rangers are aware there’s been increased activity.” Tarun hefted the poacher’s rifle. “Without his gun, at least this one shouldn’t be able to do much damage.”

  The four spent the next hour setting up the hide, with Ashley giving her companions the silent treatment and occasionally complementing that with cold glares, aimed mostly at Tarun. How could the man have so little reaction to her bizarre encounter? Where was his curiosity? Ashley, who never failed to let curiosity guide her course, found his ambivalence infuriating.

  By midday most of her frustration had burned off; the familiar task of tying down the plastic camo netting was a good distraction, allowing her thoughts to settle so she could consider them clearly. Perhaps in his role as a guide, Tarun had simply seen too much of the death and cruelty wrought by heartless poachers for him to feel much compassion when they were being slaughtered in kind. Perhaps that accounted for why he, like the rangers, seemed to hold so little interest in tracking down whoever was killing them. It didn’t change Ashley’s opinion that they should investigate further, but she decided there was no point staying mad at Tarun.

  Although the conventional way to deal with tigers was to track them on elephant back, Grady had insisted a hide would work better. Though she didn’t say anything, Ashley suspected her partner was afraid of riding the great beasts. He’d refused to ride camels before, too. Still, she didn’t mind. The lumbering, awkward gait of the elephant made it difficult to focus her camera, and Ashley thought the added danger of being on the ground would be more than compensated for by the increased quality of the pictures she could take.

  Once the hide was up, the group decided to take a hike along the river to where Tarun knew a waterfall was located. Grady spent over an hour setting up shots and capturing the beauty of the scene, while Ashley wandered around looking at the various birds and the group of curious monkeys that had decided to investigate their presence.

  All through the day, however, her mind kept returning to the strange woman. Who was she? What was she doing out here? By the time they finished and returned to camp for dinner, she had worked herself into a nice little obsession, and she knew without a doubt that she had to learn more of the stranger. Fortunately, she considered, the woman seemed very interested in them. Ashley suspected that in time, she would return. Perhaps she was watching them even now.

  After the others had gone to bed, Ashley stayed awake beside the dying campfire, hoping the tiger-lady would pay another visit now that she was alone. She waited nearly an hour, concentrating carefully, trying to sense the woman’s presence. Eventually, she reluctantly accepted that the stranger wasn’t going to be stopping by tonight. Rising from her solitary vigil, she rubbed sleepy eyes with the back of her wrist. She had barely taken two steps toward her tent, when something in the distance drew her attention. Squinting a little, Ashley smiled to herself.

  About halfway up the side of a nearby ridge, a faint speck of orange light glimmered in the darkness like a lonely star.

  “There you are,” Ashley whispered, grinning as she marked the location in her mind. “Well, well, well. It seems you’re not so much an animal that you don’t know how to light a fire.”

  Ashley hummed to herself as she went to bed, already planning a hike out to the mountains in the morning.

  Ashley wolfed down her breakfast the next morning, asking Simon and Grace to mind the hide without her. She was going on a hike. Grady watched her with a fr
own, as she stuffed a rubber poncho into her backpack and slung it over her shoulder.

  “Where are you going?”

  Ashley glanced back at him with a smile she knew he would recognize from years of experience working with her.

  “Shit, Ashley. Please tell me you’re not going off hunting that damn woman.”

  Her smile grew a fraction wider.

  Grady threw his hands up in the air in disbelief. “Jesus! What the hell is wrong with you? Why do you have to go looking for trouble all the time?”

  “I’m not looking for trouble,” she said calmly. “I’m going on a little hike out to the ridge, just like you suggested.”

  “Then at least wait for me to get my gear so I can come with you. Or wait for Tarun to get back.” Their guide had gone off to search the forest for fresh tracks; Ashley had deliberately timed her departure so she could avoid an argument with him.

  “Sorry, Grady, I’m going alone. I don’t want to spook her off by bringing an entourage. Besides, you have your own work to do, remember?” She smiled fondly at his exasperated expression. Grady was always trying to look out for her, and while Ashley knew she didn’t need his help, it was nice to know someone cared. “Relax, I’ll be fine.”

  “Ashley, this woman almost certainly killed those poachers. I doubt she wants people just dropping by,” Grady argued. “You saw the bodies. She’s a murderer. Do you want to end up like those hunters?”

  Ashley paused as she remembered the shredded, mauled bodies and the blood-soaked ground. Then she shook away the memories. “She’s had two opportunities to hurt me, and so far all she’s done is growl a bit. I don’t think she sees us as a threat.”

  “Then can’t you just leave things be? Please?” He clasped her gently by the shoulders and caught her gaze. “For me? You know I try to stay out of your way when you want to go off and do something dangerous, but this is just plain foolish. I’m asking as a friend, Ash. Just leave the woman alone.”