Savage Nature Read Free

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