The leopard stared at the creature, shaking like a leaf before her, and did something she had never done before: she gaped. Her jaw dropped open as she sat on her haunches, unable to decide what she was supposed to do next. This feeling of hesitation was foreign to her primal brain. If she wanted something, she claimed it. If a living, moving thing happened across her path, she tore it open and devoured it. That was her code, her way. There was no room for thought, only instinct. In her experience, the line between predator and prey was drawn in blood—if you weren't moving forward, you were falling behind, becoming someone else's meal.
Cautiously, she extended a velvet paw toward the human, her deadly claws sheathed as she nudged his side. He groaned, a sound that vibrated through her sen
