Her Panthera Protectors

by Laura Wylde

  “Tyler, you need to get back out there and round up any that are near Panthera.”

  “Will do. Be safe.”

  He gave me a look as he was leaving, like it wasn’t all going to be okay. Tyler was the serious one who kept track of our history. We were becoming less and less, all because of those damn poachers. How many times had I thought about stalking them at night and picking them off? I wanted to do to them what they were doing to us, but now was not the time for my rage. It wasn’t going to get me anywhere, not like this.

  I watched Tyler take off in true form, and I knew that the poachers didn’t stand a chance. We had an unwritten rule about them. When they drew blood first, it was only polite to return it in kind. Not enough to cause too much of a ruckus, but enough that there would be tales of death if they came after us. We had to put a little fear in them or this was never going to end.

  “Let’s get you back to the temple and get that bullet out of you. Moxa will be there, and she will be able to help.”

  Damien helped me up, and I leaned on him as we heard silence around us. It was another mile until we got to the temple, but I was renewed by how my pack came together to help me. It was heart-warming, and I knew that I was going to figure something out to repay them. They were the best.

  “Do you think that Tyler and Eben have enough steam?”

  Damien agreed. “They will find a way. It will be fine. The poachers will have a bad day. That is going to happen, but we will deal with it when we get you back and patched up. Something will be done. This is getting old.”

  We weren’t as fast as we could be, but it wasn’t slow enough for me. It felt like each step drove a piece of glass further into my shoulder and several times, I wanted to rest.

  “Not yet, Javier. We have to get there. Then you can rest and heal as you do.”

  I wanted that, but it felt like it was too far. I wanted to be there now.

  “Almost there.”

  “Stop reading my mind, damn it. We aren’t almost there. I know where we are.”

  Damien just sort of chuckled, but I could tell that he was out of breath as well. We all had a bad day and an exhausting one at that.

  The closer we got to the temple, the more I could feel something in the air. There were more people, but they didn’t feel like poachers. The men with guns who came had an almost hostile feel to them and it electric-charged the air around them. This was more tranquil but certainly foreign.

  “Do you smell that?”

  “I feel that.”

  Damien set me down behind a tree. “I am going to go check it out. I will be back in a minute.”

  I didn’t thank him, but I didn’t have to. I could barely walk, and I didn’t know if I was going to be able to confront someone right now. Damien was taking one for the team, and I was thankful for him. I looked down at the arm that was covered in blood, and I knew that I had to get the bullet out and get to the temple. I was starting to lose all of my strength, little by little, drop by drop.

  “There are some people in the temple. They have out sleeping bags. I think they are camping out for the night.”

  I cursed and closed my eyes, trying to make sense of this all. What were they doing there? No one was supposed to know where the temple was and how was I supposed to get in there if they were on top of my escape hatch?

  “How many?”

  “Looks like four or five. We can take them out, but they are just women and a couple of bruisers.”

  “Well, we already are going to get enough heat from Eben and Tyler. We are just going to have to wait them out. Maybe they are just here, ran across it, and are leaving in the morning.”

  “Can you wait till morning?”

  “I need to rest, and if they are still here, we can go to town and get to the medical supplies we need. We need to wait this one out and not go in full tilt. Make sure that Eben and Tyler know that when they come back. I need to rest for a bit. I can feel the temple healing me even this far away. It won’t do much but recharge me enough to get to town if I have to.”

  Damien didn’t agree with me, I could see it in his eyes, but at the same time, he was going to have to go with it. I was the oldest, and I was the leader. It was just that simple. He would go with it because he had to.

  I laid my back up against a thick tree trunk and closed my eyes a little bit. The sky above me was getting dark, and I knew that the easiest way to get through the night was to sleep through it as much as I could. It was going to be the only escape from pain that I was going to get.

  I don’t know how long I was out, but I woke up with a start. I don’t know what it was, but all of a sudden, I could feel something, smell something in the air, and I knew it was coming from the small camp of humans.

  I looked around me and saw that all three of the others were with me, sleeping in their own strange position. It wasn’t the first time that we’d slept underneath the stars, but it was far better in our beds underground.

  Getting up, I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep. There was something in the air, and I had to know who was attached to it. It was a woman, I was sure of it, and it got stronger as I moved closer to the temple.

  I knew that it was a woman, and she was coming closer. There was a part of me that was piqued, part of me that was interested in seeing who it was. The draw of her scent was almost compelling enough to make me give myself away, but I knew that I couldn’t.

  Going back to the underbrush where the other three were sleeping, I saw that they were up as well. They could feel it too, the draw.

  “She is different.”

  It wasn’t the first time I’d been around human females, but it was the first time that I wanted to take one. In thousands of years that I had been alive, never once had I felt something like this for one. Now I did, and it appeared since everyone else was up, wide-eyed as I surely was, I wasn’t the only one. What was she doing to me? To us? Who was this woman and why was she here?

  I had too many questions, and I was panting from the pain of moving.

  “She is, Damien. We will see how tomorrow.”

  Chapter 3

  Kayla

  It was well past dark, but none of us could sleep. We were all up with thoughts about what we were going to see in the morning. It was late in the day when we got here, so I didn't have much time to look around before. I had figured out that this was not my Mayan, Incan, or Aztec ruins. This was something else. I want to know so badly that the anticipation of it was making it hard for me to sleep.

  That got me out of bed and looking off into the woods. The rainforests were so dense, but I couldn't see anything, not even the sky above me. It was a shame because there were no other lights to look around.

  The temple was arranged in a small clearing, surrounded by thick brush. I could hear all kinds of sounds around me, of insects and smaller animals. It was one of the most relaxing moments that I had in a long time, and I knew that there was a reason that I was here. It felt like I was here specifically to find this temple, but I'm sure that it was just the lack of sleep talking. I wanted to always find deeper meaning in everything, I thought too much; I was told this all the time. But how could I not?

  As I stared off into the dark abyss around me, it seemed like everything started to calm down and go silent. It was strange and super eerie because it had been so loud a moment ago. I could hear all of the frogs and insects bellowing into the night, even when I was in the temple trying to sleep. I wasn't the only one who was still up, everyone was just as anxious as I was. They were here to see it all, but it was my ass on the line.

  The problem was I didn't really know what it was I was looking at. My mind came up with all these ideas, hoping that it was some new civilization that had never been found before, but I knew that that was most likely too good to be true. But if it was a civilization that had never been stumbled upon yet, it was certainly an old one.

  It was somehow not so scary when there was a little bit of sound g
oing on around me, nature’s symphony. It was worse when there was nothing to be heard. I thought of one of the books that I had read, saying that when it got quiet like that, there was a predator around. I didn't like the idea of that at all, and I started to move away from the edge of the clearing. I didn't want to think about what was out there, but as I was stepping back slowly, I could have sworn that I heard a soft growl. I don't know what else was out in the Amazon, I don't think that anybody actually did, but I certainly don't want to find out.

  When I was closer to the temple than I was the edge of the clearing, I turned around to walk towards the temple. My whole body was shaking and the wind was hitting my wet skin. This was something else altogether. I just wish I knew what was growling in the woods.

  “What's wrong, Kayla?”

  I told Alice that I thought something was out there, and someone suggested that we build a fire near the opening.

  “They don't like fire,” Chris said.

  I was so freaked out that I was willing to go with anything at this point, and I just agreed to it. I wasn’t really thinking about much else but scaring away whatever was growling in the brush and making everything go quiet.

  “Go ahead and get one started. I don't want anybody else going out there. If someone has to go out to use the bathroom, at least go with someone else.”

  Everyone agreed, most likely because I was usually very calm, but I didn't feel very calm at the moment. Whatever it was out in the woods had rattled me, and I knew that it was for a reason. Almost nothing bothered me, and when it did, I felt like there was a reason. I was the type to listen to my gut even more than my head sometimes. My head was wrong a lot of times, but my intuition never was.

  Chris started a fire that was blocking half of the entryway. I wouldn't let him get close enough to even think about getting soot on the walls. I didn't want anything to happen to the beautiful carvings or the pristine nature of the whole temple. It was strange how it had been preserved from so long ago. I wanted to know more about it, and I didn't want that to change it. I wanted to keep it the way it was as long as possible. One of the things that I hated most was the fact that sometimes I had to do a little damage to get my answers. I always liked it better when everything was there to see, but that wasn’t always the case. The temple was pristine and unblemished, ready to be read, but I still thought there was more to it than what met the eye. I wasn’t sure what yet, but I just knew it to be true.

  Everyone started to settle down when the heat from the fire started to blast into the room. It helped everyone to feel like they were little bit safer, even though I really doubt it was nearly as much of a difference as we thought it would be. I was sure that if whatever it was out there wanted to come in, it would.

  It wasn't long before I was trying to go to sleep as well. I still had this uneasy feeling in me that told me that I was supposed to be standing where I was before. I was trying to see in the darkness. I knew what was out there. My mind was not thinking clearly because even in the midst of all of that, I still wanted to get closer again.

  When I woke up, it was not pleasant at all. I woke up to a loud bang and then Alice next to me was screaming. It was dark in the temple, and the fire was out. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust and see that part of the roof had collapsed where the fire was. Someone was screaming that they were hurt, and I had to go to the gathered people to see what was going on. I recognized that it was Chris who was hollering.

  I had tried so hard to keep everything pristine and untouched, but we weren't even there a few hours and were already making changes that could never be undone. I was mad at myself for letting this happen, the fire and the roof. I didn’t like having one of my workers hurt.

  I started to get everyone out, and I grabbed my day pack on the way out. I should have known better than to stay there inside of the temple, but considering what was out in the jungle, it seemed like a no brainer to me. It was an already made structure that would keep us safe from the elements as well as the population of animals around us. That was the theory anyways. Now I was kicking myself for that very decision even though I don't know what else we could have done in that situation.

  Chris, the one who had built up the fire for all of us and chopped through the weeds that helped us find this place, was now on the ground, and he said he couldn't walk. It was so dark that I couldn’t see what was going on with his leg, but eventually I found the flashlight that was in my backpack and I was able to look at his leg. He had a rough-looking compound fracture, and I knew that we were going to have to get him to a place where he could get medical treatment. I had a few supplies on me, but I didn't have anything that could take care of this. He needed some pain meds, as well as someone to set the bone, and a heavy dose of antibiotics. There was no telling what was picked up out here. We had to go back even if I didn't want to.

  I hadn't known Chris very long, but he was taking it all in stride as best as he could. I knew he was in pain, but he just looked ahead like everything was going to be fine. I didn't know if that was the case or not, not really, but I knew that we were going to have to just take this time off.

  I wanted to be in the temple, learning everything that I could use to track down its source. There was no rush though, I kept telling myself that. It's not like temple was going to vanish or something. It had been found by me, and the permits were being processed to dig. I would have them soon enough, and then I would be able to get down to business.

  We were walking out of the jungle, ready for the trek to take us to the village where the rest of my group was. I was ready to get a bigger crew with me, so things could get done faster and somewhere to sleep could be set up, outside of the temple.

  I was here to dig the place up, and I felt like I needed to catalog everything before I knocked the whole damn thing down. Another side of me was worried about the state of the temple and the injury that Chris had sustained. He wasn't going to walk right ever again, and that was something that I was going to have to live with.

  As I made my way further away from the temple, I felt like I was leaving part of me there. Alice must've notice because she made a comment about it.

  “If it hasn't been found in all of these years, Kayla, they aren't going to find it now. Everyone knows that this is your site, and it will be here when we get back.”

  “Yeah, but it won't be the same, and Chris will never be the same again either. I just can't believe this happened.”

  I left out the part that had me thinking about my time in Egypt. The people there were very superstitious, and they believed that most ancient sites were cursed in one way or another. Some bad things happened when we were in Egypt, a few people got hurt, but I never really thought about it as some sort of curse. But now I had to wonder. When we had gone to bed the night before, I never would have imagined that the roof would collapse. It just didn't seem possible. It felt like something was trying to keep me away; at the same time, something else was pulling me closer.

  Chapter 4

  Javier

  Being next to the temple seemed to recharge me enough that I could shift into true form. It was a little past midnight when we made our way towards the town. It would take us hours, even in true form, so I was thankful that I could go as my cat. I was still hurting, but I was able to block it out enough to keep my form up till we got to the edge of town. It was starting to become daylight when we arrived, and I knew exactly where to go.

  Changing back into human form, Damien and I went to the veterinarian’s clinic. He had patched me up a couple of times before, as well as a couple others as we had all gotten a bullet once or twice. He never asked any questions, but I had to think that Rudolph knew what was going on, or at least had some kind of suspicion. It wasn't likely that he knew what I was, but he knew that I was messing around with people who shot at me. What he did with it from there, I had no idea.

  Damien went to the man's house, while I waited in front of the clinic. It was too early for the man to be
there, but he came a few minutes later behind Damien. He was rubbing his eyes, and his hair was going in all directions, but he smiled at us like he wanted to see me.

  “Another bullet, huh?”

  I just nodded my head and got up, trying not to wince through the pain. It felt like the damn bullet was covered in something that made the wound feel like it was on fire. I know that it wasn’t, obviously, but it felt like it. There was something more than a bullet in my shoulder, I could just feel it.

  “Well, let's go in and take a look, Javier. I'm sure that we can hook you right up, and get you fixed up in no time at all.”

  “Thank you, Rudolph. You always are a life saver.”

  He waved me off and told me that it was no problem. He knew that he was going to be paid very well, I always did, but at the same time it was the discreteness and his willingness to shut his mouth that had me coming back time and time again. I knew that whatever he saw here, or whatever he heard, would stay here.

  I told the other three to go get some supplies while we were in town. Panthera was running out of a little bit of everything, and we might as well kill two birds with one stone.

  “I had a feeling that I would see you boys this morning. I saw all those poachers going out last night. It was bound to happen. Are there going to be some of them visiting the hospital in the next couple of days?”

  I couldn't believe what he was saying, and what he was implying. How much did this old man know? He had taken care of me several times, all bullet wounds, and while he had never said anything before, I think his curiosity was getting the better of him. I had a feeling that he knew far more than he was supposed to.