The dead leopard right now on the ground would've been them.
That thought hit harder than I expected, knocking the breath from my lungs.
I covered my mouth with both hands, my chest rising and falling in shallow gasps, the lingering static in the air making it harder to breathe.
I couldn't believe it.
I had brought her in this...walking wildfire and then left her unchecked inside my clan.
It hadn't even occurred to me just how dangerous she truly was.
If she hadn't left when she did… gods, things could've spiraled fast.
Zivra exhaled shakily, her breaths ragged and uneven as she stared down at the leopard's corpse, still twitching faintly with leftover static.
Blood coated her arms in long streaks, the crimson splattered across her chest and face like war paint. Some of it wasn't hers. Most of it, I suspected, belonged to the beast. She tried to wipe it away with trembling fingers, smearing it more than cleaning it, her movements sluggish, disoriented.
