Page 1 of Hunter's Mission

CHAPTER 1

LAYLA

When I’d finally receivedmy funding to take my botany research work to the Amazon jungle, I’d expected torrential rain, extreme heat, and stifling humidity. What I hadn’t anticipated was having a creep for a boss. Neville Parker thought he was God’s gift to women.

He fucking wasn’t. Fifty-five-year-old Neville was good-looking; I would give him that. But it was difficult to see how handsome he was when the bastard was always making crass remarks and trying to peer down my top.

But while it was great that he wasn’t here ogling me, it was also annoying. We should be working together as a team. But I use the word team loosely. For months now, Cody, my lab assistant, and I had been doing all the work while Neville had been doing . . . I have no idea what he actually did while we traipsed through the jungle all day. Then again, he still had two more years left on his research tenure, so he could afford to be lazy, I couldn’t.

I stepped over the moss-covered log, and my rubber boot squelched into ankle-deep mud on the other side. “It’s really muddy this way. Be careful.” I turned to Cody. He was a brilliant scientist and had amazing language skills, but traipsing through the jungle was not one of his superpowers.

“I’m good.” He reached for a vine that crossed over the log. His long legs straddled the dead tree that, based on the dense moss covering the trunk, must have fallen over decades ago. Or maybe even hundreds of years ago.

A pungent stench overpowered the usual jungle aromas of mud and leaves, and my empty stomach churned. “Ugh, what’s that smell?” I covered my nose with my sleeve.

“Must be a dead animal around here somewhere.” Cody’s voice was muffled behind his hand.

As I peered into the gnarly underbrush, searching for a rotting carcass, the lush jungle enveloped me. The air amongst the overgrown vegetation was always thick like it was dense with the abundance of natural aromas. On my first trek into the jungle, I’d struggled to breathe. Over the last eleven months, I’d become used to the thick air. I’d even grown to love it. It was going to be damn hard to return to my hometown of Yellowstone, Wyoming. Hopefully, that won’t be for a few more years.

Time was ticking, though. Unless I could stabilize my formula for my burns ointment, the plug was going to be pulled on my funding, and our entire research project would be boxed up and likely never seen again. But despite trying damn hard, I still needed conclusive proof of a viable product, and I only had seven months left to prove my natural ointment worked.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Everywhere I looked was green: plants, giant leaves, enormous trees, and strangler figs and vines that tied it all together in a living macramé. I often had to pinch myself to confirm I really was in the Amazon jungle. But as much as it was amazing, it was also terrifying. Without my compass, getting lost was a certainty. There were no buildings, roads, or paths, and the direction we’d chosen to scout today didn’t seem to have animal tracks.

Today’s rain had cleared a couple of hours ago, but it would take weeks of sunshine to dry up the thick mud and puddles covering the forest floor. Or maybe it never dried up in this area of the forest. It wouldn’t surprise me; it rained a lot in the Amazon.

I wiped the sweat from my brow and sliced my machete through the underbrush. A thorny vine grabbed the sleeve of my shirt like desperate fingers warning me not to go any farther.

“That smell is getting worse.” Cody made a gagging noise.

“I know. I don’t think I’ve smelled death out here before.” I paused next to a tree with a trunk as wide as the car I’d sold before I left home, the stench lingering in the stifling air.

The odor didn’t worry me; death was natural. What worried me was what had killed the animal. The Amazon has its share of lethal creatures, six of which could fit in the palm of my hand. But it was the jaguar that I feared the most. I hadn’t seen one in the flesh yet, but I’d heard one, and that was terrifying enough.

“Keep your eyes open, Cody.” I tried to peer through the field of green, but it was impossible. “There's no telling what might be out here.”

“You got your gun handy?” he asked.

I tapped my thigh holster strapped over my cargo pants. “Sure do.”

I hadn’t had to shoot an animal yet; I hoped I wouldn’t have to shoot one today.

Cody didn’t have a gun. I’d seen his target practice and it was safer for both of us that he wasn’t armed.

I checked my watch.Damn it.We’d been out here for three hours already, and we hadn’t seen, let alone harvested, any Inocea berries. Each time we went in search of my precious ingredient, which was only known to grow in this region of the Amazon, we had to venture farther away from the river and deeper into the jungle. Trekking this bush was both time-consuming and frustrating, especially considering the berries seemed so abundant when I’d first set up my jungle laboratory.

Wild screeches filled the air, giving me a slight reprieve from the suffocating silence surrounding us. Up to my ankles in mud, I paused, searching for movement amidst the towering trees.

“There they are.” Cody pointed to the canopy behind us, where a group of monkeys scampered from branch to branch.

Their ear-splitting chorus dominated everything, and it would be easy to believe those monkeys were the kings of the jungle. They weren’t; that moniker was reserved for the jaguar.

“I could watch them every day.” Cody grinned so wide he had to adjust his glasses off his cheeks.

“Amazing, aren't they?” I watched their acrobatics with a hint of envy. It would be amazing to be so free. Free of responsibilities. Free of guilt.

“Sure are. When I die, I’m coming back as a spider monkey,” he yelled over their ruckus.

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