Wild Hearts in Atlantis (6 page)

He shook his head. “All I smell is swampland. What do you—” he broke off, Atlantean senses sharpening. His sense of smell may not be as keen as a panther’s, but his hearing was preternaturally sharp. “Moaning. That way.” He pointed through a grove of trees and took off at a dead run. The moaning had sounded human.

Even in human form, Kat moved like the panther she was and seemed almost to flow through the underbrush to meet him as they found the source of the moaning. It was a shape-shifter—another panther. The man stared wildly up at them, throat drenched in scarlet blood from the wounds that ripped through the side of his neck. “Kat? It was Terminus,” he said, voice rasping with the effort. “Tell Ethan. Terminus did this.”

Kat dropped to her knees next to the man, tears streaming down her face, already barking orders into her radio. She gave their location, then dropped the radio on the ground and reached for the man’s wrist, trying to check his pulse. “Nicky? No, Nicky, no. You have to hang on. We’ll get help, I promise.”

Tears streamed down her face, and Bastien stood there, helpless with rage. Wanting fiercely to grab her, throw her over his shoulder, and spirit her away from any possible danger. Knowing he couldn’t. He fisted his hands on the hilts of his daggers and scanned the area, though his senses told him the attackers were long gone. Those were vampire bite marks, and the morning sun burning down was sufficient evidence that the vampires had gone to ground.

Nicky held up a hand to Kat, and she clasped it in both of her own. “I’m sorry, Kat,” he managed, hoarse voice fading even as the light in his eyes did the same. Bastien watched as the man’s eyes changed. Turned to panther eyes. His death was fast approaching.

Kat shook her head wildly back and forth. “No. You tell me you’re sorry later, when you’re better,” she commanded.

“You deserve to know, Kat. Ethan…Ethan wants you. His plan…his…” Nicky’s chest heaved in a shuddering gasp, and then his head fell to the side and his hand slid limply out of Kat’s grasp.

Kat lifted her head to stare at Bastien, agony in every line of her tear-stained face. “But it’s Nicky. He can’t be dead. He’s my friend.”

Bastien couldn’t stop himself. He knelt to sweep her into his arms and lifted her, cradling her to his chest. It was imperative that he soothe her; his soul demanded it. “Shhh. I am so sorry for the loss of your friend. May Poseidon and the gods of your ancestors watch over him on his journey into the light.”

He bent his forehead to touch hers, trying to transmit his sympathy and sorrow for her loss. Wishing he could take the pain into himself and protect her from it.

She clutched his shirt and gave in to a firestorm of sobbing, but it lasted less than a single minute. Then, abruptly, her tears stopped. Her breathing slowed down from its frantic pace until it was rhythmic again. Measured. Calm.

She looked up at him, and the force of the anguish in her eyes dimmed, as he stared into them. “Please put me down now,” she said, clearly trying to pull her dignity around her.

His arms tightened involuntarily, but he forced himself to release her. He gently set her down, so that she stood on the path before him.

“You see,” she said, utterly calm. Features utterly still. “I am not merely half shape-shifter. I am half human. My
gift
, as you call it, blocks me even from the wholly human emotion of mourning for a childhood friend. I’m neither human nor shape-shifter, but a bastard hybrid—half of each.”

Her lips twisted with evident self-disgust. “And half of nothing is still nothing.”

Before he could speak, he heard the hum of the all-terrain vehicles thundering up the path behind them. Voices calling out for Kat. She shouted out to them, and the opportunity was lost.

But Kat’s gift apparently only worked on aggression. Because the torment racking through Bastien at the sight of her pain and self-loathing didn’t abate in the slightest.

Bastien entered the enormous house designated as the home and headquarters of the Florida panther alpha, walking slightly in front of Kat. He didn’t like what he’d heard of this Ethan character, and every protective instinct he’d ever possessed was on overload.

The sensations of predator and violence permeating the house didn’t help, either. He tuned his senses to high alert and stopped, waiting.

Kat, walking with her head down, bumped into him and stopped. He glanced down at her, and his breath caught in his throat at the sight of her slumped shoulders and the tortured sorrow in her gaze. “What is it? Why are we stopping? Ethan said to meet him in the pool room,” she said, voice low and hoarse.

“Really? One of his own is murdered, and he has time to play a game or two of pool? Not much of a leader, is he?” Bastien heard the sharp sarcasm in his own voice and realized it might not be the proper tone for a liaison to take. Then the atmosphere in the airy entrance hall changed a split second before he sensed the danger and whirled to face it, daggers drawn, body poised in front of Kat.

The man standing in the entranceway was completely familiar to Bastien, though he’d never seen him before. Three centuries of protecting humankind from shape-shifters had taught him a few lessons. This man was the alpha. It was clear in his stance—shoulders thrown back, legs apart. Head thrust aggressively forward.

This had to be Ethan, and he expected instant subservience.

Too fucking bad.

Kat moved to walk around him, and Bastien put out a hand to block her. “Perhaps you could introduce us,” he said, eyes never leaving Ethan.

Ethan’s lips drew back from his teeth a little, but he said nothing in response to Bastien’s comment. Simply folded his arms across his chest and waited.

Kat pushed Bastien’s arm down and looked up at him. “Ethan is the alpha of my pride,” she said, impatience in her voice. “You don’t need to protect me from him.”

“Oh, is that what he’s doing?” the shape-shifter’s voice was silky. “Maybe you could tell your friend that you’re mine, and he interferes with pride business at his own risk.”

The fine hairs on the back of Bastien’s neck went up at the words. “I know about pride hierarchy, shifter. Be advised that Kat belongs to no man, least of all one who allows his female to attack Kat with her nastiness.”

He heard Kat’s sharp gasp at his words and figured he’d pay for them later. But something deep in his soul had rebelled at hearing the man refer to Kat as
his.

She’s mine.

Ethan snarled and shot ten feet toward them in one giant leap. Bastien raised his daggers and prepared for battle. But Kat stepped between them, holding her hands up. “Don’t make me use my secret weapon,” she said, weariness infusing her voice. “Don’t we have better things to do when Nicky…when he—”

Bastien waited for the alpha to stand down. The man’s muscles tightened and then relaxed, and he inclined his head to Kat and Bastien. Bastien thrust his daggers back in their sheaths, then put his arm around Kat’s shoulders. “You are correct, yet again.”

He squared his shoulders and held out a hand to Ethan.
“My apologies. I mean to offer insult neither to your family nor to your honor, and I offer sincere condolences on the loss of your pride-brother. I am Bastien from Atlantis, and we need to talk.”

Ethan waited a long moment, then grasped Bastien’s hand and shook it. “No apologies are necessary. I can understand why a man—or an Atlantean—would want to defend Kat’s honor. She is one of our pride’s greatest treasures. Her…
gift
is of incalculable value to our defenses.”

Ethan’s eyes narrowed as he stared pointedly at Bastien’s arm resting on Kat’s shoulder. The smoldering possession in the way Ethan looked at Kat made Bastien want to smash something. Or someone.

Kat spoke up again. “We need to talk about Nicky, if you two are done marking your territory. Which, I might remind you, does
not
include me.”

Ethan evidently agreed, at least to the part about the need for a conversation, since he held up a hand to direct them to the room from which he’d just entered the hallway. Bastien smiled his best liaison smile. “After you.”

Ethan’s lips twitched in a half-smile, and he strode in front of them toward the doorway.

Bastien reluctantly released Kat’s shoulders, but stopped her gently when she began to follow the shape-shifter. “Are you well?”

“No. No, I’m not
well
in any way,” she said. “But we need to do this.”

Bastien followed her through the doorway into an enormous room dominated by an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Ah. The
pool
room. Someone was doing laps down the middle. He raised one eyebrow at the sight. “I didn’t know panthers even liked water.”

Ethan shrugged. “We like it well enough as cats, but I’ve found that most of us love it in our human form. And the benefits of being the man who owns the pool are obvious.” He jerked his chin toward the edge of the pool nearest them, where a nude woman stood up in the water, lifted her head, and shook droplets from her hair. Her eyes sharpened when she saw them.

“Ah, it’s Kat,” she said. Her voice dripped menace even as
her hair dripped chlorinated water. “I heard about Nicky. He was a friend of yours, wasn’t he?”

Beside him, Kat had noticeably flinched at the sight of the woman, but answered in a quiet tone. “Yes, Fallon. He was.”

So this was Fallon. Bastien found himself wanting to unsheathe his daggers again. Anubisa, the evil goddess of the vampires, had taught him that females could be far more deadly than males—of any species.

Kat abruptly turned to Ethan and positioned her back to the pool. Bastien wondered if it were deliberate. He kept an eye on the female in the water and noticed that Fallon’s lips curled back from a mouthful of sharp-looking teeth as she silently hissed at Kat.

Deadly, indeed.

“Ethan, Nicky told us that Terminus did this to him. Before he died—” Kat’s voice broke.

Bastien touched her arm, then gently pulled her back against him. “He did say that, but he was wrong. We destroyed Terminus several weeks ago. He is permanently dead this time.”

Ethan’s attention snapped to Bastien. “You destroyed one of the most powerful vampires in the United States? You said ‘we.’ Who is ‘we’?”

“Prince Conlan of Atlantis and those of us who form his elite guard. Terminus and several of his minions attacked us. Trust me, Terminus is no more. And not
one
of the most powerful, but two, are now permanently dead. We also watched Anubisa slay Barrabas, her servant, and then our prince and his betrothed destroyed Anubisa.”

A splashing noise from the pool alerted Bastien. He jerked his head around to gauge the threat from Fallon and was surprised by the sight of her very naked, very female form climbing out of the pool. Part of him enjoyed the show. Another, much larger, part of him wondered why he didn’t enjoy it more than he did.

The feel of the woman almost imperceptibly trembling in his arms answered his question. Something about Kat made him think of dangerous words. Words like
protect. Comfort. Cherish.

Fallon stalked across the floor, arrogantly flaunting her
nudity. Clearly putting on a show for Kat. When she reached Ethan, she draped herself around him.

“He claims to have destroyed Terminus, but what do we know of him? Terminus was more powerful even than Organos,” she sneered. “We would be foolish to believe this so-called Atlantis man.”

Ethan pushed her away, and Fallon snarled at him. Bastien watched the interchange and wondered how much of it was a display presented solely for his benefit. Or, he amended silently, for
Kat’s
benefit. The sorrow that had radiated from Kat darkened and soured into an almost-helpless rage, but even as he felt her emotions slicing through him, they changed. Dampened back to calm. Her gift was at work again.

“I am a Warrior of Poseidon. I am here to offer alliance to the East Coast shape-shifters, beginning with your panthers, on the advice of one who knows you,” Bastien said. “I offer my help in the investigation of your dead colleague. We have much experience in these matters.”

“Experience in what matters? Killing shape-shifters?” Fallon spat the words at him. “We’ve heard of you. Learned that the Atlanteans of legend have been walking the earth for millennia, killing our kind on behalf of the pathetic single-natured humans. We don’t need or want help from the likes of you.”

Before Bastien could respond, Ethan roared. It was the full, throaty roar of a male panther in his prime, and the force of it sent Fallon cringing to her knees before him. Kat bowed her head, as well, and Bastien hated the submissive gesture.

Hated the idea that Kat would submit to Ethan for even a single second—in any possible way. He stepped around her to face Ethan. To the nine
hells
with politics. He was up for a little one-on-one ass kicking.

“One known as Jack claims to have fought beside your prince against Barrabas. Do you know of this?” Ethan directed the question to Bastien.

“Yes. I was there.”

“Did Jack shift to his panther form when you battled the bloodsuckers?” Ethan glanced to his right, and Bastien was left with the sure knowledge that an army of shape-shifters
stood in the shadows ready to kill him if he answered incorrectly.