Bayon/Jean-Baptiste (Bayou Heat) (15 page)

“Remember, Miss Burel, I do all the talking,” Jean-Baptiste said, following her past a row of books, crystals, voodoo love dolls, and potions, all backlit by a mass of blue-flamed candles. “Isi’s not going to be happy about this.”

Isi
. Very pretty, Genevieve thought.
Exotic
. “Why’s that?”

“Let’s just say that the Wildlands’ magic and her own don’t mix well.”

Lucky for me
. “How would she know that? Has she been to the Wildlands?”

“She’s been to the border.”

Genevieve’s insides hummed, and she glanced over her shoulder. Tall, broad, eyes wary, tattoos and piercings glistening eerily in the candlelight, Jean-Baptiste looked like the sexiest demon alive. “Alone? Or with you?”

“Curb the questions, Miss Burel,” Jean-Baptiste said coolly. “And don’t forget you’re here in a diplomatic capacity only.”

“I know why I’m here,” she returned.

Did the elders know about this
?
The voodoun at their borders
?
Was that their reasoning for keeping her out
?
Did they believe she had something to do with what happened to Ashe
?

“Well, well, Baptiste,” came an almost otherworldly voice near Genevieve’s ear.

Startled, Genevieve whirled around to find one of the most extraordinary-looking women she’d ever seen. Not near her ear as she’d believed, or felt, but standing a full ten feet away in front of a cobalt blue curtain. For a second, Genevieve couldn’t put her thoughts together. She blinked several times. A sudden blast of incense impaled her nostrils, and her head grew fuzzy and slow. She reached out for something to steady herself, but there was nothing.

“Isi.” She heard Jean-Baptiste’s voice behind her, his tone thick with warning. “Cut it off.”

“But it’s so much fun,” she nearly whined.

“Now,” he growled.

The scent of incense died away, and the haze inside Genevieve’s brain vanished. She drew in air, and had the most extraordinary urge to turn around and run. But her feet were planted to the floor, and her eyes pinned to the woman.

Isi
.

She was dressed in skin-tight jeans, black heels, and a sleeveless red top that showed her flat stomach on one end and her firm breasts on the other. She had short, jet black hair with blue streaks running through it, a tattoo of a rose wrapped around a candle that ran from just under her right ear down to her shoulder, and a diamond piercing in each nostril. Genevieve’s mind felt murky as hell, but even so she knew that this was the kind of woman Jean-Baptiste probably went for. A real kindred spirit, complete with ink and metal. And she wondered if he had lied about them being more than just friends.

“Hello there.” She shoved away the urge to fiddle with her top button and walked straight for the woman, her hand outstretched. “I’m Genevieve Burel. Diplomatic Faction for the Pantera.”

Her expression stony, the woman ignored Genevieve and her hand, and pushed past her. Genevieve watched. Heels clicked on the stone floor and hips swayed as Isi made her way to Jean-Baptiste. Goodness, the woman moved like she knew how to work her body at all things.

When she reached him, she instantly brought her hand up to his neck. “Looks good.”

“I think so,” he said.

She ran a finger down the cord of muscle in his neck. “Healed and ready for another?”

He grinned. “Always.”

The fuzzy head thing was gone, but something else—something far more worrisome—moved through Genevieve as she watched this woman. Isi’s hands moved over Jean-Baptiste’s body as if they had eternal permission to do so, and her voice practically licked at him, it was so intimate.

Were they lovers? And if so, why had Jean-Baptiste not disclosed it?

“I need to speak with you,” he said to the voodoun, his voice grave.

“Problem?” Isi asked.

He nodded.

Isi glanced over her shoulder at Genevieve. “Another foolish female fall in love with you, Baptiste? Must we administer a reverse spell?”

“No,” he said with a smooth chuckle. “Nothing like that.”

“No, nothing like that,” Genevieve returned with barely disguised irritation. More for herself than for them. She was getting real sick of this back and forth, pseudo-flirtatious, weirdly possessive behavior she was feeling and exhibiting. Her future, and her family’s future, rested on this pick-up and delivery. Or preventing it, and that was all she was going to be focused on for the next twenty-four hours.

“Miss Rousseau,” she said tightly. “As I said before, I’m here for the Pantera. To assist Mr. Baptiste in making sure you—”

Jean-Baptiste interrupted sternly. “I got this.” He took Isi’s arm and ushered her down the candlelit aisle. His eyes were hard, his mouth too. “If you’ll excuse us, Miss Burel.”

“I absolutely will not!” Genevieve called after him, far more passionately than she’d intended. “This wasn’t the arrangement.”

She heard Isi grunt, and ignored it.

“We’re supposed to do this together, Mr. Baptiste,” she continued, going after them.

“Mr. Baptiste?” Isi said with a husky laugh. “What the fuck is that about?”

His expression fierce, Jean-Baptiste guided Isi through the curtain, whispered something in a terse tone, then re-emerged.

“I warned you, Miss Burel,” he said, halting her progress. “I don’t follow rules. Especially ones that were decided upon without me.”

She stared up at him, hated how fast her heart was beating. “I don’t care about any of that. I have a job to do. Raphael sent me—”

“Raphael sent you as a backup. In case I didn’t get the job done.” His voice dropped. “And I always get the job done, Miss Burel.”

Instead of muscle and bone, it felt like water suddenly resided inside her legs. And his scent, that heady, masculine, animal-like aroma, was forcing itself inside her nostrils, battling for dominion with the remnants of Isi’s head-screwing incense. This was impossible, she thought with deep irritation.

“Now,” he continued in a soft, deadly voice, “You’re going to remain out here, while I have a conversation with my…
friend
.”

“That’s not fair,” she growled. “Not how this was supposed to go.”

His eyes flashed amber fire. “Life is made up of the unfair, Miss Burel. Learn to accept that and you’ll never face disappointment.”

“Disappointment is my elixir, Mr. Baptiste. It gets me going, fires me up, turns me on.” She tried to yank herself back, but she couldn’t seem to curb her tongue.

“Well then, expect to be highly aroused for the next twenty-four hours.”

She could hardly breathe as they stared at one another. Dark hair fell over his cheekbones, a few stray wisps brushing against the two hoops in his lower lip. Her eyes traveled down to the full, lush flesh. What would it be like to kiss him? How would she do it? Would it hurt him if she tried to get the tip of her tongue inside, spear one of those small rings? Tug on it? Ease him closer?

A soft, male growl pierced the thick air between them, and Genevieve’s brain lurched back to the ‘on’ position. Oh, Christ. What was wrong with her? The things she was saying…the way she just openly stared at him, challenged him. The female who was all set to enter a life of service with the elders—a life where she would have no mate, no sex, no intimacy—was openly lusting over the very Pantera male she had to outwit.

This was bad.

Jean-Baptiste’s eyes narrowed, and he pulled back sharply. “I’ll be back in five minutes. Look around. Maybe you’ll find something you like.”

Too late
.

“Or maybe you’ll find some happiness. Isi puts that in the gray bottles, I believe.”

What the hell was she doing? Genevieve thought shakily as she watched him walk away and disappear behind that blue curtain. Why was the top button on her blouse digging into her throat, irritating her, begging to be bitten off, when it had always lain so comfortably against her skin?

And why had her mission of making sure the voodoun never entered the Wildlands suddenly expanded into the disjointed goal of never allowing the dark-haired woman to put her hands on Jean-Baptiste again?

She turned to a table of potions, released a heavy breath, and started picking up random bottles. Forget happiness. There had to be something here that returned sanity to a clearly insane mind, and calm to a body that had never experienced the true meanings of the words
lust
and
possession
until just a few moments ago.

Chapter 3

“Have you lost your fucking mind?”

Jean-Baptiste eyed the petite woman with the foul mouth, quick wit and fiercely sharp brain. “You know I have.”

Isi smacked the seat of the leather recliner in front of her and huffed, “Then get your ass under Derek’s needle again because there’s no way in hell I’m stepping foot back in the Wildlands.”

“Derek,” he uttered blackly. “That idiot’s cat food.”

“What?”

“When I see him again, he’s dead.”

“Oh, Jesus,” she muttered, pulling on a pair of gloves. “What happened?”

“The guy you hired to perform magic-laced tats can’t keep his mouth shut. He told one of our spies, who informed the leader of the Suits just what goes in my ink and metal.”

Isi sighed, picked up some tools and dropped them in the autoclave bag. “I’m sorry. Seriously. I’m sorry. But if that’s what you’re looking for from me—a Wildlands house call—I can’t do it.” She gave him a pointed look. “Don’t you remember what happened the last time?”

Damn right, he remembered. It was a week after he’d realized he had a problem, that his cat wasn’t behaving. He’d popped a few capsules of the malachite drug he gave his patients, testing to see if it grounded the feline inside his body once again.

It had.

But not for long.

He’d known right then he needed something permanent. Knew that if he didn’t want to be caged liked the very ones he treated, he’d have to hide it. He’d heard about Isi, her incredible magical abilities, and tried to get to her. But even though Pantera couldn’t shift outside the borders, his cat had. Twice. And had nearly taken down a couple of tourists in the process. In the end, he’d slunk back to the Wildlands and begged Isi to come to him.

The attempt hadn’t turned out well. For either of them.

“You got sick,” he said, trying to play down the truth as he watched her shove the autoclave bag inside the machine.

She snapped the latch, then turned to glare at him. “What I got was the equivalent of seasickness on land, times ten. I could barely stand, keep anything down.” She shuddered in remembrance. “I don’t care what the reason is or how dire it is, I’m not going.”

Jean-Baptiste sighed, crossed his arms over his chest. “How much?”

“What?”

“How much? We’ll pay. Even in stones, minerals…whatever you want. I know you’ve been dying to get your hands on all that ancient shit below the surface of the Wildlands’ soil.”

Baptiste saw a flicker of excitement light her eyes, then a shroud of fear quickly overtake it.

“No.”

“Isi. That could’ve been a one-time thing.”

She pointed to the curtain. “You have to go. I have a client coming.”

For one brief second, Jean-Baptiste thought about putting up a fight, scaring the shit out of the human who was coming to see her, offering her more than just cash or crystals. But he knew her. Knew what worked and what didn’t. Fear played her hard and often, and if he was going to get what he wanted, negotiation wasn’t the way.

Unfortunately, the
way
was probably going to get him despised, hunted and, more importantly, cut off from the ink and metal his body and his feral cat desperately needed.

* * *

Anger simmered below the surface of Genevieve’s skin as she watched the two males greet each other in the lobby of the swank Hotel Fils de France. At first, when Jean-Baptiste had walked out of the voodoun’s shop and headed for his car, Genevieve had assumed she’d just become the luckiest female in the world. Isi had said
no
to the trip, and the inked Nurturer hadn’t put up a fight. She’d be home by midnight, she’d thought smugly, and standing before the elders at dawn.