Wild Hearts in Atlantis (7 page)

Kat started to speak, but Bastien cut her off, recognizing the trick question. “No, he did not. But he shifted into a tiger, damn near ten feet long.”

Ethan’s shoulders relaxed, and the tension in the room noticeably decreased. “Yes. The tiger spoke well of you. Said ‘the tall one is a fucking fighting machine,”’ Ethan admitted. “Told me you were a good one to have around if the world needed saving.”

Bastien grinned. “I feel the same way about him. I’m a lot better at battles than I am at politics, but my prince assigned me this mission. Therefore, I
will
successfully complete it.”

Ethan stared at him, considering, for a long beat. Then he threw back his head and laughed, though the laughter was acid-like in its bitterness. “I think I’m going to like you, Atlantean. Now let’s head to my conference room to talk.”

As the shape-shifter headed down the hall, Bastien noticed that he never looked back at the naked woman still huddling on the floor. Kat very carefully gave Fallon a wide berth as she walked around her and followed Ethan. However, Bastien’s ingrained standards of courtesy did not include leaving a naked woman to shiver on the floor. He held out a hand to help her up, his face impassive in an attempt to preserve what shreds of her dignity she had left.

She hissed at him and flung herself back and away from his hand. “Get away from me, you murderous bastard. We know what you are. You can’t undo thousands of years of murdering my kind by making—or pretending to make—one or two deceitful alliances.”

She stood up and glared at him, hatred and fury radiating from every line of her body. “Tell that freak bitch to stay away from Ethan, too. He’s mine. No matter how much he thinks he wants her, he must mate with me for the purity of the species. What good is a half-breed to the alpha of our pride?” She spat on the floor and then turned on her heel and sprinted away from him and through the door that led back to the hallway.

Bastien’s entire body clenched at the implications of her words. Ethan, the pride’s alpha, wanted Kat. The dying shifter
had said the same. Did Bastien, as the Atlantean liaison, have any right to interfere with that?

Every cell in his body rebelled at the thought. Not Kat. Kat belonged to
herself.
She wasn’t a pawn in some ancient hierarchy of shape-shifter politics.

Something primal stirred deep in the blackness of his soul.
Fuck politics. There is no way he will ever put his hands on her. I’ll kill him first.

“Bastien?” Kat stood in the doorway. “Are you—oh, my God. What are you doing?”

He looked at where she was pointing. At the water steaming and hissing as it lapped at the edges of the swimming pool. Just the mere thought of another man’s hands on Kat’s body had done that. He’d channeled sheer, potent rage through his command over the element of water.

Ethan’s voice, calling from somewhere out of sight down the hall, cut through Bastien’s dazed thoughts. “Kat? I need you.”

And, even as Bastien forced his hands to unclench, the water in the pool began to boil.

The conference room was as spare as the entry and pool room had been ornate. A man worked here, it was evident. A leader. The wooden tabletops were covered with documents and maps.

“Plotting strategy?” Bastien stepped closer to the table holding the largest maps, and Ethan smoothly placed himself between Bastien and his goal.

“Not strategy so much as options,” Ethan said smoothly, the amusement in his eyes defying anyone to challenge him.

For the present, there would not be a challenge. Atlantis needed Ethan and his shifters. One step at a time, then.

“What options if you join with vampires, your oldest enemies, against humanity?” Bastien demanded. “Even as some of you are part human.”

Kat made a sound; of protest, maybe. Denial. But no shape-shifter was part
vampire
, that much was irrefutable.

Ethan leaned back against the table, projecting a studied image of nonchalance. But the rage in his eyes belied his calm
pose. “I don’t want to hear your opinions on my options, Atlantean. You didn’t face the blasphemy of your brother-cousin, trapped in his animal form in death,
stuffed and mounted
in a shop!”

Kat gasped. “No! Nelson’s shop?”

Ethan inclined his head, jaw clenching.

She shook her head, as if willing the vicious image from her mind. “No, that’s not—then we have a black coven here?” She snapped her head up, pinned Ethan with her gaze. “The fire? That was you?”

“I burned it. If Nelson had been there, I would have burned him with it.” He stood proud, uncompromising.

Bastien almost unwillingly admired him for it. “Had the same happened to one of my brother warriors, I would have felt much the same. Your revenge is understandable. Forming an alliance with the bloodsuckers out of vengeance or spite is not.”

Ethan rose in a swift, fluid motion, the muscles in his body acting in concert to display his predatory nature. “But we should ally with you instead? The death squad of vigilantes in black who have murdered our kind for centuries? For millennia?”

Bastien never even flinched. “Are we really, panther? Have we ever acted against you or yours? Against Kat’s father or his father before him? The Warriors of Poseidon only intervene when mankind is threatened. It is our mission, our duty, and our sacred oath. Those shape-shifter prides like your own who have never threatened humans have never known our vengeance.”

Kat spoke up. “He’s right, Ethan. Our only knowledge of Atlantis is shrouded in the myths and stories of our people. We’ve heard of the warrior vigilantes, but they’ve never come against us.”

Ethan bared his teeth in a silent snarl, a low, grumbling noise issuing from his throat, and Kat backed up until she stood beside Bastien again. He pulled her against him and felt the slight trembling run through her body. Vowed to make someone pay for making her feel anything but happiness. Maybe even the
someone
standing in front of him.

“No, we have never threatened humans, but they have
nearly hunted
us
to extinction,” Ethan growled. “Not only our pure animal brethren, but our own pride. Now they work with the black covens to trap us in death for sport. Why would I not form an alliance with Organos?”

Bastien played his trump card, judging the time right to share the information Alaric had told only to him before he, Justice, and Denal had left Atlantis. “Because Organos plays you for a fool. He is the one working with the black sorcerers.”

Kat gasped again, this time moving away from Bastien. Ethan merely narrowed his eyes. “What proof do you have of this? Why would I believe you?”

“I have the word straight from Poseidon’s high priest. He does not lie.”

“So you say,” Ethan said, shrugging. “But I have no knowledge of your priest. Where is your evidence?”

Bastien’s hands grasped the handles of his daggers at the implied slight to his honor, then he slowly removed them. “Liaison,” he reminded himself, shaking his head. “I’m tempted to challenge you to battle for that remark, shifter, but I must remember my sworn duty. So I will provide you this evidence you require. Will you grant me the courtesy of waiting before you proceed with an alliance with Organos and his blood pride?”

Ethan slowly nodded. “Forty-eight hours. I will give you that much time to prove you’re right about this. And if you are—” He smiled so fiercely that Bastien could well understand how the man was alpha of such a fierce coalition of shape-shifters. “If you’re right, and the vampires are killing my people, then we’ll
end
them.”

Bastien’s smile matched the ferocity of Ethan’s. “As your liaison, I can officially assure you that I will be right there beside you when that time comes. Even us political types need to battle a few vampires now and then.”

Ethan’s ringing laughter followed them down the hall as they made their way out of his house. Kat looked up at Bastien, wonder and consideration in her eyes. “I’d almost say he likes you. And he doesn’t like any outsiders. Ever.”

“He is a fierce warrior who seeks to protect his people. I respect him, as well,” he replied, never breaking his stride.

But, as they walked out into the fading sunshine that mocked the darkness of his mission, he realized the truth behind his words. Although he respected Ethan, he would not hesitate to bring him down unless Ethan called off the alliance with the vampires.

Or if he attempts any claim on Kat
, a voice in his mind demanded.

That remains to be seen. Okay, my Lord Poseidon, now would be a really great time to take pity on your warrior and share your plans with me.

Unfortunately, as was so often the case with gods, the only response was a faint, mocking laughter that echoed in his mind.

Kat put the grocery bag on her kitchen table and stared almost blindly at it, as if somewhere in the grain of the brown paper lay the secret to resolving the crises that had smashed into her carefully structured life.

One of the few friends I had left in the world dead—murdered? Check.

Ethan admitting he formed an alliance with the vampires? Check.

Fallon hating my guts and probably going to try to kill me after I saw him humiliate her? Check.

Alone in my house with bags full of food I don’t know how to cook and a huge Atlantean male who seems to want something from me? Something I’m not prepared to give?

Check. And check. And check.

“Damn.”

“You don’t like steak?” His voice was mild, but the sound of it still startled her. Something in the tone of it—rough, but gentle—sent chills down her spine. Not chills of fear, but just the opposite. Attraction. Desire.

Wanting.

She felt that peculiar sensation again, as if the animal side
of her nature were finally waking up from a hibernation that had lasted all of Kat’s life. If it hadn’t been so impossible, she might even have believed that she was on the verge of shifting.

“Kat?” Bastien’s voice cut into her thoughts again, and this time he sounded concerned. She needed to pay attention. To make an attempt to form coherent sentences.

“I’m sorry. It’s been a long day. Nicky…I think I need to take a shower and just rest.” The thought of a shower was so tempting she nearly cried. But she had a guest. He must want to clean up, too. “You should go take the first shower. I’m sure you want to rinse the day off, too.”

She turned and tried to smile, but the idea of Bastien naked and wet in the shower spiked her imagination to a dangerous heat. She had to fight herself to keep from jumping on him.

He flashed that incredible smile at her, and for an instant it was there again. That gleam of fire in his eyes. But then it was gone, and his expression was back to his Mr. Liaison cool calm again. “No, but thank you for the kindness,” he said, bowing slightly. All courtesy and gallantry, when what she wanted from him was heat and fire. Passion that could make her forget the sight of Nicky’s eyes glazing over to lifelessness.

She shook her head to rid it of the image. “I’ll just go first, then. We can figure out dinner in a while.”

But, having said that, she couldn’t force herself to move. A strand of his hair had fallen across his cheek as he bent his head and unpacked the groceries, and she stared at the glossy blackness of it, wanting nothing more than to raise her hand and smooth it back from his face. To step into his arms and, for once in her
be strong, be brave, be self-reliant, be independent
life—just for one damn time—let someone else be strong.

To let
him
be strong. Just for a moment.

He looked up and caught her staring at him. Must have read something in her eyes. Took a step toward her. “Kat, there’s something I need to—”

“No! I mean, no, there’s nothing,” she heard herself babbling but was powerless to stop. “Well, you should just, I’ll go. Now. I’ll—”

He blinked, probably wondering who the crazy woman
was and what she’d done with Kat, and the sheer humiliation of it all snapped her weird paralysis, and she ran. Ran again, by way of stumbling down the hall to the bathroom. Ran away from the first man who’d ever made her feel safe.

Bastien pushed open the door and headed outside. He knew he wasn’t imagining it. There had been a moment. A capital M Moment, right there in the kitchen. Whatever it was that had taken over his mind and senses, Kat had felt it, too. At least for a single moment. And then she’d run away from him. Again.

“It’s so terrific, this effect I have on women,” he muttered. Then he forced himself to reach for the calm center of his serenity—the center that seemed to explode into fractured shards whenever he was around Kat. Drew in a lungful of the humid evening air and stripped off his shirt and pants. He had need of a shower. Maybe an hour or two under icy water would help the current state of his painfully aroused body.

He was Atlantean. He had no need for pipes and plumbing to find the water to cleanse his body. Legs spread apart, he lifted his face to the evening sky. Raised his arms, palms up, and called to the sea. Called to the water all around him. Called to the elements to purify the water and bring it to him.