Wild Hearts in Atlantis Page 2

  Oh, yeah. I’m golden.

  Two

  Kat sat in her Jeep, shirt soaked through with sweat from the heat of south Florida in autumn, and wondered when a simple trip to the grocery store had turned into a test of courage. The thermometer at the bank had read eighty-five degrees, not all that unusual for this time of year, and the wild cat in her wanted to curl up in the sun on a rock somewhere.

  Take a nap, maybe.

  Take down a sheep or two.

  “Yeah, right. Take a break from reality.”

  The reality in which Kat Fiero, official National Park Service ranger and daughter to the former alpha of the Big Cypress panther coalition, had never once taken down a sheep. Or a goat. Or even a little bitty squirrel.

  “Fake shape-shifter, useless excuse for a panther, worthless bitch,” she muttered. “Okay, that pretty much covers the range of happiness I’ll have to deal with if Fallon or her minions are in there, hanging out in the tuna fish aisle.”

  She grabbed her wallet from her backpack and shoved it into her shorts pocket, then got out and slammed the door. Eyed the slut-red Jaguar with FALLON1 license plates, felt her lips curl back from her teeth.

  The world is going to hell in a coffin, and I have time to worry about what these morons think of me why, exactly?

  She thought back to the headlines she’d choked down with bitter coffee and overcooked eggs at Thelma’s grill. More bills passing Congress, more extra goodies tacked on to the 2006 Non-Human Species Protection Act, as if the poor humans were any danger to the vamps. Most of ’em cowered in their homes at night, still unable to believe—even after a decade—that the things that went bump in the night were real.

  Vampires and shape-shifters both.

  Her dad hadn’t wanted any of it. “Upsets the natural order of things, Kat,” he’d said, again and again. “We’re meant to stay in the wild, remain true to our natures. Not play at being reporters and law enforcement and other civilized members of society.”

  But he’d married a human, hadn’t he? And then he’d died, still trying to hide how disappointed he was in his only child. The daughter who’d never been able to shift. Not even once.

  Now half the rangers she worked with—and a good third of the local paranormal ops unit—were shape-shifters. “Except me,” she muttered as she pushed open the door to the store and felt the wonderfully cool currents of air-conditioned air sweep out toward her. “I’m only half shape-shifter. I’m just a—”

  “Freak!” The voice rang out with unsuppressed glee. “We were just talking about you, ranger freak show.”

  Kat dropped her hand away from the butt of her service revolver, regretting yet again that bitchiness wasn’t grounds for shooting under National Park Service regs. “Fallon. Always a pleasure. Or, wait—never a pleasure, actually.”

  She watched, eyes narrowed, as the petite—damn her—bane of her existence stalked up to her on the kind of five-inch-heeled shoes Kat would never in her life wear. Then she allowed herself a little smugness because Fallon still had to look up at her. Being nearly six feet tall wasn’t always all bad.

  Fallon ran a hand through her masses of black curls, arched her back, and acted like a feline in heat. Which she probably was.

  Bitch.

  The momentary pride Kat had taken in her height shriveled like her self-esteem, and she went back to feeling like a pudgy Amazon next to the delicate beauty. Somehow, she was sure Fallon knew it, too. Too tall, too strong, just too everything for the human males. And too wrong for the shifters. Kat would never be the belle of the ball; she was long since resigned to it. But she’d like, just once, to get an invitation to the damn dance. Just once find a man who wasn’t intimidated or disgusted by her. She wasn’t sure which was worse.

  “Are you coming to the gathering tonight? Oh—wait. That’s right. You’re not really one of us. You’re probably not invited,” Fallon said, voice dangerously near a purr.

  Kat wanted desperately to walk away. Wouldn’t give Fallon the satisfaction of seeing her cowardice. “I was invited. Just not interested,” she replied, putting all the bored indifference she could manage into her voice.

  Fallon arched one eyebrow. “Really? And yet I would have thought your ranger instincts would have gone crazy over the mere idea of us forming an alliance with the Lord High Vampire of the southeast district. I’ve heard he and his blood pride have interesting tastes in entertainment.”

  Kat had heard the reports. Humans tortured for days, used as playthings for the bastard’s sick, perverted pleasure. She clenched her hands into fists, barely realizing that her nails were cutting into her palms. “You’re lying,” she said flatly. “There’s no way Ethan would join forces with the vamps. Especially not Terminus’s bunch. The two of them nearly killed each other last year after Terminus played his games with three of Ethan’s youngest members.”

  “Haven’t you heard? Terminus is dead. Some new gang in the northeast who’ve allied with those idiot rebels or something. Anyway, things change.” Fallon started to walk off, turned. “Not everything, apparently. Still not a real cat, are you? Tell me, how does it feel to work with wild panthers and realize you’ll never, ever be able to become one?”

  Kat tightened her lips, knowing anything she said would only prolong the encounter.

  Fallon laughed, and the sound of it scraped like shards of glass over an open wound. “Poor little freak Kat, with her pathetic human mother. And really, what were they thinking to name you Kat when you’ll never be one?”

  As Fallon clacked away toward the door on her ridiculous heels, Kat tried to think up a blistering comeback. Unfortunately, the grief burning in her throat blocked the words from coming out, just as the human DNA swirling in her bloodstream blocked the panther from coming out.

  Pathetic.

  Ethan leaned against the wall nearest to the sealed chamber’s door and looked around, fighting every instinct in both of his dual natures in order to appear relaxed and nonchalant. His cat had gone feral beast inside him—wanted to rip through his skin and attack the bloodsuckers in the room. Panthers didn’t care much for the smell of dead things that walked around.

  But politics was a hunt better played by the human side of his existence. The vamp standing in the center of the room was a master gamesman and expected easy domination over Ethan.

  Organos was in for a nasty surprise.

  “So, the rumors are true,” Organos concluded. “The lost continent of Atlantis is evidently more than a fairy tale for pathetic humans to tell their children. These warriors attacked and destroyed Barrabas and his blood pride, and it is said that Anubisa has gone into hiding.”

  Ethan smiled, deliberately showing a lot of very sharp teeth. “Hiding? Or did the Atlanteans kill her, too?”

  Organos hissed, and his own fangs slid down into place. “You will speak of our goddess with respect, or this alliance will end before it begins. No human could ever defeat Anubisa. She plans strategy far beyond our understanding.”

  Ethan raised an eyebrow. “Really? She doesn’t share strategy with you, either? How exactly is this shape-shifter–vamp alliance going to work if we don’t even know what’s going on?

  “You will know what I know as soon as I know it. Surely you agree that our goal of complete human subjugation is worth a little uncertainty.”

  Studying the vampire’s face was an exercise in futility. Organos gave nothing away with his expressionless features. He could have been made out of cold white marble.

  Or else rigor mortis set in about, oh, two or three centuries ago.

  His cat shuddered inside him, registering a predator’s distaste for carrion. Ethan sent his thoughts inward, soothing and calming the beast. Soon. We’ll be out of here soon, and I’ll set you free to roam.

  The cat snarled but subsided within him, a reminder of the constant need for control. The most powerful of the dual-natured stalked the precipice edging total conversion at all times. The danger of going wild was always presen
t. There were too many who had never come back from animal form. Too many of his friends who had fallen prey to the damn humans and their illegal hunting.

  When he’d seen the obscenity in Nelson’s shop, he’d roared out his anguish and vowed vengeance. Then he’d run outside, gotten as far away as he could before he puked his guts up.

  That’s when he’d finally agreed to meet with Organos. After he’d seen his cousin—his closest boyhood friend—in his cat form, stuffed and mounted in a taxidermy shop.

  No shape-shifter remained in animal form, but for his eyes, after death. That trick required the foulest of black magic. The humans—and at least one black-hearted witch—were going to die.

  Growling, he shook his head a little to try to rid himself of the image seared into his brain. He pinned Organos with his gaze. “Total subjugation. Yeah, they’ve gotta pay.”

  The vampire glided closer, held out a thin, white-fleshed hand. “Partners?”

  Ethan tried not to think about how Hank Fiero would be rolling in his grave at the idea. Tried not to think of Kat Fiero at all. Held out his own hand, repressing his cat’s violent revulsion. “Partners.”

  Three

  “What in the nine hells is this?” Bastien rocked back on the heels of his boots and jammed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “We’re meeting a potential liaison to the southeastern shape-shifter contingent at a bar?”

  Denal read the words off the rickety-looking neon sign. “It’s not just a bar. It’s Thelma’s Bar and Grill.”

  “Looks like a shithole to me,” Justice snarled. “Remind me why, again, I had to come along and babysit you?”

  Bastien’s lips twitched at the idea of Justice babysitting him. “Right. Your puny six-and-a-half-feet-tall self and what army?”

  Justice’s pale green eyes gleamed with power, and he raised one hand, palm up, to display a glowing ball of electricity. “None but the priest channel the elements so well as I do, buffoon. Standing nearly seven feet tall merely means you’ll make a bigger hole in the ground when I knock you on your ass.”

  Denal rolled his eyes. “Whatever. If you’re done playing, let’s get inside and meet this woman. I could go for a beer and five or six cheeseburgers, too.”

  “You’re always hungry, boy,” Bastien said, resisting the urge to ruffle Denal’s hair. Denal was a man of more than two hundred years, not the boy Bastien had grown accustomed to thinking him. And Denal’s death and rebirth had aged the warrior in subtle but very real ways.

  Justice brushed by them both and strode toward the door. “Yeah, and anyway, this is shape-shifter country. They probably only serve their meat raw.”

  As Denal grumbled under his breath and then followed Justice into the bar, Bastien scanned the parking lot again. His senses, honed from intensive training and concentration, picked up the vibrations of both human and shape-shifter alike. Clusters of each, but never together. The residents of Big Cypress were quite markedly segregated.

  Question was: By whose design?

  Shaking his head again, still baffled that Conlan had chosen him for the delicate job of ambassador, Bastien headed indoors.

  Right into the middle of a bar fight.

  He ducked a bottle that flew through the air at him and scoped out the room as the bottle smashed on the doorframe behind his head. Justice leaned against the far wall, arms folded negligently in front of him. The blue braid—and the sword hilt rising behind his shoulder—probably accounted for the circle of calm that surrounded him.

  Everything about Justice shouted badass. Bastien still couldn’t believe he’d thrown a hockey puck at the warrior’s head, after Justice had backed him up in countless battles against all manner of shape-shifter and vampire.

  A body came flying through the air, and Bastien held out one arm to block the human…yes, human, he didn’t smell like shape-shifter, although it was hard to tell in this craziness. The man’s shoulders struck Bastien’s arm, and he bounced off and smashed into a table.

  “Bastien! Over here!” Bastien turned at the sound of Denal’s shout and tried to be surprised to find that the youngest member of the Seven had gotten himself smack in the middle of the battle. Even as he watched, Denal punched one man in the eye, as yet another grabbed the young warrior around the throat.

  Denal grinned, lip bleeding. “Finally! A little fun!” he shouted.

  Bastien shook his head and moved in a blur of Atlantean speed to one side of the door, as he caught sight of a man pulling his arm back to throw a dagger in his direction. The door suddenly opened, and the woman who walked through drove all conscious thought out of his brain.

  Just the scent of her made him hard.

  Her eyes widened as she stared in front of her, and he remembered the dagger. Shot out a hand to catch it. Winced a little as the blade cut his palm, but never took his eyes off her.

  As she turned her shocked gaze to him, he bowed deeply. “Lady Katherine Fiero. I am Bastien of Atlantis at your service.”

  Kat stopped breathing the second she scented him. Her cat purred inside her, seemed almost to stretch and curl its form under Kat’s skin, as though the beast wanted to come out and play after all these years of hiding.

  It was him. The giant of a man she’d met only once, briefly, nearly two years before. The one who’d protected her from a biker gang of vamps intent on making her the object of their bloodsport. He’d cut through them like a panther in its prime through a field of deer, then ignored her fervent thanks and walked away from her. He’d never looked back, striding out of that abandoned building and off into the sunset like some fabled folk hero from childhood stories.

  And so he must be, this man she’d never forgotten. He must be the one from Atlantis. When Quinn had described him…she hadn’t dared to even hope. But it was him. Bastien.

  And he was bowing to her. Bowing and…bleeding?

  She spared a moment to look around the bar. The human–shape-shifter violence that had been roiling in the air for the past several months had come to a head, yet again.

  This time, the fools were taking poor Thelma’s place apart. It had to stop.

  Kat had to stop it.

  She looked at the man again—Quinn had said they called themselves Poseidon’s Warriors. There could be no doubt to anyone with eyes that the man was a warrior. He had to be seven feet of pure battle-honed muscle. Nobody looked like that from working out at a gym once a week. He had thighs the size of tree trunks in that worn denim. And, oh please keep her from drooling, his chest and shoulders were a wall of muscle. God, his biceps were the size of her thighs, and she was no little thing. And his face—oh, his face. Men were not supposed to be so beautiful. It screwed up the natural order of things or something. The cheekbones, and all that luscious black hair that was just a little too long, and…

  Great, Kat, you’re having lustful fantasies while these men are beating each other up and trashing Thelma’s bar. Do something, dammit.

  Kat’s panther snarled inside her, making its desires plain.

  The beast wanted to play. It wanted to play wild and dangerous games with this warrior. The panther wasn’t chained by the strictures of duty or etiquette. It wanted heat and biting and wild, ravenous sex.

  Kat felt the wetness between her thighs, and she flinched a little at the friction caused by her nipples hardening under her shirt. Her face flushed, and she tried, yet again, to focus on the battle raging all around her. She looked up at Bastien, drew in a raspy breath. Opened her mouth and closed it again.

  Fierce intelligence burned in his black eyes. Intelligence and something more primal. Was that…was that possibly desire?

  For her?

  Her knees weakened at the thought of it. The seconds that had passed while she stood there, frozen, seemed like hours.

  The bottle that crashed against the wall snapped her out of it.

  “Damn them. They know this place is Thelma’s whole life. Excuse me, sir, but I have to stop this.”

  He liter
ally snarled. If she hadn’t known better, she would have believed he was a shape-shifter, too, from the ferocity of his expression. “There’s no fucking way I’m letting you get in the middle of that. In fact, why don’t you get out before you get hurt? I’ll drive you home, and we can talk about whatever in the nine hells liaisons are supposed to talk about.”

  He blocked her from the room with his big body, and for one brief second she felt protected. Cherished. Cared for in a way she hadn’t been in so long.

  Then she pushed that feeling away. She had no time for weakness.

  “Thanks for the thought, but this is my job. Now get out of my way,” she said, grim purpose in her voice.

  His eyes narrowed, and the planes of his gorgeous face hardened even further. He slammed his hands against the wall on either side of her head, pinning her into place with the protection of his body. “You’re not—”

  “Oh, but I am,” she interrupted. Then she held her arms out to her side, palms up, and she let the noise and the fury of the room drop away. She swirled down into the currents of the smooth, clear pond inside her mind. Crystal, liquid peace.

  Serenity lapping at the edges of her mind as the waves of the ocean. Even, rhythmic, calming waves.

  She inhaled deeply and, as she exhaled, she channeled the peace and calm from within her secret pool and sent it swirling out from her mind and breath and into the air around her.

  She opened her eyes and watched the effects. First to succumb, since he was nearest, the warrior staggered back half a step, as though he’d been struck. Then the harsh set to his mouth relaxed, and a measure of calm returned to his eyes. She smiled at him, laid a hand on his arm when he tried to speak, and shook her head. Pointed to the rest of the room.

  He turned to face the bar, still protecting her with his body. They watched as Kat’s infusion of peace spread through the room. Fists unclenched. Men blinked as though dazed, and put down the bottles, knives, and other weapons they’d been wielding. A collective sigh of unspent rage dampened the roaring emotional ambiance of the room from lethal fury into lethargic lassitude.