by Laura Wright
“You’re the last man who needs an explanation for what’s going on,” she said, refusing to dwell on the number of females who’d enjoyed Bayon’s touch. The thought was far more painful than it should be. Then she stiffened, struck by a horrifying fear. “Unless you’re mated?”
His scowl deepened. “Christ, no.”
Sheer relief had her reaching up to frame his face in her hands, tugging his head downward.
“Then kiss me.”
He made a sound deep in his throat as he allowed his mouth to crash into hers, kissing her with a raw hunger that demanded capitulation. A capitulation Keira was eager to give.
So long as it was on her terms.
Angling her hips so his cock pressed directly against her clit, she bit the tongue he shoved into her mouth, before sucking it with a rhythmic insistence that had him moaning in sheer male need.
Her fingers skimmed over his bronzed face, taking an amazing delight in the hard angles and planes. He wasn’t pretty. He was too male, his features too bluntly carved. But he had a compelling beauty that enthralled her.
Taking her time, Keira memorized the prominent line of his cheekbone and the sensuous curve of his lips. During the brutal years she’d been held captive, she’d discovered that she had no regrets for the things she’d done, but she had plenty of regrets for the things she hadn’t done.
Things like this.
She stroked the line of his stubborn jaw, relishing the rough stubble of his beard as she rubbed herself against the delicious hardness of his erection.
Bayon growled, then with a last thrust of his tongue he wrenched his lips free to bury his face in the curve of her neck. He bit into her flesh with enough pressure to send white-hot lust jolting through her.
She hissed in pleasure. Yes…oh yes. She needed this.
Running her hands down the impressive width of his back, she grabbed the waistband of his jeans, impatiently trying to tug them down.
“Off,” she muttered in frustration.
“Wait.” With a harsh groan, he arched back to stare down at her flushed face. “Keira.”
Her hands skimmed to the front of his jeans, struggling with the snap. “What?”
“Stop.”
She frowned, wrapping her fingers around the massive erection that pressed against his zipper.
“Why?”
His pained groan echoed through the cave. “Because twelve hours ago you didn’t even remember me.”
She abruptly turned her head, pretending an interest in the nearby waterfall. “I was…confused.”
She could feel the heat of his gaze searing over her profile. “And now you’re not?”
“I know what I need.”
“And what’s that?”
She reluctantly turned back to meet his demanding gaze. “I need to know you’re real,” she breathed. “That I’m real.”
“Shit.” His face twisted with an agonized regret, then before Keira could guess his intent, he was seated on the ground with her trembling body cradled in his lap. “I have you,” he murmured as she instinctively tried to escape his hold, pressing his cheek to the top of her head. “And I’m not letting go. Not ever again.”
She should have been pissed. This was supposed to be a hot, sweaty bout of sex that would ease the hunger she’d had for this male for years and prove once and for all that she was out of the damned cell.
No fuss. No muss.
Just a glorious knowledge that she was able to do exactly what she wanted.
But as swiftly as her desire had exploded, it altered to a different, but just as savage need.
Comfort.
The feel of Bayon’s hand softly stroking up and down her bare back. The warm, familiar musk of his cat. The sound of his heart beating beneath her ear.
She snuggled against him, feeling the magic of the land seep inside her.
It should have added to her comfort.
The magic had healed her cat. It soothed the damage done to her human form by the damned collar. And with every passing second it was repairing the damage to her mind.
All fan-fucking-tastic things, if there wasn’t something buried in the depths of her brain that was wigging her out.
Something she wasn’t prepared to deal with. Not yet.
“No one knows I’m here?”
“No,” he swiftly assured her, nuzzling his face in her hair. He was such a cat. “But you realize they’re going to skin me when they find out I didn’t tell them you’re alive?”
She grimaced. It wasn’t fair to force Bayon to choose between protecting her and his loyalty to fellow Hunters, but the suffocating dread that enveloped her didn’t give a shit. And for now she wasn’t strong enough to battle through it.
“I’m not ready,” she muttered.
Thankfully Bayon didn’t press, perhaps sensing she was still dangerously fragile. “Can you tell me how you disappeared?” he instead demanded.
She paused, trying to sift through the memories that were a strange patchwork of perfect clarity and murky confusion.
Now that she was home, she could clearly remember her childhood playing in this cave with Parish. And the day she’d taken command of the Hunters. And even eyeballing Bayon when he was too occupied to notice her fascinated survey.
But the second she tried to concentrate on the events leading up to her kidnapping, her brain began to sputter and shut down. Like a computer with a virus.
“It’s still fragmented,” she admitted, her voice tight with frustration.
His hand continued to run a soothing path up and down her spine. “We thought you were dead.” He was forced to halt and clear his throat as he relived the day of her disappearance. “Parish could sense you were being attacked, then suddenly his connection to you was severed. He searched for you for months, but his cat was convinced you were dead.”
She hissed with dark fury, knowing her death would have tormented her brother. It wouldn’t be enough for Parish to mourn her passing. No, he would’ve made certain he carried the full weight of guilt for having failed her.
Damn, but she wanted to make those bastards pay for what they’d done.
“I think they had some sort of black magic that blocked my connection to my cat,” she said.
“That’s what Raphael said when he was ambushed.”
Keira tilted back her head in surprise. “Raphael was attacked?”
“Yeah, just outside the borders.” Bayon’s expression was guarded, as if he were hiding something from her. “He was shot with a dart by a human who was tattooed with a raven in front of a full moon.”
Pain ripped through her head as a shard of memory pierced through the black hole that surrounded her kidnapping.
“The Mark of Shakpi,” she breathed, squeezing shut her eyes as a wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm her.
Chapter 3
Bayon cursed as he felt Keira tremble in distress.
Goddammit. The last thing he wanted to do was cause this female more pain, but they had to discover if her disappearance had anything to do with the attack on Ashe. For all they knew the bastards were already plotting another assault aimed to kill the vulnerable human and her precious baby.
Now he feared he pressed the still-weakened Keira too far.
“Keira.” He urged her head against his chest as he reached behind him for the blanket he’d been laying on. Gently he tucked it around her naked form. “Are you—”
“I’m fine.” She sucked in a deep breath. Then another. “Just give me a minute.”
“Take your time,” he murmured softly, savoring the feel of her in his arms.
Yeah, she was only there because he’d been the one to rescue her, but his cat didn’t care. It only knew that he’d waited for an eternity to have this woman curled in his lap, her head resting over his heart.
Then, as if to remind him of just how little right he had to hold her so tight, she opened her eyes and forced herself to share what she recalled of her kidnapping.
>
“I remember I was meeting with Sean.”
His muscles clenched at the reminder that she’d chosen a mere mortal to warm her bed while slamming the door in his face.
“Your human lover?”
She lifted her head from his chest, studying his rigid expression. “He wasn’t my lover.”
Bayon frowned. “No?”
Her lips thinned at the disbelief in his voice. “No, he approached me at The Cougar’s Den one night. He said he’d heard rumors there was a new gang in the area who were spending a lot of time in the bayous.”
Bayon hesitated, reeling beneath her blunt confession.
Shit. Did she have any idea how often he’d tormented himself with the thought that her last hours had been spent with her human lover instead of with the family who would have protected her?
And now he discovered that she’d lied to him…he gave a sharp shake of his head.
“He knew what you are?” he demanded. Most humans were convinced that the Pantera were no more than a myth. A belief that the Pantera were happy to encourage.
“Yes, and that we’d be interested in the strangers,” she said. “I asked him to try and infiltrate the gang and get us information.” She shuddered at some unpleasant memory. “He was willing, for a price.”
His gaze narrowed. “What price?”
Again with the thinning of her lips. “Not the one you’re thinking.”
Bayon grimaced. His age-old jealously was making him behave like an ass. And why? She’d just revealed that she’d used Sean as an asset to discover information, not to be her playmate, hadn’t she?
Maybe it was because at the time she’d gone to such an effort to make him think she was in the midst of a passionate affair.
“You just pretended to be lovers so you had a reason to meet him?”
“Give the cat a gold star,” she muttered.
He bent down to nip her nose. “And to piss me off?”
The flush staining her cheeks revealed he wasn’t wrong. “Not everything is about you, Bayon.”
“Says who?” he teased before pulling back to meet her wary gaze. “So what happened?”
She frowned, her eyes shadowed with a fear that he desperately longed to erase.
“I remember he cornered me as I was leaving The Cougar’s Den one evening. He told me he had information I needed to hear, but he was scared to tell me where we could be overheard. He wanted to meet me at our secret location the next evening.”
“And you agreed.”
“Yes, I had no reason not to trust him. Although I did notice there was suddenly something off about his scent. It was—”
“Sour?” he completed for her.
She gave a startled nod. “Exactly.”
Which meant they were definitely connected to the same idiots who’d attacked Raphael and Ashe.
Dammit.
How long had their enemies been spying and plotting on them?
And why wait until now to strike?
Questions he had no answer for.
Bayon’s cat snarled with the need to be on the hunt.
“He must have decided the enemy had more to offer than we did,” he growled.
“Maybe.” The shadows in her eyes darkened. “I assume that I went to meet him.”
“Keira.” He cupped her cheek as she was shook by a violent tremor. “What is it?”
“I can’t remember, but it’s something important,” she breathed, the acrid tang of her fear suddenly thick in the air. “Something that’s a danger to the Pantera.”
Genuine concern squeezed his heart as he sensed her rising hysteria. “Shh. Don’t try to force it.”
She shivered, abruptly trying to push him away as her fear threatened to consume her. “Now you’re a Healer?”
Bayon wished to hell he was. Maybe he’d know what to do to help her work through the stress of her forgotten memories.
All he could do was offer a distraction.
With a speed that caught Keira off guard, he had her flat on her back, and his heavier body pressing against her.
“I’m all Hunter, honey,” he assured her, unleashing the hunger that was a constant ache deep inside until the musk of his arousal filled the cave. “And one of the best despite your lack of faith in me.”
Her eyes flashed with the golden beauty he remembered, the very center a starburst of exquisite emerald.
“I never doubted your skills as a Hunter, Bayon,” she snarled, her anger overwhelming her fear. “Not ever.”
“Just my skills as a lover?”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Bayon—”
“I need to find Talon.” With a fluid movement Bayon was on his feet and heading toward the nearby tunnel. He’d meant to distract her. Not open old wounds that for him had never healed. But for a brief, savage moment she’d been the old Keira and he’d been the old Bayon, and he’d wanted to claim her more than life itself. “I’ll bring back lunch.”
“Bayon…wait.”
***
It took some time, but Bayon eventually tracked Talon to The Cougar’s Den, a seedy bar owned by the Pantera and built on the edge of the swamps in a small town called La Pierre.
The younger Hunter, with dark gold hair threaded with copper highlights and eyes a pale gold rimmed with jade, had obviously just arrived. His boots were coated with dust and his LSU Tigers sweatshirt was marred with something that smelled like ash.
“Well?” Bayon demanded as he joined his friend at the long bar at the back, gesturing to the bartender for a cold beer. “Did you find the house?”
Talon grimaced, downing a shot of his private stash of tequila he kept in a silver flask. “They burned the place to the ground before we could get there.”
“Shit.” Bayon took a long drink of his beer, frustration burning in the pit of his gut. Their enemies might be mere humans, but they were managing to stay a step ahead of the Pantera with monotonous regularity. How the hell was that possible? “Any tracks?”
“Yep. They led us to a hidden airport.”
Airport. Bayon slammed his bottle onto the wooden counter. Not even someone with the finely tuned senses of a puma could track his prey through the air.
“Then they’re gone.”
Talon reached out to give Bayon’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. “Raphael is using his contact with law enforcement to try and trace the owners of the land as well as any FAA filings from the area. Someone has to have a pilot’s license.” The golden eyes glowed with the hunger of his cat. “Once he has a name I’ll be all over them.”
Bayon bit back the urge to remind Talon that they needed at least a few of the bastards left alive.
Talon could be bloodthirsty, but he wasn’t stupid.
“How’s Ashe?” he instead asked.
“Holding her own.” Talon lowered his voice. Not everyone in the bar was Pantera. In fact, Ashe’s mother was quite possibly seated just a few stools down. “For now.”
Bayon grimaced. “Has anyone heard from Jean-Baptiste?”
Talon snorted. “You know as much as I do. Probably more.”
“Which isn’t nearly enough.” Bayon abruptly shoved himself to his feet. He really fucking hated the sensation that they were all being shoved around like pawns on a chessboard. “We need answers.”
Talon lifted his brows at the savage edge in Bayon’s voice. “Why are you taking this so hard, mon ami?”
He curled his hands into tight fists, glancing toward the pool tables where a group of male Pantera were knocking balls around with an obvious lack of interest. Instead their gazes roamed over the handful of humans before moving toward the door of the club, as if expecting violence to erupt at any minute.
“Can’t you feel it?” Bayon muttered.
“Feel what?”
“Evil.” Bayon shivered, abruptly overwhelmed by the need to be with Keira. Crazy, considering he’d left the cave because he had to get away from her. But then, that was pretty much the story of their volatil
e relationship. “I have to go.”
Ignoring the calls from the gathered Pantera to join them for a beer, Bayon left the bar and headed directly toward a nearby restaurant that reeked of stale grease and fried onions. The stench was enough to make his cat shudder in distaste, but he grimly walked to the front counter to pick up the order he’d called in before entering town.
After he’d paid, he clutched the paper bag and headed back to the caves with a speed that made the native wildlife duck for cover. Even the gators had enough sense to remain out of the path of a Pantera on a mission.
Leaping over the fallen logs and narrow channels clogged with water lilies, Bayon tried to concentrate on how he could assist Raphael in tracking the missing kidnappers. He didn’t have personal contacts in the human world, but he was a Hunter who understood prey.
Once the men had returned to the house to discover Keira gone, they would have instantly realized their location was no longer secure. That discovery would no doubt have triggered a pre-planned escape, including torching the house. But they couldn’t have disappeared without help.
Which meant cell phone calls. Bank transfers. New identities.
Things that he was certain were already being tracked down by the Geeks, the faction of Hunters who used technology to protect the Wildlands and to trace their enemies.
They were as dangerous as any warrior.
The various methods of locating the bastards shuffled through his mind even as his attention kept sliding back to the female who’d been so miraculously returned to him.
Christ, he’d mourned her for so long. It’d been a constant hole in his heart that he’d hidden beneath his image of a horny puma on the prowl.
Was it any wonder he’d been reeling since he’d found her in that cage?
One minute the overprotective part of him wanted to wrap her in cotton wool until he was convinced that she was completely healed, and the next his cat was snarling with the primitive urge to claim her so she would never, ever be taken from him again.
Scowling at the tangled emotions he hadn’t felt in twenty-five years, Bayon entered the Wildlands from the deepest part of the swamp and headed directly for the caves. Once at the entrance he paused to make certain that no one else had been in the area before crouching low enough to enter without banging his head. Then, with a feral smile, he followed the intoxicating scent of Keira to the back cavern.