Bayon stepped forward, one of the few not afraid to get into this male’s grill. “Look, I don’t know what bug crawled up your ass—”
“There are other healers who are better suited to treat a human,” Jean-Baptiste snapped.
Bayon refused to back down. “Raphael doesn’t want your healing abilities.”
His companion stilled. “Then what?”
“They sense something is trying to possess Ashe. Or the baby,” he revealed. “They need you to travel to New Orleans to find a gris-gris to hold off the evil until we can determine the source of the attack.”
“Shit.” With a grimace, the Healer shoved a hand through his hair, knowing this wasn’t a duty he could decline. Their very future might depend on saving the babe. “Tell him I’ll—”
“You tell him. I’m a Hunter, not a damned messenger,” Bayon growled, already heading toward the edge of the porch and leaping over the thicket of yellow cow lily.
By the time he touched the ground he’d already shifted into his cat form, the surge of magic jolting through him with heart-pounding pleasure.
His roar echoed through the thick, humid air. Mère de dieu. There was nothing as intoxicating as releasing his animal to hunt. His lips stretched over his massive teeth, as his cat reminded him there was one thing more intoxicating.
Hot, balls-deep sex that made a woman scream with pleasure.
No. Not just a woman.
The right woman.
Something denied to him for far too long.
With an impatient shake of his head, he dismissed the painful thought. Now wasn’t the time.
Running lightly over the marshy ground, he used his acute senses to search for any trace of the intruders, finding nothing until he reached the narrow river where Ashe had been attacked. He growled low in his throat as he caught the sour scent of the intruders and followed the stench to the edge of their territory.
The intruders had either been the luckiest bastards in the world to have entered the Wildlands and stumbled across the very person they wanted to kill—or they had a way to track her.
Magic? Or a more mundane human technology?
He made a mental note to have Ashe searched for a tracking device small enough to have been hidden beneath her skin. Raphael said she’d been to a doctor just before the strangers tried to attack her the first time.
The medic could easily have tagged her without her knowing.
Sensing Parish’s approach, Bayon reluctantly returned to his human form, straightening to watch the glossy slate gray cat prowl forward. With a shimmer of magic, Parish shifted to human form revealing a man over six feet tall with broad shoulders and long, inky black hair. His face was angular, speaking of a predatory nature emphasized by the two healed scars near his right ear and mouth.
“They crossed here,” Parish snarled, looking more feral than usual. Together they studied the opening between the cypress trees where the attackers had entered the Wildlands. “Goddammit. I should have done a more thorough search. We have sensed a growing danger for years.”
Bayon shook his head. The leader of the Hunters was as hard on himself as he was on his warriors.
Harder.
Parish had never quite forgiven himself for his sister’s death.
Maybe now that he’d finally mated he could find some peace.
“Yes, sensed, but we had no tangible proof until recently,” Bayon pointed out. “There’s nothing we could have done, Parish.”
“I cannot change the past, but I can the future.” Parish jerked his head toward two large pumas who slid silently through the tangled foliage. “The guards will be doubled until further notice.”
Bayon squatted down, absorbing the sour scent of the intruders. It made the hair stand up on his nape.
“How did they get through the magic?” Bayon demanded.
“That is what you will discover.”
It was, indeed. Bayon had no intention of returning until he had some answers. “I’ll need my weapons.”
Parish nodded. “Do you want to take backup with you? I can send Talon.”
Bayon narrowed his eyes. “Are you trying to piss me off?”
“We cannot judge the level of danger,” Parish reminded him, his features carved from granite. “If this is truly the work of the ancient evil we fear, we cannot afford for anyone to take chances.”
Bayon shuddered.
All Pantera grew up with the legend of the twin sisters who created the Wildlands. Opela was the ultimate mother of the Pantera, while her sister, Shakpi, had grown jealous of Opela’s love for her children and tried to destroy the Pantera by using human disciples who’d been twisted by her evil. Eventually, Opela had no choice but to imprison her sister.
Was it possible that Shakpi was actually still alive? That she was trying to break out of her mystical prison? Perhaps even touching the world with her evil?
His thoughts shied from the possibility. He had to focus on finding the bastards responsible for hurting Ashe and her baby.
He’d leave the potential threat of a malevolent goddess seeking revenge in the hands of the elders.
“I won’t take any chances,” he muttered, raising his hands as Parish eyeballed him with a stern expression. “I swear.”
“Fine. Keep in contact.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” Bayon turned to head back to the rooms he shared with his fellow Hunters, but before he could take off, Parish was standing in front of him.
“Bayon.”
“What?”
“I know you enjoy testing the limits of my patience by doing your own thing,” the Pantera warned. “If I do not hear from you I will come hunting your ass.”
“I’ll call.” Bayon rolled his eyes. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Keira didn’t know how long she’d been locked in the cage hidden in the suffocating attic.
In the beginning of her captivity, she’d used a rock to scratch the passing days on the floor. She’d needed some way to maintain her sanity.
But the days became weeks, and then months, and then endless years, making it impossible to keep track of the time that was slipping away from her.
She knew this wasn’t her first prison. She had a vague memory of waking up surrounded by gray cement blocks that had held her beneath the ground. After that had been a cramped space that she’d assumed was a storage shed, followed by a root cellar that had smelled of damp earth and rotting potatoes.
There were others, but her memories were so muddled she couldn’t sort through them.
They were like her. Broken. Fractured. Some of them shattered beyond repair.
Most days she knew her name. Keira. Keira Montreuil. She repeated it over and over, desperate to cling to her previous life.
And she knew she was a Pantera, despite the fact that she couldn’t reach her cat no matter how desperately she tried.
But beyond that, her world was a blur punctuated only by occasional visits by her captors to bring her food.
And speaking of the devil…
She smelled him before he ever climbed the steps to the attic.
The rank, sour stench that assaulted her senses and made her gag in disgust.
With an effort she forced herself to her feet. She felt constantly lethargic, no matter how much she ate or rested, convincing her that she was somehow being weakened. Her guess would be the metal collar she wore around her neck. Her captors used it to send an electrical jolt through her when they wanted to punish her. But she suspected there was something in the composition of the collar that kept her debilitated.
How else could they keep her trapped?
A cage, no matter how well-built, would never hold her prisoner. Not if she was at her full strength.
And it wasn’t as if the attic could contain her.