“With the pregnancy?” Ashe asked. “Good. Strong.” She grinned. “Happy.”
“No pain? Spotting?”
She shook her head. “I’m a little tired, and hungry. Always hungry.”
“Hungry’s good. Can I have your hand?” Julia reached out and instantly curled her fingers around the woman’s wrist. For one minute, she felt Ashe’s steady pulse. “Have you had your blood pressure taken? Any tests?”
“Nothing yet. I haven’t been here that long.” Ashe cocked her head to the side, her eyes playfully narrowed on Julia. “You’re sounding like a doctor, Doctor.”
“Hard habit to break.”
“Then don’t break it,” Ashe said, her eyes soft. “Stay.”
“I don’t think I can,” Julia told her. “It’s complicated, I’m not sure…”
Ashe’s eyes darkened. “It’s Parish, isn’t it? He’s coming on too strongly.”
Strongly, sensually, irresistibly.
“He can’t help it,” Ines said, leaning forward. “Hunters can be very intense, but Parish most of all. He lives in the caves, you know, rarely changes out of his puma state, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile.”
“Really?” Julia said, deciding she hadn’t heard the part about him rarely changing out of his puma state.
“He’s smiling now, Ines,” Ashe remarked with a note of concern in her voice.
“What? Where?”
“Over at the Hunters’ table.” She pointed behind Julia. “I didn’t want to make you self-conscious, but he hasn’t been able to take his eyes off you since we got here.”
Julia glanced over her shoulder, heart jumping into her throat as her gaze searched for the man with the long black hair and eyes that held such intensity, such heat. She’d wondered where he was, if he was having lunch with the rest of them, the Pantera. She spotted him about twenty yards away at a table that sat among a stand of river birch, its four legs submerged in an inch or two of water. Clustered around the table were ten or so of the most wild-looking, barely clothed, heavily muscled men and women she’d ever seen. And at the head, standing on a branch a foot above them all was Parish. He was barefoot and tanned, and wearing only a pair of faded jeans, which rested just below his hipbones. His hair was wild and the scar near his mouth winked in the sunlight. Julia’s gaze moved covetously over every inch of him. His narrow waist and ripped stomach that widened to a broad chest, powerful shoulders and lean, muscular arms. He looked ready to spring. And the muscles in Julia’s belly turned to liquid fire as she watched him watch her.
“The Hunters moved their table to the water about ten years ago,” Ines was saying. “They like to see if they can catch prey from the bank. I swear they never tire. A wild bunch, but incredible at what they do. Most of the Factions take midday meal together, but Hunters always do.”
“He’s very taken with you, Julia,” Ashe said, not sounding all that pleased. “Say the word and I’ll tell Raphael to speak with him, get him to back off.”
“No, don’t do that.” She said the words very quickly, a fact that wasn’t lost on Ashe.
“You find him attractive. I can see that, but be careful.”
“Yes,” Ines agreed. “He is not the soft, gentle human male you’re no doubt used to.”
Good. I think I’m tired of human males.
She mentally kicked herself for the thought. As the warm, sultry breeze moved over her skin and the trees listed back and forth overhead, her gaze held Parish’s. She couldn’t look away. She didn’t believe in magic, but goddammit, she wanted to believe in him, in whatever this was that burned between them.
“Don’t worry, Ashe,” Ines continued. “With his history, he won’t think of her in a serious way.”
The woman’s words cut the invisible string that had locked her gaze to Parish’s, and she whirled around to face Ines. “What do you mean?”
Ines shrugged one shoulder. “Just that he’ll never mate with a human. Not after what happened to his sister.”
Julia looked first at Ashe, who shook her head, then back at Ines, who was now loading up her plate with a massive helping of bread pudding. “What happened to his sister?”
“His twin actually, and the leader of the Hunters for nearly a decade. Keira was a complete warrior female. She was brilliant and tough and stunningly beautiful, and she was the only family Parish had. But she wasn’t happy here. She wanted to see the world. She wanted to work outside the Wildlands.”
“What happened?” Though even as she asked, she felt the answer in her gut.
Ines looked down at her plate and said in a small voice, “She was killed. By the human male she fell in love with.”
“How terrible,” Ashe remarked.
“Since then, Parish has preferred his puma state, keeping to himself.” Ines’s eyes lifted, found hers again. “I’m surprised he’s showing an interest in you. It’ll make our females jealous. Though some fear him, there are many who hope to catch his eye.”
Julia glanced over her shoulder again, found Parish standing on the bank near his table. His attention was now on his Hunters, and as he spoke to them, one shuddered almost violently, then stretched his neck abnormally far forward. Julia’s heart jumped into her throat. What was happening to him? A strange silver mist appeared, from the bayou or out of nowhere, Julia couldn’t tell. But it moved over the man, and as it did his clothing seemed to melt into his skin. It was almost tattoo-like until—
“Oh my god,” Julia uttered, her gaze pinned on the man. No. He wasn’t a man. Not anymore.
This had to be a dream. Or drugs. Maybe she wasn’t even awake. She’d hit her head.
She gasped, gripped the table, as another man shuddered. Same stretch, same mist, same shift into golden brown…
“They’re going back to work,” Ines remarked as though the sight before them was nothing out of the ordinary. “The hunt’s tomorrow and they have to secure the borders.”
“Oh, Julia,” Ashe exclaimed excitedly, “you have to stay now. I’ve never seen the hunt, but I hear it’s amazing. We could go together.”
Julia was only barely listening. Her gaze cut to Parish. Two large, golden eyed pumas were bracketing him. Pumas who had once been...human? How was this possible?
“Parish leads the hunt,” Ines said with a grin in her voice. “He’s incredible to watch. His cat is one of the fastest and fiercest predators I’ve ever seen.”
The very moment Ines stopped talking, Parish looked over at Julia. Her heart thudded in her chest, her ears, her blood. Her lips parted as if she was going to speak, but instead her breath came out in a rush. Before her eyes, Parish shuddered, and in a wave of silver mist, he shifted into a large, powerfully built, slate gray cat. Julia might’ve said something or whimpered, she wasn’t sure. Her heart was pounding so hard she was afraid it would rupture inside her chest. Her entire focus was trained on the incredible magic she’d just witnessed. The magic she could no longer deny. She’d thought the first puma she’d seen shift was beautiful, but he was nothing—absolutely nothing—to Parish. His broad head and luscious coat were formidable, but it was his eyes, gold flecked with blue and gray, rimmed with the darkest, deepest black, that took her breath away.
“Seeing is believing,” Ashe said behind her.
Julia stared at the male, the cat.
Parish.
She didn’t turn back to face the women as she uttered breathlessly, “It’s real. He’s real.”
He’s magic.
The puma opened his mouth and attempted to draw her scent deeper into his lungs. Now that she had proof of what he was, he wanted to see if, as she stared at him, her chemical reaction to him changed. Was she disgusted by his feline form or curious?