by Lora Leigh
catnip. He could resist catnip.
His cat snarled inside him, then rolled luxuriously, sending Ethan the sensation of warmth and silken fur curled around a blaze of feral hunger. The image of Marie’s creamy skin and dark, drowning blue eyes flashed into his mind, and he nearly stumbled.
Dammit. He was toast.
FOUR
Marie sat in a chair at the kitchen table, hands folded in her lap, still trying to retrieve her usual calm, when Kat entered the cabin a few minutes later. Kat hesitated briefly in the doorway before seeming to come to some internal resolution. She stalked across the cabin’s warm and inviting living space, lush with wooden furniture and yellow and red overstuffed cushions. The sunlight from the window gleamed on Kat’s golden hair, as it had done with Ethan.
Ethan.
Stop thinking of him.
Kat stopped a few paces in front of Marie and took a deep breath. “Okay, here’s the thing,” she blurted out. “If you’re here to tell me I’m not good enough for him, well, I kind of know that. I mean, you guys are Atlantean nobility and all. Denal filled me in on how Bastien is really Lord Bastien and you’re Lady Marie. But I love him, and I’m going to fight for him.”
Marie raised one eyebrow and studied Kat for nearly a full minute before responding. Finally she smiled and stood so she faced Kat, their eyes on a level. “And of course that is all I need to know about you. You love him, and you’re willing to fight for him. From what I have heard, you were willing to die for him.”
Kat’s face reddened, but she didn’t lower her gaze. “He nearly died for me. Do you think I could do less?”
Marie hugged the woman who was truly worthy of her brother. “I thank the Goddess for you, Katherine Fiero, and that my brother has found you. Be welcome to our family.”
Something tense seemed to relax in Kat’s body, and she returned Marie’s hug. “Well…wow. Thanks. And welcome to my family, too. Which mostly consists of my pride, but I’m sure Ethan already welcomed you to that, as well.”
A rush of heat swept through Marie, and she looked down quickly before Kat could see the evidence of it on her face.
“What? What did he say to you?” Kat asked, suspicion heavy in her tone. “I know he can be kind of rough-edged, but he is a good man. I’m sorry if he gave you a bad impression—”
“It was nothing. I am, after all, accustomed to warriors and their arrogance.” Marie lifted her bag. “Perhaps I could settle in, and then we can have a talk?”
“I guess he’s not the only one with rough edges,” Kat said, grinning. “I’m sorry. Let me show you the guest room, and I’ll make some coffee. Then we can have a nice long chat.”
“I look forward to both the coffee and the talk,” Marie said, returning her new sister’s smile. As she followed Marie down the narrow hallway to the guest room, she reminded herself that she had more than three hundred years of practice in self-control. No arrogant alpha shape-shifter would be a match for her. Perhaps she would take him for a lover. He might be amusing for a few days.
A shiver raced down her spine at the thought of bedding all that lean, hard muscle. Staring into those burning golden eyes while he drove his body into hers.
No, she was candid above all things, even to herself. Especially to herself. There was definitely nothing amusing about him.
Marie filled her third cup of the rich Irish cream coffee that Kat had brewed, then replaced the glass carafe in its position, closed her eyes, and held the mug near her face to inhale the luscious aroma. “This is truly magnificent. I must bring some of it home with me when I return to Atlantis.”
Kat laughed and shook her head. “Better wait first and see what kind of reaction you have to that much caffeine. Three cups in an hour and a half may have you crawling out of your skin.”
They’d fallen into an easy friendship, as was only to be expected from two women who both loved her brother. Kat was passionate about her work, and her stories of life as a park ranger were fascinating and so completely different from Marie’s own secluded life in the temple that they raised a feeling akin to envy.
“You are so fortunate to have been brought up to such independence,” she said, placing her mug on the table. “The Goddess placed her mark on me when I was yet a child, and my family knew I was destined for the temple. My life was a regimented one of study and apprenticeship.”
Kat bit her lip. “I’m so sorry. Was it awful?”
“Oh, no, no. I don’t mean to give that impression. Free will reigns in Atlantis; though the Goddess marked me, I could have declined life as her maiden. But from the moment I stepped foot in the temple, her power infused me. My Gift is to heal and assist those women who are with child and their unborn children, and I am honored to fulfill that role.”
“Bastien said you were the boss?”
Marie laughed. “Boss? Not exactly. I am First Maiden, and my role is to lead and train the acolytes. Boss is such a funny human word, but I suppose some aspects of it apply.”
“Hey, don’t knock it,” Kat advised. “On Bosses’ Day, I send my supervisor a box of Godiva chocolates.”
“Chocolate? I could get used to the word boss for chocolate…”
A loud ringing interrupted their shared laughter, and Kat rose to pull a small silver telephone from her jacket pocket and snap it open. “Fiero. Yes. No, I have—but, that’s…Yes. Yes, of course.” She sighed. “Fine, I’ll be there in two hours.”
She closed her phone and muttered something under her breath, then turned to Marie. “I’m so sorry, but that was my boss, coincidentally. We’ve got a regional meeting tomorrow morning, and the person in charge of putting on an important presentation can’t make it. His wife just went into labor with their first child.”
Marie smiled. “Certainly that is more important than any meeting.”
“I agree, but it puts me in the hot seat. My boss wants us to meet tonight and go over his presentation so I can give it in his place tomorrow. I hate to leave you alone like this, but—”
“Do not give it another thought. I would love the opportunity to explore your beautiful lands, and I am very comfortable with my own company,” Marie said, attempting to reassure Kat even as she tried not to think about how vastly different her visit was turning out to be from what she’d imagined. Perhaps her misgivings back in Atlantis had been well-founded, and she should contact Alaric to return. She could visit another time, she tried to console the empty space inside herself. Just because her first adventure was not unfolding as planned—
Kat cut into Marie’s dejected thoughts. “I feel awful. We had so many plans—Bastien and I were going to take you to dinner at Thelma’s and introduce you around, and…Wait! I know. Ethan can take you. He told me last week he wanted the chance to get to know you while you were here.”
The floor under Marie’s feet seemed to shift at the sound of his name. Definitely not a good idea. “No,” she protested. “I’m sure he has many important duties. I can remain here or go for a walk by myself or even return to Atlantis and visit you when Lord Justice is safely returned home. It’s—”
Kat wasn’t listening, though, and was already speaking into her phone. “Ethan? Look, I’ve got to run out to an unexpected meeting, and I’ll be gone all evening. I was wondering if you—”
She flashed a brilliant smile at Marie. “You will? That’s great. I’ll…An hour? Sure. I’ll tell her. We were going to eat at Thelma’s and…Sure…I’ll tell her. Thanks!”
Kat snapped her phone closed. “He offered to show you around Big Cypress and take you to dinner before I even asked. You must have made some impression on him.”
“I don’t…Kat, I’m not sure…Ethan and I—”
Kat’s eyes narrowed. “What did he say? Was he rude to you? I’ll kick his ass for him, alpha or not, if he offended you. Ethan has this ‘all arrogant, all the time’ thing going on, because everybody bows down before him, and he needs to get over it. It’s nothing personal, though, if that matters
.”
Marie laughed a little wildly. Nothing personal? He wanted to lick her skin! It could not be more personal than that, could it?
She needed to pull herself together. She was First Maiden to the Goddess of the Nereids, and she would not be thrown off balance by one…one…surly kitten.
“On second thought, Kat, exploring and dinner with Ethan would be lovely. I’ll just go change my clothes while you get ready for your meeting.” Marie rinsed her coffee mug in the sink, her thoughts already on what she would wear. So he liked her hair, did he? Had fantasies of it spread across his pillows? A slow, wicked smile spread across her face. Perhaps she’d let him see exactly what he’d been fantasizing about. As she walked down the hall to her room, her fingers were already busy undoing the dozens of intricate braids.
FIVE
Ethan knocked on Kat’s door a good thirty minutes earlier than he’d planned to be there. So much for casual nonchalance. He’d tried to do some work, but memories of his too-brief contact with Marie had insinuated themselves into his mind. Flashes of her skin, her hair, her ocean-colored eyes.
That smile that had knocked him on his ass, figuratively speaking. He planned to have the upper hand this evening, though. Be the perfect gentleman. Calm, cool, and completely unflappable.
The door opened, and Marie stood there, smiling that perfect, kissable smile again. But he was prepared. He was unflappable. He glanced down, and the waves of her blue black hair and the dress she was almost wearing finally registered, and he sucked in a sharp breath.
“Holy shit!” Okay. He was flappable. He was flapped. He was what-the-hell-ever, but no way was she going out in public like that.
“Is that a common greeting among your people?” Marie asked, raising her chin and smiling. But underneath the smile was a hint of something else. Hurt, maybe. Nervousness.
“Damn. I mean, no, that is not a common greeting. I’m sorry, you just knocked me a little off balance,” he admitted. Then he stepped forward, forcing her to let him enter the cabin. He closed the door behind him and took another step toward her.
The polite thing would have been to maintain a courteous distance.
When she put that dress on, she should have known he’d have no chance at polite.
He deliberately dropped his gaze from her face and scanned her luscious curves in the silky dark blue dress. The neckline dropped low in some kind of draped fold, and the rest of it wrapped her waist and hugged her breasts and hips like it had been sewn around her body. The swing of the skirt caressed her legs just above her knees, and he wanted nothing more than to drop to his own knees before her, push the fall of fabric slowly up those silken thighs, and discover what exactly she was wearing underneath.
He lifted his head and stared down into her eyes. “Did you wear that for me?” he said, almost not recognizing the raspy words as his own voice.
The brave smile trembled on her lips, and she began to answer, then abruptly turned away from him and walked toward the kitchen. But the view from behind was just as sexy, and he had to shift his legs as he hardened painfully inside his pants. Waves of dark silken hair tumbled down over her shoulders and back, brushing against her rounded hips. The vision he’d had earlier of her hair spread over his bed came back to him in full force, and he had to remind himself to breathe.
She stopped on the other side of the table, as if using the furniture as a barricade between them. “It was simply a dress I brought to wear for dining,” she said. “Is it inappropriate?” She’d uttered the words in a tone of bored indifference, but the rapid pulse of her heart told him it was an act.
“You can’t lie to a shape-shifter, darlin’,” he said, putting a little southern drawl in the words. “I can hear your heartbeat. If you want to play games with me, I’m all for it. But be advised that I’m alpha for more reasons than physical strength. Are you sure you’re up to playing games with me?”
He’d moved closer to her as he talked, stalking her. His cat had the scent of prey in its nostrils. No. Not prey. Something more primal. More visceral.
Mate.
Ethan stopped midstride as the realization came to him. His cat wanted to lay mate claim to this woman. This Atlantean who was not even a shape-shifter.
No.
Hell no.
“No, I am not sure that I am up for your idea of games,” Marie said. “If you prefer, we can cancel our dinner plans, although I’m sure it would have been…pleasant…to spend time with you. But if the idea distresses you…” She shrugged. “Far be it from me to cause distress to the alpha of your pride, as you so continually remind me you are.”
He weighed and discarded responses and finally settled on the simplest. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”
It was her turn to be caught off guard. He watched, entranced, as rich, rosy color swept up her neck to her cheeks and burned there. She tilted her head and examined the wood grain of the table, which was evidently fascinating. “I…No, you…Thank you. That is very kind of you.”
“No. It’s not,” he said flatly. “It’s not kind at all. It’s the truth, and I’m just wondering how many fights I’m going to get in if I take you out in public wearing that dress. You look like a man’s hottest fantasy come to life, and I know more than one of my pride who would lose their senses over you.”
She fisted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Is that what women are to you here on the surface? Possessions over which to be fought by brainless men?”
He laughed. “Nice grammar, ocean girl. ‘Over which to be fought,’ huh? Never thought proper syntax would make me hot.”
Marie blinked, opened her mouth, and then closed it. Finally she started laughing. “You are incorrigible,” she said, her eyes sparkling with the shimmering depths of the sea at midnight under a rising moon.
He took a step closer and held out his hand. “I can live with incorrigible. How about I apologize for my unforgivable rudeness and we start over? I’m Ethan. Welcome to my territory. Would you like to have dinner with me? Somewhere away from any brainless men? Well, any brainless men besides me, of course.”
She hesitated, then placed her slender hand in his. “I am Marie, and I would be honored to have dinner with you.”
The touch of her hand sent something shining and razor-edged skimming through his nerve endings. His cat snarled and paced inside him, demanding to be let out to play.
To claim. Mate-claim.
But Ethan forced his animal half down and back, determined that the man would enjoy this evening. There was no possibility of laying mate claim to a nonpanther, let alone a woman who was not even a shape-shifter. This would simply be a pleasant meal among friends.
As he followed Marie out the door of the cabin, unable to look away from her gently swaying backside, he clenched his hands into fists and focused on the essentials.
Control.
Pleasant dinner.
No pouncing on the Atlantean.
Marie glanced back over her shoulder and smiled at him, and he stumbled, his inherent feline grace deserting him. Screw that. There was definitely going to be pouncing.
Marie tried to slow her breathing as she pulled her wrap around her shoulders against the chill of the late afternoon.
In. Out.
Calm. Focus.
She concentrated on the breathing exercises she’d so often taught to women who were with child. In. Out. Measured, even tempo. No flutters or hitches or gasps, no matter that the man following her was burning holes in her back with those shocking golden eyes of his.
She’d worn the dress in an attempt to get a reaction from Ethan, and it had worked so well she’d been caught completely off guard. She’d lived her life surrounded by warriors, so why was this one—this man who wasn’t even Atlantean; wasn’t even fully human—so different?
Maybe because Poseidon’s warriors treated her as a cherished sister, due to their friendship with Bastien. They admired and respected her, certainly, but none had ever desire
d her. At least not that she’d ever known. Her few love affairs had been with men from the scholarly life. Philosophers and historians. Gentle, learned men.
None of them had ever made her blood race the way this panther did. A thrill of pure electricity had sizzled through her blood at his touch when she’d finally dared place her hand in his. She’d pulled away from him as quickly as courtesy would allow, but not before she’d seen the shocked expression on Ethan’s face. This attraction traveled both directions on the path between them, and she was unsure if she could resist it for long.
She glanced at him again and wondered how simple black trousers and a white shirt could be so elegant, when she had seen the high prince dressed in full royal attire on ceremonial occasions. Ethan walked with the pure grace and deadly determination of the ultimate predator. Every line of his body flowed with sinuous movement, and if she narrowed her eyes, she could almost visualize the cat that he could become.
They stopped at his car, some sleek black vehicle that looked fast and expensive, based on what little she knew of cars, and she stared at him as he walked up next to her to open her door. Her breath caught in her throat as he approached, and she blurted out the first thing that popped into her head. “Will you show me?”
He raised an eyebrow and folded his arms across his thickly muscled chest. “Show you what?”
“I…Is it rude? Perhaps…never mind,” she said, then blushed as she realized that she was actually babbling for the first time in her life.
“We don’t stand on ceremony around here, Marie. Just tell me.”
He’d moved closer, so that he stood so near that his breath feathered across her hair, and the spicy warm male scent of him filled her senses, nearly making her forget what she’d been about to ask. She shook her head a little, to counteract the hypnotic effect he had on her, then drew up her courage and asked. “Your panther. I was wondering…Is it rude to ask you to show me the shape change? Or perhaps you would shift your shape in private and then show me the other of your dual natures?”
She was breathless by the time she finished, both from her own temerity and from his nearness. The heat of his body was enchanting her, calling to her, beckoning her to wrap herself in his arms and his warmth. She suddenly felt as if she’d lived her life in the cold and only he could rescue her from it.
Madness. She dug her nails into her palms to shake off the fanciful imaginings and return to normalcy, but he moved even closer until she was backed up against his car. He placed a hand on the metal on either side of her, bracketing her body between the heat of his arms and chest and the icy chill of the car’s metal.
“You want to see my cat, ocean girl? That’s a very personal request,” he murmured, leaning forward and breathing the words into her ear. She shuddered helplessly as heat flamed through her, then put her hands up to his chest to push him away. She was tall, and she was strong, but pushing against his chest was like pushing against the rock wall that bordered the palace garden.
He lifted a hand and tilted her face up to his with one finger beneath her chin. She looked into his eyes, unable to utter a word, and he searched her face for something, then stared fixedly at her mouth. Moments passed, and finally he stepped back from her, muttering an oath under his breath. “Maybe later,” he said roughly. “You make me forget myself, Marie. I’m not sure how to handle that.”
He yanked the car door open for her, then leaned in to show her how to fasten the seat belt, but his touch was brisk and impersonal. When he carefully closed the door and walked around the car to the driver’s side, Marie stared at him through the window and finally released the breath that had been trapped in her lungs.
“As to forgetting yourself, Ethan, you are not alone,” she whispered, wondering what she’d gotten herself into.
Wondering why she didn’t want to get out.
SIX
As they drove through the breathtaking lands of the Big Cypress Swamp, Marie spent several minutes acclimating to the novel experience of riding in a car. When she was sure her stomach would not rebel against the motion and the bumpy ride, she asked Ethan to tell her about this place that he and his kind called home.
“It’s a national preserve, protecting over 720,000 acres of swamp. Basically, the swamplands are crucial to the health of the Everglades, because they support the marine estuaries along Florida’s southwest coast.”
“It’s beautiful, and so diverse,” she observed. “I am so accustomed to the plant life in Atlantis that this seems very exotic to me.”
He pointed to a stand of trees along the side of the narrow road. “Those are dwarf cypress trees. We have a mixture of tropical and temperate plant life, but it’s not just the green and leafy stuff that’s so exotic around here. We’ve also got gator communities, bears, and, of course, panthers.”
She smiled. “Of course. Tell me about the panthers. I have access to your encyclopedias and other reference texts, but I do have some questions. Are panthers the same as cougars?”
“The Florida panther is a subspecies of cougar that has adapted to the temperature here. We’ve fought our way back from extinction for the panthers, but there are still fewer than a hundred remaining.”
She turned her head to look at him. “But surely there are others elsewhere?”
A muscle tightened in his jaw. “A few in zoos. But the Florida panther is still one of the rarest and most endangered animals in the world. Unfortunately, developers don’t care about that. Fortunately, on the other hand, we have Big Cypress. An adult male needs two hundred seventy-five miles of territory, but that can overlap with the females.”
Marie looked out the window, wondering why the subject of male territory was causing heat to rush into her cheeks again. “Females, plural, you said? And is that true of the male shape-shifter as well?”
“For some, it can be,” he said flatly. “I’m not one of them.”
Marie winced, remembering what Bastien had told her of Ethan’s mate who’d been killed by the vampire. “I am sorry, Ethan. I was not thinking. My condolences on the loss of your mate.”
There was a long silence, then finally he spoke. “Yeah. Well. Fallon deserved better than what I had to offer her and certainly better than how she died.”
Marie caught a glimpse of something large and golden red moving through the trees as they passed. “What is that? Is that one of your panthers?”
Ethan whipped his head to the side and then yanked the steering wheel to pull the car to a sudden stop on the side of the road, knocking Marie forward against her seat belt.
“I’m sorry. Are you okay?” He leaned over and grasped h
