by Alyssa Day
William burst into the room. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Ethan, but we’ve got trouble. Travis called for reinforcements. He sent a message that the representatives of all the prides in the western region are on hand to make sure we follow the ancient rules of alpha challenge. Nobody gets in or out of pride lands until only one of you is left alive.”
NINE
Ethan held the phone a good six inches away from his ear. “Kat. Kat. Kat!”
On the other end of the line, Kat finally quit yelling and took a breath. “Yeah. Sorry. But this ignorant fool says they aren’t going to let me back onto Big Cypress for two days! He actually had the nerve to knock me aside when I tried to get my Jeep past him. What exactly is going on?”
Deadly rage raced through Ethan at the thought of one of them harming Kat. “Are you hurt?”
“What? No. No, it was nothing. He just kept telling me to ‘phone home,’ for whatever that’s worth. What is going on, Ethan?”
He filled her in on the attack on Marie, the alpha challenge, and the rules about any of them leaving or entering pride lands. Kat started swearing. In spite of everything, he had to laugh. “Kat, those are words I didn’t even know you knew.”
There was a silence on the phone. “Do you really want to discuss my language right now?”
The brief flicker of amusement died, and the alpha in him took command. “No, I don’t. But here’s what I want you to do. Can those thugs hear my side of this conversation?”
“No,” she replied. “In fact, I’ve been walking back to my Jeep while we talk. What’s up?”
“I want you to find somebody impartial. Maybe Jack. We need a witness who doesn’t belong to any of the factions that have wanted to take over pride lands in the past.”
“Jack the weretiger? The one Bastien knows?” Her voice cracked on her mate’s name. “Oh, Gods. Bastien. When he finds out I allowed his sister to come to harm…”
Ethan snarled. “I’m the one to blame, and I’ll take any punishment he wants to dish out. I deserve it. But believe me when I say that no one else will lay so much as the tip of a claw on her skin and live.”
There was another silence on the line. “Ethan? I’ve known you since I was a child, and I’ve never heard that in your voice. What exactly is going on between you and Marie?”
He turned his gaze toward the chair where Marie sat wrapped in the blanket from his bed, and she looked up at him at that instant, as if his thoughts had called to her. She was so beautiful it almost hurt him to look at her—art made flesh and infused with grace.
He’d failed her.
He could never deserve her.
“Ethan?” Kat’s voice in his ear yanked him back to more pressing matters.
“Find Jack,” he repeated. “I want a neutral observer. They’ll be forced to let him in. You’ve got less than twenty-four hours, Kat. Do your best.”
“I’ll find him,” she promised. “If you hear from Bastien—”
“Marie hasn’t been able to establish contact with him or with their priest. When she does, I’ll get a message to him to contact you.”
He could almost hear through the phone lines her battle to focus on what needed to be done. “Fine. Call me if you can. I’ll get Jack here if he’s anywhere on the eastern seaboard, Ethan.”
“I know I can count on you. You’ve always been one of the strongest of the pride, even before you discovered your ability to shift, Kat Fiero.”
“Take care of her for me, Ethan. She’s my sister now.”
He looked over at Marie again. “I will protect her with everything I am, Kat.”
As Ethan clicked his phone closed, he repeated his promise. Turned it into a vow. “With everything I am.”
Several hours later, Marie struggled to wake from a dark and terrifying dream in which bears battled panthers, and the strange lizardlike creatures the landwalkers called alligators snapped at the flesh of the vanquished. She abruptly sat up on the couch where she lay, realizing that it would not take a dream-speaker to translate that dream for her. She was caught in a battle between opposing predators, and her gentle gifts of healing wouldn’t be of any assistance at all to him.
To Ethan.
She watched as he stood at the table in his starkly furnished strategy room. Other than the couch where she’d finally dozed off, only a few scattered chairs, a desk, and a large table covered with charts and papers decorated the spacious room. He’d called it his office, but she’d been in the palace war room and recognized this place as its twin in purpose. Ethan’s men surrounded him, discussing strategy and plans for the upcoming challenge. As if he felt the weight of her gaze upon him, he turned those golden eyes toward her, and his heated stare pinned her in place, stealing the very breath from her lungs.
He’d spoken truly when he named attraction a tame word for what lay between them. If attraction were a single hearth flame, this was a conflagration. An inferno of raging desire. It made no sense at all, and yet it made all the sense in the world.
Some attractions defied logic. Isn’t that what the women who came to the temple had told her time and again? Even her brother, when he’d described his newfound love for Kat, defiance mingled with hope that she might understand and embrace her new sister.
Bastien, who’d always underestimated himself, finally came fully into his own when he found a warrior woman to stand at his side. But she, Marie, was no warrior. The best she could manage was a few simple tricks with the calling of water.
Her gift was to heal and to aid in childbirth. So unless Travis decided to go into labor during the challenge, she thought bitterly, there would not be much she could offer.
A noise alerted her to movement, and she looked up to see the pride members filing out of the room, nodding as Ethan issued last-minute instructions.
“William, take a team and relieve the first watch,” Ethan said.
William nodded. “Get some rest. You’ll need it. The intel says Travis is one of the most powerful alphas in the central part of the country.”
Ethan bared his teeth in a terrifying mockery of a smile. “Then maybe he’ll offer some sport before he dies.”
Marie gasped at the overt ferocity in his voice, and he stood, head bowed, for a long moment before he turned to face her. As he crossed the large room toward her, she shivered at the intent plain on his face. He wanted her and was prepared to lay siege to her defenses.
She was unsure if she had any defenses left to raise against him.
He sat next to her and lifted a hand to twine in her hair. “Did you get a little rest?”
“I think I must have slept for a while. It has been a very long day, and I did not sleep well last night, with the excitement of the journey ahead of me.”
His lips tightened. “Not exactly what you thought it would be, is it? I’m really sorry, ocean girl. Once we get this little problem out of the way, I’ll wine and dine you in the very best restaurants.”
She considered the leap for a moment before deciding to brave it. Life was fraught with potential danger. This courageous man would fight for his pride members, his lands, and even his life in fewer than twenty hours.
In the end, the leap was really only a very small step. She leaned her face into his hand and pressed a kiss to his palm. “I don’t need the best restaurants, Ethan. Right now, I would be honored simply to be alone with you.”
A crystalline moment stretched between them, lasting so long that she was afraid her offer had been misguided. Then something in him seemed to snap, and he lifted her onto his lap, pulling her to him so tightly that she could barely take a breath.
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying, Marie?” he said, rasping out the words. “That you will be mine, if only for this night?”
The moment was too huge to comprehend; too crucial to some inherent need in her soul to acknowledge. Instead, she found refuge in levity. “Well, perhaps. But only if you will respect me while I’m naked.”
He shouted out hi
s laughter and jumped up with her still in his arms, as though she weighed nothing at all. Then he bent to kiss her and poured so much longing and hunger and need into the kiss that she was dizzy long before he released her to stand on her feet.
“I want you right now, ocean girl. But I won’t take you here in my office. I want you in my bed.”
She nodded, and he caught her hand in his own and pulled her, half running, down the hallway to his rooms. When they arrived, he kicked the door shut behind him and then locked it. She caught her breath, transfixed at the predatory cast to his face as he stalked her across the room.
“Wait,” she said, breathless with anticipation, with longing, with a trace of fear. “I want…” She ran to her bag and dug in the bottom for the colorful scarves of Atlantean silk she’d brought with her, thinking perhaps she would wear them to some event with Bastien and Kat.
She tossed the scarves, rich with gold, silver, turquoise, and so many other jewel colors, onto his bed and spread them on his stark white pillows and sheets.
“Let me bring some color to your life, Ethan of Florida, as you have brought heat and desire to mine.” Her words were brave, but she stood trembling. Afraid the flames that ignited in her body whenever he touched her would consume her.
Afraid that one night would never be enough.
Knowing that one night was very likely all they could ever have.
But desire triumphed over fear, and she held up her arms to him. “Be mine for this night, Ethan. Let Atlantis meet the dual-natured, and both be the better for it.”
He did not say a word but started toward her. Slowly, stalking her. Letting her see the full weight of his hunger on his face. He pulled his clothes off as he came, so that by the time he reached her he was entirely nude, his enormous erection jutting up between them. Her eyes widened at the sight of his powerful body sculpted into lean muscle.
“It’s time, ocean girl,” he whispered. “I want to kiss every inch of your skin right this minute. In fact, I may very well die if I don’t get my hands and my mouth on you in the next sixty seconds.”
She leaned forward and traced one finger down the planes of his chest and abdomen, and he shuddered. She bit her lip and took the leap over the precipice.
“Then perhaps you should remove my dress.”
Ethan stared at Marie, unable to believe his ears. Unable to believe that the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen was offering herself to him with the same courage she’d shown when she’d questioned his authority. When she’d defied him. When she’d laughed at his attempt to order her around.
Somehow, this gentle healer had displayed greater strength than the meanest and baddest of his pride-brothers. Maybe it was her gentle touch that had stolen its way into his heart.
“Your dress. Right. I might be able to manage that.” He reached out for her, hoping she didn’t notice that his hands were shaking. Touched the silken folds of her dress and, underneath, the silken curves of her skin.
“I love this dress,” he said. “But it has to go.”
He bent to grasp the hem of the dress on both sides of her endless legs and then stood, pulling the fabric with him. She moved to make some adjustment, and the top of the dress fell open, helping his clumsy fingers complete the job. In seconds, the dress was up and over her head, and she stood in only a few tiny scraps of dark blue lace.
The sight of her sent all the blood in his body rushing to his cock, which jerked and strained toward her. His inner cat agreed with the sentiment, growling its hunger and need.
“Holy crap,” he said, grinning like a damn fool. “If that’s the Atlantean version of ladies’ underwear, I bow down to your superior race.”
She tilted her head and flashed a smile filled with the power of ages-old feminine seduction and newly discovered heat. “Do you like it?”
“It makes me want to purr.”
Marie laughed. “I’d like to make you purr, warrior. But first, I’d like to feel you touch me.”
He didn’t need to be asked again. Ethan swept her up and onto the bed, rolling with her as they fell so that she landed on top of him, trapped by his arms. “I plan to touch every part of you,” he promised.
“Less talking, more touching,” she said, and then she nipped at his bottom lip. The sharp touch of her teeth ignited the flames that had been stirring in his blood, and he pulled her head down to his and took her mouth.
The predatory heat in his eyes exhilarated Marie. No gentle coupling, this—she wanted flame and fury and the sea-struck lightning of tempest-force winds. He’d torn her undergarments from her body as if he had to see her totally nude or he’d die from the wanting. Then she’d taken the aggressor’s part, she who had never taken the initiative in bed sport, and actually bitten him. She felt as though the panther side of his nature had communicated itself to her soul, and she, too, wanted to snarl and bite and dig her nails into his back, leaving no doubt in his mind that she was laying claim to him as well.
For one terrifying and thrilling moment she rose over him to conquer him, but then the predator in Ethan took command, and he growled low in his throat, then roared out a feral claim. He was alpha and master of his domain; he was fiercely primitive.
He was everything she’d never wanted and never known, and she was drowning in the sensation of him.
Ethan set his mouth on her and licked and kissed and bit her skin from her lips to her chin and then down to her neck. He bit the juncture where her neck met her shoulder, and she cried out at the electric current that sizzled down through her body. Her nipples tightened and hardened nearly to the point of pain, and then suddenly he moved down again and ran his tongue across one stiff point, and she cried out again. He lifted his head, a look of such fierce triumph on his face that the mere sight of it caused creamy heat to pool between her thighs.
“I warned you I would taste every inch of you,” he repeated, his voice so rough that the sound of it rasped across her sensitized nerve endings. “I always make good on my promises.”
He lowered his head to her breast and sucked one nipple into his mouth, licking and kissing it, then sucking it so hard that she cried out as the shock waves from the pull of his mouth sent arrows of knife-edged desire driving through her body. With his fingers, he caressed and pinched her other nipple, switching back and forth between the two until she was writhing on the bed beneath him, nearly mindless with hunger.
“Please,” she moaned. “Please, it’s too much, Ethan. Please.”
“Not yet,” he said. He moved back up the bed and kissed her again, eating at her mouth until she thought he’d devour her, his hands stroking and caressing every part of her except for the center of her need. She returned the favor, frantically shaping his rock-hard biceps and the sculpted muscles of his back and bottom with her hands. Every inch of him was lean and hard and purely male.
He drove her to a fury of desire and insanity until she finally grasped his thick, glossy hair with both hands and yanked his head back from hers. “I need you now,” she said; it was her turn to issue commands.
Victory shone in his eyes, but she did not feel conquered by it. Rather, she felt herself the victor as well.
“I need you, too, ocean girl. I need to taste you and make you scream my name.”
She shook her head and tried to prevent him from moving down her body. “No, there is no…That is not necessary. Although that form of lovemaking can be pleasant, I—”
He froze, and stared at her in patent disbelief. “Pleasant? Pleasant? Who have you been…?”
Then his eyes darkened to the color of molten gold, and he bared his teeth in a grimace. “Never mind. I don’t want to hear about any other man in your bed. Not now, not ever. Instead, I’m going to make you forget any other man ever touched you.”
In a swift motion, he settled himself between her thighs and draped them over his shoulders. Before she could say another word, he put his mouth on her.
She screamed his name when she came.
But he waited, muscles trembling from the effort it took to hold back. Hunger and violent urgency raged inside him, but he refused to take her.
He wanted her to surrender.
“Marie? Beautiful, you need to open your eyes and tell me yes right now before the animal takes over from the man. Because I need to be inside you more than I have ever needed anything in my life.”
She opened those glorious eyes that shone like the midnight sky and, for one terrifyingly long moment, she didn’t respond. When he was damn near frantic, she slowly smiled at him. “That was far more than pleasant; you spoke truly.”
He laughed, but it was wild laughter that skirted on crazed. “Marie? Honey?”
“Yes, Ethan. I say yes.”
He roared some unintelligible sound as he drove into her so far and so fast that his balls slapped against her ass when their bodies met. She bucked, arching up against him, and cried out.
But what she cried out was, “More.”
He thrust into her, desperately urgent, riding her body to the heights of an ecstasy he’d never known. Every inch of his body strained to press against her lush curves. Every inch of his cock strained to press into her welcoming sheath. He felt her body tense under his and slipped his hand between their bodies, rubbing his fingers against her slick wetness and then finding her clit and pressing it rhythmically as he continued to drive into her.
She cried out again when he touched her, and then her movements grew more and more frantic. “Ethan, Ethan, Ethan.”
He closed his eyes to focus on the feel of her, the silk of her skin against his. Her soft wetness as it welcomed his hardness. She arched into him, and he felt the orgasm wrenching through her body, and then she put her teeth on his shoulder and bit him as she came.
