Atlantium Trilogy I: Bride of Atlantis

by Montague, Madelaine

  He had tracked him, though, halfway across two continents.

  His stupidity had nearly gotten him killed, but he had wanted the bastard to look in his eyes and know that he was going to die because of Concepcion. He hadn’t wanted to send the son-of-a-bitch to hell wondering.

  He hadn’t expected to be interrupted, but he should have anticipated the possibility.

  If they hadn’t taken him completely off guard, he could’ve finished the bastard before he left. Now he was wounded again, pretty fucking badly, he thought, if the blood he was losing was any indication.

  He couldn’t stop to examine it, though, because he could still hear them following, could still hear a random shot from time to time as the trigger-happy morons spied something they thought might be him and fired at it. The darkness and the thickness of the woods were his only allies and he had a feeling he was running out of allies.

  Almost on the thought he bounded from the woods and onto a narrow, two rut track. Tall weeds sprouted from the soil on either side and along the narrow center strip, but he was exposed and he bounded across the track and into the woods on the other side.

  He paused there to catch his breath because he couldn’t do anything else. The adrenaline that had kept him going thus far was rapidly draining away from him now and he could feel weakness seeping into every muscle in his body. Panting for breath, he tipped his head back to look up at the trees for cover.

  He tamped the impulse. He would be too exposed. If he had been stronger it wouldn’t be such a bad idea. It would give him a vantage to watch for the hunters. It would give him a strategic advantage if he was able to fight back, but he had a bad feeling he would come out the loser in his current state.

  Twisting his head to look back in the direction from which he’d come, he listened intently. Sure enough, within a few moments, he heard the hunters trampling through the brush in pursuit.

  Uttering a mental curse, he looked at the track again.

  It might just lead back to the compound, but he didn’t think so. He’d studied the area pretty thoroughly over the past few weeks and he was fairly certain that this track belonged to the woman he’d spotted a few times in his surveillance.

  He didn’t trust the impulse that assailed him to seek her out, but he was pretty much out of options unless he wanted to just lie down and let them finish him off.

  A year ago, he would’ve almost welcomed it. Hell, even six months ago.

  He wasn’t ready to quit now, though. If he died, he meant to take that bastard with him to hell.

  Turning without even realizing he had made a decision, he began to head along the edge of the track as quickly as he could. He didn’t trust the woman, not enough to go to her for help, but she had several outbuildings on her property. If he could just make it to one of them, he would have the chance to rest and see about his wounds.

  The wound on his shoulder seemed to have stopped bleeding. He was fairly certain that had been no more than a crease, deep enough to hurt like a son-of-bitch, and bleed like hell, but he was pretty sure the bullet had done no more than plow a furrow through him and out the other side.

  He was equally certain that he did have a bullet in his hip. He’d been favoring the leg, trying his best to keep from jolting it anymore than necessary, but each time he put even a little weight on that leg, agonizing pain ground through him and the leg threatened to buckle.

  Hobbling now that the adrenaline had abandoned him and the pain and weakness was threatening to lay him out for the kill, he gritted his teeth and kept moving as quickly as he could, hoping he could make it to the woman’s house and hide before he passed out.

  Her image rose in his mind and as it did he felt his heart-rate speed up just a little. A flicker of desire burgeoned despite all reason, his body beginning to hum with warmth.

  Wryly, he concluded that he was still a ways from death if she could get any kind of rise out of him at the moment.

  But then again, he had wanted her from the first moment he spied her and no amount of reasoning with himself had banished that.

  She was as different from Concepcion as night from day.

  It didn’t matter.

  More importantly, she was not one of the people.

  But that didn’t make any difference either. He’d tried to tell himself it did, but he knew better.

  Every time he looked at her cool, white skin, her light blond hair, her pale blue eyes, he thought of ice—hard, cold.

  And still he thirsted for a taste of her.

  He hadn’t stopped mourning for Concepcion and the babe. He still carried an ache that nothing could eradicate, not even his revenge. Having them wrenched from his life so abruptly and with such finality had been like having a part of himself torn away and he could never get that back, never get them back.

  He would see that they had justice, though, blood for blood, if it was the last thing he ever did.

  He had not intended that it be the last thing he ever did, though, because he had realized when he saw the woman that there was a reason to live, something to live for besides fulfilling the need for revenge.

  He didn’t trust her. She wasn’t one of the people, and she lived too damned close to his enemy for his comfort in an area that was so remote that the next neighbors were miles away.

  He couldn’t completely rid himself of the suspicion that it was more than a coincidence that her land bordered his enemy’s, that her neat little house and farm was little more than two miles from his compound as the crow flew.

  But that didn’t matter either.

  In the back of his mind he knew that he had already decided that, once he had done what he had come to do, he fully intended to have her.

  * * * *

  The first gunshot woke Alaina. Still groggy with sleep, she lay still on the couch trying to figure out what the noise was. As it came closer it became clear what the loud popping noise was. Her heart skipped several beats. She glanced sharply at the clock on top of her TV set.

  “My god! It’s two in the morning! What the hell would they be hunting at this time of night?”

  Rolling off the couch, she scrambled on her hands and knees toward the phone, grabbed it up and dialed the sheriff’s office. It seemed to ring forever and finally switched over. He’d forwarded his calls.

  He was probably at home in bed!

  “Sheriff Wilson,” said a voice on the line just about the time she’d given up.

  “Hank, it’s me, Alaina. They’re out shooting up the woods again.”

  There was a momentary silence. “What the hell are they hunting at this time of night?”

  “Well, god knows, I don’t,” Alaina said sharply, “but it sounds like they’re moving in my direction. I’d just as soon not have any more bullet holes in my damned house!”

  “I’m about fifteen minutes from you. Stay on the floor.”

  As if she had any intention of getting up!

  The thought had barely formed in her mind when her wall exploded and then the couch as a stray bullet pierced the wall of the living room. Tufts of stuffing flew up in the air and drifted downward.

  Alaina gaped at it in stunned disbelief for a split second feeling cold wash over her as she realized she’d been lying within inches of that bullet only a few moments earlier. Adrenaline surged through her then and, instinctively she began to scramble on her belly toward the back of the house. “Shit! Oh shit!” she muttered, with no clear destination in mind beyond trying to get out of range.

  She’d never had a bullet actually enter the house! She’d heard shotgun pellets rain down on her roof like hail. She’d even found a couple of places on the outside walls where a spent bullet had cracked the siding, but she had never really believed she was in danger of actually getting shot in her own living room!

  She’d already gone out the back door and made a dash for the storage shed in the rear before it occurred to her that they might decide she was a deer or whatever it was they were hunting.

/>   They were on the front side of the house, though, which was why she’d thought of the shed to begin with, afraid that if they were close enough that a bullet had gone through the siding and into the house, that the interior walls weren’t substantial enough to protect her.

  In the distance, she heard Hank’s siren.

  She heard another gunshot as she grabbed the door of the shed, however, and she yanked it open and dove inside, wondering if they were going to shoot the poor sheriff. The shed was black as pitch inside, but she crouched behind her washing machine, which was right beside the door, trying to reassure herself that it was substantial enough to stop a bullet even if they came right up to the house. “Those crazy bastards!” she gasped, wondering if they were drunk or stoned out of their minds.

  She’d complained about them trespassing at least a half a dozen times, but in the entire time she’d been living in the house, the hunters had never gotten nearly this close.

  Trying to catch her breath and calm the frantic pounding of her heart, she listened as the siren drew nearer. After a few moments, she heard the engine of the car, the crunch of gravel beneath the wheels and then the sounds began to fade as the sheriff’s car passed her place, headed down the track.

  Tipping her head up, she listened for anything that might indicate that they were just crazy enough to shoot at the sheriff, wondering if it was safe to leave the shed.

  “I’m going to sue the bastard if Hank doesn’t arrest his sorry ass this time,” she muttered.

  She was shaking all over. She realized after a few moments that part of it, maybe, was due to the fact that she was sitting on cold concrete in her panties.

  She’d forgotten she’d stripped down to her panties and t-shirt when she’d sprawled on the couch to watch the movie she’d dozed off in the middle of.

  It was quiet outside now. She didn’t hear the sirens, the car engine, no shooting. She thought she could hear a low hum of voices, but the sound was too indistinct to tell for sure.

  Dragging in a shuddering breath, she was on the point of pushing herself upright when she saw something that froze her mid-motion.

  There was a pair of glowing yellow eyes staring straight at her from the darkness of the shed less than two yards from where she was sitting.

  Chapter Two

  Every muscle, tendon, and bone in Alaina’s body turned to pure water. She stared back at the glowing eyes, unable to blink, to breathe, even to think.

  The eyes stared at her unblinkingly for what seemed an endless time. Finally, slowly, they blinked.

  Too weak to act on instinct, and too terrified to think, Alaina stayed where she was until the sound of voices finally penetrated her chaotic mind.

  The eyes had moved at the sound. Whatever it was in the shed with her was staring at the door now.

  Almost as if that was all that was needed to break the frozen shell of shock that encased her, Alaina began to push herself slowly to her feet. The eyes, almost as if the animal could see her, shifted to her again.

  She froze.

  The animal didn’t move.

  Slowly, she lifted one arm, searching blindly for the light switch.

  The light blinded her when it came on.

  Blinking to focus, Alaina was almost sorry when her eyes finally did.

  A panther lay sprawled along the far wall of her shed. A black panther.

  She’d been staring at it in petrified horror for several minutes when it dawned on her that the panther hadn’t moved. He was still watching her, but there was nothing the least threatening about his body language. He had not growled, not made any sound at all. He was not crouched to spring. There was no indication even of tension in his body.

  He was lying on his belly with his hind legs tucked beneath him and his forelegs extended like a huge house cat lazing in the sun.

  As she stared at him, he flicked his long tail almost impatiently and then dropped his head to his paws and used one leg to cover his eyes, as if the light was bothering him.

  Alaina’s fear began to drain away from her as she stood stock still, frowning now in puzzlement.

  Black panthers were not native to the area. The native panthers, which were pretty much gone now, were tan.

  Where had he come from and what was he doing in her shed?

  She saw the blood then. “They’re hunting you,” she whispered in sudden comprehension.

  He lifted his head at that, looked straight at her.

  The sound of voices outside in her yard distracted both her and the panther. The panther stiffened, tried to struggle to his feet. She held her hand out. “Be still,” she whispered. “I’m not going to let anybody hurt you anymore.” Shifting toward the door, she flicked the light off and went out, closing the door behind her.

  The sheriff, she saw, and another man she didn’t recognize were crossing the yard toward her. Rage instantly surged through her. It had to be the man that had scared the living shit out of her and nearly killed the poor cat hiding in her shed, “Did you see the hole they shot in my living room wall, Hank?” she demanded, stalking toward them.

  “Now calm down, Miss Alaina. This is Mr. Tom Calhoun, your neighbor.”

  “Is this the son-of-a-bitch that shot up my house?” Alaina demanded, ignoring the hand the man extended.

  “I want to apologize for that. A couple of friends of mine had a little too much to drink and took it into their head to go coon hunting.”

  Alaina gaped at the man. “You have got to be fucking kidding me! That is the lamest damned lie I have ever heard in my life! I didn’t hear any dogs. I may not be a hunter, but even I know people hunt coons with dogs.”

  Calhoun’s eyes narrowed. The false ‘friendly neighbor’ smile he had pasted on his face flat-lined. “As I said, they’ve had a little too much to drink.”

  “You need to calm down,” Hank said shortly.

  “I need to calm down?” Alaina snapped, outraged. “I was asleep on my couch in my living room! There’s a hole the size of a fucking silver dollar not two inches from where I was laying before I called you!”

  When Alaina glanced at her neighbor again, she saw that he was staring at her shed speculatively. Her heart skipped a beat. It took an effort to keep from following his gaze, but she was fairly certain the panther was still in the shed. If he’d followed her out, she didn’t think either one of the men, who were facing the shed, would’ve still been standing in front of her looking thoroughly pissed off.

  Hank frowned and turned to look at the man. “Ms. McKinley is upset and I don’t think we’re going to be able to sit down together and resolve this issue. Mr. Calhoun, I’m going to ask you to go home now. I’ll be stopping by as soon as I’ve finished filling out a report here.”

  Alaina turned to the sheriff in disbelief. “You’re not going to arrest him?”

  Hank frowned, his lips thinning with irritation. “I’ve arrested the men that were shooting. They’re sitting in the back of my patrol car. Mr. Calhoun didn’t even have a gun.”

  Alaina’s lips tightened with anger. “I heard you coming a mile off! He could have tossed it into the woods when he heard you coming.”

  She could tell from the look on Hank’s face that he’d already thought of that, but he wasn’t particularly pleased that she’d pointed it out. “Mr. Calhoun,” the sheriff said nodding dismissal and then turned to her. “Are you hurt?”

  “Thank you so much for asking!” Alaina said with false sweetness. “No! I’m not hurt, but that’s no thanks to them.”

  The sheriff glanced down at her and for the first time since she’d come out of the shed it dawned on Alaina that she was standing around in nothing but a t-shirt and panties. She crossed her arms over her chest.

  “If you’ll just go on inside, I’ll be in to speak with you and get a report shortly.” The sheriff turned and walked Calhoun back toward the front of her house as another sheriff’s patrol car pulled up.

  Alaina watched them until they’d rounded the corner
of the house.

  The panther was hurt. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out how he’d gotten hurt. He needed a vet, but she wasn’t going to be able to do anything for him until she could get rid of the cops, and her damned neighbors.

  She did not want to call Bobby! The son-of-a-bitch hadn’t been around since the last time they’d fought and she didn’t want him coming around now. He was bound to take a call from her as an invitation to take up where they’d left off.

  It sucked that he was the only vet she knew.

  Maybe the cat wasn’t hurt that badly?

  He’d looked like he was in pain, though, and obviously he’d been weakened. He hadn’t even been able to get up when he’d felt threatened by the men’s voices. It seemed indisputable that, drunk or not, one of the hunters had managed to put a bullet in him and she certainly couldn’t get a bullet out by herself. If it had only been something that required bandaging, maybe, but he would need antibiotics and she needed somebody to tell her what to do for him.

  The panther had to be tame. He was hurt and he still hadn’t made any sort of threatening move toward her. There was no way a wild animal would’ve behaved as he had. If he’d been wild he would’ve attacked her the minute she went into the shed. Even if he hadn’t been able to attack, he would have growled or hissed.

  Besides, he wasn’t indigenous. Someone had imported him into the country, and not for a zoo animal. He wouldn’t have been so tame.

  He had to be a pet. Those stupid bastards had been shooting at somebody’s pet, tamed to believe that human’s were no threat, a cat that probably had never even been in the wild and had no idea how to take care of himself. Some damned sportsmanship!

  Reluctant to leave the poor thing without looking to see how he was doing, she nevertheless headed back toward the house.

  She knew he had to be tame, but the sheriff would probably call animal control at the very least. At the worst, he and his deputy might decide to ‘put him out of his misery’.