Bayon cursed as he felt Keira tremble in distress.
Goddammit. The last thing he wanted to do was cause this female more pain, but they had to discover if her disappearance had anything to do with the attack on Ashe. For all they knew the bastards were already plotting another assault aimed to kill the vulnerable human and her precious baby.
Now he feared he pressed the still-weakened Keira too far.
"Keira." He urged her head against his chest as he reached behind him for the blanket he'd been laying on. Gently he tucked it around her naked form. "Are you-"
"I'm fine." She sucked in a deep breath. Then another. "Just give me a minute."
"Take your time," he murmured softly, savoring the feel of her in his arms.
Yeah, she was only there because he'd been the one to rescue her, but his cat didn't care. It only knew that he'd waited for an eternity to have this woman curled in his lap, her head resting over his heart.
Then, as if to remind him of just how little right he had to hold her so tight, she opened her eyes and forced herself to share what she recalled of her kidnapping.
"I remember I was meeting with Sean."
His muscles clenched at the reminder that she'd chosen a mere mortal to warm her bed while slamming the door in his face.
"Your human lover?"
She lifted her head from his chest, studying his rigid expression. "He wasn't my lover."
Bayon frowned. "No?"
Her lips thinned at the disbelief in his voice. "No, he approached me at The Cougar's Den one night. He said he'd heard rumors there was a new gang in the area who were spending a lot of time in the bayous."
Bayon hesitated, reeling beneath her blunt confession.
Shit. Did she have any idea how often he'd tormented himself with the thought that her last hours had been spent with her human lover instead of with the family who would have protected her?
And now he discovered that she'd lied to him...he gave a sharp shake of his head.
"He knew what you are?" he
demanded. Most humans were
convinced that the Pantera were no more than a myth. A belief that the Pantera were happy to encourage.
"Yes, and that we'd be interested in the strangers," she said. "I asked him to try and infiltrate the gang and get us information." She shuddered at some unpleasant memory. "He was willing, for a price."
His gaze narrowed. "What price?" Again with the thinning of her lips.
"Not the one you're thinking." Bayon grimaced. His age-old
jealously was making him behave like an ass. And why? She'd just revealed that she'd used Sean as an asset to discover information, not to be her playmate, hadn't she?
Maybe it was because at the time she'd gone to such an effort to make him think she was in the midst of a passionate affair.
"You just pretended to be lovers so you had a reason to meet him?"
"Give the cat a gold star," she muttered.
He bent down to nip her nose. "And to piss me off?"
The flush staining her cheeks revealed he wasn't wrong. "Not everything is about you, Bayon."
"Says who?" he teased before pulling back to meet her wary gaze. "So what happened?"
She frowned, her eyes shadowed with a fear that he desperately longed to erase.
"I remember he cornered me as I was leaving The Cougar's Den one evening.
He told me he had information I needed to hear, but he was scared to tell me where we could be overheard. He wanted to meet me at our secret location the next evening."
"And you agreed."
"Yes, I had no reason not to trust him.
Although I did notice there was suddenly something off about his scent. It was-"
"Sour?" he completed for her.
She gave a startled nod. "Exactly." Which meant they were definitely connected to the same idiots who'd attacked Raphael and Ashe.
Dammit.
How long had their enemies been spying and plotting on them?
And why wait until now to strike?
Questions he had no answer for.
Bayon's cat snarled with the need to be on the hunt.
"He must have decided the enemy had more to offer than we did," he growled.
"Maybe." The shadows in her eyes darkened. "I assume that I went to meet him."
"Keira." He cupped her cheek as she was shook by a violent tremor. "What is it?"
"I can't remember, but it's something important," she breathed, the acrid tang of her fear suddenly thick in the air.
"Something that's a danger to the Pantera."
Genuine concern squeezed his heart as he sensed her rising hysteria. "Shh.
Don't try to force it."
She shivered, abruptly trying to push him away as her fear threatened to consume her. "Now you're a Healer?" Bayon wished to hell he was. Maybe he'd know what to do to help her work through the stress of her forgotten memories.
All he could do was offer a
distraction.
With a speed that caught Keira off guard, he had her flat on her back, and his heavier body pressing against her.
"I'm all Hunter, honey," he assured her, unleashing the hunger that was a constant ache deep inside until the musk of his arousal filled the cave. "And one of the best despite your lack of faith in me."
Her eyes flashed with the golden beauty he remembered, the very center a starburst of exquisite emerald.
"I never doubted your skills as a Hunter, Bayon," she snarled, her anger overwhelming her fear. "Not ever."
"Just my skills as a lover?"
She sucked in a sharp breath. "Bayon
-"
"I need to find Talon." With a fluid movement Bayon was on his feet and heading toward the nearby tunnel. He'd meant to distract her. Not open old wounds that for him had never healed.
But for a brief, savage moment she'd been the old Keira and he'd been the old Bayon, and he'd wanted to claim her more than life itself. "I'll bring back lunch."
"Bayon...wait."
It took some time, but Bayon
eventually tracked Talon to The Cougar's Den, a seedy bar owned by the Pantera and built on the edge of the swamps in a small town called La Pierre.
The younger Hunter, with dark gold hair threaded with copper highlights and eyes a pale gold rimmed with jade, had obviously just arrived. His boots were coated with dust and his LSU Tigers sweatshirt was marred with something that smelled like ash.
"Well?" Bayon demanded as he
joined his friend at the long bar at the back, gesturing to the bartender for a cold beer. "Did you find the house?" Talon grimaced, downing a shot of his private stash of tequila he kept in a silver flask. "They burned the place to the ground before we could get there."
"Shit." Bayon took a long drink of his beer, frustration burning in the pit of his gut. Their enemies might be mere humans, but they were managing to stay a step ahead of the Pantera with monotonous regularity. How the hell was that possible? "Any tracks?"
"Yep. They led us to a hidden airport."
Airport. Bayon slammed his bottle onto the wooden counter. Not even someone with the finely tuned senses of a puma could track his prey through the air.
"Then they're gone."
Talon reached out to give Bayon's shoulder a comforting squeeze. "Raphael is using his contact with law enforcement to try and trace the owners of the land as well as any FAA filings from the area. Someone has to have a pilot's license." The golden eyes glowed with the hunger of his cat. "Once he has a name I'll be all over them." Bayon bit back the urge to remind Talon that they needed at least a few of the bastards left alive.
Talon could be bloodthirsty, but he wasn't stupid.
"How's Ashe?" he instead asked.
"Holding her own." Talon lowered his voice. Not everyone in the bar was Pantera. In fact, Ashe's mother was quite possibly seated just a few stools down.
"For now."
Bayon grimaced. "Has anyone heard from Jean-Baptiste?"
Talon snorted. "You know as much as I do. Probably more."
"Which isn't nearly enough." Bayon abruptly shoved himself to his feet. He really fucking hated the sensation that they were all being shoved around like pawns on a chessboard. "We need answers."
Talon lifted his brows at the savage edge in Bayon's voice. "Why are you taking this so hard, mon ami?" He curled his hands into tight fists, glancing toward the pool tables where a group of male Pantera were knocking balls around with an obvious lack of interest. Instead their gazes roamed over the handful of humans before moving toward the door of the club, as if expecting violence to erupt at any minute.
"Can't you feel it?" Bayon muttered.
"Feel what?"
"Evil." Bayon shivered, abruptly overwhelmed by the need to be with Keira. Crazy, considering he'd left the cave because he had to get away from her. But then, that was pretty much the story of their volatile relationship. "I have to go."
Ignoring the calls from the gathered Pantera to join them for a beer, Bayon left the bar and headed directly toward a nearby restaurant that reeked of stale grease and fried onions. The stench was enough to make his cat shudder in distaste, but he grimly walked to the front counter to pick up the order he'd called in before entering town.
After he'd paid, he clutched the paper bag and headed back to the caves with a speed that made the native wildlife duck for cover. Even the gators had enough sense to remain out of the path of a Pantera on a mission.
Leaping over the fallen logs and narrow channels clogged with water lilies, Bayon tried to concentrate on how he could assist Raphael in tracking the missing kidnappers. He didn't have personal contacts in the human world, but he was a Hunter who understood prey.
Once the men had returned to the house to discover Keira gone, they would have instantly realized their location was no longer secure. That discovery would no doubt have triggered a pre-planned escape, including torching the house. But they couldn't have disappeared without help.
Which meant cell phone calls. Bank transfers. New identities.
Things that he was certain were already being tracked down by the Geeks, the faction of Hunters who used technology to protect the Wildlands and to trace their enemies.
They were as dangerous as any warrior.
The various methods of locating the bastards shuffled through his mind even as his attention kept sliding back to the female who'd been so miraculously returned to him.
Christ, he'd mourned her for so long.
It'd been a constant hole in his heart that he'd hidden beneath his image of a horny puma on the prowl.
Was it any wonder he'd been reeling since he'd found her in that cage?
One minute the overprotective part of him wanted to wrap her in cotton wool until he was convinced that she was completely healed, and the next his cat was snarling with the primitive urge to claim her so she would never, ever be taken from him again.
Scowling at the tangled emotions he hadn't felt in twenty-five years, Bayon entered the Wildlands from the deepest part of the swamp and headed directly for the caves. Once at the entrance he paused to make certain that no one else had been in the area before crouching low enough to enter without banging his head. Then, with a feral smile, he followed the intoxicating scent of Keira to the back cavern.
She was seated near the waterfall, her fingers playing in the pool of water as the sunlight crept through the opening in the ceiling, bathing her in a golden glow.
The breath was wrenched from his lungs as he took in the dark satin of her hair that tumbled down her slender back and the delicate profile that was so painfully familiar. How often had he studied her striking beauty from a distance? How often had those female features haunted his dreams?
His gaze swept downward. She'd found her clothes that Parish had kept boxed in one of the caves, and was wearing a pair of low-riding jeans and a cropped top that offered a tantalizing glimpse of her slender waist.
His cat snarled in approval, the hunger that he'd kept tightly suppressed blasting through his defenses as he prowled forward.
Keira was home. Physically, at least, she was healing.
And she was his.
That was all his cat needed to know.
The man part of him would continue to worry about the bastards who'd stolen her. And why her memories refused to return. And why she feared revealing her presence to the others. But the cat...
Yes, he was satisfied.
Or he intended to be satisfied. Once he had Keira beneath him, screaming his name in pleasure.
Very, very soon.
Keira was lost in her thoughts, but her head jerked up as he crossed the smooth stone floor, her hand automatically lifting to catch the paper bag he threw in her direction.
"I thought you might be hungry."
"Starving," she admitted, peeking inside the bag before lifting her head to study him with a guarded expression.
"You remembered?"
With one pounce he was on the ledge of the pool, not bothering to hide his arousal as the scent of her warm musk wrapped around him.
"Everything," he admitted, no longer willing to pretend she was just an old friend who'd come home.
Her once-bold gaze was skittish as she pulled out one of the greasy burgers and consumed it in two bites.
"You said something about Parish being mated?" she asked.
Bayon smiled. He didn't doubt her interest in her brother. Or his new mate.
But he also recognized a distraction when it was thrown in his face.
"It's recent." He allowed his fingers to trail over her lower back. "Very recent."
She demolished another burger, but she couldn't disguise her shiver of pleasure. "Who's the lucky female?" she choked out.
He traced the hem of her shirt. "Julia.
A human doctor."
Finished with her food, she tossed aside her bag and sent him a startled glance over his shoulder.
"Human?"
"Trust me, no one was more shocked than your hard-ass brother," he admitted.
"After...you disappeared, he blamed the entire human race." His fingers teased the sensitive dip at her lower back. "For a while I thought I was going to have to cage him to keep him from going on a bloody rampage."
The emerald starburst in the center of her eyes smoldered with a hunger that matched his own.
Not that she was about to admit the truth. Stubborn feline.
"Do you approve of this Julia?" she asked.
He shrugged. "We don't know much about her, but she saved Ashe's baby, so she's got my vote of approval."
"Ashe?" Keira frowned in confusion.
"Baby?"
As concisely as possible, Bayon revealed the stunning news that Raphael had not only mated, but that Ashe was expecting the first Pantera babe in over fifty years. As well as the fact that they'd recently been attacked.
"A baby." Her smile was filled with genuine joy. "Oh my god."
"This child might be the savior of the Pantera, but only if we can protect the babe from our enemies." His own expression was grim. "I was tracking the bastards who attacked Ashe when I found you."
She turned so she was facing him.
"Have they been captured?"
"Not yet." He grimaced. "They torched the place and took off." Without warning, she surged upright, her cat eager to be on the hunt. "I'll find them."
Bayon reacted without thought. One minute he was perched beside the pool, and the next he had knocked Keira flat on her back and was lying on top of her rigid body.
"Like hell, you will," he snapped.
A dangerous gold flared in her eyes as her cat reacted to his display of dominance. "Maybe you've forgotten that I'm the one who gives the orders," she snarled.
He pressed a finger to her lips, halting her furious words. "Oh no, honey.
There's a new sheriff in town." She shook off his hand, her eyes narrowing. "What the hell does that mean?"
"I don't take orders from you. In fact, for the next few hours I intend to give them."
She snorted, unimpressed. "And you expect me to obey?"
His slow smile was filled with wicked intent. "I not only expect you to obey, I expect you to plead for more," he explained.
If looks could kill he'd be dead on the spot.
"Don't make the mistake of treating me like one of your bimbos," she managed to warn between gritted teeth.
She was beautiful when she was jealous.
Eyes glowing with emerald and gold fire. Her hands pressed against his chest, her breasts heaving as her cat struggled to be released.
He held his upper weight on his elbows, allowing his hands to slide beneath the too-revealing shirt.
"What would you know about my bimbos?"
"They weren't a secret." Her voice became a low rasp as his fingers found the swell of her breasts. "There used to be bets placed in the dining hall about how long the latest would last and who would be next to crawl into your bed."
"And it never occurred to you that maybe all those stories were more myth than truth?"
"Yeah, right."
She tried to sound skeptical, but he didn't miss her tiny groan of pleasure as his fingers grasped the nipples already beaded in anticipation. He tugged them with enough force to make her hiss with a growing hunger.
"I may not be a virgin, but-"
"Understatement of the century." With an impatient motion, he yanked off the tiny top, cupping her swollen breasts with a gentle reverence.
"But my reputation has been highly exaggerated."
She groaned, her claws extending to prick the skin of his chest. "I doubt that."
"Why?" he muttered, distracted by the spectacular sight of her rosy nipples that begged for his kiss.
"Because you flirted with every female in the Wildlands."
"Did you sleep with every male you flirted with?"
"Fine." She cleared her throat. "What about the females you kept in New Orleans?"
Bayon lifted himself until he could shuck off his boots and jeans before kneeling between her legs as he wrenched his T-shirt over his head.
"There were no females."