Bayon/Jean-Baptiste (Bayou Heat) (12 page)

She shrugged, the brutal need for revenge fading beneath the sight of Savoy’s cowering body.

The two would have to be punished; maybe they would even be condemned to death. But that was something that would be decided after the danger to the Pantera had been effectively destroyed.

“Take them to the elders,” she ordered.

Parish arched a dark brow. “No one would blame you if you want to—”

“No.” She leaned against Bayon, absorbing his strength as her knees threatened to collapse. It was going to take a few days for her to fully regain her strength. Until then, she had utter faith she could depend on her mate. It was a knowledge that banished the last of her bitterness. The past was the past. It was her future with Bayon, and the future of her people, that mattered. “Just before Bayon arrived, one of my captors let slip the fact that my time in the cage was coming to an end. He believed that whatever they were plotting was about to happen. And that they were going to succeed.”

Bayon rubbed a comforting hand on her lower back. “They never gave a hint what that plot might entail?”

“No.” She pointed toward the traitors. “But they might have information we need.”

“Fine.” Parish gave a grudging nod, his lust for blood still lurking in his golden eyes. Shoving the gun into the holster at his waist, he reached to grab the two kneeling traitors by their hair and jerked them to their feet. “Let’s go.”

She watched as her brother hauled Vincent and Savoy from the room before snuggling against Bayon’s chest, breathing deeply of his familiar scent.

“Are you all right?” he asked, wrapping his arms around her as he laid his cheek on top of her head.

She smiled, kissing the strong column of his neck. “I will be, once we have answers.”

“We will,” he said without hesitation. “The Pantera are nothing if not stubborn creatures.”

“True,” she agreed.

For now, a shadow continued to hang over the Wildlands, but she fiercely held onto the belief that someday soon they would defeat their mysterious enemies and the magic would once again heal their land.

And their people.

Bayon rubbed his cheek against her hair. “Can we go home now?”

She planted another kiss on his neck, needing to be alone with her mate. “The caves?”

“Actually I thought you might stay with me.” He lifted his head to study her weary face. “At least until we can decide where we want to live.”

Her hand pressed against his cheek, her gaze drinking in his male beauty.

She’d been an idiot to ever doubt her ability to be with an alpha male. Bayon didn’t threaten her independence.

He only made her stronger.

“I don’t care where we go as long as we’re together.”

His eyes held a love she felt to the very depths of her soul.

“For all of eternity, honey.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alexandra Ivy
is a
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of the Guardians of Eternity series, as well as the Immortal Rogues. After majoring in theatre she decided she prefers to bring her characters to life on paper rather than stage. She lives in Missouri with her family. Visit her website at alexandraivy.com.

JEAN-BAPTISTE

By Laura Wright

Chapter 1

The Suit looked like shit.

Jean-Baptiste stood with his back to the window of the Medical facility, and watched the blond male pace back and forth in front of a large cypress. The leader of the Diplomatic Faction had always given off a controlled, unruffled vibe, but as the sun died around them in a glow of pale orange fire, Raphael’s true state of mind was revealed. His clothes were wrinkled and hanging off his tall, lean body. The skin on his face was pulled tight over the bone, his eyes looked exhausted and sunken and desperate, and his hands were clenching and unclenching as he stalked from one end of the lawn to the other.

“You need to release your cat, Raphael,” Jean-Baptiste said, the irony of his words clawing at his guts, while the Nurturer inside of him—the one who was an expert on mental issues for the Pantera—pressed on. “When our minds grow weary with stress, our cats are trained to take over, give our human side a break. It’s how we survive, how we’re built.”

“Can’t,” Raphael muttered.

“I get that you want to guard your mate, but your cat can be just as effective.”

Raphael just shook his head.

Damned stubborn shifter. It seemed to be a personality flaw all Pantera males suffered from. “You won’t be able to remain in your human form the entire pregnancy without losing it.”

“You don’t understand.” The words were curt, and flung at Baptiste like they were coated in alligator dung.

Jean-Baptiste didn’t have a female—and it was looking more and more like he never would—but he knew how puma males were when something was wrong with their mate. The levels of crazy ranged from “manageable” to “batshit.” But for Raphael, and what he was dealing with, it might very well be “rocket ship to the moon” time. His mate, Ashe, carried the fate of the Pantera within her womb, and if she had truly been attacked inside the Wildlands as Bayon had claimed…

A low growl erupted from Jean-Baptiste’s throat, but he shut it down instantly. The last thing he needed right now was to allow his cat even one claw out of its cage. Even if it was to sniff out the bastard who’d had the balls to touch a Pantera’s pregnant mate on Wildlands soil. But the fantasy of catching and carving a long and deep “
P
” across the intruder’s chest was the kind of revenge Baptiste and his cat were hungry for.

“Bayon tell you what I want?” Raphael asked, his voice stripped of emotion as a breeze kicked up off the bayou, rustling the Spanish moss coating the Cypress.

Baptiste nodded. “Wish I could help.”

“You can.”

“Sorry,
mon ami
.”
I’ve got problems of my own to deal with
.

“This isn’t a request, Baptiste.”

“Maybe you’re forgetting, Raphael, I’m not Diplomatic Faction.”

“I don’t forget. Anything.”

“Then you know I don’t report to you.”

“True.” Raphael stopped pacing and turned to glare at Jean-Baptiste. “But what I’m proposing isn’t exactly official Pantera business.”

Baptiste’s brows shot together, and the skin on his neck, where he’d gotten inked a few days ago, started to burn.

“In fact,” Raphael said, his voice dropping as his gaze checked right and left for Pantera in the area. “I don’t think either one of us would want it to be.”

The urge to spring at the male, drop his frail-looking ass to the ground, ripped through Jean-Baptiste. But he’d grown used to the feral cat inside of him, and he forced patience into his already sour gut.

“I know you’ve been dealt a handful here,” he said coolly. “I respect that. Hell, I’m as concerned about what’s happening with Ashe as any Pantera. Maybe even more so. I’m a Nurturer after all.” He heard the bitter note in his own voice. “But I don’t have time to travel—”

“Why? Because you just got back?”

A flash of alarm moved through Jean-Baptiste, and he eased away from the window and started toward the male. He never talked with anyone about his personal trips into New Orleans. The fact that the leader of the Suits knew something like this was alarming at best.

“Was it a new piercing?” Raphael said, standing his ground as the male drew near. “Or did you get inked again?”

Baptiste’s jaw tensed.
Play it off, Shifter. Don’t let him see one shred of your unease
. “Didn’t know there was a problem with a puma who appreciates body art,” he said with a casual shrug.

“Not the art. But…maybe the reason behind it?” Raphael’s nostrils flared, and once again he checked to see if they had an audience. When he found the lawn behind Medical deserted, he turned back to Jean-Baptiste, his voice low. “I know about your little problem.”

Nostrils flared, Baptiste stopped a foot from the Suit. Inside his body, his cat screamed and clawed to get out. It wanted to attack. It wanted to rip the voice box from the male standing before it with all kinds of accusations swimming in his green eyes. But the only thing Jean-Baptiste allowed the feline to display was a cool, confused purr. “No clue what you’re talking about,
mon ami
.”

Undeterred, Raphael continued as though he hadn’t heard anything at all. “Just don’t know how it started. Or when. Few weeks ago? A month?” His eyes locked with Jean-Baptiste. “Considering how many tats and holes you have in that body of yours I’d say you’ve been trying to push down the fact that you have no control over your cat for some time now.”

The words sank so deep Jean-Baptiste didn’t have time to suppress his animal’s reaction. With a terrifying growl, he grabbed the male’s shoulders and rushed him like a linebacker. “Who the fuck told you?” he snarled, saliva forming in his mouth as Raphael’s back hit the trunk of the cypress.

“Perks of being a Suit,” Raphael said through gritted teeth, his green eyes flashing gold fire. “I have connections outside the Wildlands. That piercing there,” he jerked his chin forward, “through your eyebrow—the one coated in malachite—well, it was done by the brother of one of my spies’ girlfriends.”

Baptiste’s eyebrow twitched. So did his lower lip—the one with the twin silver rings through it. He’d been betrayed. By a foolish, foolish soon-to-be dead human male. He forced a dark laugh. The sound was hollow. “Proves nothing.”

“I don’t think so,” Raphael said. “Malachite is inside every tattoo and piercing you have.”

He was going to cut the tongue out of that human before he killed him. “I like the mineral, that’s all,” he said. “It helps me to heal faster.”

Raphael sniffed, his expression glib. “I’m sure it does. But it’s also the very mineral that’s purported to ground a cat inside the body. The elders use it as punishment to cage a wild puma.” Raphael’s gaze narrowed. “And I hear the Nurturer shrinks also use it on patients who can’t control their mind or their feline.”

Dead, fetid air sat inside Jean-Baptiste’s lungs as he gripped the male’s shoulders. Every inch of his skin had gone tight around the muscles and bones, and his canines and claws were starting to emerge. The desperate need to kill this male, end his questioning, his accusations, his impossible truth, was almost unbearable. So he did the only thing he could do.

He released Raphael and walked away.

“Any other time and I’d be all about helping your ass,” Raphael called at his back. “But today my one and only concern is my mate.”

Stopping at the window, Jean-Baptiste stared through the glass at that mate.
Ashe
. She was completely still, lying in the bed, and she looked as pale as a frog’s belly.

“Go to that voodoun you visit,” Raphael called to him. “The one who recommended the malachite and every tattoo that’s on your body, and bring her here.”

Fucking loose-tongued human better enjoy his last few days of breathing
. Baptiste didn’t turn around. “Impossible.”

“Make it possible.”