Panthers' Pleasure [Impulse 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (5 page)

“Me, too.” Vilas fell into his clothes, too. “Mikael was obviously trying to warn us.” Vilas listened for a moment. “He says she’s only just gone. We can catch her if we hurry.”

“No. On second thoughts, let her explore on her own.”

“But she’ll find out O’Malley’s doesn’t exist.”

“She would have done anyway. I asked her to give me a call when she was ready to do the town and said I’d go with her. She obviously wants to go alone. Let’s give her some space.”

“I suppose Impulse can be a bit overwhelming if you’re new to it.”

“Exactly, and I don’t want her to think she’s being stalked.”

“I hate it when you’re right all the time.” Vilas got a cloth and cleaned all signs of their activities from the rug. “She won’t decide to take off when she finds out O’Malley’s is a blind, will she?”

“Whatever she decides, she’ll come back here first. She isn’t the type to cut and run.” Rafe kissed Vilas deeply on the lips, squeezing his ass as he did so. “I love you so damned much.”

“Yeah, me, too, and Chantal will make us complete. It was the thought of her watching us, or taking part, that added a new dimension to our fucking just then.” Vilas touched Rafe’s groin through the fabric of his jeans. “We absolutely can’t risk losing her.”

“We won’t. Apart from anything else, her car’s still in the lot.”

* * * *

“Will you be all right on your own?” Rochelle asked, sounding rather anxious.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Chantal asked. “I’m only going out for a breath of air.”

“Didn’t I hear Rafe say he’d go with you?”

How the hell could she have? She’d been in the kitchen the entire time. “I’m good on my own. I’ll catch you later.”

Chantal grabbed her purse and headed for the door. She was starting to feel like she was in a prison without bars, the way these people were trying to dog her every step. Were they just being friendly, or was there something about the place they didn’t want her to find?

“Stop being so fanciful,” she chided herself.

She felt breathless again as soon as she walked outside. It was hot and humid, but it was more than just the heat getting to her. It felt as though there wasn’t enough oxygen in the air to fill her lungs. One or two cars drove along at a leisurely pace, as though their drivers were having trouble building up a head of steam, too. There were quite a few pedestrians, and they all seemed to be moving at a rapid pace, so it must be her. She’d acclimatize soon enough, if she stayed, that is. She hadn’t made up her mind about that yet.

She recognized one or two faces from the bar. They waved to her and she waved right back, but she didn’t stop to chat. She needed to find the hotel that Max was supposed to be involved with and see where that led her. She’d picked up a tourist map at the gas station earlier and pulled it from her bag.

“It seems straightforward enough,” she said aloud, appreciating the basic grid system. Even someone as brain dead as she was when it came to navigation could get her head round the simple layout. “All the hotels are on the Gulf side.”

She refolded her map and headed in that direction, feeling light-headed from lack of oxygen. She only seemed capable of walking a few hundred yards at a time before needing to stop and rest.

“What is it about this place?” she muttered, leaning her hands on her knees, panting. Chantal was a regular runner and did five miles religiously each morning with rat-faced Jack back in Tallahassee before he did the dirty on her.

She leaned against a wall as she waited for her head to stop spinning. In spite of its lack of air, there was something soothing about Impulse. Under other circumstances she might consider settling here, but right now settling anywhere was out of the question. Until she found Max her life was on hold. He’d given up his adolescence to take care of her. No way would she bail on him now. There was something wrong, she absolutely knew it, and she wouldn’t rest until she got to the bottom of it. She gulped back her anguish when she reminded herself that the only reason he wouldn’t contact her would be if he was…was what?

“Stop being so fanciful,” she said aloud when kidnappings, muggings, and murders sprang to mind. No one would kidnap him, and if he’d been in an accident she would have been informed. “All right, so why hasn’t he been in touch?”

Impulse was certainly a tidy place, she thought as she continued to head for the stretch of hotels bordering a wide, sandy beach. She hadn’t seen a single item of litter. All the gardens were pristine and…and what? Something was missing. It took her a moment to realize that although she’d seen a number of cats, there didn’t seem to be a single domestic dog in Impulse. How strange was that?

She wended her way along the entire strip of hotels, which didn’t take long. Impulse was at the extreme southern end of the bay, and seven miles of wide sandy beach stretched before her eyes. North of Impulse the resort hotels were tall and expansive. Impulse, by comparison, had very few. Those that were there seemed small and select.

Chantal frowned, wondering why Impulse wasn’t cashing in on its fabulous location. None of the hotels they
did
have appeared to be undergoing renovation, and there was definitely no O’Malley’s. She thought perhaps it was in a different location, but the receptionist in the hotel she stopped at to ask directions told her she’d never heard of it.

Deflated and out of time, Chantal made her way back to the Cat’s Whiskers. She passed the Cat’s Cradle Nursery as she cut through a different street. People in this town were obviously fond of cats. The gas station, she recalled, was called something to do with cats, and there was a restaurant along the hotel strip called The Lazy Lynx.

She let herself into the bar, totally wiped out by her short walk, wondering how she’d manage to drag herself up the stairs to the apartment. But the moment she closed the door on the outside world, her lungs cleared and she was once again full of energy. It was too surreal for words.

“What the hell,” she muttered, bounding up the stairs, full of questions for the guys.

She pushed the door to the apartment open. Rafe and Vilas must have heard her on the stairs because they didn’t seem surprised to see her.

“Hey,” Rafe said. “Good walk?”

“Tiring.”

“Yeah, it can be like that round here when you’re not used to the heat.”

“No, it’s more than that.” She shook her head. “I can’t really describe it. I guess it’s just something in the air, or not, in this case.”

“A lot of people say that,” Vilas said. “But you’ll acclimatize.”

“If I stay.”

They shared a speaking look. “Why wouldn’t you?” Rafe asked.

“Well, I couldn’t find…” Her words trailed off and her blood pressure rose several points when her gaze fell upon two open laptops on the table, one of which was definitely hers. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”

“Oh fuck!” Vilas said, following the direction of her gaze.

“We need to talk.” Rafe took Chantal’s arm in a firm grasp and marched her to the nearest sofa. “Have a seat.”

“Sorry, buddy,”
Vilas said pheromonetically.
“We got to fucking and I forgot about her machine still being out.”

“Don’t worry about it. We need to set her straight about us, anyway. Might as well start now.”

“It’s too soon.”

“She’s spooked, so we have no choice. If we don’t tell her something, she’ll hightail it outta here.”

“Will you two please stop staring at each other and tell me what the fuck you think you’re doing with my laptop?”

“Don’t cuss, sweetheart,” Rafe said in a mildly reproving tone.

She rounded on him. “Just who the hell do you think you are, telling me what I can and can’t say?”

Rafe sat beside her, but when he tried to take her hand, she snatched hers away. “I know how it must look,” he said.

“You have no freaking idea how it looks, and I’m as mad as hell with you both.” She placed her hands on her hips and glared at Rafe, then turned to treat Vilas, seated on her opposite side, the same way. “I’m a very private person. What right do you have to pry into my affairs?”

“It’s not how it seems,” Vilas said, spreading his hands and offering her a lingering smile.

“Oh really!”

“We didn’t want to tell you this quite yet,” Rafe added, “but I guess we have no choice.”

“What you have is five minutes, and then I’m gone.”

“Okay, we’ll take your five minutes,” Rafe said. “You’ll probably think we’re crazy, but if you hear us out I promise it’ll make sense.”
It had damned well better.
“You said earlier that you couldn’t breathe well outside.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“It’s pivotal.” Rafe inhaled deeply. “All of Florida used to have the positive ions in the atmosphere that still exist here in Impulse. Global warming and changes in the weather patterns over the centuries mean that only a very few places still have them.”

“I still don’t see—”

“Have you ever heard of shape-shifters?”

She laughed. “I go to the movies.”

Vilas fixed her with a serious gaze. “Shifters aren’t the product of Hollywood.”

“You’re right. I do think you’re crazy.” Rafe sensed that she was about to stand up and storm out. He sent out a mental command that stopped her in her tracks. A few weeks ago he could have done it without breaking a sweat. Today it caused him considerable strain, reminding him just how rapidly his powers were depleting. “This is some sort of sick joke.”

“It’s no joke, babe,” Rafe said softly. “Everyone in Impulse is either a shifter or a shifter’s human mate.”

“And let me guess, you’re all cats.”

“Yep.” It was Vilas who spoke. “Rafe and I are the alpha panthers in the colony.”

“There are people you can see for these sorts of delusions, you know. Professionals who can get you the help you need.”

“You’re not making this easy for us,” Rafe said.

“Okay, okay, have it your way.” She threw her hands up. “You’re big pussycats living in cloud cuckoo land, but I’m still out of here. Have a nice life.” She tried to stand up, but this time Vilas threw out a mental order that seized up her limbs. “Damn, my legs won’t work.”

“Hear us out, then if you still want to leave, your legs
will
work.”

She tossed them each a sarcastic smile. “Oh, so now you’re taking credit for my cramps. That sucks.”

“We have mental powers you can only dream about,” Rafe said. “Unfortunately, they’re on the decline.”

“I suppose you expect me to ask you why.”

“They’re declining because Vilas and I need a human mate.”

Chantal shook her head, a cross between a snort of laughter and a groan slipping past her lips. “I don’t mean to toot your horn, but guys who look like you two do could have just about any woman they wanted.” She paused. “Hang on, did you say
mate
? The two of you want just one woman between you?” She inhaled sharply. “This is getting weirder by the minute.”

“The generations of shifters in our colony keep their powers by alternately mating with humans and their own species. If Vilas and I could choose a panther mate then life would be a damned sight less complicated for us than it is right now. Unfortunately, we have to find a human.”

“But not just any human,” Vilas said, taking up the story. “She has to be the right human. Once we mate with her, she will inherit some of our DNA and we’ll regain our mental faculties.”

“That’s good to know,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“We’ve waited more than ninety years for you,” Rafe purred, running his fingers up and down her forearm. “What kept you?”

“Me!” She appeared dumbfounded. “Ninety years?”

“Three of your human years equate to one year for a shifter.”

“You’ll inherit that trait when you mate with us,” Vilas said.

“In your dreams, buddy.”

* * * *

“You’ve been in our dreams for years, darlin’,” Rafe said in a strangely hypnotic voice that almost made Chantal think he was telling the truth. Almost.

“We’re all different species of big cat here,” Vilas explained. “Mikael, who you met in the bar earlier, is an alpha tiger, Rochelle is a lynx, and…well, I’m sure you get the picture.”

“All that red meat,” she said slowly.

“Yeah, now you’re getting it. We’re nocturnal, and because our powers are waning we need protein to kick-start our days.”

“What about those who weren’t eating meat?” she asked, unable to believe she was taking this seriously.

“Human mates.”

Rafe smiled into her eyes as he spoke, and despite the fact that he was obviously stark raving mad, that smile still caused her nipples to tighten and her pussy to clench. Hell, perhaps she shouldn’t think of it as a pussy anymore, given the circumstances. A screech of hysterical laughter rose up in her throat, but she managed to suppress it. Two insane people in the room were quite enough to be getting on with.