Lady Cerise stepped back, her eyes wide with alarm. Obviously this wasn’t a usual occurrence.
“What’s happening?” the voodoo priestess demanded.
Chayton grabbed his head, ignoring Lady Cerise as he tumbled onto his back, the odd power seeming to ebb and flow as he gave a cry of sheer frustration.
“This isn’t possible. I escaped,” he wailed. Then his back arched and he gave another earsplitting cry. “No.”
Sebastian was stepping over Van’s motionless body when he caught an unmistakable scent.
Reny.
Oh god, had she been captured?
Still holding the baseball bat, Sebastian raced through the maze of rooms, avoiding the guards who were focused on protecting the house from an outside attack.
Entering the formal drawing room, he easily spotted her standing next to Lady Cerise.
The tightness in his chest eased as his frantic gaze confirmed that she was uninjured. Dropping the bat he rushed forward, wrapping her in his arms as he sucked in a deep breath of her spicy scent.
“Sebastian,” she sighed, pressing her lips to his throat before she pulled back to study his face with a frown. “You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing.” He dismissed her concern.
She reached up to touch the swelling beneath his eyes. “Nothing?”
“Trust me, I’ll heal.” He studied her pale face. “How did you get here?”
“Not now.” She pulled out of his arms, pointing toward the body in the center of the room. “We have bigger things to worry about.”
Sebastian made a choked sound of shock as he realized that it was Chayton who was lying on the carpet.
“What the hell is going on?” he rasped, sending a suspicious glance toward Lady Cerise. “Did you do this?”
The voodoo priestess shook her head. “I don’t have the power to hurt a goddess.”
Sebastian ignored Reny’s muttered curse as he stepped forward, leaning over the male body that continued to twitch.
“Then what did?”
Chayton’s eyes snapped open, his hand reaching toward Sebastian. “Baby.”
“Did he say baby?” Reny muttered.
Sebastian barely heard her as a red-hot fury blasted through him. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the bastard was talking about Ashe’s baby.
He fell to his knees, wrapping his hands around the man’s neck. “God damn you, Shakpi.”
The dark eyes were oddly pleading as they met Sebastian’s lethal glare. “Chayton,” he rasped. “I’m Chayton.”
“This is a trick,” Lady Cerise warned, but Sebastian suddenly realized that the savage power that had pounded against him earlier was now nothing more than a dull throb.
And even the sour stench had faded.
His hands eased their grip on the man’s throat. “What’s happening?”
Chayton grimaced, as if he were fighting some inner battle. “Shakpi is being weakened by Ashe’s baby.”
Sebastian sucked in a shocked breath. “She gave birth?”
“Not yet, but it’s near.” The man’s voice was thick with pain. “The baby’s magic is spreading.”
A fragile hope began to bloom in the center of Sebastian’s heart. From the second they’d discovered that Ashe was pregnant, they’d prayed that it would mean the return of fertility among the Pantera.
Now it appeared their entire future might depend on the child.
“Can it destroy Shakpi?”
Chayton gave a slow nod. “Yes.”
“Thank the goddess,” Sebastian breathed.
The Shaman reached up to grab Sebastian’s arm, his expression rigid with fear. “No, listen.”
“What?”
“Assassins,” he hissed.
Sebastian frowned, wondering if he’d heard right. “Assassins?”
“They’re coming.”
“For who?”
“The baby.”
Sebastian leaned forward, his hope being replaced by a crushing fear. “Where are they? How do I recognize them?”
Chayton’s hand dropped as his eyes slid shut. With a growl, Sebastian grabbed the man’s shoulders and gave his limp body a shake and then another.
At the same time there was a series of loud pops as the guards came rushing into the room, firing their weapons.
Lady Cerise swiftly turned to flee, while Reny calmly pulled her weapon and began picking off the henchmen one by one.
“Shit.” Rising to his feet, Sebastian moved to shelter Reny with his larger body, steering her toward the French doors as she continued to thin out the herd of charging bad guys. “We have to get out of here.”
“What about Shakpi?” she demanded.
Pushing her out of the house, Sebastian pulled his phone from his pocket and hit speed dial. “I’ll have Lian gather the local hunters to secure the house,” he growled. “They’ll have the place surrounded and the guards disabled before the bastards know what hit them.”
Reny hissed as a bullet flew past her ear. “What about us?”
“We’re going to the Wildlands.”
CHAPTER 8
Reaching the edge of Shakpi’s lair, Reny and Sebastian waited long enough to ensure the property was encircled by Pantera and that neither Shakpi or Lady Cerese had escaped before they were running through the streets of New Orleans.
Sebastian set a punishing pace, forcing Reny to release her natural speed that she’d kept hidden for years. Then, confident she could keep up, he accelerated his stride as they hit the edge of the city and headed toward the bayous.
Not that she was going to complain.
She didn’t fully understand what was going on, but she knew if there was a baby in danger she would run until she dropped in exhaustion to try and save the child.
Concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, Reny barely noticed the thickening vegetation until she felt a strange tingling rush through her and she came to an abrupt halt.
Oh…god.
She shivered, joy rushing through her as she felt the soggy ground beneath her feet and the early morning sunlight that began to peep through the Spanish moss draped over the surrounding trees.
Breathing deeply, she allowed the scent of rich, black earth and brackish water to fill her with…contentment.
There was no other word.
A delicious warmth pressed against her back as Sebastian wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against his chest. Leaning down, he spoke directly in her ear.
“What do you think of the Wildlands?”
“Home,” she said, the word unfamiliar. She’d spent the past eight years in places where she never fit in, never felt as if she could ever reveal who she truly was.
“Home,” he growled in approval, his arms tightening around her. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“It…smells right.”
He chuckled, burying his nose into the curve of her neck. “Yes, it does.”
She shivered, leaning against the welcomed strength of his body as she slowly, painfully lowered the shields that she’d kept in place for so long.
At first, she was overwhelmed. Christ. Her senses felt as if they were under assault as she truly experienced the world without a human filter.
Suddenly she could hear the thump of Sebastian’s steady heart and the flap of a heron’s wing overhead. She could catch a thousand scents that could be traced by single strands to the world around her.
The tang of a frog hidden beneath a rotting log. The sweetness from a floating lily. The intoxicating musk from the man behind her.
And then there was the acute sense of the animal that lived deep inside her.
An animal that was suddenly desperate to be free.
“Now that I’m here, I think I can shift,” she abruptly said.
He skimmed his lips up the side of her neck. “When you’re ready.”
“I want to try.”
Sebastian went rigid. “Now?”
She turned in his arms, meeting his worried gaze. “I know you’re in a hurry—”
He cut off her words with a kiss. “We’ve already warned Raphael about the assassins,” he murmured against her lips. “He’ll already have the search going for the hidden enemy, as well as organizing a constant guard to keep Ashe and her baby safe. We have time.”
“Okay.” She stepped back, taking a deep breath as she concentrated on the sense of…well, the only way she could explain it was awareness that prowled just below the surface.
“Just relax and let it happen,” he urged softly.
She did as he commanded, loosening her tense muscles and allowing her thoughts to float.
At first she felt nothing more than a gentle warmth that flowed through her, making her wonder if she was supposed to mutter magic words or do some sort of weird-ass dance. Then, without warning, an explosion of sensations blasted through her body, making her feel as if she was being ripped from the inside out.
Oh, god. It was…glorious.
Astonishing.
Shifting into cat form, Reny surged into motion, bounding over the boggy ground with a sense of freedom that made her soul soar.
There was a roar from behind her and suddenly there was a tawny puma with yellow eyes running at her side.
She didn’t know how far they ran, she only knew that when she entered a meadow that was dappled with morning sunlight, it seemed perfectly natural to turn and leap onto Sebastian, tumbling him to the side.
His eyes shimmered with pleasure as they rolled across the soft ground, nipping and growling and even swiping his claws over her shoulder as they played with a glorious joy.