Talon/Xavier (Bayou Heat) Read Free Page B

gaze, his vague unease solidifying into ruthless suspicion.
    “And now this Isi claims to be her long-lost sister?”
    Raphael shook his head. “No. The DNA revealed their connection.”
    The scientific proof of the two women’s biological connection did nothing to ease Talon’s distrust. Hell, it only made him more skeptical.
    “That’s one hell of a coincidence,” he muttered.
    “Yeah, that was my thought.” Raphael shoved his fingers through his hair. “And it gets worse.”
    Talon rolled his eyes. When were things not getting worse?
    “Great.”
    “The elders are convinced that Isi is some prophesied agent of doom.”
    Talon made a sound of disbelief at the cheesy, sci-fi description. He might even have laughed if it hadn’t been for Raphael’s grim expression. He had a feeling a laugh would earn him an ass-kicking even worse than the time he’d set up a moonshine still in the caves and sold the potent liquor to his classmates. How was he supposed to know he’d brewed the alcohol so pure it would make them sicker than dogs?
    “Now you’re just screwing with me,” he instead growled.
    “I wish I was,” Raphael muttered. “The elders claim that Isi and Ashe’s father was the Pantera Shaman.”
    It took a minute for Talon to recall the human who had once been called on by the elders to reveal the faction of an unborn Pantera. There were also rumors he’d had visions of the future.
    It’d been years since Talon had last seen him.
    He at last managed to dig the name from his memories.
    “Chayton?”
    “Yes.”
    “Didn’t he die?”
    Raphael grimaced. “The elders assumed he had.”
    Talon made a sound of disbelief. The elders rarely made mistakes.
    Or maybe they just never admitted to them.
    “Go on,” he urged.
    “They said that Chayton had a vision that his first born child would destroy the Wildlands,” Raphael said, a hint of pity in his voice for the man who must have been devastated to reveal that his own daughter was born to be a force for evil.
    Talon was far less sympathetic. He wasn’t a firm believer in prophecies. There were too many ways they could be interpreted to offer a blueprint for the future.
    But if the first born child was a danger to his people, he damned well intended to stop her.
    “Isi was the first born?”
    Raphael gave a sharp nod. “After the vision, Chayton took his pregnant wife and fled to the north of the state. The babes were just being born when the elders tracked them down.”
    “They intended to sacrifice the child.” The words were a statement, not a question.
    The elders weren’t the sort of females to wait and see if something might become a problem. They were firm believers in preemptive strikes.
    “They did, but Chayton managed to distract them long enough to slip away,” Raphael revealed. “The Hunters found traces of blood and a baby blanket, but no sign of the Shaman. When Dixie returned to La Pierre with Ashe the Elders kept a close guard on Dixie expecting Chayton to try and contact her if he remained alive. When the years passed with no word from the Shaman the Elders assumed he and the babe had died.”
    The Shaman had to have been extremely talented or extremely lucky to have escaped the elders for so long.
    “Ashe knew nothing about her father?” he asked.
    “No.” Raphael narrowed his gaze, as if daring the younger man to call his mate a liar. Yeah. Talon was more likely to stick his head in the mouth of a gator. “The elders obviously tampered with Dixie’s mind, forcing her to believe she only had one child and that her husband abandoned her.”
    Talon shuddered. Mind alterations on such a large scale could be extremely destructive to humans.
    “Maybe it’s not so surprising she turned to booze,” he said. “What was the elders’ response to Isi’s arrival?”
    “Cataclysmic.” The lean features tightened. No doubt Raphael had been at the epicenter of that cataclysmic response. “They arrived at Ashe’s room once