Wild Hearts in Atlantis Read Free Page B

know what’s going on?
    “You will know what I know as soon as I know it. Surely you agree that our goal of complete human subjugation is worth a little uncertainty.”
    Studying the vampire’s face was an exercise in futility. Organos gave nothing away with his expressionless features. He could have been made out of cold white marble.
    Or else rigor mortis set in about, oh, two or three centuries ago.
    His cat shuddered inside him, registering a predator’s distaste for carrion. Ethan sent his thoughts inward, soothing and calming the beast.
Soon. We’ll be out of here soon, and I’ll set you free to roam.
    The cat snarled but subsided within him, a reminder of the constant need for control. The most powerful of the dual-natured stalked the precipice edging total conversion at all times. The danger of going wild was always present. There were too many who had never come back from animal form. Too many of his friends who had fallen prey to the damn humans and their illegal hunting.
    When he’d seen the obscenity in Nelson’s shop, he’d roared out his anguish and vowed vengeance. Then he’d run outside, gotten as far away as he could before he puked his guts up.
    That’s
when he’d finally agreed to meet with Organos. After he’d seen his cousin—his closest boyhood friend—in his cat form, stuffed and mounted in a taxidermy shop.
    No shape-shifter remained in animal form, but for his eyes, after death. That trick required the foulest of black magic. The humans—and at least one black-hearted witch—were going to die.
    Growling, he shook his head a little to try to rid himself of the image seared into his brain. He pinned Organos with his gaze. “Total subjugation. Yeah, they’ve gotta pay.”
    The vampire glided closer, held out a thin, white-fleshed hand. “Partners?”
    Ethan tried not to think about how Hank Fiero would be rolling in his grave at the idea. Tried not to think of Kat Fiero at all. Held out his own hand, repressing his cat’s violent revulsion. “Partners.”

Three

    “What in the nine hells is this?” Bastien rocked back on the heels of his boots and jammed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “We’re meeting a potential liaison to the southeastern shape-shifter contingent at a bar?”
    Denal read the words off the rickety-looking neon sign. “It’s not just a bar. It’s
Thelma’s Bar and Grill.
”
    “Looks like a shithole to me,” Justice snarled. “Remind me why, again, I had to come along and babysit you?”
    Bastien’s lips twitched at the idea of Justice babysitting him. “Right. Your puny six-and-a-half-feet-tall self and what army?”
    Justice’s pale green eyes gleamed with power, and he raised one hand, palm up, to display a glowing ball of electricity. “None but the priest channel the elements so well as I do, buffoon. Standing nearly seven feet tall merely means you’ll make a bigger hole in the ground when I knock you on your ass.”
    Denal rolled his eyes. “Whatever. If you’re done playing, let’s get inside and meet this woman. I could go for a beer and five or six cheeseburgers, too.”
    “You’re always hungry, boy,” Bastien said, resisting the urge to ruffle Denal’s hair. Denal was a man of more than two hundred years, not the boy Bastien had grown accustomed tothinking him. And Denal’s death and rebirth had aged the warrior in subtle but very real ways.
    Justice brushed by them both and strode toward the door. “Yeah, and anyway, this is shape-shifter country. They probably only serve their meat raw.”
    As Denal grumbled under his breath and then followed Justice into the bar, Bastien scanned the parking lot again. His senses, honed from intensive training and concentration, picked up the vibrations of both human and shape-shifter alike. Clusters of each, but never together. The residents of Big Cypress were quite markedly segregated.
    Question was: By whose design?
    Shaking his head again, still baffled that Conlan had chosen him