Warriors of Poseidon 01.5 - Wild Hearts in Atlantis

He was up for a little one-on-one ass kicking.
     
    "One known as Jack claims to have fought beside your prince against Barrabas. Do you know of this?" Ethan directed the question to Bastien.
     
    "Yes. I was there."
     
    "Did Jack shift to his panther form when you battled the bloodsuckers?" Ethan glanced to his right, and Bastien was left with the sure knowledge that an army of shapeshifters stood in the shadows ready to kill him if he answered incorrectly.
     
    Kat started to speak, but Bastien cut her off, recognizing the trick question. "No, he did not. But he shifted into a tiger, damn near ten feet long."
     
    Ethan's shoulders relaxed, and the tension in the room noticeably decreased. "Yes. The tiger spoke well of you. Said `the tall one is a fucking fighting machine,"' Ethan admitted.
    "Told me you were a good one to have around if the world needed saving."
     
    Wild Hearts In Atlantis – Warriors of Poseidon 1.5
    Page 48 of 85
    Bastien grinned. "I feel the same way about him. I'm a lot better at battles than I am at politics, but my prince assigned me this mission. Therefore, I will successfully complete it."
     
    Ethan stared at him, considering, for a long beat. Then he threw back his head and laughed, though the laughter was acid-like in its bitterness. "I think I'm going to like you, Atlantean. Now let's head to my conference room to talk."
     
    As the shapeshifter headed down the hall, Bastien noticed that he never looked back at the naked woman still huddling on the floor. Kat very carefully gave Fallon a wide berth as she walked around her and followed Ethan. However, Bastien's ingrained standards of courtesy did not include leaving a naked woman to shiver on the floor. He held out a hand to help her up, his face impassive in an attempt to preserve what shreds of her dignity she had left.
     
    She hissed at him and flung herself back and away from his hand. "Get away from me, you murderous bastard. We know what you are. You can't undo thousands of years of murdering my kind by making—or pretending to make—one or two deceitful alliances."
     
    She stood up and glared at him, hatred and fury radiating from every line of her body.
    "Tell that freak bitch to stay away from Ethan, too. He's mine. No matter how much he thinks he wants her, he must mate with me for the purity of the species. What good is a half-breed to the alpha of our pride?" She spat on the floor and then turned on her heel and sprinted away from him and through the door that led back to the hallway.
     
    Bastien's entire body clenched at the implications of her words. Ethan, the pride's alpha, wanted Kat. The dying shifter had said the same. Did Bastien, as the Atlantean liaison, have any right to interfere with that?
     
    Every cell in his body rebelled at the thought. Not Kat. Kat belonged to herself. She wasn't a pawn in some ancient hierarchy of shapeshifter politics.
    Wild Hearts In Atlantis – Warriors of Poseidon 1.5
    Page 49 of 85
    Something primal stirred deep in the blackness of his soul. Fuck politics. There is no way he will ever put his hands on her. I'll kill him first.
     
    "Bastien?" Kat stood in the doorway. "Are you—oh, my God. What are you doing?"
     
    He looked at where she was pointing. At the water steaming and hissing as it lapped at the edges of the swimming pool. Just the mere thought of another man's hands on Kat's body had done that. He'd channeled sheer, potent rage through his command over the element of water.
     
    Ethan's voice, calling from somewhere out of sight down the hall, cut through Bastien's dazed thoughts. "Kat? I need you."
     
    And, even as Bastien forced his hands to unclench, the water in the pool began to boil.
     
    The conference room was as spare as the entry and pool room had been ornate. A man worked here, it was evident. A leader. The wooden tabletops were covered with documents and maps.
     
    "Plotting strategy?" Bastien stepped closer to the table holding the largest maps, and Ethan smoothly placed himself between Bastien and his goal.
     
    "Not strategy so much as options," Ethan said smoothly, the amusement in his eyes defying anyone to challenge him.
     
    For the present, there would not be a challenge. Atlantis needed Ethan and his shifters.
    One step at a time, then.
     
    "What options if you join with vampires, your oldest enemies, against humanity?"
    Bastien demanded. "Even as some of you are part human."
     
    Wild Hearts In Atlantis – Warriors of Poseidon 1.5
    Page