Warriors of Poseidon 02.5 - Shifter's Lady

prepare.”

ELEVEN
    Marie spent every one of the hours from dawn until midnight with Ethan. She watched him as he ran command sessions concerning everything from evacuation of the women and children to more mundane issues, such as emergency plans for the enormous business infrastructure that he and his team administered for the pride.
     
    Kat called in every hour, reporting on her quest to find Jack, asking how Marie was faring under the strain, and inquiring about Ethan. Marie recognized Kat‟s ever-deepening worry for her pride members and friends and attempted to give solace. But there was little she could do over the telephone, and the barriers were still in place that blocked Kat from returning home.
     
    She used Kat‟s phone calls as a reminder of sorts, and attempted to contact Alaric and Bastien each time she hung up with Kat. But every try was met with the same blank deadness. Empty space with no trace of either of them. She pushed the fear aside, to worry about later. First she had to get through the day and Ethan‟s challenge. Then she would find a way to contact Atlantis.
     
    Alaric and Bastien were still alive. She knew it.
     
    If anything about that long, long day surprised Marie, it was discovering the presence of so many moments of peace in the middle of planning for a war. For war it would be, she discovered, were the unthinkable to happen and Travis to defeat Ethan. William and the Shifter’s Lady – Warriors of Poseidon 2.5

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    other warriors of the pride made it clear that they would challenge Travis, one after another, until he lay dead on the ground of the challenge circle.
     
    She‟d thought there would be more bluster. More of the hearty “Of course you will win, Ethan” directed toward their alpha. But the panthers were nothing if not pragmatists, as she supposed should be expected from a species walking the edge of extinction. If the pride alpha fell, another would take his place. It was the natural order of things.
     
    “Damn the natural order of things!”
     
    “So fierce, ocean girl,” Ethan said softly from behind her, startling her. “What‟s on your mind?”
     
    She whirled around. “You‟re on my mind. This stupid challenge is on my mind. It‟s only two hours until midnight, and you‟re talking about bank accounts with William. Shouldn‟t you be training or something?”
     
    A fleeting smile crossed his face, then he stared solemnly into her eyes. “I love that you‟re worried about me, but there‟s no need. I‟m going to make damn sure that Travis doesn‟t live through this. He sealed his fate when he put his hands on you.”
     
    “Stop it! It was nothing,” she insisted. “You saw how easily those scratches healed. Do not risk yourself for such a petty reason.”
     
    He bent to kiss her. “It wouldn‟t be a petty reason, trust me. But there is so much more to this. The alpha challenge is a longstanding tradition among my kind. I can‟t refuse it, or my own pride would relieve me from command. Survival of the fittest applies to shape-shifters more than to any others.”
     
    “Ethan, I feel so useless. Please give me something to do.”
     
    Shifter’s Lady – Warriors of Poseidon 2.5

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    “You mean something more than you‟ve already done? Like helping that woman who was having labor pains? Or comforting the children who‟ve taken refuge here with their mothers? Or offering logical, calm advice in any of a dozen discussions I‟ve had today?”
     
    She shook her head. “They were false labor pains brought on by stress. It will be more than a month before she delivers that baby, the Goddess willing.”
     
    Ethan took her shoulders in his hands. “Here is what you can do for me. Get out. If the worst should happen, and—”
     
    “It won‟t. Don‟t even think it,” she said, refusing to hear him say the words that spoke of his possible defeat and death.
     
    “Marie, you have to listen to me. If the worst should happen, the new alpha must offer safe passage to anybody who wants to leave the pride. Travis is insane, but the reps from the other prides will force him to do this. That‟s one of the reasons I‟d hoped to get Jack here, too, but it doesn‟t matter. There are enough of them with honor that you‟ll be safe.”
     
    She shook her head wildly, not wanting to hear it. Unable to bear the thought that the man she‟d only just discovered could be torn from her after only the span of a day.
     
    He