Warriors of Poseidon 04 - Atlantis Unmasked

like every other damn man who got anywhere near her. It gave Alexios a cramp in his gut.
     
    Or maybe that was gas.
     
    Certainly couldn‟t be the way his balls had swollen into melons and then shriveled back into walnuts all in the course of the past hour.
     
    After Tiny left the courtyard with Eddie, Alexios decided the time had come to put it all out on the table. He rounded on Ethan. “What in the nine hells did you do to her?”
     
    “Do to whom, water boy? And you might want to watch that tone with me,” Ethan said, narrowing his eyes.
     
    “Alexios, leave it alone,” Grace ordered sharply.
     
    “I‟ll be godsdamned if I will. Whatever he did with that alpha dominance thing affected you badly,” he shot back at her. Then, doomed to honesty by some freak of genetics, he shrugged. “Okay, it wasn‟t all bad, at least for me. But it made you drunk, and then it made you sick. I want to make sure that this can‟t randomly happen to you anytime you find yourself near an alpha shifter.”
     
    “And this is your business because?” Grace left the question hanging in the air, but her voice made the threat plain.
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    Well, wasn‟t that just too freaking bad. “Everything you do is my business. Get used to it,” he snapped.
     
    Ethan studied Grace for a moment, then turned to Kat, ignoring Grace‟s sputtered protests. “Is it true? What happened?”
     
    “Are you calling me a liar?” Alexios was very close to the edge of seriously pissed off.
     
    “No, I‟m not calling you a liar, you idiot,” Ethan snapped. “It‟s just that Kat is a little more qualified to describe exactly what reaction Grace had.”
     
    “I‟m standing right here,” Grace said, clenching her hands into fists.
     
    “They get like this,” Bastien said to her. “Don‟t take it personally. I‟d never survive if I did.”
     
    Kat swung her head around to stare at Bastien, her long tawny hair flying in the sunshine. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
     
    “I think you know,” Bastien replied calmly. “If I weren‟t so secure in my manhood, all this shifter ritual and hierarchy and alpha miertus might make me feel a little threatened.”
     
    Alexios whistled. “Did you really just say „secure in my manhood‟? Oh, boy. Wait till I tell Justice. You will never live that down.”
     
    “I don‟t think you have room to talk,” Kat pointed out. “ „Blah, blah, character, blah‟?”
     
    Grace flushed a dark red and started to say something, but Kat cut her off. “Shifters have hearing that‟s far superior to that of humans,” she said, not unkindly. “It‟s true,” she Atlantis Unmasked - Warriors of Poseidon 04
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    said, this time to Ethan. “She was as drunk on the alpha call as cubs at their first Change.”
     
    Grace made a strange strangled sound and then blew out a deep breath. “Stop right there,” she said carefully. “I am a descendant of Diana. If you think for one moment—”
     
    Alexios was watching Grace, so at first he didn‟t understand why she stopped speaking in midsentence. Then he followed her startled gaze. Ethan had dropped down and was kneeling, head bowed, facing Grace.
     
    “What in the—”
     
    “The panther was Diana‟s special animal and consort,” Ethan said, raising his head to stare at Grace reverently. “Our pride has been waiting for more than a century to find another descendant of Diana to honor.”
     
    “Freaking Poseidon‟s freaking balls. Here we freaking go again,” Alexios muttered. Then he crossed the lawn until he stood between Ethan and Grace, facing the shifter.
     
    “You,” he said, pointing at Ethan‟s fat head. “You are marrying Bastien‟s sister. You have no right to talk about consorts and honoring with my . . . with Grace. Got it?”
     
    Ethan got a strange look on his face and scrambled to his feet. “No, no, it‟s not like that.
    Strictly an honorary consort kind of thing.”
     
    Bastien shook his head as he stepped closer. “No, I don‟t think my sister is going to go along with the consort concept, honorary or not. I think I might have to kill you. Nothing personal, you understand.”
     
    “You can try,” Ethan said amiably. “Good luck with that.”
     
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    Just then, Sam walked into the courtyard with his dog and stopped, staring at the three men. “What in