“He knew what you are?” he demanded. Most humans were convinced that the Pantera were no more than a myth. A belief that the Pantera were happy to encourage.
“Yes, and that we’d be interested in the strangers,” she said. “I asked him to try and infiltrate the gang and get us information.” She shuddered at some unpleasant memory. “He was willing, for a price.”
His gaze narrowed. “What price?”
Again with the thinning of her lips. “Not the one you’re thinking.”
Bayon grimaced. His age-old jealously was making him behave like an ass. And why? She’d just revealed that she’d used Sean as an asset to discover information, not to be her playmate, hadn’t she?
Maybe it was because at the time she’d gone to such an effort to make him think she was in the midst of a passionate affair.
“You just pretended to be lovers so you had a reason to meet him?”
“Give the cat a gold star,” she muttered.
He bent down to nip her nose. “And to piss me off?”
The flush staining her cheeks revealed he wasn’t wrong. “Not everything is about you, Bayon.”
“Says who?” he teased before pulling back to meet her wary gaze. “So what happened?”
She frowned, her eyes shadowed with a fear that he desperately longed to erase.
“I remember he cornered me as I was leaving The Cougar’s Den one evening. He told me he had information I needed to hear, but he was scared to tell me where we could be overheard. He wanted to meet me at our secret location the next evening.”
“And you agreed.”
“Yes, I had no reason not to trust him. Although I did notice there was suddenly something off about his scent. It was—”
“Sour?” he completed for her.
She gave a startled nod. “Exactly.”
Which meant they were definitely connected to the same idiots who’d attacked Raphael and Ashe.
Dammit.
How long had their enemies been spying and plotting on them?
And why wait until now to strike?
Questions he had no answer for.
Bayon’s cat snarled with the need to be on the hunt.
“He must have decided the enemy had more to offer than we did,” he growled.
“Maybe.” The shadows in her eyes darkened. “I assume that I went to meet him.”
“Keira.” He cupped her cheek as she was shook by a violent tremor. “What is it?”
“I can’t remember, but it’s something important,” she breathed, the acrid tang of her fear suddenly thick in the air. “Something that’s a danger to the Pantera.”
Genuine concern squeezed his heart as he sensed her rising hysteria. “Shh. Don’t try to force it.”
She shivered, abruptly trying to push him away as her fear threatened to consume her. “Now you’re a Healer?”
Bayon wished to hell he was. Maybe he’d know what to do to help her work through the stress of her forgotten memories.
All he could do was offer a distraction.
With a speed that caught Keira off guard, he had her flat on her back, and his heavier body pressing against her.
“I’m all Hunter, honey,” he assured her, unleashing the hunger that was a constant ache deep inside until the musk of his arousal filled the cave. “And one of the best despite your lack of faith in me.”
Her eyes flashed with the golden beauty he remembered, the very center a starburst of exquisite emerald.
“I never doubted your skills as a Hunter, Bayon,” she snarled, her anger overwhelming her fear. “Not ever.”
“Just my skills as a lover?”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Bayon—”
“I need to find Talon.” With a fluid movement Bayon was on his feet and heading toward the nearby tunnel. He’d meant to distract her. Not open old wounds that for him had never healed. But for a brief, savage moment she’d been the old Keira and he’d been the old Bayon, and he’d wanted to claim her more than life itself. “I’ll bring back lunch.”
“Bayon…wait.”
It took some time, but Bayon eventually tracked Talon to The Cougar’s Den, a seedy bar owned by the Pantera and built on the edge of the swamps in a small town called La Pierre.
The younger Hunter, with dark gold hair threaded with copper highlights and eyes a pale gold rimmed with jade, had obviously just arrived. His boots were coated with dust and his LSU Tigers sweatshirt was marred with something that smelled like ash.
“Well?” Bayon demanded as he joined his friend at the long bar at the back, gesturing to the bartender for a cold beer. “Did you find the house?”
Talon grimaced, downing a shot of his private stash of tequila he kept in a silver flask. “They burned the place to the ground before we could get there.”
“Shit.” Bayon took a long drink of his beer, frustration burning in the pit of his gut. Their enemies might be mere humans, but they were managing to stay a step ahead of the Pantera with monotonous regularity. How the hell was that possible? “Any tracks?”
“Yep. They led us to a hidden airport.”
Airport. Bayon slammed his bottle onto the wooden counter. Not even someone with the finely tuned senses of a puma could track his prey through the air.
“Then they’re gone.”
Talon reached out to give Bayon’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. “Raphael is using his contact with law enforcement to try and trace the owners of the land as well as any FAA filings from the area. Someone has to have a pilot’s license.” The golden eyes glowed with the hunger of his cat. “Once he has a name I’ll be all over them.”
Bayon bit back the urge to remind Talon that they needed at least a few of the bastards left alive.
Talon could be bloodthirsty, but he wasn’t stupid.
“How’s Ashe?” he instead asked.
“Holding her own.” Talon lowered his voice. Not everyone in the bar was Pantera. In fact, Ashe’s mother was quite possibly seated just a few stools down. “For now.”
Bayon grimaced. “Has anyone heard from Jean-Baptiste?”
Talon snorted. “You know as much as I do. Probably more.”
“Which isn’t nearly enough.” Bayon abruptly shoved himself to his feet. He really fucking hated the sensation that they were all being shoved around like pawns on a chessboard. “We need answers.”
Talon lifted his brows at the savage edge in Bayon’s voice. “Why are you taking this so hard, mon ami?”
He curled his hands into tight fists, glancing toward the pool tables where a group of male Pantera were knocking balls around with an obvious lack of interest. Instead their gazes roamed over the handful of humans before moving toward the door of the club, as if expecting violence to erupt at any minute.
“Can’t you feel it?” Bayon muttered.
“Feel what?”
“Evil.” Bayon shivered, abruptly overwhelmed by the need to be with Keira. Crazy, considering he’d left the cave because he had to get away from her. But then, that was pretty much the story of their volatile relationship. “I have to go.”
Ignoring the calls from the gathered Pantera to join them for a beer, Bayon left the bar and headed directly toward a nearby restaurant that reeked of stale grease and fried onions. The stench was enough to make his cat shudder in distaste, but he grimly walked to the front counter to pick up the order he’d called in before entering town.
After he’d paid, he clutched the paper bag and headed back to the caves with a speed that made the native wildlife duck for cover. Even the gators had enough sense to remain out of the path of a Pantera on a mission.
Leaping over the fallen logs and narrow channels clogged with water lilies, Bayon tried to concentrate on how he could assist Raphael in tracking the missing kidnappers. He didn’t have personal contacts in the human world, but he was a Hunter who understood prey.