Kat stopped breathing the second she scented him. Her cat purred inside her, seemed almost to stretch and curl its form under Kat’s skin, as though the beast wanted to come out and play after all these years of hiding.
It was him. The giant of a man she’d met only once, briefly, two years before. The one who’d protected her from a biker gang of vamps intent on making her the object of their bloodsport. He’d cut through them like a panther in its prime through a field of deer, then ignored her fervent thanks and walked away from her. He’d never looked back, striding off into the sunset like some fabled folk-hero from childhood stories.
And so he must be, this man she’d never forgotten. He must be the one from Atlantis. When Quinn had described him . . . she hadn’t dared to even hope. But it was him. Bastien.
And he was bowing to her. Bowing and . . . bleeding?
She spared a moment to look around the bar. The human-shape-shifter violence that had been roiling in the air for the past several months had come to a head, yet again.
This time, the fools were taking poor Thelma’s place apart. It had to stop.
Kat had to stop it.
She looked at the man again – Quinn had said they called themselves Poseidon’s warriors, but had she not known that, still, there could be no doubt to anyone with eyes that the man was a warrior. He had to be seven feet of pure battle-honed muscle. Nobody looked like that from working out at a gym once a week. He had thighs the size of tree trunks in that worn denim. And, oh please keep her from drooling, his chest and shoulders were a wall of muscle. God, his biceps were the size of her thighs, and she was no little thing. And his face – oh, his face. Men were not supposed to be so beautiful. It screwed up the natural order of things or something. The cheek bones, and all that luscious black hair that was just a little too long, and . . .
Great, Kat, you’re having lustful fantasies while these men are beating each other up and trashing Thelma’s bar. Do something, dammit.
Kat’s panther snarled inside her, making its desires plain.
The beast wanted to play. It wanted to play wild and dangerous games with this warrior. The panther wasn’t chained by the strictures of duty or etiquette. It wanted heat and biting and wild, ravenous sex.
Kat felt the wetness between her thighs, and she flinched a little at the friction caused by her nipples hardening under her shirt. Her face flushed and she tried, yet again, to focus on the battle raging all around her. She looked up at Bastien, drew in a raspy breath. Opened her mouth and closed it again.
Fierce intelligence burned in his black eyes. Intelligence and something more primal. Was that . . . was that possibly desire?
For her?