THE Pantera ate lunch as a community. A spirited, tightly woven community who gathered around the fifty or so intricately carved wooden tables that ran along the bayou. Dressed with pale green cloth, each table was piled high with boiled shrimp, crawfish pie, etoufee, potatoes, corn, bread pudding, buttermilk cake and iced sweet tea. For Julia, who normally grabbed a salad or a cup of soup in the hospital cafeteria whenever she had a second free during the day, this sprawling, home-style picnic of a lunch was as overwhelming as it was delicious.
She glanced across the table at Ashe and grinned. "This is the best meal I've ever had."
Ashe laughed. "I know, right?" She offered Julia another helping of creamy grits, then spooned some onto her own plate. "At first I thought it was the pregnancy, but then I realized the food's just different here. Super fresh, homemade, and you know," she winked, "maybe there's a little magic in there."
Julia didn't say anything. She'd been reminding herself how imperative it was for her to find the Wildlands' exit and get back home to New Orleans, that this wasn't real, and there was no such thing as puma shifters. But it wasn't so easy. The land surrounding the charming village was vast and completely rural. Where was she going to go? She didn't know this area. How dangerous would it be to just go walking off into the bayou?
And then there was the undeniable curiosity she couldn't seem to shed. About Parish and the Wildlands. She hated to admit it, and had used her concern for Ashe as an excuse, but she was interested in this place, how it came to be, how it remained off the tourist trade's radar.
"Oh, there's magic in everything here." Ines, the small woman with the dark hair and sable cat eyes who'd come to Julia's room with Ashe, sat at the head of the table. "It's in the air and the earth and the water. Makes the food irresistible." With a grin, she added, "The males, too."
Julia's mind instantly filled with images of Parish and she tried to combat them with a hefty spoonful of grits.
Ashe snorted. "I believe mine was irresistible way before I came to the Wildlands."
"Well, you're special," Ines said, reaching for the ladle in a nearby bowl. "Have some of this, Ashe. Creole alligator. Cook's specialty. He was fresh caught this morning and very tender." Not waiting for an answer, the woman dropped a helping on Ashe's plate. "You'll love it. As will your cub."
Julia looked up from her plate. "Cub?"
"Her child," Ines said, passing an entire buttermilk pie to the table behind them. "It will be half puma. When it shifts for the first time from human form to cat, it'll no longer be considered a baby."
With wide eyes, Ashe glanced over at Julia. "You see why I need a little human help here?"
The woman's face was so momentarily panic-stricken, Julia couldn't help but laugh. She didn't believe what Ines was saying, couldn't, and wanted to scold the woman and find out why they were all feeding Ashe's psychosis. But as she sat there near the slowly moving bayou water, with the fish jumping over the floating vegetation and the sun filtering through the trees above, granting them a gentle, tolerable warmth, she couldn't bring herself to break the incredible mood of this village's picnic.
Maybe she was a coward.
Or maybe the magic of the Wildlands was starting to affect her, too.
"If you decide to stay, Dr. Julia," Ines said, a forkful of buttermilk pie on its way to her mouth. "I would love to assist you. I'm a Nurturer, and trained to work with young, but so far I haven't been able to use my skills."
In that moment Julia turned away from the table and glanced around. She ignored the gentle, sweet breeze on her skin, the laughter, and the incredible scenery, to take in the people - the Pantera - at the tables nearest to them. She hadn't noticed it before, even on the walk over here, but there were no children anywhere. She'd heard what Ashe had said back in the medical facility, but she hadn't given it any thought. She hadn't believed it. The world around the bayou carried no infantile sounds, no cries or coos, no immature squabbles or echoes of pint-sized laughter coming from up and down the shoreline. Her heart clenched. It wasn't possible. Maybe they were at school. This couldn't truly be a community without young.
Her eyes cut to the woman who was leaning back in her chair, her hands spread protectively over her still-flat belly. "How many weeks did you say you were?"
"Six."
"How are you feeling?" she asked, unable to stop herself from slipping into doctor mode.
"With the pregnancy?" Ashe asked. "Good. Strong." She grinned. "Happy."
"No pain? Spotting?"
She shook her head. "I'm a little tired, and hungry. Always hungry."
"Hungry's good. Can I have your hand?" Julia reached out and instantly curled her fingers around the woman's wrist. For one minute, she felt Ashe's steady pulse. "Have you had your blood pressure taken? Any tests?"
"Nothing yet. I haven't been here that long." Ashe cocked her head to the side, her eyes playfully narrowed on Julia. "You're sounding like a doctor, Doctor."
"Hard habit to break."
"Then don't break it," Ashe said, her eyes soft. "Stay."
"I don't think I can," Julia told her. "It's complicated, I'm not sure..."
Ashe's eyes darkened. "It's Parish, isn't it? He's coming on too strongly."
Strongly, sensually, irresistibly.
"He can't help it," Ines said, leaning forward. "Hunters can be very intense, but Parish most of all. He lives in the caves, you know, rarely changes out of his puma state, and I don't think I've ever seen him smile."
"Really?" Julia said, deciding she hadn't heard the part about him rarely changing out of his puma state.
"He's smiling now, Ines," Ashe remarked with a note of concern in her voice.
"What? Where?"
"Over at the Hunters' table." She pointed behind Julia. "I didn't want to make you self-conscious, but he hasn't been able to take his eyes off you since we got here."
Julia glanced over her shoulder, heart jumping into her throat as her gaze searched for the man with the long black hair and eyes that held such intensity, such heat. She'd wondered where he was, if he was having lunch with the rest of them, the Pantera. She spotted him about twenty yards away at a table that sat among a stand of river birch, its four legs submerged in an inch or two of water. Clustered around the table were ten or so of the most wild-looking, barely clothed, heavily muscled men and women she'd ever seen. And at the head, standing on a branch a foot above them all was Parish. He was barefoot and tanned, and wearing only a pair of faded jeans, which rested just below his hipbones. His hair was wild and the scar near his mouth winked in the sunlight. Julia's gaze moved covetously over every inch of him. His narrow waist and ripped stomach that widened to a broad chest, powerful shoulders and lean, muscular arms. He looked ready to spring. And the muscles in Julia's belly turned to liquid fire as she watched him watch her.
"The Hunters moved their table to the water about ten years ago," Ines was saying. "They like to see if they can catch prey from the bank. I swear they never tire. A wild bunch, but incredible at what they do. Most of the Factions take midday meal together, but Hunters always do."
"He's very taken with you, Julia," Ashe said, not sounding all that pleased. "Say the word and I'll tell Raphael to speak with him, get him to back off."
"No, don't do that." She said the words very quickly, a fact that wasn't lost on Ashe.
"You find him attractive. I can see that, but be careful."
"Yes," Ines agreed. "He is not the soft, gentle human male you're no doubt used to."
Good. I think I'm tired of human males.
She mentally kicked herself for the thought. As the warm, sultry breeze moved over her skin and the trees listed back and forth overhead, her gaze held Parish's. She couldn't look away. She didn't believe in magic, but goddammit, she wanted to believe in him, in whatever this was that burned between them.
"Don't worry, Ashe," Ines continued. "With his history, he won't think of her in a serious way."
The woman's words cut the invisible string that had locked her gaze to Parish's, and she whirled around to face Ines. "What do you mean?"
Ines shrugged one shoulder. "Just that he'll never mate with a human. Not after what happened to his sister."
Julia looked first at Ashe, who shook her head, then back at Ines, who was now loading up her plate with a massive helping of bread pudding. "What happened to his sister?"
"His twin actually, and the leader of the Hunters for nearly a decade. Keira was a complete warrior female. She was brilliant and tough and stunningly beautiful, and she was the only family Parish had. But she wasn't happy here. She wanted to see the world. She wanted to work outside the Wildlands."
"What happened?" Though even as she asked, she felt the answer in her gut.
Ines looked down at her plate and said in a small voice, "She was killed. By the human male she fell in love with."
"How terrible," Ashe remarked.
"Since then, Parish has preferred his puma state, keeping to himself." Ines's eyes lifted, found hers again. "I'm surprised he's showing an interest in you. It'll make our females jealous. Though some fear him, there are many who hope to catch his eye."
Julia glanced over her shoulder again, found Parish standing on the bank near his table. His attention was now on his Hunters, and as he spoke to them, one shuddered almost violently, then stretched his neck abnormally far forward. Julia's heart jumped into her throat. What was happening to him? A strange silver mist appeared, from the bayou or out of nowhere, Julia couldn't tell. But it moved over the man, and as it did his clothing seemed to melt into his skin. It was almost tattoo-like until-
"Oh my god," Julia uttered, her gaze pinned on the man. No. He wasn't a man. Not anymore.
This had to be a dream. Or drugs. Maybe she wasn't even awake. She'd hit her head.
She gasped, gripped the table, as another man shuddered. Same stretch, same mist, same shift into golden brown...
"They're going back to work," Ines remarked as though the sight before them was nothing out of the ordinary. "The hunt's tomorrow and they have to secure the borders."
"Oh, Julia," Ashe exclaimed excitedly, "you have to stay now. I've never seen the hunt, but I hear it's amazing. We could go together."
Julia was only barely listening. Her gaze cut to Parish. Two large, golden eyed pumas were bracketing him. Pumas who had once been...human? How was this possible?
"Parish leads the hunt," Ines said with a grin in her voice. "He's incredible to watch. His cat is one of the fastest and fiercest predators I've ever seen."
The very moment Ines stopped talking, Parish looked over at Julia. Her heart thudded in her chest, her ears, her blood. Her lips parted as if she was going to speak, but instead her breath came out in a rush. Before her eyes, Parish shuddered, and in a wave of silver mist, he shifted into a large, powerfully built, slate gray cat. Julia might've said something or whimpered, she wasn't sure. Her heart was pounding so hard she was afraid it would rupture inside her chest. Her entire focus was trained on the incredible magic she'd just witnessed. The magic she could no longer deny. She'd thought the first puma she'd seen shift was beautiful, but he was nothing-absolutely nothing-to Parish. His broad head and luscious coat were formidable, but it was his eyes, gold flecked with blue and gray, rimmed with the darkest, deepest black, that took her breath away.
"Seeing is believing," Ashe said behind her.
Julia stared at the male, the cat.
Parish.
She didn't turn back to face the women as she uttered breathlessly, "It's real. He's real."
He's magic.
The puma opened his mouth and attempted to draw her scent deeper into his lungs. Now that she had proof of what he was, he wanted to see if, as she stared at him, her chemical reaction to him changed. Was she disgusted by his feline form or curious?
The slight hint of arousal that met the roof of his mouth made him growl.
He wanted to spring across the green, over tables and capture her between his teeth, toss her onto his back and return her to her room at Medical. He didn't like some of the looks the other Pantera males were giving her. They would need to be shown just to whom this new doctor belonged.
But before he could move a paw in her direction, two massive gold cats came bounding up to the table.
North border is secure, Mercier said, his deep voice booming inside Parish's head.
It was how they communicated in their puma form, but only when they were on duty. Rules regarding privacy had been established long ago. A Hunter never spoke or listened in to the thoughts of other Hunters unless they were working.
Parish turned to the other for her report. Rosalie?
Her silence instantly drew his concern. What is it?
Could be nothing, she said, nodding at a few of the other Hunters who stood nearby. Could be big game or a few nosy locals, but I picked up traces of human male scent near the east border.
Parish's gut tightened. How many?
Three.
Shit. And right before the hunt. He cut his gaze to Mercier. Let's go. You, me, Rosalie and Hiss. I want to see what we're dealing with. He turned to the other five Hunters who had already shifted and were calmly and attentively waiting for their orders. Split up. Run the west and southern borders. I want every inch scented.
Parish took off along the water's edge, glancing at Julia as he passed. She was watching him with wide eyes and a stunned expression. He'd wanted to stay with her, get her reaction to his cat firsthand and find out when she could be moved to Natty's house. But it looked as though he'd have to wait until later. In the meantime, she would be protected at Medical, and he would make sure she, and every Pantera in the Wildlands, remained safe from those who might wish them harm.
