Atlantium Trilogy I: Bride of Atlantis (23 page)

Twisting his head to look back in the
direction from which he’d come, he listened intently. Sure enough,
within a few moments, he heard the hunters trampling through the
brush in pursuit.

Uttering a mental curse, he looked at
the track again.

It might just lead back to the
compound, but he didn’t think so. He’d studied the area pretty
thoroughly over the past few weeks and he was fairly certain that
this track belonged to the woman he’d spotted a few times in his
surveillance.

He didn’t trust the impulse that
assailed him to seek her out, but he was pretty much out of options
unless he wanted to just lie down and let them finish him
off.

A year ago, he would’ve almost
welcomed it. Hell, even six months ago.

He wasn’t ready to quit now, though.
If he died, he meant to take that bastard with him to
hell.

Turning without even realizing he had
made a decision, he began to head along the edge of the track as
quickly as he could. He didn’t trust the woman, not enough to go to
her for help, but she had several outbuildings on her property. If
he could just make it to one of them, he would have the chance to
rest and see about his wounds.

The wound on his shoulder seemed to
have stopped bleeding. He was fairly certain that had been no more
than a crease, deep enough to hurt like a son-of-bitch, and bleed
like hell, but he was pretty sure the bullet had done no more than
plow a furrow through him and out the other side.

He was equally certain that he did
have a bullet in his hip. He’d been favoring the leg, trying his
best to keep from jolting it anymore than necessary, but each time
he put even a little weight on that leg, agonizing pain ground
through him and the leg threatened to buckle.

Hobbling now that the adrenaline had
abandoned him and the pain and weakness was threatening to lay him
out for the kill, he gritted his teeth and kept moving as quickly
as he could, hoping he could make it to the woman’s house and hide
before he passed out.

Her image rose in his mind and as it
did he felt his heart-rate speed up just a little. A flicker of
desire burgeoned despite all reason, his body beginning to hum with
warmth.

Wryly, he concluded that he was still
a ways from death if she could get any kind of rise out of him at
the moment.

But then again, he had wanted her from
the first moment he spied her and no amount of reasoning with
himself had banished that.

She was as different from Concepcion
as night from day.

It didn’t matter.

More importantly, she was not one of
the people.

But that didn’t make any difference
either. He’d tried to tell himself it did, but he knew
better.

Every time he looked at her cool,
white skin, her light blond hair, her pale blue eyes, he thought of
ice—hard, cold.

And still he thirsted for a taste of
her.

He hadn’t stopped mourning for
Concepcion and the babe. He still carried an ache that nothing
could eradicate, not even his revenge. Having them wrenched from
his life so abruptly and with such finality had been like having a
part of himself torn away and he could never get that back, never
get them back.

He would see that they had justice,
though, blood for blood, if it was the last thing he ever
did.

He had not intended that it be the
last thing he ever did, though, because he had realized when he saw
the woman that there was a reason to live, something to live for
besides fulfilling the need for revenge.

He didn’t trust her. She wasn’t one of
the people, and she lived too damned close to his enemy for his
comfort in an area that was so remote that the next neighbors were
miles away.

He couldn’t completely rid himself of
the suspicion that it was more than a coincidence that her land
bordered his enemy’s, that her neat little house and farm was
little more than two miles from his compound as the crow
flew.

But that didn’t matter
either.

In the back of his mind he knew that
he had already decided that, once he had done what he had come to
do, he fully intended to have her.

* * * *

The first gunshot woke Alaina. Still
groggy with sleep, she lay still on the couch trying to figure out
what the noise was. As it came closer it became clear what the loud
popping noise was. Her heart skipped several beats. She glanced
sharply at the clock on top of her TV set.

“
My god! It’s two in the
morning! What the hell would they be hunting at this time of
night?”

Rolling off the couch, she scrambled
on her hands and knees toward the phone, grabbed it up and dialed
the sheriff’s office. It seemed to ring forever and finally
switched over. He’d forwarded his calls.

He was probably at home in
bed!

“
Sheriff Wilson,” said a
voice on the line just about the time she’d given up.

“
Hank, it’s me, Alaina.
They’re out shooting up the woods again.”

There was a momentary silence. “What
the hell are they hunting at this time of night?”

“
Well, god knows, I don’t,”
Alaina said sharply, “but it sounds like they’re moving in my
direction. I’d just as soon not have any more bullet holes in my
damned house!”

“
I’m about fifteen minutes
from you. Stay on the floor.”

As if she had any intention of getting
up!

The thought had barely formed in her
mind when her wall exploded and then the couch as a stray bullet
pierced the wall of the living room. Tufts of stuffing flew up in
the air and drifted downward.

Alaina gaped at it in stunned
disbelief for a split second feeling cold wash over her as she
realized she’d been lying within inches of that bullet only a few
moments earlier. Adrenaline surged through her then and,
instinctively she began to scramble on her belly toward the back of
the house. “Shit! Oh shit!” she muttered, with no clear destination
in mind beyond trying to get out of range.

She’d never had a bullet actually
enter the house! She’d heard shotgun pellets rain down on her roof
like hail. She’d even found a couple of places on the outside walls
where a spent bullet had cracked the siding, but she had never
really believed she was in danger of actually getting shot in her
own living room!

She’d already gone out the back door
and made a dash for the storage shed in the rear before it occurred
to her that they might decide she was a deer or whatever it was
they were hunting.

They were on the front side of the
house, though, which was why she’d thought of the shed to begin
with, afraid that if they were close enough that a bullet had gone
through the siding and into the house, that the interior walls
weren’t substantial enough to protect her.

In the distance, she heard Hank’s
siren.

She heard another gunshot as she
grabbed the door of the shed, however, and she yanked it open and
dove inside, wondering if they were going to shoot the poor
sheriff. The shed was black as pitch inside, but she crouched
behind her washing machine, which was right beside the door, trying
to reassure herself that it was substantial enough to stop a bullet
even if they came right up to the house. “Those crazy bastards!”
she gasped, wondering if they were drunk or stoned out of their
minds.

She’d complained about them
trespassing at least a half a dozen times, but in the entire time
she’d been living in the house, the hunters had never gotten nearly
this close.

Trying to catch her breath and calm
the frantic pounding of her heart, she listened as the siren drew
nearer. After a few moments, she heard the engine of the car, the
crunch of gravel beneath the wheels and then the sounds began to
fade as the sheriff’s car passed her place, headed down the
track.

Tipping her head up, she listened for
anything that might indicate that they were just crazy enough to
shoot at the sheriff, wondering if it was safe to leave the
shed.

“
I’m going to sue the
bastard if Hank doesn’t arrest his sorry ass this time,” she
muttered.

She was shaking all over. She realized
after a few moments that part of it, maybe, was due to the fact
that she was sitting on cold concrete in her panties.

She’d forgotten she’d stripped down to
her panties and t-shirt when she’d sprawled on the couch to watch
the movie she’d dozed off in the middle of.

It was quiet outside now. She didn’t
hear the sirens, the car engine, no shooting. She thought she could
hear a low hum of voices, but the sound was too indistinct to tell
for sure.

Dragging in a shuddering breath, she
was on the point of pushing herself upright when she saw something
that froze her mid-motion.

There was a pair of glowing yellow
eyes staring straight at her from the darkness of the shed less
than two yards from where she was sitting.

Chapter Two

Every muscle, tendon, and bone in
Alaina’s body turned to pure water. She stared back at the glowing
eyes, unable to blink, to breathe, even to think.

The eyes stared at her unblinkingly
for what seemed an endless time. Finally, slowly, they
blinked.

Too weak to act on instinct, and too
terrified to think, Alaina stayed where she was until the sound of
voices finally penetrated her chaotic mind.

The eyes had moved at the sound.
Whatever it was in the shed with her was staring at the door
now.

Almost as if that was all that was
needed to break the frozen shell of shock that encased her, Alaina
began to push herself slowly to her feet. The eyes, almost as if
the animal could see her, shifted to her again.

She froze.

The animal didn’t move.

Slowly, she lifted one arm, searching
blindly for the light switch.

The light blinded her when it came
on.

Blinking to focus, Alaina was almost
sorry when her eyes finally did.

A panther lay sprawled along the far
wall of her shed. A black panther.

She’d been staring at it in petrified
horror for several minutes when it dawned on her that the panther
hadn’t moved. He was still watching her, but there was nothing the
least threatening about his body language. He had not growled, not
made any sound at all. He was not crouched to spring. There was no
indication even of tension in his body.

He was lying on his belly with his
hind legs tucked beneath him and his forelegs extended like a huge
house cat lazing in the sun.

As she stared at him, he flicked his
long tail almost impatiently and then dropped his head to his paws
and used one leg to cover his eyes, as if the light was bothering
him.

Alaina’s fear began to drain away from
her as she stood stock still, frowning now in
puzzlement.

Black panthers were not native to the
area. The native panthers, which were pretty much gone now, were
tan.

Where had he come from and what was he
doing in her shed?

She saw the blood then. “They’re
hunting you,” she whispered in sudden comprehension.

He lifted his head at that, looked
straight at her.

The sound of voices outside in her
yard distracted both her and the panther. The panther stiffened,
tried to struggle to his feet. She held her hand out. “Be still,”
she whispered. “I’m not going to let anybody hurt you anymore.”
Shifting toward the door, she flicked the light off and went out,
closing the door behind her.

The sheriff, she saw, and another man
she didn’t recognize were crossing the yard toward her. Rage
instantly surged through her. It had to be the man that had scared
the living shit out of her and nearly killed the poor cat hiding in
her shed, “Did you see the hole they shot in my living room wall,
Hank?” she demanded, stalking toward them.

“
Now calm down, Miss Alaina.
This is Mr. Tom Calhoun, your neighbor.”

“
Is this the son-of-a-bitch
that shot up my house?” Alaina demanded, ignoring the hand the man
extended.

“
I want to apologize for
that. A couple of friends of mine had a little too much to drink
and took it into their head to go coon hunting.”

Alaina gaped at the man. “You have got
to be fucking kidding me! That is the lamest damned lie I have ever
heard in my life! I didn’t hear any dogs. I may not be a hunter,
but even I know people hunt coons with dogs.”

Calhoun’s eyes narrowed. The false
‘friendly neighbor’ smile he had pasted on his face flat-lined. “As
I said, they’ve had a little too much to drink.”

“
You need to calm down,”
Hank said shortly.

“
I need to calm down?”
Alaina snapped, outraged. “I was asleep on my couch in my living
room! There’s a hole the size of a fucking silver dollar not two
inches from where I was laying before I called you!”

When Alaina glanced at her neighbor
again, she saw that he was staring at her shed speculatively. Her
heart skipped a beat. It took an effort to keep from following his
gaze, but she was fairly certain the panther was still in the shed.
If he’d followed her out, she didn’t think either one of the men,
who were facing the shed, would’ve still been standing in front of
her looking thoroughly pissed off.