Shifter's Lady Read Online Free PDF Page B

life, and I know more than one of my pride who would lose their senses over you.”
    She fisted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Is that what women are to you here on the surface? Possessions over which to be fought by brainless men?”
    He laughed. “Nice grammar, ocean girl. ‘Over which to be fought,’ huh? Never thought proper syntax would make me hot.”
    Marie blinked, opened her mouth, and then closed it. Finally she started laughing. “You are incorrigible,” she said, her eyes sparkling with the shimmering depths of the sea at midnight under a rising moon.
    He took a step closer and held out his hand. “I can live with incorrigible. How about I apologize for my unforgivable rudeness and we start over? I’m Ethan. Welcome to my territory. Would you like to have dinner with me? Somewhere away from any brainless men? Well, any brainless men besides me, of course.”
    She hesitated, then placed her slender hand in his. “I am Marie, and I would be honored to have dinner with you.”
    The touch of her hand sent something shining and razor-edged skimming through his nerve endings. His cat snarled and paced inside him, demanding to be let out to play.
    To claim. Mate-claim.
    But Ethan forced his animal half down and back, determined that the man would enjoy this evening. There was no possibility of laying mate claim to a nonpanther, let alone a woman who was not even a shape-shifter. This would simply be a pleasant meal among friends.
    As he followed Marie out the door of the cabin, unable to look away from her gently swaying backside, he clenched his hands into fists and focused on the essentials.
    Control.
    Pleasant dinner.
    No pouncing on the Atlantean.
    Marie glanced back over her shoulder and smiled at him, and he stumbled, his inherent feline grace deserting him. Screw
that.
There was definitely going to be pouncing.
    Marie tried to slow her breathing as she pulled her wrap around her shoulders against the chill of the late afternoon.
    In. Out.
    Calm. Focus.
    She concentrated on the breathing exercises she’d so often taught to women who were with child. In. Out. Measured, even tempo. No flutters or hitches or gasps, no matter that the man following her was burning holes in her back with those shocking golden eyes of his.
    She’d worn the dress in an attempt to get a reaction from Ethan, and it had worked so well she’d been caught completely off guard. She’d lived her life surrounded by warriors, so why was this one—this man who wasn’t even Atlantean; wasn’t even fully human—so different?
    Maybe because Poseidon’s warriors treated her as a cherished sister, due to their friendship with Bastien. They admired and respected her, certainly, but none had ever desired her. At least not that she’d ever known. Her few love affairs had been with men from the scholarly life. Philosophers and historians. Gentle, learned men.
    None of them had ever made her blood race the way this panther did. A thrill of pure electricity had sizzled through her blood at his touch when she’d finally dared place her hand in his. She’d pulled away from him as quickly as courtesy would allow, but not before she’d seen the shocked expression on Ethan’s face. This attraction traveled both directions on the path between them, and she was unsure if she could resist it for long.
    She glanced at him again and wondered how simple black trousers and a white shirt could be so elegant, when she had seen the high prince dressed in full royal attire on ceremonial occasions. Ethan walked with the pure grace and deadly determination of the ultimate predator. Every line of his body flowed with sinuous movement, and if she narrowed her eyes, she could almost visualize the cat that he could become.
    They stopped at his car, some sleek black vehicle that looked fast and expensive, based on what little she knew of cars, and she stared at him