Wild Hearts in Atlantis Read Online Free PDF Page A

you work with the panthers and your father was the alpha, we thought—”
    He shoved a hand through his hair and sighed. Again.
    She laughed. Like the woman herself, Kat’s laugh was sultry and full-bodied. Rich and warm, with an undertone of sex.
    Oh, damn. Poseidon, please help your humble warrior here. Because I’m falling down a black pit of lust-induced stupidity.
    He clenched his jaw and stared straight ahead, determined not to look at her again until the Jeep stopped.
    “What is that noise?”
    “What noise?” he countered, senses flaring.
    “That weird…well, it’s almost like a bubbling sound,” she said, sounding perplexed. “Like when a pot boils?”
    He heard it as soon as she said it, the noise he’d ignored before. The noise he’d
caused.
He’d unconsciously channeled the churning of his frenzied emotions into the nearest source of water. Muttering a few choice words in ancient Atlantean, he drew in a deep breath and sent cooling energy out to the edges of the swamp to stop it from boiling, hoping the change in temperature hadn’t lasted long enough to seriously damage any of the nature preserve’s flora or fauna.
    As the boiling noise stopped, he notice her staring at him, her golden eyes narrowed. “You did that, didn’t you? I could feel some kind of energy surge from you.”
    “You could feel it? What do you mean?” None but an Atlantean, some of the most powerful vampires, or a few of the witches who dabbled in the black arts could feel an Atlantean channel the elements. “Are you a witch? You’re surely no vampire. I can feel the heat of your body from here.”
    Her cheeks burned a hot pink for a moment, and she duckedher head. “You, ah, well. No, I’m certainly not a witch. Why? And quit distracting me, anyway. What did you do to the water?”
    “It’s an Atlantean thing. We channel the elements, especially water. Occasionally, strong negative emotion will siphon off into the nearest water source. I fixed it.” He realized his voice was gruff, but damned if he’d wanted to show weakness on his first day as an ambassador. What had Conlan been thinking? Perhaps love
had
addled the prince’s brain, as Justice had implied.
    Bastien waited, but she remained silent for a while, headlights picking out the bumpy road in front of them. He sank into his own musings, dire expectations of the dozens of ways he could fail his prince in this mission. He was made for battle. For crushing the enemies of Atlantis and of humanity. Not for delicate political negotiations.
    “Is something wrong?” Her voice was hesitant, but the amusement was still there. “You seem to be heaving a lot of deep sighs over there. I didn’t hurt your manly pride, did I?”
    “My
what
?”
    “Hey, I live and work with a whole heck of a lot of the most alpha of
all
alpha males on the planet. I know frustrated pride when I see it.”
    He glanced at her and glimpsed her perfectly calm expression. He also noticed her white-knuckled grasp of the steering wheel.
    She was
afraid
of him. The knowledge twisted painfully in his chest.
    “I’m sorry, Katherine. Miss Fiero. Ranger Fiero,” he stumbled over the words, in his haste to get them out. “What
do
you want me to call you?”
    She smiled and relaxed her grip on the steering wheel. “Kat is fine. And you are Bastien. Am I pronouncing that right?”
    Something inside him made a weird flipping movement when she said his name. He ignored it. Indigestion, probably.
    “Yeah, that’s it. Mom loved France in the 1500s. She gave us all names from that time period and area. Phillippe, Marie, Antoine, and me. I’m the baby.”
    She whistled. “Some baby. What are you, a family ofgiants?” Then she winced. “Hey, I’m sorry. If anybody shouldn’t make cracks about size, it’s me. I’m practically a freak of nature.”
    He could almost feel the pain that washed over her bitter words. Wanted to kill whoever’d caused it. Unclenched his fists and wondered if he