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  Alexa pushed for a sync with Reese, a communication between them so they could converse in their minds.

  He accepted the sync and his powerful presence filled her mind.

  “Let’s go somewhere private.” With that, he leapt over the marble guardrail and landed soundlessly on the grass below, next to the entrance of the maze.

  Alexa followed suit, bounding over the marble barrier and landing next to him.

  “Where do you want to go?” she asked him.

  “You know the area better than I.”

  An idea struck her. “Let’s get some answers.”

  “Leandra?” he said the name in her head.

  Curiosity ran amok through Alexa. How did he know that name? “You know Leandra?”

  “I’ve had the pleasure.” His tone gave nothing away.

  “Shifters should be smarter than this.” Leandra’s voice entered their sync.

  Reese snarled.

  Alexa whirled around, looking for her friend. “Don’t hurt her,” she told Reese in their sync. “Leandra? You can talk in our sync? We didn’t let you in.”

  Leandra stepped out of the bushes. Her hair was in long braids, hanging halfway down her back. Her eyes were luminescent, picking up the moonlight’s glow. “Some don’t need to have permission to enter a sync.”

  “That’s like eavesdropping,” Alexa harrumphed.

  Leandra lifted one shoulder in a shrug.

  “Why can’t I scent you, witch?” A snarl accompanied Reese’s question.

  “Block. You think shifters are the only ones that use it to hide?” She waved them forward. “Come. Out of the light, into the shadows. I don’t need to be noticed.”

  Alexa padded behind Leandra softly, Reese took the rear position.

  When they’d gone several paces, Leandra stopped. “I knew it. I knew it though I couldn’t get a clear vision.”

  “What?” Alexa dropped to her haunches.

  Reese stood above her, almost as if guarding her.

  “I knew you’d find one another,” Leandra explained, still in their sync. “I’ll have to stay in your sync. I won’t speak where I can be heard. Too many creatures with preternatural hearing in the vicinity. And not all are shifters. The swamps are full of others.”

  “I don’t give a damn about the others,” Reese snapped, his teeth bared. “What do you know about us? About my scar?”

  “You knew one another before—”

  “Before what?” Alexa interrupted.

  Leandra glanced away. “I wish I knew. All I’ve seen is that you have a history. You protected him, stood guard over his unconscious wolf while he healed. Your tigress tended to his wounds, keeping them clean and free of infection.”

  There was something more Leandra wasn’t revealing. Alexa could feel it.

  Reese glanced at Alexa. He stepped close, his shoulder inches above hers. She leaned her body against his golden-gray body. His warmth passing through the thick double coat.

  “And then?”

  “And then you never saw each other again. Until now. But you’ve dreamed of her, wolf.”

  “That I have.” Reese pressed his side against Alexa’s tigress torso.

  His warmth was a heated reminder of the attraction they shared as humans, and clearly also in their shifted forms.

  A rumble of pleasure sounded in Alexa’s tigress mind.

  “And now you are together again.” Leandra studied them, her eyes driving through their flesh, as if assessing their very souls.

  Was this a spell? “You promised no magic,” Alexa asserted.

  “I am—”

  “Alexa!” A voice, panicked, came from the direction of the house.

  “Alexa!” The voice was closer.

  Alexa recognized Maylene’s voice.

  “I must go. I can’t be seen here.” Leandra made a swift turn and vanished into the thick shrubs.

  Alexa shifted into her human body, trying to be soundless, and wishing she were more accomplished so she could do it effortlessly. I must practice shifting.

  “Here, Maylene.” She turned to Reese. “You should go. For now. We have unfinished business.”

  With a quick twitch and a sudden almost soundless move, Reese shifted into his human form. He touched a finger to her bottom lip, tracing it, then placed it against his lips and slipped toward the maze, giving Alexa a backward glance.

  To Alexa, his departure felt like a crater had been blasted in her body. She felt his presence as he left, leaving behind an emptiness.

  She glanced at her dress. For fuck’s sake. Her ball gown looked like she’d been in a tussle. She pulled at the fabric to straighten it, and swiped at dust marks. A small tear in the satin at her waist made her grimace. She could hide it if she placed her arm strategically.

  “Chère.” Maylene’s eyes widened. “What happened to you? Were you accosted? Where is Theo when he’s needed?” She scowled as she looked around.

  “It’s nothing I couldn’t handle. What was it you needed?” Did we run out of punch? Surely Maylene wouldn’t come hunting her down for something trivial.

  “She’s in labor. She’s having the baby.”

  Alexa’s heart skipped a beat. “Callie?”

  “Yes, come please. We can’t find your brother.”

  Alexa followed Maylene toward the staircase, glancing backward to see if Reese was still nearby. A pair of eyes glowed at her from the maze. A warmth ran through her. He was looking out for her. He was here for her.

  Alexa picked up her pace following Maylene up to the balcony, winding between tables and potted plants. They hastened to the house where she set Callie up with a room and grabbed two of Theo’s men to track down Doc.

  “Where’s Lézare?” She tugged on Theo’s sleeve.

  He looked at her. As close as she was to Theo, Lézare was closer to the huge lion shifter.

  Is he covering something?

  The thought vanished when Callie released a low moan that began to build in volume.

  “I’ll find him myself.”

  She scoured the ballroom to no avail.

  No Lézare.

  She headed toward the balcony. Movement to the side caught her eye. Alexa paused and studied two figures. “Maylene, I’ll catch up to you.”

  Lézare was at the gazebo, in the shadows. And he was embracing a blonde in a black and gold ball gown.

  She hastened toward him. “Lézare!”

  Her brother raised his head and looked at Alexa.

  “Callie. She’s in labor,” Alexa yelled at him. Fine time for him to be making out with some random woman.

  He waved an acknowledgment and headed toward her and up the stairs. He joined her.

  Alexa indicated the gazebo with a nod. “Who is that?”

  He glanced at the gazebo. “A guest.” The look on his face reminded her of when he was a kid and didn’t quite confess to the full version of a story. “Where’s Callie?”

  “I set her up in a guest bedroom and sent some of the men to find Doc.”

  “Be right there,” he told her then veered toward Theo.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Alexa exhaled and leaned against the wall in her bedroom. She’d performed some emergency repair to her makeup and dress. Shifting was such a bitch to clothing.

  Thank goodness Callie had been in labor and no one paid attention to the way she looked. But things weren’t completely settled. Now her concerns were back. Alexa ticked them off on her fingertips.

  She touched her index finger. Now Lézare was gone. Again. This was so unlike him. She was beginning to worry about him.

  Middle finger. And Theo had vanished. Probably sent somewhere by Lézare.

  Ring finger. And Evie hadn’t been heard from since she’d told Veila she’d go on the bus tour.

  Pinkie. No word from Valencia.

  What the hell was going on with her?

  Everything was falling to pieces. Except that Callie had the baby. A healthy baby boy that they’d name
d Elias Rafael after Gavin’s and Vax’s brothers. They’d decided they’d call him Eli.

  The music from downstairs thumped a beat, reminding her a party was still raging. Shifter hearing was sometimes overrated.

  I wonder what Reese is doing.

  Was he waiting for her? Had he found someone else to dance with? Had another curvy shifter turned courtesan and wooed him away? Though a twinge of jealousy ate at her gut, Alexa knew better. There was some type of bond between them. And Reese was not like the other men she’d known. Not like any of them.

  She’d find him at the ball, somewhere.

  She opened the door to her bedroom.

  —and damned near ran into a wall of a man. Before she could slam into him, she placed her palms on a broad chest, rippling with muscles. Alexa stepped back slightly, but her hands remained on that chest. She looked into a pair of glittering eyes.

  A tiny smile played on the curve of his sensuous lips. “Going somewhere?”

  “Reese.” His name slipped out with a tiny breath of air.

  “In the flesh.” His gaze traveled to her hands on his chest. “We have unfinished business.”

  Boy, do we ever.

  Her body refused to cooperate. Or maybe it was cooperating, just not in the way she’d thought it would. It had to be the way he said the word flesh. It was like sin wrapped in melted chocolate.

  Her entire breathing system felt like it was freeze-dried. She couldn’t draw a breath. What this man did to her… She gulped a swallow of the dust that seemed to fill her mouth.

  —and almost choked on nothing.

  Trying to swallow was pointless.

  Mind numb, senses reeling, and a body raging between throbbing and pulsing while her core flexed muscles.

  I’ve got to get better control of myself.

  “You feel it too.” His statement was in no way a question.

  The tiniest nod moved her head, as if a puppet master controlled her motions. “You do?”

  “Powerfully so. From the moment you walked away, my body was in tune with yours, I didn’t have to scent you to find you. Some sort of radar drew me here.”

  “I’ve never—”

  “Me either.”

  It seemed natural that he was able to finish her thoughts.

  “Leandra.” The moment she said Leandra’s name, she knew Lézare would be furious for what she planned. It was one thing to disappoint him by talking to Leandra so much more than he’d wanted her to. But since they’d been small, they’d been forbidden from going to the swamps at night; more than shifters were in the marshlands that surrounded Arceneaux Point.

  “She’d have the answers.” He agreed.

  “She has to.” Alexa looked down at her dress. “Shifting’s not so kind to ball gowns.” She looked at his suit—on the dusty side and rumpled.

  “Or suits,” he added. “Do you need to change?”

  “No. I wouldn’t have an occasion to wear this again anyway. Not until next year’s ball, and it’s not likely I’d wear the same one in back-to-back years. Hope you’re not afraid of things that go bump in the night.”

  He raised a brow, opened the French doors that led to her room’s balcony. “Ready to shift?”

  Her energy level wasn’t accustomed to this much consecutive shifting. She didn’t want to tell him that if she shifted again so soon, she probably wouldn’t be able to return to her tigress form for a few days, at the very least. “Sure.” Would have been better if she’d told him no—

  Too late.

  With startling swiftness, he’d shifted into his wolf and slipped through the doors.

  Here we go.

  Alexa shifted, grunting at the discomfort and pain of morphing into her tigress’s form.

  Once she’d padded to his side, he pushed for a sync.

  “You know where to go?”

  “I’ve been there a few times.” She didn’t elaborate on the most recent visit and what had transpired.

  His wolf eyes slimmed into a thin line in the night’s dimness. “What if we don’t like what Leandra has to say?”

  Alexa hadn’t been prepared for that. What if they didn’t? “We’ll deal with whatever comes our way.”

  She was eager to find out how she had history with him, and why Leandra was hiding something.

  Another thought occurred to her. One she pushed away. What if what they felt for each other wasn’t the same away from Arceneaux Point? What if there was a spell on them?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Reese kept pace with Alexa’s lope. She seemed in a hurry to get to their destination. He understood her motivation, but didn’t see the need to rush. They trotted through paths and brush, avoiding the areas where the ground was too soft—quicksand, she explained in their sync.

  More than thirty minutes into their sojourn, his nerve endings twitched with warning. The fur on his back rose and he slowed his pace.

  “Let’s go,” Alexa insisted.

  “Wait.” He drew to a full stop.

  She took a few paces then turned back toward him. “What is it?”

  “There’s something out there.” He looked toward the dark cluster of trees and the glimmer of water touched by moonlight.

  Alexa’s dark eyes gleamed as emeralds. She closed them into slits. Her body tensed, her muscles bunched in her haunches and shoulders. “It’s not surprising.”

  He gave her a double take. “What do you mean?”

  “The swamps. There are other creatures. Not just shifters.”

  “Anything you think we can’t handle?” He refused to believe there was something he couldn’t handle. There never had been.

  “Shifters have been known to lose.” Her tigress’s voice was a low whisper in his head.

  Shit. Shit. Shit. Reese could deal with putting himself in danger. But now he’d put Alexa in peril.

  “Let’s go back to Arceneaux Point.”

  “No, Reese. I want answers.”

  He did too, but not at any cost. “Leandra can come to Arceneaux Point. We can talk to her there.”

  Alexa laughed in their sync. “That’ll never happen. We have to—” Her eyes narrowed, focused on something behind him then widened.

  Reese whirled around.

  It took only seconds to process the next few thoughts, but it felt like an eternity passed while he studied the sight before him.

  Six beings. Males. Humans—but not. Their faces in otherworldly lines, their features stark in faces that were handsome, but…

  Reese couldn’t peg what it was, but something was off about the creatures.

  They snarled, revealing white fangs against crimson lips in poreless faces.

  He took in the air, heavy and thick with swamp scents, but no scent to give away the newly arrived interlopers.

  “Vampires,” Alexa hissed in their sync.

  Reese’s eyes narrowed. Vampires. He’d yet to encounter any. They never crossed into the Houston territory, as far as he knew. And if they ever had, they’d hid their presence well enough not to be found by the Nielsen security patrollers.

  “Shifters,” one of the males mocked.

  Reese wondered if he could enter their sync the way Leandra had. But she was a witch… and they were vampires.

  “You’re trespassing,” another vampire sneered, his features aristocratic, though his attire was no different than one would expect to find on the streets of New Orleans. Khaki pants, a collared white shirt.

  Each of the vampires was dressed the same, as if they’d walked out of one of the clubs, just another group of humans, regular joes, out for the night.

  Except for the fangs. And the skin. Perfect skin, flawless, as if airbrushed or photo-shopped.

  Should he shift? Did they think he and Alexa were food?

  Alexa snarled, her teeth bared, her eyes gleaming danger.

  “She’s a wicked one, isn’t she?” The first vampire said. “I want to be the first to feast on her blood. Another Arceneaux.”

  “I
t’s been a long time since we’ve tasted Arceneaux blood,” a third vampire said. “Since Étienne.”

  “Not that long,” a fourth one added. “I lucked out.”

  The other vampires turned their attention to the fourth.

  “What?”

  “No.”

  “Lies.”

  They denied the veracity of his statement.

  “It’s true,” he added, his smile wicked.

  “Then you get none this time,” the first vampire said. “This one’s ours.”

  “I’ll take from the wolf, then,” the vampire said.

  “They’ll kill us if they can,” Alexa said in their sync.

  Reese studied the tall, lean, but muscular beings. “We’ll take them,” he assured them.

  “Fine. But be careful. There can be no bloodsharing,” Alexa’s words bounced in their sync, echoing as if in a large chamber.

  The vampires advanced, splitting off as if to flank Reese and Alexa.

  Bloodsharing? What the hell is that? He never got a chance to ask her because then she communicated with him again.

  “There’s someone in our sync,” she added.

  Reese studied the beings to see if they’d given away that they’d overheard. “The vampires?”

  “Take the wolf out then the tigress,” the first vampire said, indicating toward two of the vampires to veer to the right.

  Shifters moved fast, but Reese was stunned to see the speed with which the vampires swarmed. He’d dropped to his haunches, next to Alexa, but at an angle so as to not leave them open to attack from the side, but before he could even think of leaping toward their attackers, a vampire had lunged for him, fangs bared, clawed fingers extended.

  The vampire swiped at Reese. Reese jumped back, then leapt for the male’s throat.

  A howl from and a grunt made him stop mid-leap, swiveling his torso to check on Alexa.

  She had a vampire by the throat, but another had sunk his fangs into her neck.

  Reese’s body slammed into the vampire he’d been lunging for, the vampire collapsed with a thud. Reese pounced toward the vampire with his fangs deep in Alexa.

  “Kill her. Now,” one of the vampires screeched.

  “I think not,” a voice came from the right.

  All activity froze. The vampire released Alexa, her blood on his lips.