Laura Wright - Talon/Xavier

Isi stiffened. “What about him?”

“Did you know him?”

“No.” Isi felt a familiar stab of rage toward the man who had abandoned her when she needed him the most. “He dumped me at an orphanage in Shreveport and disappeared.”

“Did you ever search for him?”

Isi scowled. Like she’d waste one precious second of her life on the worthless sperm donor who’d impregnated their mother?

“Why should I?” she demanded. “If he wanted to be with me he wouldn’t have tossed me away like a piece of trash.”

Ashe placed a hand on her swelling stomach, the gesture revealing her instinctive urge to protect the child growing so rapidly in her womb.

“Now you know he had no choice.”

Isi abruptly released her sister’s hand and rose to her feet. She’d done her best to pretend the elders’ claim of her birth was nothing more than a fairy tale.

And she’d been remarkably successful.

Of course, she had a lot of practice at pretending the nasty things in her life didn’t exist.

“Do I?” she muttered.

“You don’t believe the elders?” Ashe asked.

Isi moved to gaze at out the window that offered a view of the clearing where the Pantera gathered for their meals.

There was no denying it was a beautiful sight, even for a girl who’d never spent more than an hour away from the city.

The long tables covered in green cloth set among the lush flowers and cypress trees. The unexpected wooden statues that were tucked among the azaleas to provide charming glimpses of native art. The nearby lake that sparkled in the lazy sunlight.

It was a land crafted by magic.

A magic that was fading.

And they wanted to blame her.

“Would you, if you were me?” She gave a humorless laugh, her voice edged with a bitterness she couldn’t hide. “You get to be the beautiful princess who saves the Pantera while I’m the evil twin who offers nothing but destruction.”

She heard Ashe’s soft gasp of remorse. “Isi, I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”

“Look, it’s not like I give a shit,” Isi interrupted the soft words. Hell, the only thing worse than being tagged as some sort of Antichrist was pity. The mere hint gave her hives. “Only suckers believe in prophecies.”

“You’re not evil.”

Hidden behind her well-perfected wall of indifference, she turned to meet her sister’s sympathetic gaze.

“Well, I’m not good,” she said. “And it doesn’t bother me at all.”

“I mean what I say,” Ashe insisted, clearly as stubborn as Isi. She smiled wryly. At least they had one thing in common. “You’re not evil.”

“Great.” Isi shrugged, just wanting to be done with painful conversation. “If you could convince the crazy cats in charge I’m one of the good guys, I’ll be on my way back home.”

Ashe reached out her hand, her expression filled with a wistful yearning that tugged perilously at Isi’s heart.

“We’ll figure this out,” she promised. “Together.”

Isi instinctively backed away. She wasn’t ready to give Ashe what she so obviously desired.

A sister.

“Yeah. Whatever.” She continued to back toward the door. “I have to go.”

Ashe dropped her hand, her gaze searching Isi’s face. “You look better.”

Isi came to a reluctant halt. “I was. Now…” She swallowed her words. There was no way in hell she was going to admit that there was something about Talon that eased her illness. “It doesn’t matter.”

Ashe bit her lip, her lids already beginning to droop. “I’m worried I’m draining you of your strength and that’s what is making you sick.”

Isi shrugged. “Don’t sweat it, I’m tough.”

Her sister struggled against the rising tide of weariness. “Isi—”

“I’ll come back after dinner.”

Isi slipped from the room, but lingered until she was certain her sister was deeply asleep.

It wasn’t that she cared whether or not Ashe might feel alone. Or need something before Raphael returned.

It was just…

With a muttered curse, Isi headed out of the clinic and straight to the cottage.

This entire place was making her nuts.

NEW ORLEANS

Talon ignored the closed sign clearly displayed on the door of the voodoo shop. He wasn’t a man who let pesky barriers stand in his way when he wanted something. Still, he was civilized enough to use his lock-picking skills to deal with the door rather than just kicking the damned thing open.

Glancing up and down the narrow street, he slipped inside and shut the door behind him. There would be witnesses to his B & E, of course. The specialty shops that lined the streets weren’t so busy that the proprietors weren’t aware of what was going on in neighboring stores. He could only hope they’d wait to see if he tried to walk out with a bag of loot before they called the cops.

Halting just inside the door, Talon immediate realized he wasn’t alone.

Despite the heavy scent of incense that hung in the air there was no missing the smell of two human males. Or the sour stench that marked them as enemies.

Walking past the rows of leather-bound books, crystals that came in every size and color, ceramic pots that were filled with Isi’s potions, and voodoo dolls, Talon silently paced to the body art room at the back of the store.

He hesitated at the open doorway, scanning the brightly lit room for hidden danger.

There wasn’t much to see. The walls were covered with a variety of tattoo patterns and framed pictures of happy customers. There were two narrow massage tables covered with white paper, and rolling cabinets that held the paraphernalia needed by the tattoo artists.

No hidden closets or cupboards.

And best of all…no exits.

Curling his nose at the strange odor that clung to those humans who carried the Mark of Shakpi, Talon turned his attention to the two men who had yet to notice his arrival.

Idiots.

One was seated at the end of a table. He was a young, blond-haired man with the hard muscles of a dedicated bodybuilder. He had a dozen tattoos running up his arms and around his thick neck, but he wasn’t at the shop for another.

No. The second man who was standing in front of him was holding a small metal rod with a flat piece of metal at the end.

A branding iron.

And Talon would bet his left nut it had a raven design on it.

A stupid, sharp-edged disappointment sliced through him before he was sternly reminding himself that he’d come to Isi’s shop precisely because the elders suspected Isi was connected to their enemies.

What else had he expected?

With a shake of his head he forced himself to concentrate on silently stepping into the room. The men might be mere humans, but Raphael had discovered that their enemies had weapons that could weaken a Pantera and make their cats dangerously vulnerable.

“Am I interrupting?”

With a flurry of curses both men jerked their gazes toward the doorway.

The blond on the table was the first to recover. “Hey, this is a private—”

“Fuck,” the one with the branding iron breathed. He had lanky black hair, a narrow face that had a rat-like quality, and brown eyes the color of mud, but there was an intelligence in his gaze that was missing from his companion. “Run.”

“I don’t think so.”

Talon stood in the doorway, bracing himself as the blond pulled a knife and charged forward. He waited until the man was in striking distance, grabbing the arm holding the knife and using the attacker’s own momentum to his advantage as he spun and slammed him face first into the doorjamb.

Having momentarily stunned his opponent, Talon spoke directly into his ear.

“Drop the knife and sit in the corner like a good boy and you might make it out of here alive,” he offered.