Panthers' Pleasure [Impulse 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (22 page)

“What’s he doing?” she asked Philo as Vilas placed a paw on Rafe’s head.

“He’s giving him some of his own power.” Philo touched her hand. “He couldn’t have done that if you hadn’t mated with him. He wasn’t strong enough before. Hold that thought.”

Philo presumably intended to comfort her, but his words didn’t help much. If she hadn’t mated with them, Rafe wouldn’t be fighting against unendurable pain and near-certain death. Chantal subconsciously fingered the collar round her neck, feeling like an outsider as two panthers—one full of life and vigor, the other barely breathing—shared some secret bonding process she knew nothing about, and never would.

“The potion seals the severed organs back together,” Mikael explained. “Which is why it hurts so much. I haven’t found a way to make it work at anything below boiling point yet.” He sounded almost apologetic. “No one’s ever had to go through the agonies twice in quick succession before either, so this is uncharted territory.”

“He can do it.” Chantal jutted her chin. “I refuse to let him die.”

“Ready,” Philo said, returning from the Bunsen burner with a new batch, so strong smelling that it made Chantal feel faint.

“Okay, last chance. Be prepared for that,” he said grimly. “We can’t do it three times.”

He applied the potion, and Rafe’s panther body literally elevated from the table. His cries of pain made Chantal’s teeth rattle. She noticed that Vilas, still with his paw on Rafe’s head, was doubled over with pain, too.

“He absorbed some of the pain himself,” Mikael said, “to try and spare Rafe.”

Chantal didn’t even try to stem her tide of tears. Instead she stood anxiously by while Mikael examined Rafe’s body. He looked up at her and flashed an exhausted smile.

“It’s worked,” he said. “I think we’ve saved him.”

* * * *

A collective sigh of relief echoed through the room. Someone sent out a pheromone and applause could be heard from outside where all the colony had collected, waiting for news of their leader.

Vilas shifted back, pain etched in his bones. What he’d felt was only a fraction of what Rafe must have endured. How the hell he’d managed to come through it was a mystery. All he knew was that he had. He’d gotten this far, and Vilas would do whatever it took to make sure he recovered completely.

He glanced down at Rafe, who appeared to be breathing more easily. He opened his eyes slowly and groaned.

“Can you shift back, buddy?”

“Not sure I have the strength.”

“You know you have to. Come on, we didn’t go through all this for you to wimp out on me now.”

“What’s happening?” Chantal asked.

Vilas left it to Mikael to answer her. Right now, he had trouble even looking at her. She ran out on them. That was all he knew, and it was too late for her to pretend that she gave a shit about them. If there was one thing that Vilas couldn’t tolerate, it was people who made promises they didn’t intend to keep. There were no excuses for Chantal’s behavior. They’d offered her everything they had and it obviously wasn’t enough for her. He loved her still but hated her as well. Hated her for what she’d put Rafe through. Hated her for coming into their lives at all. They’d been a damned sight better off without her, even with their depleted powers. At least their hearts hadn’t been affected.

“Rafe can’t stay in panther mode for long. He needs to shift back so his human body can heal, but he can’t shift if he doesn’t have enough strength.”

“Which is why Vilas gave him some of his power.”

“I would imagine so.”

Vilas watched as Rafe’s body trembled. His fur gradually gave way to patches of human skin, and his tail disappeared, as did his massive paws. But it was taking too long. The worse possible case would be if he got stuck in midtransition. Vilas closed his eyes and used every last ounce of his formidable willpower to help Rafe through.

“Come on, lover, you can do this.”

“Shit, I’m stuck!”

“No, you’re not. Come back to us. We need you.”

Vilas could sense the strain on Rafe’s newly healed gut. He could feel him fighting to get back to them but feared he wasn’t strong enough.

“Rafe, if you don’t do this right now, I’ll…I’ll set that little she-panther that fancied you on your tail.”

Vilas heard Rafe groan and laugh simultaneously as his human form finally broke through. The entire room erupted with applause. Rafe lay flat on his back, sweating and moaning.

“Did I kill that bastard lion?” he asked.

Vilas kissed his forehead then his lips, mindless of his audience. “Yeah, you got the sucker.”

“Good.”

As though sensing Chantal standing just outside his line of sight, Rafe held out a hand to her. She ran to his side and grasped it in both of hers.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“All the better for seeing you.” He paused and she leaned over to kiss him. “Why did you go?”

“He needs to rest,” Mikael said. “Come on, Rafe, we’ll move you to a comfortable bed and give you something to make you sleep.”

“Can I stay with him?”

“No,” said Vilas.

“Yes,” said Rafe.

“You can both stay,” Mikael said. “But he needs peace and quiet,” he added, glaring at Vilas.

“I can’t believe it,” Chantal said, staring at Rafe’s stomach. “That line looks red raw, but when I think what—” Her voice caught. “You really are a miracle worker, Mikael.”

“He’s a butcher is what he is,” Rafe said, wincing.

Chantal clutched his hand as he was wheeled into an adjoining room with a comfortable bed. Mikael and Philo settled him onto it and forced some medication into him. Moments later he was asleep.

Vilas and Chantal eyed one another from opposite sides of the bed. The silence was brittle, filled with the strength of Vilas’s disapproval.

“I need to explain what I did, Vilas,” she said.

“What, you need to explain why you almost got Rafe killed?” Vilas folded his arms across his chest. “This I must hear.”

Mikael put his head round the door. “Your brother’s asking for you, Chantal.”

* * * *

Chantal had forgotten all about Max but was almost relieved for an excuse to escape the grim atmosphere of Vilas’s displeasure.

“I’ll be right back,” she told him.

Max was in an adjoining room, deep in conversation with Rochelle. So absorbed with her, in fact, that he didn’t seem to hear Chantal when she entered the room.

“Hey,” she said. “How do you feel?”

“Rochelle’s been taking good care of me.”

Chantal laughed, something she’d thought she’d never do again. “And you should taste her cooking.”

“Mikael put something foul on my leg and it already feels a lot better.”

“He’s a good doctor.”

Chantal stayed for a while longer. Max chatted to them both but didn’t once ask where he was or for an explanation about the happenings in the parking lot. Presumably someone had wiped his memory of those events, for which Chantal was grateful. He also appeared to have more than a friendly interest in Rochelle, as she did in him. Could it be? Chantal hoped so. She might have blown it with Vilas, and therefore Rafe, but if her brother found happiness in the colony, that would be cause for celebration.

“You go back to him,” Rochelle said, as though sensing Chantal’s impatience. “Max and I will be fine here. I’ll stay with him.”

“Thank you, Rochelle.”

She kissed her brother’s brow, tossed an abstracted smile Rochelle’s way, and returned next door.

Rafe appeared to be sleeping peacefully, his breathing unlabored and even.

“Where were we?” she asked, unable to look Vilas in the eye.

“It’s late,” he said abruptly. “Get some sleep.”

“I want to stay with you both.”

“There’s a couch over there.”

“What about you?”

Vilas curled his upper lip. “All of a sudden, she cares.”

“I never stopped caring, that’s the problem.”

“Just get some sleep. We’ll talk in the morning, when Rafe’s in the land of the living again.”

“Will it be that quick?” she asked, not daring to hope.

“Oh yes. Mikael’s a miracle worker, and that’s a fact.”

Anxiety, relief, and exhaustion combined to make Chantal fall into a deep sleep, something she hadn’t imagined would be possible. Too many thoughts swirled through her brain, the chief of which was how to make things right with her mates. She was distracted by the sound of Boscombe’s terrible roars and Rafe’s agony mingling inside her head, causing her to thrash about as she waded through the treacle of her imagination, trying to stop the fight. No one took any notice of her.

The sound of muted voices brought her abruptly back to consciousness. She sat up on the couch, disorientated. As the room slowly came into focus, she remembered where she was. She glanced across the room and saw Vilas and Rafe talking together, Rafe looked pale but otherwise pretty damned good.

“How do you feel?” she asked, levering herself to her feet and crossing the room to join them both.

“No lasting damage.”

Vilas harrumphed. “How many lives have you used up now, buddy?”

Chantal looked at his gut and gasped. That terrible wound was now a just a dark line. So, too, was the gash on his cheek.

“This time next week, it’ll barely show,” Rafe told her.

“It’s amazing.”

“Come on, you two,” Rafe said, lowering his legs over the side of his bed and standing up with Vilas’s help. “Let’s go back to the apartment and get some breakfast. I’m starving.”

Chantal laughed, feeling giddy with relief. It didn’t matter if Vilas hated her and they didn’t want to be mated with her anymore. Rafe was safe, and she didn’t care about anything else.

“How can you think of food at a time like this?” she asked.

He waggled her brows at her. “It wasn’t only food I had in mind.”

“Now that I can believe, but I’m sure it’s against doctor’s orders.”

“It is,” Vilas said brusquely as he helped Rafe from the clinic.

They made their way home, as Chantal already thought of it, unsure if it would continue to be so. Rafe wore just a loose shirt to cover his nakedness, explaining that any clothes touching his gut right now would be too painful. He seemed perfectly at ease with her. But Vilas was just as hostile as he’d been the previous night and couldn’t seem to look at her.

Rochelle had obviously been in and the table was set for breakfast, two bleeding steaks waiting for the guys, fruit and yogurt for her.

Rafe finished every scrap of his meal. Chantal barely touched hers. When it was clear that she didn’t intend to eat anything else, Rafe pushed his chair back and focused a steady gaze on her face.

“Do you want us to release you, Chantal?” he asked in a flat tone.

Chantal returned his gaze, unable to interpret his expression. Is that what he wanted? Is that what he was suggesting she say, making it easier for him?

“Of course she damned well does,” Vilas exploded. “Why else would she have run out on us?”

Something snapped inside Chantal at that point. She’d made the ultimate sacrifice on their behalf and Vilas seemed to think she was the bad guy. She’d endured his brooding insults last night because they were both so worried about Rafe, and because she thought she deserved them. But enough was enough. It was time to put them straight. If Vilas didn’t really love her then she’d get over it, given time, but they needed to know how she felt about them, and she fully intended to tell them.

“I didn’t run out on you, as you put it, Vilas.”

“Really?” His scathing unconcern was almost her undoing.

“I left because I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

Vilas blew air through his cheeks. “Didn’t want to live with two freaky cats, more like.”

“Let her explain, Vilas,” Rafe said, placing a hand on his buddy’s arm.

“This oughta be good,” Vilas muttered.

“I love you both.” She spoke so sincerely from her heart that even Vilas’s head shot up. He retracted the claw he’d been using to snag away at his thigh and returned his attention to her. “I figured that I’d restored your power by sleeping with you, so if I left the lions wouldn’t have any way of luring you into a trap.”

“Except they did,” Vilas said, a fraction less animosity in his tone. “And damned near killed Rafe.”

“I planned to leave while you were at the clinic. Then I got a call from Max at the hospital.” She explained what had happened to her brother.

“We knew where you went,” Rafe said. “You left the paper with the hospital number behind.”

“Oh, I hadn’t realized.”

Or had she? Had she subconsciously left clues so that they’d come after her? Strange factors controlled peoples’ actions in Impulse, so she couldn’t be sure.

“The lions must have been close enough to pick up on your decision to leave,” Rafe said.