Read One Down: Bayou Heat (Pantera Security League Book 1) for Free Online

now.
    For tonight.
    She continued to study him. “What’s wrong? Is your arm still hurting you?”
    He didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing that she seemed to be able to read his moods. Usually it took people years to see beneath his glib façade. If at all.
    “My arm’s already healed,” he told her with a slight, and possibly cocky, grin. “The beauty of Pantera blood.”
    She arched a brow. “So what is it?”
    “If you’re willing, I’d like to see if I can retrieve your earlier memories,” he said.
    She stiffened, her eyes widening with alarm. “Why?” she breathed.
    Cerviel grimaced. He hated to press her when it was obvious she was unnerved by the thought of resurrecting her old memories. Unfortunately, he knew if he didn’t convince her to let him coax her past the block in her mind, Raphael might just insist that one of the Healers be given the opportunity to try when they returned to the Wildlands.
    And the thought of anyone else being so intimately connected to her…
    His inner puma snarled with a savage protest.
    Nope. That wasn’t going to happen. Unleashing Raphael’s feral temper sounded pretty shitty, but Cerviel would share whatever information—strike that, whatever pertinent information —he gleaned from the extraction.
    He cleared the growl from his voice. His mind—no, his cat was starting to take over his reason. Dangerous for a member of The Six. They survived on rules, following orders, never going rogue no matter how desperately they wished to. He needed to get his act together and face reality. This female didn’t belong to him. He was there to find and retrieve only. Then he walked the hell away.
    Back into the shadows where all ghosts live.
    But, memory extraction… It could help. Not only her, but the mission.
    He glanced up at her. “I think your past, and what happened in it, what brought you to this point, might be important,” he said in cautious tones.
    Her exquisite face clouded with uneasiness, and maybe even a touch of distrust. “Is that why you came for me?” she demanded. “Because of something in my past?”
    Cerviel hesitated. His first instinct was to comfort her with a lie. Only the knowledge she would be far more pissed at learning he hadn’t been honest with her forced the truth past his lips.
    “We didn’t know you existed until we intercepted a message from our enemies that listed the name of this ranch.”
    She stared at him warily. “Still, you believe I have information you need?”
    He couldn’t help himself. Desperate to comfort her, desperate to quell any sign that she didn’t believe his heart was pure where her safety and security was concerned, he reached for her again, this time cupping her cheek with his palm. “It’s possible. But trust me, Hallie, it wouldn’t have mattered if you had information or not.” His eyes never left hers for a moment. “Nothing could’ve stopped me from rescuing you.”
    Or protecting you…
    Caring for you.
    Wanting you.
    Not even a direct order from my leader.

 
     
     
6B CHAPTER 5
     
     
    Hallie had never been this physically close to a male before and not felt fear, hatred and a desperate need to kill.
    But Cerviel wasn’t just any male.
    The dark-eyed, dark-haired puma shifter made her feel something else altogether. Something she hadn’t felt in…forever, it seemed. A new and amazing sensation.
    Safety.
    And when he spoke about her past, her memories…she believed he was speaking the truth. Her shoulders fell as she gazed at him. That wasn’t just wishful thinking, was it? Or a reaction to being rescued? She truly wanted to believe that there were people out there who cared if she was alive or dead. More than cared. Even if they were complete strangers.
    But that didn’t make it any less unnerving to think about having her memories forced back to the surface.
    After all, she had to be repressing them for a reason. Her gut tightened painfully. What if they were too traumatic for