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sardonically.
     
    "But a shapeshifter? Is it even possible for an Atlantean to breed with a shapeshifter?"
     
    "Clearly it is, at least if the mating involves a human with slight traces of Atlantean DNA from an ancestor who was born more than eleven thousand years ago."
     
    Conlan looked at Alaric and nodded. "You were right."
     
    "I am always right. Can you be more specific?"
     
    Conlan's lips twitched in a ghost of a smile. "When we met Riley and Quinn, you said everything was changing. After millennia of fighting the shapeshifters on behalf of Wild Hearts In Atlantis – Warriors of Poseidon 1.5
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    humanity, now you tell me that they—at least some of them—might be our descendants."
     
    "It's difficult to know who to battle, when the identities of the combatants switch in the middle of the game," Conlan continued.
     
    "Yet it is even worse than you know, my prince." Alaric closed his eyes and sent his energy winging out from his body to refresh itself in the air and waters of Atlantis. As the pure power of the sustaining elements of his home rushed through his body, he felt the energy grow within him until a shining nimbus of energy glowed around his entire body.
     
    Conlan folded his arms. "That bad?"
     
    "Worse. Bastien's little shapeshifter may well be just that—Bastien's shapeshifter."
     
    "You don't mean—"
     
    "I do. Their energies parallel. They have the potential to reach the soul meld."
     
    Conlan's face hardened. "To the palace, then. We have much to discuss. I don't know if I can allow that."
     
    Alaric laughed, but fell into step with his prince. "Think on how you feel about Riley. Not even Poseidon himself could have barred you from your desire to unite with her. With Bastien and his shapeshifter, you may not have any choice."

Chapter Six
    "You're going to have to tell me about it sometime," Bastien said, following Kat down a muddy, overgrown path. She'd explained that they were at the very beginning of the dry season, and the path had been covered by as much as three feet of water during the Wild Hearts In Atlantis – Warriors of Poseidon 1.5
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    height of the May through October rainy season. They'd passed through stands of dwarf cypress and pinelands, mostly in silence, while she quite determinedly ignored him and he tried desperately to think of something liaison—like to say.
     
    Since he still wasn't sure what a liaison did, he was good for trying Denal's advice to try to "build a bridge of understanding" between their two cultures. What better way to do that than by hiking a dozen-mile roundtrip path through humid swamp country? Yeah, so irony wasn't his strong suit, no more than diplomacy.
     
    Yet as he gazed at the curved backs of Kat's endless legs, he realized he could think of quite a few better ways to build bridges.
     
    "Tell you what?" she called back, not looking at him. She wore her uniform and her official status like a shield against him today, and he'd seen no trace at all of the breathless woman who'd run from him the night before. Instead, he'd heard commanding intelligence in her telephone conversations with various members of her ranger force and the local paranormal ops unit.
     
    From the way her phone had rung incessantly, and the side of the conversations he'd overheard, both groups respected her insights and her authority. He'd seen the deference in the actions of the zoological staff who had come to transport the cubs to a secure facility for care and raising. She'd said good-bye to them with sadness, and in her kindness and play with the cubs he'd seen a flash of the mother she would one day become.
     
    The knowledge of her bearing another man's child sent a stabbing pain through him that he refused to contemplate.
     
    This hike was an attempt to investigate a vague report of trouble in the area that had been filed the night before, before their scheduled meeting with Ethan, the panther pride's alpha.
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