Hunger Untamed
Page 8

"Tell me what's going on."
She struggled against his hold, thrashing wildly. "Let me go!"
Inside, his cat yowled with distress. His gut knotted at the anguish in her eyes. But if he let her go now, he might lose his only chance to save Hawke and Tighe. He couldn't be certain where she'd go. And if it wasn't the Crystal Realm, he wouldn't be able to follow.
He tightened his grip on her jaw, forcing her to look at him. A sheen of perspiration dampened her too-pale skin. "You're not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on, Ariana."
He waited as she struggled to pull herself together though her breaths remained ragged, and her lips pressed together with a faint tremble that told him she was close to tears. She blinked hard, pulled in a shuddering breath, and met his gaze.
"Who knows?" he prompted quietly.
"A Mage." She tried to look away. "The moonstones have kept him from finding me. He'll attack us."
Kougar frowned. "I didn't think anyone knew you were alive." Those who knew the truth had a way of dying beneath Melisande's sword. Or being dragged back to the Crystal Realm to die there.
"He didn't. Now he does."
Kougar stared at her, struggling to fill in the blanks. Since when did the Mage attack Ilinas?
"He's attacked you before?" He stilled. "When, Ariana?"
She glanced at him, but couldn't hold his gaze. "A hundred years ago."
"You're lying." Goose bumps erupted on his arms as understanding crashed over him. "Not a hundred years ago, but a thousand. Am I right?"
When she didn't answer, he squeezed her jaw harder. "Am I right?"
"Yes! Yes, it was a thousand years ago." She met his gaze, truth and anguish in her eyes. "He all but destroyed us. The moonstones were all that's kept us safe. I don't know why he couldn't sense me through them, but he couldn't." Tears began to roll down her cheeks. "But now he knows."
Kougar reeled at the implications. "It was never dark spirit that attacked you, but a Mage?"
His breath lodged in his throat as his world flipped upside down, as Ariana rewrote thousand-year-old history in the space of seconds. Twenty-one years ago he'd learned the Ilinas weren't extinct. That Ariana still lived. Twenty-one years later, he was still reeling from that revelation. But this rocked him even more. Because if Ariana hadn't been attacked by dark spirit . . . she wasn't soulless. The woman he'd loved still lived.
His hands began to shake.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Her lashes swept down, tears running down her cheeks. "Kougar . . . it was a long time ago."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I should never have mated with you in the first place!" Brown eyes snapped open, desperation and anger in their depths. "If I'd never taken you to mate, the Mage would have had no reason to attack us. Nearly two-thirds of my maidens died, Kougar." She shook her head, a bleakness in her eyes that mirrored that rushing through his heart. "If he attacks again, all will die. He'll win."
His head pounded. Only one thing shone through the chaos, crystal clear. She wasn't soulless.
The hand holding her wrist spasmed. With his other, he gripped her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. "Take off your contacts."
"I need both hands."
And the moment he released her, she'd try to escape.
"Open your eyes wide."
She made a grunt of annoyance but didn't fight him as he released her jaw and plucked out the soft discs, one after the other, tossing them on the floor.
"Look at me."
She lifted her gaze to his with a slow, thick sweep of dark lashes. Defiant eyes. Brilliant blue eyes he'd drowned in once upon a time. And in those eyes, her soul, Ariana's soul, shone brightly. His cat had known all along.
His chest caved as if beneath the swing of the sledgehammer. The woman he'd loved wasn't gone at all. She never had been.
He should feel relief. Maybe even joy.
Instead, he couldn't breathe. Everything he'd believed for a thousand years was a lie. That she'd been infected by dark spirit and destroyed her race. That she'd died. That she'd loved him.
She'd wounded him physically. Emotionally. Intentionally. With a cruelty beyond comprehension. Then walked away.
He stared at her, at the stranger he'd loved, his mind trying to rewrite those two short years they'd been together.
His cat growled at him, but he ignored the beast. Yes, he'd been right. This Ariana was the woman he'd mated all those years ago. But she'd never been the woman he thought she was. That woman would never have ripped his heart out of his chest and walked away, leaving him injured by a severed mating bond, leaving him to grieve for a millennium. The woman he'd thought she was would never have been so cruel.
Raw anger sparked into flame.
She lifted her free hand, reaching for her bound wrist. She meant to escape him.
He grabbed her, fury seething, tearing at him like finely honed blades, ten times worse than the fury he'd felt before. This was the agony of betrayal.
His hand clamped around her wrist too tight, her fine bones close to breaking beneath his grip. And he didn't care. White-hot pain seared his mind and heart. Everything he'd believed was a lie. His marriage. His love.
Goddess. He couldn't breathe. Tipping his head back, he struggled for control, struggled to think. The past couldn't be undone. But the future. . .
He released her wrist to grab her shoulders in the same punishing grip. His jaw ached from the clench of his teeth. "You're going to free my friends."
"I can't! I can't turn to mist."
"Why not?" he roared.
"The poison. If I turn to mist, I'll release the poison into my maidens. They'll die."
He stared at her, seething. Aching. And came to a decision.
"We're going to figure out what we have to do to free you from the magic, then you're going to save my friends. After that, I don't give a damn what you do or where you go."
"I have to go to my maidens."
"You're coming to Feral House."
"No!" She bared her teeth at him with a hiss. "I'm not going there with you."
His eyes turned to steel. "Yes. You are." He jammed his thumb beneath her ear, then caught her as she collapsed against the wall, unconscious.
He'd loved her once, body, heart, and soul, and she'd betrayed him, consigning him to purgatory for a thousand years. Never again would he willingly allow her into his life. When this was over, when Hawke and Tighe were safe, she could go to hell.
Chapter Five
Ariana jerked awake to the feel of powerful arms lifting her amid a cool night breeze. She blinked at the sight of the unfamiliar landscape of thick woods pierced by the early light of dawn. Kougar's scent hit her, and it all came roaring back--the confrontation in her house, his removing the moonstone cuff. Hookeye. Her heart began to pound.
The Mage she called Hookeye knew she was alive.
Carrying her, Kougar closed the door of an expensive-looking sports car with his hip. Her wrists were bound together with duct tape, no doubt to keep her from reaching her bracelet and disappearing on him again.
She'd known the moment she saw him standing within the walls of the Grand Corridor that his reappearance in her life was going to spell disaster. But she'd never guessed it would happen so quickly.
Goddess, she had to warn Melisande and the others!
"Kougar, let me down," she commanded, staring at the hard, shadowed lines of his arresting face. "Let me go. My maidens could be in danger!"
"Have you turned to mist?"
"No, of course not."
"Then they're safe. Isn't that what you implied?"
"I can't be sure." But he was right. The greater danger was that Hookeye would pump more poison into the mating bond itself. Too much for her to control.
She squeezed her eyes closed against the fear that threatened to overwhelm her, then opened them again on a shuddering breath. All she could do was hold on and fight the poison attack when and if it came. And she would fight. To the end. She hadn't held on for so long only to give up now.
As Kougar carried her across a wide, circular drive lined with vehicles, her gaze took in the monster of a house looming before her. No, not a house. A mansion, with dormers on the top floor and black shutters framing each of the windows. Though sunrise was still a good half hour away, light glowed from all the downstairs windows and several of the upper ones--three brick stories lit up like a prison after an escape.
A prison full of shape-shifting Feral Warriors.
Her pulse faltered, perspiration dampening the back of her neck. No one but Kougar knew the Ilinas still existed. Now he was about to wrench that secret wide open.
At least before he'd kidnapped her he'd taken the time to dress her in the pair of jeans she'd left hanging on her bedroom doorknob and a fitted red T-shirt from her closet. If she wasn't mistaken, he'd even found her a bra.
At the base of the stairs leading up to a massive front door that was easily half again as wide as most, and a good eight feet high, Kougar dropped her bare feet to the walk and grabbed hold of her arm.
She fought him as he tried to propel her forward.
"Kougar, no. Let me go to them, let me see for myself that they're all right. Then I'll come back."
He didn't reply, which was answer enough. He didn't trust her.
And he shouldn't. The moment she got free, she was leaving. The Ferals would try to force her to turn to mist and save their friends, regardless of the consequences. If her race perished as a result, it would simply be an unfortunate case of collateral damage.
She had no reason to trust them. Not since the Daemon War had the two races been allies, and both their peoples had disapproved of her and Kougar mating. While she'd loved Kougar, she'd never really trusted any of the other shape-shifters, with the possible exception of his two closest friends. And at least one of them, she knew, was dead. No, the Ferals weren't going to have it their way. No way in hell would she allow them to sacrifice her people to save their own.
Kougar led her up the front steps and through the wide door, ushering her into a high-ceilinged foyer. Lights from a large, crystal chandelier sparkled upon the heavy green-and-gold floral wallpaper that belonged to a bygone age, while twin staircases curved downward in a sinuous dance, drawing the eye to the floor, where a lush painted mural enchanted with all manner of mythical creatures.
As Kougar closed the door behind them, two large men strode into the foyer, each eyeing her with surprise and no small amount of curiosity. One was badly scarred and huge. The other, a man with a tawny mane and nice clothes, gave off an air of command that made her suspect he was one of the leaders of the warriors. And they were definitely Feral Warriors. Even if she weren't in Feral House, she'd know that the men were shifters by the sheer, raw power they exuded.
Jag descended one of the twin stairs, a petite redheaded woman at his side. He gave a grunt as his gaze landed on Ariana. "Already bringing her home to meet the family?" His brows drew together as he stared at her. "What's with the neon baby blues? I'd have noticed eyes like that."
Kougar ignored him, ushering her toward the nearest hallway. The men followed, the one she'd nailed as one of the leaders calling out, "War room. Now!"
Moments later, Kougar propelled her into a large wood-paneled room with a huge conference table ringed by upholstered executive-type chairs. The rips in the cushions of a couple of the chairs and the occasional cracks and dents in the wall paneling gave telling evidence that this particular office space belonged to men who were not quite civilized.
Kougar pulled out a chair for her, then shoved her into it, reminding her that his anger was alive and well. She felt his anger like a physical ache that lodged itself between her shoulder blades, right where she imagined he'd like to stab her.
When Kougar took the seat beside her, she glanced at him in surprise. She would have thought the chief would stand at the front of the room, but perhaps their ways were different. As the others followed them into the room, she saw it was the man with the tawny mane and rust silk shirt who took that place. A man who wore the mantle of leadership like a comfortable cloak.
Her palms were sweating, but there was nothing she could do about it with her wrists bound together. Nothing but wait for Kougar to rip her world to shreds.
She glanced at him stonily. "When did you stop being chief?"
Kougar's eyes were cold when he met her gaze. "The day I lost my mate."
Ariana stared at him, his words sinking in slowly. The death of one's mate was known to cripple many an immortal, but because of Melisande's intervention, she'd never suffered unduly from the severing of the mating bond. She'd assumed Kougar hadn't either. He'd been a strong, natural leader back in those days. What must she have done to him, for him to have been unable to continue? Her stomach gave an involuntary cramp. She'd never considered she might have injured him like that.
Goddess, they'd hurt one another in so many ways.
And he was about to hurt her all over again.
She leaned toward him, gritting her teeth. "Don't do this, Kougar. Let me go."
He met her gaze, his eyes like flint, then turned away.
"Damn you." She clenched her hands into fists, watching as others filed into the room, recognizing none of them from the old days. Jag and the redhead entered first, followed by a bald Feral with what appeared to be a snake earring hanging from one lobe and a viper's head armband curving around his upper arm.