A Love Untamed (Feral Warriors #7)(10)

No. Goddess, no! He picked up the shoes, his breath leaving his body as if he’d been slammed in the gut with a battering ram. “No!” he roared, and tore open the cellar doors, racing up into the sunshine, Kara’s flip-flops clenched in his hands.

“Kara!”

He couldn’t see her. He couldn’t sense her except in the flip-flops now held within his claws. He began to run, listening, searching, his heart battering the walls of his chest.

“Roar.” Tighe grabbed his arm. “Get back in your skin. You’ve gone feral. The cops could still be watching.”

Lyon struggled against the raging need to rip apart everything and anything in his path. The ice spreading across his thoughts made it nearly impossible to think. “They’ve taken her,” he growled. “They’ve taken my mate! My life.”

Tighe growled low in agreement. “The cops were the distraction.”

Kara.

His head pounded, his mind screamed. His heart broke.

Kara!

He would stop at nothing . . . nothing . . . until she was once more safely in his arms.

Chapter Three

Today

Fox followed Kougar into the huge, formally decorated dining room of Feral House through the back door, his T-shirt plastered with sweat, his sense of frustration and helplessness mounting by the hour until he felt as if he were going to leap out of his skin. For twenty-four hours, they’d searched every square inch of the surrounding area and found no sign of Kara and no clue who’d taken her and Lynks. Unless Lynks was the one at fault, which made no sense. He’d been cleared of the darkness. But they just didn’t know.

The trail ended a quarter of a mile from the house, where Kara had undoubtedly been shoved into a vehicle. There were no clues beyond that. None.

In all likelihood, the Mage leader, Inir, had ordered her snatched for his evil Ferals, who would need her radiance every bit as much as the nine.

Fox strode to the dining-room table where it sat in front of the wide bank of windows overlooking the sunlit, wooded backyard. It was laden with pitchers of water and lemonade and heaping platters of food—everything from sandwiches and cookies to thick slabs of ham and roast beef. Meals had become a thing of the past as they searched for Kara. They ate when they could, now.

Jag and Lyon were already there, Jag downing a large glass of water, Lyon trying to stab a slice of ham with his fork, but the fork buckled under the clench of his fist, and he tossed it aside onto a growing pile of crumpled silverware, and tried again.

The Chief of the Ferals was holding on to control, barely, and it was costing him. His mouth was bracketed by lines of strain, his jaw tight enough that Fox wasn’t sure he’d be able to chew the meat if he ever got it to his mouth. Fox ached for the male. They all did.

Lyon barely looked up as they entered, his eyes without a glimmer of hope that they’d found any sign of Kara. If anyone had, they’d all know. Their best hope was Hawke and Falkyn, who’d returned from Poland about two hours after the rest of them. They’d taken to the skies and had yet to return. The worst of it was, after twenty-four hours, the nearby searching was useless, and they all knew it. Kara was far from Feral House by now and had been from the moment they’d realized she was missing. The kidnappers had used a vehicle, and the Ferals not only had no idea what it looked like, but no clue where it was going. Searches on foot and by air weren’t going to help, but they had to do something other than sit on their asses.

Rage burned through Fox’s blood. Frustration tried to claw its way out of his flesh.

Instead, they were forced to await word from their allies, Mage and Therian alike, for a list of Mage strongholds and any sign of recent activity at any of them. But so far, no one had come up with a single fecking clue.

Fox grabbed a glass, filled it with water, and downed it in one chug.

The Ferals should have been able to sense which direction Kara had gone through their natural ability to follow radiance. In the old days, it was the only way a newly marked Feral ever found his way to Feral House, which moved often. But that sense, too, had been blocked. If not for Lyon’s mating bond, which remained strong and unbroken, they might fear Kara dead.

She still lived, thank the goddess, but she was too far away to strengthen them. And in time, that would become a problem. After a couple of months without proximity to radiance, the Ferals would begin to lose their ability to shift. After two years, they’d all be dead.

If only his own useless fecking intuition would jump in and help for once. But his useless fecking gut had been useless fecking silent.

Lyon tossed yet another twisted fork onto the table.

Fox refilled his glass with water, but as he lifted it to his mouth, his hand clenched too tight, shattering the glass, spraying him with water. The frustration boiling inside of him erupted, breaking the surface with his fangs and claws.

Growling, he swung toward the others, none of whom were paying him much attention. Goddess, he’d never felt so out of control.

“Where the feck is she?”

Without warning, Jag leaped at him, ripping the flesh off his shoulder with his own suddenly sprouted claws, knocking him to the ground. “You want a fight, pretty boy?” he growled around his fangs as they began beating the crap out of one another. “Me, too.”

A moment later, Lyon joined the fray. Claws ripped flesh, fangs dripped with blood.

Adrenaline roared through Fox’s body, the pain drowned out by the excitement. He growled and fought and nearly laughed out loud at the sheer pleasure of releasing the pent-up frustration that had been tearing him apart.