A Love Untamed (Feral Warriors #7)(23)

And she groaned.

He wouldn’t succeed. Certainly not in any way he was hoping to. But he scared her all the same. Because he stirred things inside her that had lain dormant for so long, she’d thought them gone forever.

Things that could, if she wasn’t careful, destroy her.

“Want to tell me what’s going on?” Lepard asked after they’d left the Washington, D.C., suburbs far behind.

Grizz’s hands tightened on the steering wheel of an old Toyota sedan he’d appropriated in Leesburg. He’d never been particularly strong at mind control, but the attempt had worked well enough. The Toyota owner now believed he was the owner of a Ford Escape. The Ferals wouldn’t be able to track them via the vehicle. Not right away, at any rate.

“I overheard them talking,” he told his companion, surprised Lepard had been content to wait this long before demanding an explanation for their sudden flight from Feral House. “All the newly marked Ferals are either the best of our lines or the worst. There were no accidents. Since the originals have no way of knowing for certain which is which, they’ve decided to imprison us all. Once they have all seventeen of us accounted for, they’ll kill us and start over.”

Silence. “Hell.”

“Our replacements should, theoretically, be free of the dark infection. They should all be the best of the line.”

“So we’re just running away?”

Grizz admired the thread of disgust he heard in Lepard’s voice. “You have a better idea?”

The snow leopard shifter ran a hand through short, snow-white hair. “There’s got to be a way to figure this out.”

“I agree.”

Lepard turned to him, his eyes sharpening. “You have a plan. We’re not just running.”

“We’re not just running, no. But I’m not sure it’s much of a plan.”

Lepard sank back against his seat. “At least it’s something. Of course, the fact that we’ve run is going to be damning in the Ferals’ eyes.”

“We can’t be of any help in their prison.”

“So where are we going?”

“Amarillo.”

“Texas?”

“I need to talk to someone. If anyone knows of a way out of this, it’s him.”

“You couldn’t use a phone?”

Grizz didn’t answer. There was no use trying to explain his relationship with the Indian he needed to talk to.

After a few minutes, Lepard said, “You trust me. At least you must not think that I’m the worst of my line. Why?”

“Just a hunch. I saw your eyes when you were under the thrall of the darkness. You were fighting it. You let the Ferals capture you.”

“I did. You did the same.” Lepard frowned. “But I heard that Rikkert accused you of murder.”

“He did.” Rikkert. He wondered idly which animal had marked the male and if they’d ever know.

“What’s that about?” Lepard persisted.

The old ache pulsed painfully. “I killed his daughter. And his grandson.”

Silence. Lepard’s eyes narrowed on him. “You say that so matter-of-factly. But your hands are about to snap that steering wheel into fragments. You didn’t mean to.”

Mean to? He’d sell his soul if he thought it would bring them back. “No. The boy was mine. But they’re just as dead.”

Fox followed Jag, keeping his animal ears open for sound of trouble, or Mage, and his nose down for the scent of the one they tracked. But his man’s mind remained firmly on Melisande. He longed to strip that neat little mist-warrior uniform off her and unbraid that tight plait of pale hair. In his mind’s eye, he could see her lying in the grass, graceful limbs in casual abandon, her hair fanned out around her like a silken curtain as he licked her from head to toe.

He longed to touch her, to kiss her, to make wild love to her. But beyond that? With most females, there was no “beyond that.” They wanted him for his beauty and his body, and he wanted them for the same. Period. End of story. But with Melisande, he wanted more. She tugged at him in all kinds of ways he didn’t understand. He wanted . . . to talk to her. To know her. To understand her. To make her smile.

And he felt this need to protect her because there was something wrong. He sensed a vulnerability in her that he hadn’t seen the first time he met her. Something . . . wounded.

It was an odd thought to have about a female so hard and sharp that her every word, every glare, cut. But he’d seen confusion in her eyes and glimmers of fear. And he didn’t like it, not at all.

He wanted to understand, especially if he was somehow at fault. And then he wanted to make it right. She fascinated and confused him, infuriated and excited him almost in the same breath. He wanted to kiss her until she smiled at him with damp, swollen lips and watched him with eyes drunk with passion.

And then he’d send her on her way. Because he’d be damned if he wanted more.

On four feet, he followed Jag onto an outcropping of rocks overhanging a wide, if shallow, creek a half dozen feet below. Jag padded across the rocks, then turned to continue up, away from the creek, Olivia walking at his side.

Fox hesitated, looking down at the creek, wondering where the desire came from that had him wanting to leap down into the water. It wasn’t a gut thing. He felt no goose bumps, or shivers, for that matter. Just . . . a tug. Odd. Perhaps it had something to do with his fox. Did foxes like the water? He wouldn’t have thought so, but maybe his did. With a mental shrug, he followed Jag.