A Love Untamed (Feral Warriors #7)(31)

“Good news, Feral. It’s almost done. Soon, there will be no more pain. You and your animal will be separate entities, the animal spirit mine.” The Mage smiled, and it was a terrible thing. “Your animal spirit will be my greatest weapon against the Ferals, while you, of course, turn to dust.”

Like hell. He wanted to tell him to go f**k himself, but his vocal cords were too raw to make a sound. From screaming?

Just as quickly as the premonition began, it ended, and Fox found himself staring at the moon overhead as it peeked out briefly between the clouds. His pulse began to hammer. After all Inir had done to destroy the Ferals and free the Daemons, he was to deliver that bastard his greatest weapon?

Goddess help him. Goddess help them all.

He sat up, feeling sick to his stomach, and wondered if he should tell Jag now, or wait until morning. Someone needed to know what he was seeing.

He sensed he wasn’t alone a heartbeat before Phylicia took form. “Warrior,” she whispered softly, and knelt at his side. “I can give you great pleasure if you’ll let me. And I’m so hungry. I want you.”

For a moment, he ignored her, his mind crowded with the damned premonition that hinted of disaster, yet told him nothing. Maybe what he needed was a distraction.

“Where’s Melisande?”

“Keeping watch. And not on us.”

“She knows you’re here? With me?”

“Yes. She knows.”

It was Melisande he needed, dammit. He didn’t even need to touch her, just . . . to be near her. But she didn’t want that, didn’t want him, at least not that she was willing to admit. And Phylicia did. He held out his hand to the dark-haired beauty, and she was instantly in his arms, straddling him, her hands sliding over his shoulders, her mouth dipping to find his neck.

Perfume exploded his senses, a rich, musky scent he found pleasant, but little more. If this was the legendary Ilina mating scent that was reputed to drive a male mad with wanting, it was missing the mark. No blood filled his loins.

With a groan of frustration, he gathered the woman against him, pressing his mouth against hers, seeking a passion that wouldn’t come. Phylicia rocked against him, making a sound of disappointment when she found no erection to greet her.

She never would. This wasn’t going to work. She simply wasn’t the woman he wanted.

He lifted her off his lap and set her beside him. “I’m sorry, Phylicia. You’re a beautiful woman.”

“But you’ve only eyes for Melisande.”

He looked at her, unable to see her eyes in the dark. “Goddess help me if that’s true.”

“She won’t have anything to do with you, warrior, not in that way.” She stroked his cheek, her voice sad. “Melisande has no desire in her for anyone. It would be a shame if you, of all males, turned celibate because of it.”

Celibate? He’d rather be dead.

Then again, if his visions came true, he might soon find himself exactly that.

They set out again the moment dawn began to lift the night’s dark cover. Fox led the way this time, in his animal, while Jag and the others followed on two feet. Fox was antsy this morning, as if he’d woken with an itch beneath his fur. Everything was wrong out here. They’d found nothing—no sign of the Mage or Kara or Castin. Nothing but more fecking mountain.

He couldn’t even summon the will to engage Melisande. All he could think about was finding the way out of this godforsaken useless loop of a trail.

They’d only traveled a short distance when the blindness hit him suddenly. One moment, he was following Castin’s scent beneath a dawn sky, and the next, he had no sight at all. He hoped to hell it was another premonition and not something worse, something more sinister. With a whimper, he lay down on his stomach, afraid to move forward when he couldn’t see.

“Fox-man?” Jag asked.

He smelled Olivia beside him, felt her hand stroke his head, and wished it was Melisande’s. “Kieran? What’s the matter?”

He couldn’t focus enough even to speak telepathically. And then he couldn’t think at all as a scene opened up before his sightless eyes.

In the vision, he was walking down a hallway that looked to be one of the upstairs halls at Feral House. He recognized the wallpaper and the paintings on the walls, faintly lit by electric sconces. It was night. Stopping before one of the doors, he reached for the handle and turned it slowly. Quietly. Then let himself inside, closing the door behind him.

The room was huge—far bigger than his own—decorated with heavy wallpaper and dominated by a large bed draped in dark red and gold. He’d seen this room before though only from the doorway. The Radiant’s bedroom. Lying in the bed was a woman he didn’t know, a woman whose hair appeared, in the moonlight, to be red.

His heart clutched at the sight of this stranger in Kara’s bed which could only mean she was Kara’s replacement. The new Radiant. They were going to lose Kara.

He padded quietly to the bed, but even as silent as he was, the woman’s eyelids fluttered up. “Fox? What are you doing here?”

Without answering, he sat on the edge of the bed beside her. But when he lifted a hand as if to stroke her face, she jerked away and sat up.

“What’s the matter with you? I’m a mated female and well you know it. Wulfe would not be happy to find you here.”