A Love Untamed (Feral Warriors #7)(33)

They hadn’t traveled long when Jag let out a frustrated sound. I’ve lost the f**king trail.

Fox immediately shifted and joined him in the search, but there was no sign of it nearby. None.

“What now?” Olivia asked, her voice ripe with the frustration they were all feeling.

As one, the two males shifted back into human form. Fox felt the trip of sexual energy and glanced unerringly to where Melisande stood behind him, noting with satisfaction the way her chest rose, the way her eyelids drooped even as those sapphire eyes speared him, hot and frustrated.

Goddess, he wanted her. He wanted to haul her into his arms, to claim her mouth as his fingers loosened her braid and buried themselves in her beautiful hair.

Instead, he turned back to Jag. “I suggest we track in wider and wider circles. The trail has to be here somewhere. The male didn’t simply up and disappear.”

“I agree. I’ll take the north and west, you cover the south and east.”

As Jag headed left, Olivia at his side, Fox turned right, Phylicia and Melisande following him. He and the Ilinas hadn’t gone far, maybe ten yards, when Fox shivered, his gut offering him up a truth.

The trail is this way, according to my intuition, he said to all of them at once.

Hot damn, Jag replied.

But half a dozen steps later, a strange sensation lifted the fur on Fox’s body, starting at his nose and traveling toward the tip of his tail. It almost felt as if he were moving through . . .

His gut roared, his intuition exploding. Danger!

Behind him, Melisande and Phylicia began to scream. He whirled and leaped, knocking Melisande to the ground beneath his huge fox form.

But Phylicia continued to scream, and when he turned his head, he saw why. The dark-haired Ilina was engulfed in flame.

Chapter Eight

Agony blasted through Fox. Screams filled his ears as he lay on top of Melisande in his animal form, covering her, protecting her. One moment they’d been walking through the mountain forest and the next all of them were screaming with pain, Phylicia on fire. He’d recognized the thrill of magic too late. Too late.

“Get off me!” Melisande pushed at him, pounding at his sides. “Get off me, I have to reach Phylicia.”

No, you can’t go near her. We hit warding. Mist, Melisande. Get the hell out of here.

“Can’t mist.” The words came out on a gasp of pain.

What the f**k? Jag yelled in his mind.

Jag, help me get Melisande away from the fire. If I get up, I’m afraid it’ll take her, too.

Don’t shift! Your animal form may be all that’s keeping you from flaming.

The jaguar stumbled forward, lurching as if he’d suffered a near-fatal blow. Grabbing Melisande’s arm in his mouth, he tugged and began to pull backward. Fox grabbed her other arm in his mouth and joined Jag, hauling her back away from the warding, away from her burning Ilina sister.

“Save her, Fox!”

Melisande’s plea tore at him. It was her he needed to protect. But she appeared to be safe enough. For now. He swung to Phylicia, his stomach plummeting, clenching with horror as he stared at the woman. Her dark hair was now locks of flame, her clothes on fire. The scent of burning flesh raked at his nose, her screams tore at his eardrums as he leaped at her as he had Melisande, into the flames, taking her down. Fire scorched his fur, a second blast of burning energy plowed through his body.

But the fire didn’t go out.

Beneath him, the woman screamed and screamed as the fire leaped out from beneath him, licking at his snout, singeing his fur. But not catching.

Jag nudged him with his nose. Let’s move her.

Fox leaped up, and together they grabbed her burning arms in their mouths, dragging her from the warding as they had Melisande. Her screams quieted suddenly, the woman falling unconscious. The taste of burning flesh filled his mouth, searing his nose and eyes.

As they dragged her to Melisande, the blonde Ilina turned toward her friend, agony etching her face as she took Phylicia’s limp hand.

Through his animal’s keen vision, Fox stared at Phylicia’s devastated form—her hair and clothing all but burned away, her skin patches of blackened leather. Goddess.

The fire was all but gone, now centered in only one place—the hole in her chest where her heart should be. As Fox watched, the unconscious Ilina’s flesh turned suddenly, ghostly gray.

Melisande cried out, then fell back, closing her eyes. “She’s dead.”

Fox stared, stunned, meeting first Jag’s, then Olivia’s pained gazes. Olivia was on her knees, clearly in physical agony. As Fox shifted back to a man, he understood why. The pain he’d felt in animal form was ten times worse in human, a stinging, slicing energy as if the warding were trying to fry him alive even without flame. Oddly, he felt fine tendrils of pleasure darting through that energy, almost as if one of Melisande’s pain bombs had locked in permanently.

He blinked. That might be what had happened.

Kneeling beside her, he touched her shoulder. “Mel, we’re all in pain, Jag and Olivia most of all. But I think the energy is coming from you.”

She opened her eyes, revealing a storm of emotions so strong he was amazed she wasn’t screaming, crying. Grief, pain, terror. He heard every one of them in her voice, when she spoke.

“It is. The warding triggered my pain blast.” Her eyes turned bleak. “I can’t turn it off, I can’t mist, I can’t call Ariana. I can barely move.”