A Love Untamed (Feral Warriors #7)(34)

“We’ve got to get away from here,” Jag growled, in human form again, kneeling beside Olivia. “The warding’s killing us.” They were worse off than he was, perhaps because Melisande’s energy wasn’t designed to hurt him.

“It’s not the warding, it’s Melisande. The warding triggered her energy, and she can’t shut it off.”

“We can’t . . .”

“Go,” Fox told him. “Get Olivia out of here. Let the other team know we’ve found the warding and warn them to keep the Ilinas away.”

“You’re staying?” There was disbelief in Jag’s tone, resignation in his eyes.

“Melisande can’t move and can’t mist. I’m staying.”

“The Mage . . .”

“Will have felt it, I know. They’ll be swarming soon. We’ll follow once you’re out of range. Or once her energy turns off.”

Jag looked at him like he wanted to argue . . . it wasn’t in a Feral’s nature to leave a brother behind, Fox had learned that much in the short time he’d been one of them.

“We’ll hide,” Fox told him. “Now, go! Get word to Kougar before Ariana meets the same fate as Phylicia.”

With a nod, Jag looped his arm around Olivia, and together they stumbled back the way they’d come.

Fox turned back to Melisande who was trembling, her face white as snow. “I’m going to carry you, Mel.”

“No.”

But he saw no alternative and scooped her into his arms.

She began to struggle. “Let me go.”

“I’m not going to hurt you. We’ve got to get out of here before the Mage find us.”

At first, she was stiff in his arms, but as the tremors wracked her slender frame, she began to soften, curling her arm around his neck, tipping her forehead against his jaw. A feeling of rightness poured through him, followed by a raging rush of protectiveness.

The Mage weren’t going to touch her. He’d kill them first. Every bloody one.

Kara stood in the center of the circle of Feral Warriors in bare feet, jeans shorts, and a T-shirt, shivering even though the day was warm, the sun hot on her arms and shoulders. This was all so wrong. These weren’t her Ferals. Yes, she’d brought them into their animals on the goddess rock near Feral House in Great Falls several days ago. But they weren’t in Great Falls any longer. Instead, they stood on a rocky ledge overlooking a mountain hillside deep in a forest . . . somewhere. She had no idea where. Behind her loomed a castle built into the mountainside. The stronghold of the Mage Elemental, Inir.

The four Ferals—Polaris, Croc, Witt, and Lynks—circled her now, their chests bare, their eyes cold as a winter sky. Their golden armbands, each with the head of the shifter’s animal, gleamed in the sunshine as Polaris chanted the ritual to bring a new Feral into his animal, a ritual he’d learned during his own Renascence. There had been such joy during that ceremony as the animals they’d thought long lost returned to mark Feral Warriors once more. They hadn’t yet realized the new ones marked by the lost spirits had been infected with dark magic.

This ceremony was even more of a travesty, for it wasn’t being led by her beloved Ferals at all but by the evil ones, with the express purpose of adding another warrior to their vile army. And they expected her to participate. The new Feral wouldn’t come into his animal without her radiance.

The thought of helping them made her skin crawl. The stronger the evil Feral army became, the better the chance they would destroy the men she loved. But the males were three times her size, every one of them. And a hundred times as strong.

And so she shook.

If only the good men inside them would fight the darkness as a couple of the other new Ferals had. Grizz had allowed himself to be captured. As had Lepard. But she saw no struggle against the darkness in the eyes of any of these four. She feared that Inir’s control over them was complete.

Her gaze slid beyond the circle of evil Ferals to Inir, and her gut cramped. He stood in a ceremonial robe of blood red, his arms crossed, his face a cold mask of authority. His face was round and plain, forgettable but for the eyes, which gleamed pure copper. His hair, cropped close to his head, appeared to be almost the same shade as his eyes.

Beside Inir stood another man, the newly marked Feral they intended to bring into his animal. A tall, lanky male with fear in his eyes.

Polaris took his knife to himself, carving a bloody line across his chest, then slapped his hand to it, fisting the blood as he handed the knife to Lynks.

It was Lynks’s fault she was here, the traitor. He’d been cleared of the darkness, yet somehow Inir had kept his hooks in the man. He’d knocked her out as they’d descended the stairs to the basement of Feral House, and she’d awakened, bound and gagged, in the back of a minivan barreling down the interstate. How he’d gotten her away without Lyon’s knowing, she couldn’t guess. The thought of what her beloved must be going through tore her heart to shreds.

Unless . . . No he wasn’t dead. She still felt their mating bond strong and bright inside her, and she wouldn’t if he were dead. Would she?

Tears burned her eyes, and she struggled against them, blinking them away. A warm breeze caressed her cheek as gently as Lyon’s thumb might have, and she felt him within her, filling her with his love, giving her strength. No, he wasn’t dead. Crazed, perhaps. Frantic with his inability to find her and almost certainly blaming himself for her capture. She knew her lion.