A Love Untamed (Feral Warriors #7)(39)

And she was the only thing within reach.

As she watched the fury and struggle war in his eyes, her old gift raised its head once more. The need to ease the torment of others. The last time she’d felt it, when Fox went feral in the woods, she’d ignored it. Calling forth her gift was not something she wanted to do if she sought to turn back the tide and return to the cold warrior she’d been for so long.

But it didn’t appear that she had a choice. This time he didn’t have Jag to fight, and an out-of-control shifter was the last thing they needed. Especially if he started turning those claws on her.

As she started toward him, he shook his head.

“Stay back,” he growled around those fangs.

“I’m not seeking to fight you, Feral,” she said calmly, evenly, staring into those savage eyes. Though they looked more like cat than fox eyes, she was prepared for that. She knew from experience that all shifters, except the vipers, looked the same in this half form, allowing them to fight as equals whether bird or tiger, gazelle or wolf.

“I’ll hurt you, Mel!”

“No, you won’t.” She approached him slowly, carefully, nerves snapping despite her outer calm. “I trust you, Kieran.”

His eyes flashed with surprise at her use of his old name, distracting him long enough for her to slip in close and lift her hand to his face, her palm against the soft golden stubble that covered his jaw.

He was shaking in his fight for control, but she called on her gift, wondering if it would even come to her after all this time, especially when she had such mixed emotions about using it. At first, her gift failed her. Though she’d begun to feel it stirring deep inside of her, trying to awaken, it was buried deeper than she’d realized. But she closed her eyes and reached down. As she touched that gift and began to pull on it, her hands against Fox’s cheeks slowly began to warm and she felt a softening inside her, a need to help him that she didn’t want.

The moment the tension began to seep from Fox’s arms and shoulders, she snatched her hands away. Stepping back, she watched as his fangs began to recede, as his eyes changed back from animal to sky blue. She’d done it.

Fox released a shuddering breath, reaching for her and taking her hand. “What did you do?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You stole the fury.” He lifted her hand and began to pull it toward his mouth as if he meant to press a kiss to her palm.

She snatched her hand away, glaring at him. “We need to get out of here.”

Fox watched her for several moments more, as if trying to decipher her lightning mood swings, then nodded, once, decisively. But frustration once more leaped into his eyes.

They’d tried. There was no way out.

“You still can’t mist?” he asked, running a hand through his hair.

“If I could, I wouldn’t still be here,” she snapped.

He glanced at her, his expression turning wry. “If you could mist, would I still be here?”

She cut her eyes at him, her temper sliding away. “Tempting as I might find it to be rid of you, Feral, no. I won’t leave you behind.”

He smiled at her, a quick grin that lit up his face, stealing her breath, and sending the butterflies to flight in her chest. By the mist, his smile flipped her end over end, leaving her with no memory of which way was up.

Wrenching her gaze from his far-too-handsome face, she stared at the stones with consternation, trying to catch her breath. “Sometimes shifters can breach warding in their animals when they can’t get through in human form,” she murmured.

“And if I get out, what happens to you?” He reached for her, tugging lightly on her braid. “I’m not leaving you behind, either, angel. There’s got to be . . .” A funny look crossed his face.

“What is it, Fox?”

“My gut.” He turned and strode to the far corner, bending low and reaching his hand straight through solid stone.

Melisande gasped. “So it isn’t real.”

“Most of it is. Or, at least, it’s solid.” But when she joined him, he held out a hand, holding her back. “Let me test it first. There could be more warding.” On his hands and knees, he pushed his arm through up to his shoulder, then pulled back. Meeting her gaze, triumph leaped in his eyes, satisfaction pulled at the corners of his mouth.

And it was all she could do not to stare at those perfectly sculpted lips.

Reaching out like a blind man, he slowly determined the edges of the passage he couldn’t see, then dipped his head beneath and looked through.

“Bollocks,” he muttered and pulled back again. “It’s a way out of the prison, but it’s no escape. We’re definitely in some kind of game. Test it first before we go through.”

Without hesitation, Melisande knelt beside him, brushing his hard chest with her shoulder as she pushed her hand slowly into the invisible void. Nothing blocked her way or caused her any alarm, so she scrambled through the opening. Pushing to her feet, she found herself within a long passage lined by two stone walls, as high as the prison’s, which appeared to run parallel to one another for as far as the eye could see in either direction.

With a grunt, Fox crawled through after her, then rose to stand beside her. “This place is one big mind f**k.” He pulled one of his blades out of his boot.