A Love Untamed (Feral Warriors #7)(8)

Skye stood at the window, worry drifting off her in waves, a worry Kara shared, though not to the same razor-sharp degree. Skye’s mate, Paenther, was in Poland, having led the team sent to battle the evil Ferals and to stop the ritual they’d begun that appeared designed to empower the High Daemon Satanan. Lyon remained at Feral House with a handful of men and all the Ferals’ mates. Feral House had to be protected. But those left behind paced. And worried.

Skye gasped. “Kara . . .”

“What’s the matter?” Dear God, if Skye had felt her mating bond break . . .

“Come here. Quick.”

Kara jumped up and ran to join Skye at the window. Peering out, she saw movement beyond the trees. Vehicles. Men leaping out in dark clothing.

“Police,” Kara gasped. “A SWAT team by the looks of it. Oh, this can’t be good.” She raced for the door, flung it open, and ran. “Lyon!”

Her mate was halfway up the first flight of stairs before she reached the top step. He was so beautiful, her Lyon, so powerful and regal and sweet. “Cops. A SWAT team. I think they’re coming here.”

“Foyer, now!” he shouted. The Ferals all possessed far stronger hearing than humans, or even the nonshifting Therians. But if his nearby warriors didn’t respond right away, he could contact them in an instant by shifting into his lion and calling to them telepathically.

Lyon held out his hand for her as she raced down the stairs to join him. But when she reached him, he pulled her close, kissed her hair, then said, “Stay here.” As he strode into the living room to peer out the front window, Skye joined her.

Not ten seconds later, Tighe, Jag, and Jag’s mate, Olivia, came running. Lynks appeared at the top of the stairs and started down at a more sedate pace. One of the two new Ferals who’d been cleared of the dark magic, Lynks was now a full-fledged member of the Feral team even if Lyon had admitted to her in private that the man was too soft to have ever been the one meant to be marked.

“We have trouble,” Lyon told them, striding from the living room. “There’s a human SWAT team surrounding the house.”

In an instant, in a spray of colored lights, Tighe shifted into a fifteen-foot Bengal tiger, undoubtedly to speak to his pregnant mate, Delaney, who was napping upstairs. Ex-FBI, she was believed dead by her human colleagues. It wouldn’t do for them to find her alive and well . . . and immortal. Nor could they find Xavier, their cook’s assistant for whom the humans had been searching for weeks, or their cook, Pink, who could never pass for human.

Lyon’s thoughts were clearly running parallel to Kara’s own. His gaze caressed her with that uberprotectiveness that both warmed her and sometimes drove her nuts. “Get the wives, Pink, and Xavier to the deep basement, my heart.” His gaze swung to Olivia. “You’ll accompany me outside, pretend to be my wife. If the situation gets out of hand, weaken them.”

Olivia was not only a warrior who’d fought with the Therian Guard for centuries, but she possessed the rare ability of being able to suck the life force from others. And she had the control to drain just enough of an opponent’s energy to weaken and not kill.

“I’ll attempt to cloud the mind of the leader.” Lyon’s gaze swung to his three warriors even as he began plucking knives from his boots and shoving them in the drawer of the hall table. If they frisked him, he clearly didn’t want them finding his weapons. “If they get inside, knock them out and cloud their minds. No deaths.”

The last thing they needed was to become a target for the humans. Kara might not be a warrior, but she could certainly understand the ramifications of the humans’ believing that the Ferals posed a danger. They’d have to leave Feral House, perhaps battle their way out, likely revealing their immortality. A disaster in every possible way.

Delaney came running down the stairs, a gun strapped to her still slender waist. Less than two months pregnant, she had yet to start showing.

“I’ll get Xavier and Pink,” Delaney said.

Skye hurried after her, then glanced back at Kara.

Kara nodded. “I’ll join you in a minute.” Her heart was pounding at the thought of Lyon’s walking outside where all those humans would be training guns on him. While the immortals didn’t age and healed most wounds almost instantly, none of them were truly immortal. They could die. And the thought of losing Lyon terrified her.

She glanced at Jag, saw the hard granite of his jaw, and knew he was just as worried about Olivia. But he was a warrior first, and what was more, so was Olivia, and he knew it. Olivia was the best woman for this job, and Jag would keep his mouth shut even if it killed him. By the clench of his fists, Kara suspected it just might.

“Police! Come out with your hands up!”

Lyon eyed Olivia and took a deep breath. “Are you ready, wife?” he said, reminding her of her role.

The redhead gave him a decisive nod. “Ready, husband.”

“Lynks, cover the back of the house,” Tighe called. “Everyone else, out of the foyer.” If the cops saw several more large males, it would make it impossible for Lyon to convince them Feral House was merely an innocuous, if huge, family home.

Kara slipped into the hallway that led to both the back of the house and the basement, Lynks following. As he brushed past her, she paused. She knew she should go downstairs. That’s what Lyon wanted her to do. But she couldn’t make her feet move. Not when Lyon could die out there. Through the now-open front door, she heard him.