Desire Untamed (Feral Warriors #1)(11)

The wallpaper could wait.

She followed Lyon up the stairs and down a long, dark hallway lit only by the faint glow of dawn. Lyon seemed to have no trouble finding his way in the near dark as he led her to the end of the hall and into one of the rooms. He flipped on a bedside lamp, illuminating the biggest bedroom Kara had ever seen. The decorating was so overwrought, it made the foyer seem plain by comparison. A mammoth tester bed draped in burgundy velvet and gold silk sat in the middle of a room papered in a busy pattern of lush foliage and birds. Even the ceiling was plastered with heavy gilt scrollwork and painted with fat, playful cherubs.

"This was… Beatrice's room?" Kara asked.

"Yes. She was a great collector of art." He motioned to the many oil paintings hanging on the walls. "They're all originals."

Lyon set her single suitcase on a carved chest at the foot of the bed, then closed the red velvet drapes and retreated to the door.

"Sleep, little Radiant." His expression was closed, yet not unkind. "You can unpack when you're rested. If you need me, you have only to call my name, and I'll hear you. My room is directly above yours."

Lyon strode to the door, and Kara started to follow, her pulse rocketing at the thought of being alone. She forced herself to stop. As badly as she wanted to beg him to stay, there was only one way he could possibly construe such a request, and she wasn't that kind of girl. Kara MacAllister didn't have sex with strangers, not even ones who sent her hormones into such paroxysms of excitement that she orgasmed from the simple stroke of their tongues on her hand.

As Lyon closed the door behind him, Kara groaned, mortified all over again. What must he think of her? She pressed the heels of her hands against her closed eyes, easing the tired ache. Lyon was right. She needed sleep.

Pulling her nightgown out of her suitcase, her gaze was pulled to one of the paintings on the wall. An African lion with his head thrown back in full roar, stood with one massive paw pinning a disembodied human head to the ground. Painted on the cheek of the male head was a shiny copper circle. And in his eyes, the brightness of life and disdain.

With a small shiver, Kara stripped out of her clothes and pulled on her nightgown, then walked to the window and peered between the heavy drapes, looking out over the woods that pressed in from all sides. The sky was beginning to lighten now. The sun would be up soon. A new day.

Her first without her mom.

Sadness rolled over her, triggering the burn of tears. Kara swiped away a lone drop that slid down her cheek and pressed her palm to the cool glass.

Why had she come? She should have refused. But with a despondent sigh, she knew it wouldn't have mattered. Lyon would have knocked her out and brought her anyway. He'd come for her for a reason. And until he was through with her, she knew with total conviction, he wouldn't let her go.

* * *

Chapter Four

"Did you find her?" Paenther asked, stepping back for Lyon to enter even as he extended his hand in greeting. As their forearms met, the black-eyed warrior flicked the wall switch to his bedroom, squinting against the sudden light, telling Lyon in no uncertain terms he'd woken the man from a sound sleep. If the blinking eyes hadn't told him that, the barely controlled rage permeating the room would have. The sharp edges of a rage that had been burned into the shifter's soul centuries ago and which he kept under control only by dint of his granite will.

"She's here."

"Thank the goddess." Paenther released him to rake a hand through his straight black hair, sending it swinging down to brush his shoulders. One lock fell forward, tangling with the harsh feral marks that cut across his left eye. "How soon can we get her ascended?"

Lyon shook his head. "She was raised by humans."

"She's had no preparation?"

"None. It's going to take time."

"Shit. We're going to play hell getting the draden swarms back under control if this goes on much longer. We need to be able to shift, Roar."

"What about Foxx and the Daemon blade?" The moment Lyon had sensed Kara's whereabouts, he'd left to track her down, leaving Paenther, his second-in-command, to deal with Foxx. "Did you get to the bottom of it?"

Paenther shook his head. "One minute he swears he didn't go into the vault, and the next he says he only wanted to look at the Daemon blade and accidentally got it mixed up with the ceremonial blade. Then he's back to swearing he didn't take it out of the vault at all. I don't think he did it intentionally. I think the problem is the lack of radiance. He's young, Roar. Those first couple of years after you're marked are a bitch as it is. He's going to be the first to suffer."

"Keep an eye on him. On all of them. We can't afford any more mistakes like that one."

"Agreed."

Lyon left to find some sleep, but as he started down the long second-floor hall toward the stairs that would lead to the third floor and his room, a trill of feminine laughter drifted to him from the far end. Zaphene's laughter. Foxx's girlfriend of… what was it now? Five months? Six? Zaphene seemed to be spending more nights in Feral House than whichever Therian enclave she now called home. Though he was beginning to think that arrangement might turn permanent. The young Foxx had been exhibiting all the signs of a man foolish with love.

But as the pair walked into the light of an electric sconce, Lyon saw the sultry redhead was not with Foxx, but Vhyper. Though they weren't touching one another, there was something about the look of them together that made him wonder if Foxx's dreams were about to come to a crashing end.