Desire Untamed (Feral Warriors #1)(57)

"Goddess rock. We've got a draden swarm. Bring the smallest ritual robe and three men to guard her."

He flipped the phone shut and dressed. "Stay radiant, Kara. If this magic fails, they'll be all over you again if you don't."

"What about you?" She pulled on the little nightie, wishing she'd worn something thicker to bed. Like a suit of armor. "Don't they bite you, too?"

"They do, but when you're around, they tend to do little more than nip before they realize I'm not the one they want. The tiny nips will usually heal on their own."

"Why am I the one they want?"

"Because your energy, now that it's been tapped, is the purest. It's the only energy the sires can feed from."

"The sires?"

Dressed and armed, he stood beside her, his gaze fixed on the enemy above. "The easiest way to understand draden is to think of a bee colony. The sires are like the queens, the only ones capable of reproducing, though they reproduce through energy. Each sire has its own swarm."

She stared at him. "I thought the term sire was male. And queen is definitely female."

His gaze dropped to her with a quick roll of his eyes. "These are mindless, soulless energy creatures, so just go with me on this one."

"The sires can only feed from me? So they can only survive by attacking me?"

"They don't have to attack, though they will it they get the chance. They can survive by simply being near you and feeding off your energy from a distance, though not too great a one. They also get energy secondhand through the swarm. Whatever energy any of the draden swarm picks up from you goes back to the sire."

She watched them above heir, the glow from her own body illuminating the hideous faces and jagged, terrifying teeth. A hard shudder tore through her. As one swooped toward her, stopping only a few feet in front of her face, she pressed back against the rock behind her.

"They're getting closer."

Lyon stepped in front of her, hacking up until he pressed her against the rock. "The circle's failing. If they break through, cover your face and stay radiant. I'll kill as many of them as I can until my men arrive."

"I thought I was safe as long as I stayed radiant."

"You are. But the moment you lose it, they'll be on you. I don't want to take any chances."

"What about you? If they can't attack me, they'll feed from you." Her fingers gripped his waist as the awful realization hit her hard. "They'll kill you."

"Just stay radiant, Kara. Stay radiant to keep the draden off you and to prove to my men when they arrive that you're more than Mage. Or you're dead either way."

Her arms slid around him. "Let me stand in front, Lyon. As long as I'm radiant, let me shield you."

She felt his hand grasp hers and squeeze gently. "No."

"Then at least give me one of your knives. I can help keep them off you as you did for me."

He didn't respond immediately, then he moved, reached for something. And a deadly blade glinted in her own glow as he handed it back to her.

"Though you might have cause, after what I did to you tonight, I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from stabbing me. At least until we get home. If you weaken me any further, this circle is going to fail entirely."

"I'm not going to stab you. On purpose, at least. I've never used a knife before on anything that moved."

"I'll consider myself warned."

"How long dp you think we have?"

"I don't know how long the circle's going to last. But my men will be here in a couple of minutes."

"Won't the draden just swarm them, too?"

"Right now, because they sense you, they're far more interested in you. By the time they pay the other Ferals much notice, they'll be inside the circle, helping me shore it up. Once the draden take off again, we'll leave."

If his men got here in time.

Kara pressed her forehead against Lyon's warm back, her heart beginning to pound in her chest as it had so many times since she'd arrived here.

But this fear felt different. It was different. Because she knew the source. It came from her mind and senses and the knowledge that if the circle failed, they would almost certainly both die.

"How did you ever survive as a child? Weren't there draden in London back then?"

"There were, from time to time, but they were rare. London wasn't the home of the Radiant at that time. Since the sires follow the Radiant and swarms follows the sires, there are few draden elsewhere, though there are always rogues."

"So most of the world's draden right now are here."

"Yes. Which works for us since, in our animal forms, we're well designed to hunt and destroy them."

"But you never get them all."

"No. We can usually keep them under control, but nine Ferals can only do so much."

"I don't understand how they're like bees if they were somehow left over from the Daemons."

"They're not like bees except for the fact that they swarm and, like bees, have only one member of a swarm who can reproduce. Otherwise, they're totally different. The Daemons may have possessed separate consciousnesses, but they were ail linked to the High Daemon, Satanan."