Desire Untamed (Feral Warriors #1)(7)

Misery swallowed her in a loss so deep she was afraid she'd never escape. She didn't even notice the hand on her shoulder until the weight that crushed her heart started to lift enough that she could breathe again.

He was trying to steal her grief as he'd stolen her fear.

Kara surged to her feet in a sudden, blinding fury. "Get away from me! She's dead, you monster, and it's your fault."

She launched herself at the man, slamming her fists against his massive chest, unthinking, uncaring that he was twice her size and could snap her in half with his pinkies. But he didn't move. He took her blows without trying to defend himself, without touching her at all.

The maelstrom finally ran its course, leaving her exhausted and aching as if she'd been the one beaten instead of the one administering the blows. But before she could move away, he grabbed her and shoved her behind him.

"Shit." The word exploded under his breath even as he yanked two knives from his boots and held them aloft.

The man was certifiaibly….

The thought fled as she eased around his broad back and saw what was coming through the windows… the closed windows.

A scream lodged in her throat.

Draden.

Lyon shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, twin knives at the ready as half a dozen of the semicorporeal fiends flew straight for him, each of their bodies little more than floating gas beneath a head shaped like a hideously melted human face. His only thought was to protect the Radiant from the monsters that would drain the life force from her just as surely as the disease had stolen the spirit from the woman who'd raised her.

"What are they?" Behind him, Kara's fear washed over him like an icy stream.

"Stay behind me." He had no more time to talk as the enemy closed in. Lyon dodged fanged mouths, stabbing cleanly through the bodies and popping out the hearts of one, two, three….

The fourth latched onto his scalp from behind as the fifth went for his throat.

The sixth….

He heard a shriek and whirled, two draden still attached to him. The sixth swooped in on the Radiant only to collide with her upraised fist. Kara screamed with pain as her hand disappeared inside that razor-sharp mouth. Her gaze slammed into his, her eyes twin pools of blue terror.

"Grab the heart!" Lyon fought the creatures locked on to his neck and head, desperate to help her. Six months it had taken him to find her. He'd be damned if he'd lose her now.

* * *

Chapter Three

Panic engulfed her, pain ripped through her hand and body as Kara struggled against the monster, hitting its gelatinous head with her free hand, trying to pull her captured hand loose of its fiery mouth.

Pain shot up her arm as if she'd stuck her hand into raw flame. The thing was trying to suck her in. She could feel it pulling at her as if it meant to swallow her whole. Terror threatened to cut off her air.

"Pull out its heart!" The man's words barely penetrated the fog that encased her brain.

Its heart. Its heart? How could a body with no form have a heart? But her free hand reached inside the ghostlike body as if she'd been doing this all her life, and closed around a beating, pulsing glob. Holy cow. With a hard yank, the creature disappeared in a puff of smokelike energy, freeing her ripped and shredded hand. Bone showed through ribbons of bloody flesh.

Her head spun with dizzying lightness. Her legs refused to hold her, and she slid to the ground, curving around her injured hand. Beyond screaming, beyond crying, all she could do was shake, her body quaking with pain. Disbelief. Shock.

She couldn't think. Refused to think about what she'd just seen. About all that had just happened. Her world had gone insane.

Cold. So cold.

Her mom was dead.

"Radiant." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the stranger lower his big body to the floor beside her until he was sitting, his back against the love seat, his long legs stretched out in front of him. "Let me see your hand.".

"No. I'm fine." Words were coming from her mouth, but she wasn't sure what she was saying. She barely recognized her own voice. So cold.

She felt a warm, callused hand slide across her jaw and cheek, one long finger curling behind her ear as it had earlier just before she'd lost consciousness.

"Do it," she whispered. "Knock me out."

"You want to escape."

"I can't… do this." Tears burned and slid down her cheeks as the pain in her hand nearly rivaled that in her chest, but the grief was worse, tearing so much deeper, "It hurts too much."

The man released a heavy breath. "Making you sleep won't get rid of the pain." Slowly, he removed his hand. "I can't take it all, but I can help. I owe you that much."

His hand slid beneath her hair to curl around her neck, but instead of easing her pain, misery swamped her, a hundred times worse than before.

"Oh, God. Oh, God."

"Easy, little Radiant, I had to strip away your defenses to get to the real emotions. Give me a minute."

Grief tore through her body like a muscle-wrenching poison, doubling heir in half. "I can't do this. I can't…"

All at once, the pain eased, and she began to breathe again. In the space of half a dozen heartbeats, her grief lessened, aging, as if she'd been living with it for weeks or months, instead of minutes, dulling around the edges and slowly losing the ability to cut. The fear and confusion quieted in her head. Only her hand still swam with pain.