Desire Untamed (Feral Warriors #1)(80)

"Spread your legs, Kara."

She did as he asked, the men's hands retaining their grip on her ankles. She felt the damp tip of Lyon's erection slide against the hot center of her need. Then he slid inside her with a single perfect thrust. Kara gasped and arched at the rush of pleasure.

Lyon pulled out, then pushed himself into her again, filling her, his entry slow and careful, as if he wanted to savor every moment, every touch. He pulled out, then pushed into her again and again until her body quickened and she was on the verge of shattering.

"Now, Kara," Lyon said, his voice strained. "Call the radiance. Now."

She could barely think. Struggling against the thick swirl of pleasure, she drew the fire in one hard pull at the very instant Lyon thrust hard into her, sending her over the edge. Her body tightened and burst on an incredible release, the radiance rushing through her in a torrent of heat, licking at her skin, filling her with a powerful blend of pleasure and strength, life and rightness.

A scream tore from her throat, pure triumph.

A scream mirrored in the triumphant yells of the men. As Lyon pulled out of her, the hands holding her fell away and she opened her eyes to find three huge, feral cats shimmering to life before her. Chills raced over her skin.

It worked! She was alive. She grinned and whirled to Lyon.

And watched in horror as he collapsed to the ground. Not a lion. A man. A man who appeared to all the world to be dead.

"No!" She fell to her knees beside him as her fingers flew to his neck, searching for a pulse that wasn't there.

"Lyon."

"Roar." Tighe dropped on the other side of him, a man once more. "What happened?"

"I don't know," she cried. "It worked. I thought it worked."

"Look." Paenther grabbed her wrist and yanked up the sleeve of her gown, exposing the armband Lyon had given her, the lion's eyes glowing bright amber.

"Shit," Jag said.

Kara looked at Tighe, her blood turning to ice. "He told me this is the way it's done, but it's not, is it?"

Tighe shook his head. "Dammit, Roar."

Her gaze flew from one man to the next. "How do we help him?"

Jag just shook his head.

"We don't," Paenther said, releasing her arm. "Not even a Feral can survive a blast like that without the means to channel it. He sacrificed himself rather than risk your life, Kara."

"He loved you," Tighe said, simply, his voice hollow.

Kara couldn't believe it. They were giving up. "There's got to be a way!"

Tighe's eyes burned with pain. "If only there were."

Kara's mind went white with shock as if all the color had drained from the world.

"We've got to stop those Daemons," Jag said.

"Go." She flung her arm out. "Don't let him have made this sacrifice in vain."

Around her, the three men shifted back into a life-sized tiger, panther, and jaguar, and leaped away. As she watched, through a haze of pain, they crashed through the doors into the underground chambers and disappeared.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-two

Kara turned on Lyon, her anguish turning to fury. "I hate you for this! It would have worked, Lyon. I know it. And if it didn't, I'd have been the one to die. It should have been me. Me."

Tears blurred her vision and ran down her cheeks. "Oh, God, Lyon, how am I supposed to live without you? I love you, dammit. I love you."

She was buzzing like a power station with enough energy running through her to light up half the state of Virginia, yet she couldn't save the man she loved.

Lyon needed her power. He needed….

Her mind started to spin. He needed his heart jump-started.

She ripped the silver band off her arm and curled it around his far larger one. Her pulse began to thrum. Humans came back from stopped hearts all the time, didn't they? There had to be a way to use this power to help him. Dammit, she wasn't going to let him go without a fight.

She sniffled, wiping her eyes on her sleeve, then ripped his shirt open.

Blood. She needed blood to blood, a conduit for the power. A knife. She leaped up and retrieved the one Paenther had tossed in the grass. Sparing no time, she sliced two deep cuts in Lyon's chest and matching cuts in her palms, then dropped the blade and straddled Lyon, pressing her palms to his chest, mingling their blood.

She was running on instinct now. With her shins and bare feet on the ground, she called to the Earth and was amazed at how easily she went to radiance now that she was ascended. Power burst through her, nearly more than she could contain. She struggled to control it, then focused it through her hands and into Lyon.

"Please, Mother," she prayed to the Earth. "Please give this warrior life again. Help me save him. I need him, I love him."

Tears streamed down her cheeks. "Lyon, come back to me," she choked, and on a wave of fury and desperation, pulled more power and more and more until her skin glowed so brightly she had to close her eyes against the near-painful brilliance. She grabbed the knife and reopened the healing cuts on her hands, then slid her palms into the seeping blood on Lyon's chest, cuts that weren't healing. With a scream of fury, she poured everything she had into him, over and over until she was drenched with sweat.

"You're not going to die!" she screamed. "You're not!"