Hunger Untamed (Feral Warriors #5)(19)

Kougar reeled at the implications. "It was never dark spirit that attacked you, but a Mage?"

His breath lodged in his throat as his world flipped upside down, as Ariana rewrote thousand-year-old history in the space of seconds. Twenty-one years ago he'd learned the Ilinas weren't extinct. That Ariana still lived. Twenty-one years later, he was still reeling from that revelation. But this rocked him even more. Because if Ariana hadn't been attacked by dark spirit . . . she wasn't soulless. The woman he'd loved still lived.

His hands began to shake.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Her lashes swept down, tears running down her cheeks. "Kougar . . . it was a long time ago."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I should never have mated with you in the first place!" Brown eyes snapped open, desperation and anger in their depths. "If I'd never taken you to mate, the Mage would have had no reason to attack us. Nearly two-thirds of my maidens died, Kougar." She shook her head, a bleakness in her eyes that mirrored that rushing through his heart. "If he attacks again, all will die. He'll win."

His head pounded. Only one thing shone through the chaos, crystal clear. She wasn't soulless.

The hand holding her wrist spasmed. With his other, he gripped her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. "Take off your contacts."

"I need both hands."

And the moment he released her, she'd try to escape.

"Open your eyes wide."

She made a grunt of annoyance but didn't fight him as he released her jaw and plucked out the soft discs, one after the other, tossing them on the floor.

"Look at me."

She lifted her gaze to his with a slow, thick sweep of dark lashes. Defiant eyes. Brilliant blue eyes he'd drowned in once upon a time. And in those eyes, her soul, Ariana's soul, shone brightly. His cat had known all along.

His chest caved as if beneath the swing of the sledgehammer. The woman he'd loved wasn't gone at all. She never had been.

He should feel relief. Maybe even joy.

Instead, he couldn't breathe. Everything he'd believed for a thousand years was a lie. That she'd been infected by dark spirit and destroyed her race. That she'd died. That she'd loved him.

She'd wounded him physically. Emotionally. Intentionally. With a cruelty beyond comprehension. Then walked away.

He stared at her, at the stranger he'd loved, his mind trying to rewrite those two short years they'd been together.

His cat growled at him, but he ignored the beast. Yes, he'd been right. This Ariana was the woman he'd mated all those years ago. But she'd never been the woman he thought she was. That woman would never have ripped his heart out of his chest and walked away, leaving him injured by a severed mating bond, leaving him to grieve for a millennium. The woman he'd thought she was would never have been so cruel.

Raw anger sparked into flame.

She lifted her free hand, reaching for her bound wrist. She meant to escape him.

He grabbed her, fury seething, tearing at him like finely honed blades, ten times worse than the fury he'd felt before. This was the agony of betrayal.

His hand clamped around her wrist too tight, her fine bones close to breaking beneath his grip. And he didn't care. White-hot pain seared his mind and heart. Everything he'd believed was a lie. His marriage. His love.

Goddess. He couldn't breathe. Tipping his head back, he struggled for control, struggled to think. The past couldn't be undone. But the future. . .

He released her wrist to grab her shoulders in the same punishing grip. His jaw ached from the clench of his teeth. "You're going to free my friends."

"I can't! I can't turn to mist."

"Why not?" he roared.

"The poison. If I turn to mist, I'll release the poison into my maidens. They'll die."

He stared at her, seething. Aching. And came to a decision.

"We're going to figure out what we have to do to free you from the magic, then you're going to save my friends. After that, I don't give a damn what you do or where you go."

"I have to go to my maidens."

"You're coming to Feral House."

"No!" She bared her teeth at him with a hiss. "I'm not going there with you."

His eyes turned to steel. "Yes. You are." He jammed his thumb beneath her ear, then caught her as she collapsed against the wall, unconscious.

He'd loved her once, body, heart, and soul, and she'd betrayed him, consigning him to purgatory for a thousand years. Never again would he willingly allow her into his life. When this was over, when Hawke and Tighe were safe, she could go to hell.

Chapter Five

Ariana jerked awake to the feel of powerful arms lifting her amid a cool night breeze. She blinked at the sight of the unfamiliar landscape of thick woods pierced by the early light of dawn. Kougar's scent hit her, and it all came roaring back--the confrontation in her house, his removing the moonstone cuff. Hookeye. Her heart began to pound.

The Mage she called Hookeye knew she was alive.

Carrying her, Kougar closed the door of an expensive-looking sports car with his hip. Her wrists were bound together with duct tape, no doubt to keep her from reaching her bracelet and disappearing on him again.

She'd known the moment she saw him standing within the walls of the Grand Corridor that his reappearance in her life was going to spell disaster. But she'd never guessed it would happen so quickly.