Hunger Untamed (Feral Warriors #5)(24)

Ariana threw him a disgusted look but didn't fight him.

The Shaman's examination of Brielle took less than a minute. When he was done, he was frowning.

"Tell me everything." He lowered himself slowly onto one of the chairs, his brows knit in thought.

At first, Ariana said nothing, her stance guarded and defensive. But the Shaman was infinitely patient and waited in calm silence as her gaze met Kougar's, then slowly returned to him.

"At first only a couple of my maidens became infected. At least, I thought it was only a couple. I thought they'd come in contact with dark spirit. Those infected turned from seeking the pleasure of others to craving their pain. They attacked humans, torturing and killing for days, possibly weeks, before they died. Those residing in the corporeal world showed the symptoms far earlier, though I didn't know it at the time. But the deaths came all at once. By the time I realized what was happening, more than half my maidens were in their death throes."

"They attacked only humans?"

"No." She explained how Kougar had called her to the battlefield that day after several of her maidens had attacked his shifters. "I returned to the Crystal Realm to find all of my warriors showing signs of the darkness. Brielle was the first to suspect it was a Mage attack, and as soon as she said the words, I knew she was right. Every few days for weeks I'd dreamed of a pair of copper-ringed Mage eyes floating before me, one with an oddly shaped pupil. I called him Hookeye, and I believe he's the one who attacked us."

She glanced at Kougar, and in her eyes he glimpsed the horror of that day.

"My maidens were dying. All were infected. I didn't think, I simply acted, willing the poison into me instead of them. And it worked. At first. Until I took too much. The moment I turned to mist, the poison rushed back into them. Several dozen more died before I was able to reclaim the poison."

Kougar heard the anguish in her words, the fear that it was all going to happen again, and he felt the edges of his anger soften. Listening to her tell the tale, he could see it all happening. He could feel her terror, her confusion. He'd known the Ilinas were in trouble that day; but as always, she'd insisted on handling the situation on her own. And when the worst had happened, she'd shut him out.

But why had she severed the mating bond? That was the part he couldn't understand. Why hadn't she at least told him what had happened? Why had she made him believe she was dead?

The Shaman's expression softened with compassion. "It's a miracle you were able to retrieve the magic to save as many of your maidens as you did."

"My maidens are no longer saved."

Beneath his fingers, he felt her tremble, a faint shudder that echoed inside him, reminding him of the powerful need he'd once felt to protect her. A need that wasn't entirely gone.

"Hookeye knows I'm alive."

"How?" Lyon demanded.

Ariana glanced at Kougar, their gazes clashing briefly before she turned toward the front of the war room and told his chief what had happened in her living room, how Kougar had removed her cuff, and she'd seen the eyes again.

"He won't be able to reach you." Kougar's grip on her tightened protectively. "Not here."

"It's not the man I'm worried about. It's his poison. And he can absolutely reach me here. He can reach me anywhere."

"Shaman?" Lyon asked.

"I have to concur," the Shaman said. "It appears to me that your hook-eyed sorcerer snared you with a connector spell. Extraordinary, really."

"What's a connector spell?" Jag asked.

"Think of it as a valve inserted into the middle of the tube of the mating bond. A valve controlled by the creator. Anytime he wishes, he can open that valve and pump more poison in."

Kougar looked at Ariana, though she didn't meet his gaze. "Is that why you severed the mating bond?" He felt as if he'd been lashed to a rack and was being slowly pulled apart as he struggled to make sense of that day, of why she'd turned her back on him and everything they'd meant to one another. "Did you sever the bond to break the Mage's connection, Ariana? To keep him from pumping more poison into it?"

She refused to turn to him, her gaze falling to the floor, the air thickening with tension around her.

"The bond was only severed on your end, Kougar, not hers," Brielle said, earning a sharp look from her queen. "She was still connected to the source of the poison. Hookeye could have attacked her anyway, which was why it was so important he not learn the truth when he thought we were extinct. Ariana is barely holding on to the poison she has. Melisande reconnected the bond a few days ago because . . ."

"Brielle." The name escaped Ariana's mouth through clenched teeth.

Hell, the poison . . .

Brielle turned to Ariana, then back to him, her fingers twined, her hands pressing against her waist. "I'm sorry, Kougar. Ariana didn't know. I tried to talk Mel out of reconnecting it, but Ariana's been struggling so much, and Mel hoped you could ease her burden."

"Is she saying what I think she's saying?" Lyon demanded. "That poison . . . ?"

The Shaman nodded. "Was Melisande aware that the poison would kill Kougar?" he asked Brielle quietly.

Kougar heard the words as if from a distance.

"Yes." Brielle flinched. "Melisande knew."