Hunger Untamed (Feral Warriors #5)(34)

For centuries, her existence had been a stasis of hiding and survival, searching for an answer that never came, waiting for Melisande to find the Mage at the heart of it all. In the few short days since Kougar had charged back into her life, he'd turned every single aspect of her existence end over end until she didn't know what to think, what to feel.

She wanted to be furious with him for endangering her people all over again, but she was beginning to believe the Ferals genuinely meant to help her, even if only to save their own. For the first time in forever, a flicker of hope had sparked, a rare, precious feeling that she was almost afraid to acknowledge, knowing it could be snuffed out again between one breath and the next.

If the Ferals really did succeed in finding the Mage behind the attacks, if by some miracle, she found herself free of the poison? The thought tantalized. The first thing she'd do was return home and take up the mantle of queen-in-residence once more. It was all she'd wanted for a thousand years.

She turned to Kougar, to his strong, beloved back, rising and falling in sleep. No, being queen wasn't all she wanted. But she'd been a fool to think she could be both queen and wife. Her maidens should have been her top priority all those years ago . . . her only priority. If they had been, they'd still be alive.

That was a mistake she couldn't make a second time, no matter how much her heart ached for the man at her side.

On a sigh, she turned away from him, her gaze sliding over his room. He'd closed the drapes after she'd fallen asleep, and sunlight now fanned out from the edges of the window, thin rays escaping the darkening curtains. It was the kind of room she would expect of Kougar, she realized. Clean, neat, controlled. If she ignored the splintered chair.

The bed on which she sat was a large, mahogany four-poster, beautifully carved, probably by hand. The bedside lamp, a heavy jewel-encrusted brass. Kougar had always enjoyed fine things. Even a thousand years ago when there was so much less to choose from, he'd carried intricately carved knives and worn cloaks with silk linings.

And he'd been incredibly generous to her--plying her with gifts of beauty that he'd known would please her Ilina's heart. Jewelry from exotic traders, gowns of the finest velvet. And flowers. Where he'd found them, she'd never been certain, but he'd rarely come to her without flowers of some kind, even if all he'd been able to find was a sprig of honeysuckle.

She'd always loved flowers, especially in those days, when she'd spent so much time in the Crystal Realm, where nothing grew. And he'd known it.

On the walls of his room hung more paintings, mostly centuries-old landscapes. Though three of his walls were tan, the one before her was a vibrant blue. The color of the summer sky, neon bright. Almost the exact shade of her eyes.

Beside her, Kougar made a sound deep in his throat, a low growl as he rolled onto his back. His body had turned rigid with tension, his arm muscles flexing, his hand fisting against his hip.

He was dreaming, and it wasn't a happy dream.

She lifted her hand, intending to stroke his shoulder and soothe him, only to pull up. What demons did he wrestle in his sleep? Perhaps she should find out. A soft smile tugged at her mouth. It had been so long since she'd joined him in one of his dreams.

Ariana closed her eyes, calmed her mind, and stepped into his dream, an ability all Ilinas possessed. She expected to find herself a spectator of some Feral battle. Instead, she blinked with confusion as she realized she was standing inside her own cabin hundreds of years ago, the night three human trappers stumbled upon it . . . and her. The coarse men had thought to slake their physical urges on an unwilling woman, and she watched as her younger self fought off two of the men at once with well-aimed kicks.

She frowned at the nonsensical sight. This was supposed to be Kougar's dream. Instead, she and Kougar both stood in the middle of one of her own memories. Dressed in the dark sleep pants he wore in the bed beside her, he passed through the center of the action like a ghost trying to fight off her attackers. They, of course, didn't even know he was there.

"Kougar."

His gaze jerked to her, then to her dream self and back again, the tension leaching from his body as understanding lit his eyes.

"It's a dream," he muttered, his voice barely audible over the grunts of the men and the snap of bone as her dream self broke one of her attacker's kneecaps.

The man yelled, crashing into the sole chair in the tiny cabin, splintering it. Goddess, she'd been furious about losing that chair. It had taken her weeks to make it.

Her gaze took in the small windowless space, the rough-hewn logs infilled with mud, the down pallet that had been her bed, now destroyed, the feathers floating in the glow from the fire. The scent of smoke and sweat and unwashed bodies choked the air.

Kougar crossed to her, pulling her tight against him with a shudder of relief. "My fists kept going right through them. I was beginning to think I'd died." His gaze skimmed her nakedness. "Walking in my dreams?"

"I could tell you were having a bad one. I thought I'd take a look." Her brow furrowed. "But this isn't your dream."

"This isn't real."

"No, but it happened. It's my memory."

His frown deepened as together they watched her fight off her assailants with sweeping kicks and elbows to the throats and noses. She might have been a woman alone, but she'd been as strong as any human male, thanks to her immortal blood, with nearly seven centuries of hand-to-hand combat experience by that point.