Hunger Untamed (Feral Warriors #5)(46)

"Call her, Mel."

Melisande frowned but did as she asked, and a moment later the freckled Getrill safely formed from the mist. As her gaze took in Melisande's entrapment and Ariana's weakness, her face turned hard, her hand going to her sword.

Ariana raised a hand, reading her thoughts all too well. "The Mage set the trap, Getrill. The Ferals protect us."

The maiden relaxed only slightly.

"Take Jag back to Feral House--"

"No." Kougar interrupted her. "Jag won't be of any use by the time he gets back here." He turned to Getrill. "Knock on the back door of Feral House and tell Lyon I need a pickax and a sledgehammer. ASAP."

Getrill's wary gaze swung to Ariana, who nodded in agreement. The Ilina turned to mist and disappeared.

"It's sacrilege to desecrate the temple," Melisande muttered when she was gone; but her complaint was all but toneless, a rote objection and little more. Her desperation to be free was a palpable force, yet she held herself together with the fierceness Ariana had always admired. It was the reason the woman was her second-in-command.

"Now what?" Jag asked no one in particular.

Up above, Ariana could hear the sounds of pounding, as if the Mage were trying to find a way to break through. She stroked the back of Kougar's head.

"You can put me down now."

He eyed her without expression, then brushed his cheek against her hair. "I could." But he made no move to release her, and she leaned into his touch, perfectly content to remain in his arms a little while longer.

Inside, the mating bond opened a little more.

The all-too-familiar prickling sensation in her palms and the soles of her feet grew worse. The darkness was getting seriously hungry. Out-of-control hungry. Which made no sense at all. The more the mating bond opened, the more the grip of the poison inside her should ease, as it siphoned off to Kougar. It shouldn't be strengthening.

Was this Hookeye's doing? Fear twisted inside her even as the hunger leaped with a strength that startled her, the prickling shooting up her legs and arms like sharp little scalpels.

"What's the matter?" Kougar stiffened. "You're in pain."

She didn't answer. She couldn't. The scalpels were tearing her apart from the inside, the need to turn to mist clawing to get out. It was a compulsion that took every ounce of strength she possessed to fight.

Her heart pounded with the struggle, with the fear that this time she'd lose.

"He's attacking," she gasped.

"How?" Kougar's face swam in her vision, his eyes blazing into hers.

She clung to his neck, drawing on the small strength she gained from touching him, holding on against the darkness with everything she had as it tried to free itself to spread to her maidens. To destroy those who'd survived the first attack.

"Ariana?"

"It's the poison. More." She was beginning to shake from the effort to hold it back. "Too strong."

His grip on her tightened. "Tell me what you need."

"Pain. Others' pain."

In a single fluid movement, he set her on the cool floor at his feet, stripped off his shirt, and leaped at Jag, his fangs and claws erupting midair to tear a chunk of flesh from the jaguar shifter's shoulder.

The darkness inside her howled with pleasure at the shifter's pain.

Jag stumbled forward, then whirled, his own claws and fangs erupting as he went feral. "What the f**k?"

"Fight me," Kougar growled through his fangs. "The darkness within her feeds on the pain. Feeding it is the only way she can control it."

"Neither one of you is any good with the warnings!"

Kougar leaped again and the two part-men, part-beasts crashed to the floor, wrestling and biting, clawing and bleeding.

Seated on the cold floor, Ariana gripped her head with both hands, closing her eyes as the darkness fed, as she fought the battle inside her. Sounds carried to her--the ripping of cloth and flesh, the crunch of breaking bones, the growls and snarls. The metallic smell of blood filled her nose and slid down her throat to coat her tongue. Droplets of sweat, or blood, splattered her bare feet.

A muffled cry had her looking up and turning toward Melisande.

Ariana stared at her friend in horror. "Mel." Her second had a knife in both hands and was cutting her own thighs. Blood ran in rivulets down her legs, trickling across the floor, pooling near Ariana's feet.

Silent tears slid down Melisande's cheeks. Blue eyes, dark with agony, lifted to Ariana. "You need pain. I'm giving you mine. If you lose, we all lose."

Ariana's vision blurred with tears of her own, anger burning violently inside her at the Mage who'd caused such misery. She wanted him dead!

Kougar and Jag fought, clawing one another until their blood, too, began to run over the tiles as if seeking her.

Deep inside her, the poison devoured their pain and rejoiced.

A light tingle running over her skin alerted her of Getrill's return seconds before she appeared, the Chief of the Ferals at her side. With a sledgehammer in one hand and two pickaxes in the other, Lyon fell unsteadily to one knee, his head low as he struggled against the sweeping nausea.

"Cease!" he roared at his battling warriors.

"No." When his sharp gaze met hers, Ariana explained. "Not yet. They're doing this for me. The poison inside me is demanding pain. If I don't quench its hunger, I'll lose control."