Hunger Untamed (Feral Warriors #5)(5)

How many times?

But she'd lost the battle before he'd known there was a battle to fight, and he hadn't been here when she'd needed him. Maybe if he had been, he could have helped her vanquish the darkness and return to him before it consumed her soul. Now it was far, far too late. Given enough time, dark spirit always consumed the soul.

Slowly, he started down the corridor, memories attacking him from every direction. Making love to Ariana in her chamber. Making love to her in the garden. Making love to her beneath the waterfall. Goddess, he'd never been able to get enough of her, nor her of him. Even though the Ilinas had disapproved of his marriage to their queen, his Ariana had loved him. For two short years, they'd been blissfully happy.

He stilled as a familiar warmth bloomed within the misshapen excuse for a mating bond.

Ariana.

At the feel of her nearness, his heart began to beat a hard, erratic rhythm. At the certainty he was about to see her again. And the certainty that it was going to hurt like hell.

Hatred for the woman she'd become, for the evil thing who'd destroyed his mate, crouched, snarling inside him as he strode toward her chambers. The cool, crystalline air parted before him as if seeking to escape the menace that radiated from his pores.

"Ariana!" He shouted her name, his voice deep as a roar. There was no sense in stealth, not with the mating bond reconnected. Just as he felt her, he knew Ariana had known the moment he'd arrived.

Melisande drifted out of the nearest passage, mistlike, her blond braid hanging over one shoulder, her sword drawn. With an expression hard as flint, she blocked his path. "You're not welcome here."

Kougar lifted a brow at the petite mist warrior. "You reconnected the mating bond. Had you forgotten that meant you couldn't keep me out?"

"No, but I'd hoped you had."

He was about to barrel through her when a woman stepped into the passage behind her, flesh and blood, a woman as familiar to him as the beat of his own heart. His feet stopped without his awareness. His heart seized for the space of three beats, then took off like a flock of birds in a wild flight.

Ariana.

In so many ways, she looked as she always had, her skin luminous, her rich brown hair falling in soft waves, framing a face of delicate beauty and indomitable strength. She stood in that achingly familiar way, with her back straight, her chin raised almost in challenge, her arms loose at her sides as if ready for battle.

"The queen will not see you, Kougar," Melisande snapped.

"She already has." Emotions careened inside him--the passionate, tender love. The searing pain of losing her.

His heart contracted, squeezed by an agony he could barely endure. Deep inside him, his cat gave a joyous yowl. His soul sang at this proof that Ariana lived, at this miracle that the woman he'd loved more than life, that he'd mourned for a thousand years, once more stood before him.

But she wasn't his Ariana, was she? The woman before him was a stranger. For a moment, just a moment, he thought he glimpsed emotion in her once-beloved face. A mix of joy and agony that mirrored his own. But he blinked, and it was gone, and he knew he'd been mistaken.

Now that he looked at her clearly, he saw that her lush mouth was pursed and hard. Her brows dipped in the middle over cold eyes the brown of a wild cherry tree instead of the blazingly bright Ilina blue they'd once been.

Her gaze locked on him with a piercing sharpness she'd always possessed. Both queen and warrior, she'd been fire and sword, able to slay any opposition with a single look. But those sharp eyes that had once softened for him, melting with love and heat, now stared at him with a stranger's cold reserve.

His mind reeled at the sight of her, his heart an erratic thrum in his chest. He longed for the lack of feeling he'd lived with for a millennium, the insulating numbness he'd felt for so long. Instead, his heart split asunder all over again.

She wasn't dressed as Melisande, in the ancient mist-warrior garb of tunic and pants. Nor was she garbed in one of the jewel-toned gowns she'd often preferred. Instead, she wore blue scrubs that fit her slender form, and white shoes, as if she played at being a doctor or nurse. At being human.

For a moment, her dress confounded him until the reason clicked sickly into place in the pit of his stomach.

Darkness always fed on pain and fear. Where better to find pain in this day and age than in a human hospital? She was nothing but a parasite feeding off the misery of others. Was that why she hid the unnatural brightness of her eyes behind brown contacts? Because she spent so much time trolling the human world?

Despite the plain clothing, despite the dark circles beneath her eyes and the contacts hiding their true color, she was still achingly beautiful. Even if that beauty was truly only skin-deep.

"Leave us, Melisande," Ariana ordered quietly.

Melisande glanced over her shoulder. "Ariana . . ."

"You knew it would come to this, Mel, when you reconnected us. You knew, sooner or later, he'd find me."

"He's known you lived for twenty-one years."

"I said, leave us," Ariana snapped at her second-in-command.

On a huff of displeasure, Melisande disappeared.

Ariana remained where she was, as if rooted. Staring at him. Again, he thought he saw emotion dart across her eyes and sensed she was struggling for control. As if she were as thrown by this meeting as he was.

Even from here, he could smell her, the unique scent that had always reminded him of lilies of the valley. The scent tumbled him back in time to long, glorious nights lost in the pleasures of her body. He clenched his fists against the needs warring inside him. Part of him longed to haul her into his arms and feel her against him one more time. A stronger part wanted to rip out her soulless heart. And the unstable emotions careening inside him made one or the other an all-too-likely possibility.