Hunger Untamed (Feral Warriors #5)(52)

"Did he do anything?"

"No. At least, I don't think so." Her gaze met Kougar's. "He's getting stronger."

"That bastard is going to die." Kougar's hands squeezed her shoulders. "Sooner or later, I'm going to kill him."

"We're going to kill him. But first we have to find him." She frowned. "I wonder . . ."

"What?"

"Maybe I could figure out where he is by walking in his dreams." The thought of meeting that male face-to-face, in any reality, made her skin crawl.

Kougar watched her thoughtfully. "He could be anywhere. And you don't even know who he is."

"No. But we're connected, though goddess only knows what kind of connection I have with that bastard."

Kougar stroked her head. "Once, long ago, you offered to take me with you into another's dreams. Can you still do that?"

"Perhaps." The thought of Kougar at her side as she faced the Mage calmed her uneasiness. And increased it. "He's powerful, Kougar. You've said yourself that the Mage have dark magic, dangerous magic. We don't know what he can do."

"It's just a dream."

She lifted an eyebrow. "I've been in your dreams, Feral. You know better than that."

His eyes heated, and she knew he was remembering just how real some of those very carnal dream visits they'd once shared had been.

She rubbed her hands together, feeling chilled again. To walk in Hookeye's dreams, she had to reach out to him, to find him through the unholy connection he'd formed with her. And she had no idea how to do that. Would he see her eyes rising in his mind as she saw his?

As if reading her thoughts, Kougar took her hand, squeezing gently.

With a deep breath and a nod, she closed her eyes and concentrated on Hookeye, on the poison she could almost see seeping into the mating bond, then followed its trail into total darkness, a wide, empty void.

In an instant, everything changed, and she was tumbling into a blinding chaos and just as suddenly, thrown back out again, Hookeye's furious eyes blazing at her in her mind.

"Ariana!" Kougar's voice sounded beside her, but all she could see were the eyes, copper-ringed Mage eyes glaring into hers.

She was trembling, on the edge of panic, perspiration running down her neck. Her pulse thrummed in her veins as the hated eyes bored into her.

He'd pushed her away. Somehow, she had to do the same.

Concentrating, she imagined shoving him back. For a moment, the eyes dimmed, then popped back into focus, brighter and angrier than before.

No.

This time, she didn't shove. She reached deep, digging up the hatred and grief for all he'd caused her and throwing it at him in a single powerful blast of pure fury.

A moment later, the eyes were gone. "I did it." The breath shuddered out of her as Kougar pulled her against him.

"What happened?"

"I'm not sure." But she told him what she could, about the eyes and darkness, and that bright chaos. "I can almost still see it." She met his gaze. "I think it's his consciousness. And I think I'm going to know when he falls asleep."

"Good."

"We could be here a long time, Kougar. You might as well get some sleep. I'll wake you when it's time." Pain bolted through her mind, another rush of new memories swamping the first.

Her hands went to her aching head. Kougar's warm knuckles stroked her cheek.

"I'm okay," she said. "Sleep."

"Later." Instead, he took her hand and led her to one of the pillars, sat and drew her down beside him. Gently, he pulled her against him, cradling her head against his chest until the pain finally slid away.

For a long time, they sat like that, quietly, his hand stroking her head, his fingers twirling her hair.

"Tell me about that day," he said finally. "I want to know what happened after you left me on the battlefield. I need to know."

She stiffened, pulling out of his grasp to sit beside him, but his hand followed her, his palm stroking her back in long, gentle strokes, easing the tension his words had caused.

Part of her didn't want to talk about it. Honestly, she wasn't even sure what to tell him.

"I thought we were dealing with dark spirit." She glanced at him, seeing a cautious warmth in the eyes that had blazed with such heat a short while ago. And glimmers of a pain centuries old.

She owed him this. He deserved an explanation, if she could figure out how to give him one.

"They were dying, Kougar. And not just a few. All of them. I returned to the Crystal Realm to find Angelique crazed with evil and in her death throes. She was the first, but as her life cord tore from mine, so did others. Dozens of others. And the maidens around me, maidens who'd been in the Crystal Realm with me, began to show signs of the same darkness. You can't imagine . . ."

His hand lifted to the back of her head, stroking, easing her back from those terrible memories.

"For the first time, I saw the poison in the life cords and how it was flowing into my maidens through me. And I saw it in the mating bond. It was then that Melisande admitted inserting a Mage potion into the bond. I began to suspect the Mage with the hookeye was to blame, that this was all a Mage attack. My maidens were dying around me, and I feared you were about to die, too. Melisande might have caused the vehicle of our destruction, but she'd also given me the means to save you. I severed the bond without a second thought, then turned to trying to save those of my maidens that I could."