Hunger Untamed (Feral Warriors #5)(53)

She leaned back, Kougar's arm slipping around her waist as she rested her head back against his shoulder. "The only ones I managed to save were those in the Crystal Realm. And not all of them. Many more died when I turned to mist, before I reclaimed the poison. The palace had never been so silent. I thought I was too late. None of them were moving. All lay on the ground as if dead. Never have I heard such terrible silence.

"Finally, those who'd survived turned to mist, and I knew they'd live. But they didn't move. They didn't waken. I tried to help them, to heal them. I tried to strengthen them through pleasure, singing to them until my voice was hoarse. Nothing helped. I'd never comprehended what true solitude really meant. It was awful."

"You had me. Why didn't you come to me?"

She was slow to answer, uncertain what to say. "I don't know. Those days were a blur. I was numb. Moving in a daze. Shock, grief, depression, I don't know. I started to get weak, having spent too much time corporeal in the Crystal Realm, but I couldn't turn to mist to leave. It was almost too late by the time I found the last remaining moonstone manacle, wove a transport spell into the silver, and locked it around my wrist.

"I traveled to the surface, and sat in the temple until I was strong enough to go back. Over the course of months, I sent my dead friends off to the next world, one by one. And I tended the unconscious ones as best I could. Time ceased to mean anything. Nothing meant anything."

"I'm sorry," Kougar said quietly, his thumb stroking her ribcage. "I wish I'd known, Ariana. I would have helped you, you know that."

She turned, meeting his pained gaze over her shoulder. "I know. I wasn't the woman you'd loved anymore. I wasn't . . . anyone. I was dead inside. Lost." Settling back against him, she looked out over the small pool and continued. "Finally, the maidens who'd survived began to waken. They were still terribly weak, but they pulled me back into the world of the living. Almost two hundred years had passed by then, Kougar. Two hundred years that are little more than darkness in my mind. It was another eighty or ninety years before my maidens finally returned to full health and strength, able to move freely between mist and flesh. It was nearly three hundred years after the attack that Melisande strapped on her knives and set out to cut out the heart of the Mage sorcerer who'd nearly destroyed our race."

"She didn't find him."

"No. She's hunted him ever since and come so close numerous times, but luck's never been on our side. It's just a matter of time. But I guess time isn't something we have anymore, is it? It wasn't until Melisande began hunting Hookeye that we realized the world thought we were extinct. Once I'd started thinking clearly, I'd wondered why Hookeye had never attacked again. I couldn't be sure, but I thought he could probably reach me again even with the mating bond severed. Now I knew why. Like everyone else, he thought I was dead. We knew we had to keep it that way. As long as he didn't know the truth, Melisande might be able to get close enough to kill him."

"I would have happily killed him for you."

She pulled out of his arms and turned to face him. "I never forgot you. I always intended to find you again, when it was over."

His eyebrow shot up. "A thousand years?"

Ariana flinched. "I never dreamed it would take so long. Melisande was always so close to finding Hookeye. A few more weeks, a few more months, and it would be over. Except it never was."

"And you didn't think you could trust me with your secret?"

"It wasn't that simple." She dropped her gaze to his shoulder. "I don't even know how to explain it. I still loved you, but . . ."

"But?"

Slowly, she lifted her gaze to his. "Hookeye never would have attacked us if not for our mating. What I felt for you was no longer as simple as love. It was a tangle of grief and bitterness, regret and guilt. And so much time had passed. I told myself that someday I'd have to resolve things with you, but not when it could possibly hurt my maidens again."

Emotion flared in his eyes. Anger, or perhaps pain.

Ariana turned away. She couldn't undo the past, however badly she might want to.

"One of your maidens died on the battlefield soon after you left that day," he said, his voice quiet. "She was, as you said, crazed. She told us all the Ilinas were dying. It wasn't moments later that you severed the mating bond. I was afraid it was true, but I had to know. I went to the temple."

Ariana jerked around to face him. "You climbed the Himalayas in the eleventh century?"

"I had to know. The Wind and Horse accompanied me."

"How long did it take you?"

"Nearly a year. We were weak as newborn kittens from lack of radiance by the time we got back to Feral House. But in that temple, which I'd visited with you only once, I found the fires out, the magic gone. No evidence of life, and I believed you were gone."

Remembered pain sliced through his eyes, and, for a moment, she glimpsed the terrible grief she'd put him through. She reached for him, her hand going to his cheek.

"I'm sorry."

The pain in his eyes disappeared, shuttered behind strong male pride. But he lifted her onto his lap and held her, setting up a deep ache in her heart as she wished things between them could be simple.

As she wished he could be hers again.