Hunger Untamed (Feral Warriors #5)(59)

Trapped in that miserable darkness, he thought again of the dream he'd held close for decades. A dream of a mate of his own. He'd never been like many of his brothers, who'd been determined never to be tied to one woman for eternity. Though, of late, four of them had fallen to that fate, hadn't they? It was often like that. Watching that kind of love in another had a way of softening a man's heart. Of making him wonder what it would be like to know that kind of contentment.

He'd always wondered, always hoped he'd someday find the one meant for him. A woman with eyes that flashed with strength and intelligence, and turned liquid with love when she looked at him. Only at him.

Pain turned to agony, stealing his thoughts.

The other animal spirits, too, cried or roared with distress. Were they really in pain, or merely raging against the loss of more Feral animals to the trap?

Were they even there at all?

They were like ghosts in the room, leaving him to wonder if all he was hearing were the echoes of their death cries from hundreds of years ago.

Chapter Sixteen

Ariana paced the solar in the Crystal Realm, frustration lending a weight to her steps. Why had she expected anything to go right? She'd remembered the Crystal of Rayas being stored in the jewel-encrusted box that sat upon one of the bookshelves that lined the walls of the room. But when she'd opened it, she'd found nothing. Empty.

Dammit.

Kougar stood at the window overlooking the garden as she paced, trying to come up with another memory of where it might have been moved.

Of all the rooms in the Crystal Palace, the solar was perhaps the most Earth-like, with its rows upon rows of books, brown velvet sofas, and plush, vibrantly colored floor rugs. It even boasted a window with real glass. Only the floating crystal lights might have looked out of place in a mortal's home.

The room had been her gift to Brielle more than a century ago, knowing her friend's insatiable appetite for books, an appetite many of her maidens shared.

Those same maidens were turning the palace inside out looking for the crystal while she sorted through the jumble of memories, trying to make some kind of sense of them.

With a frustrated sigh, she went to stand beside Kougar, looking out on the grounds behind the palace, a sea of rocks and waterfalls. She called it the garden, but no plants, no trees, no flowers would ever grow there. It was the Syphian Stream itself that possessed a scent reminiscent of pine.

Kougar's hands gripped the windowsill until his knuckles had turned white.

Ariana slid her hand across his back. "You're thinking of war, aren't you?"

"I'm thinking of all the ways I'm going to kill that sorcerer."

"I know that waiting to go after him is driving you crazy."

"You have no idea," he growled.

A sharp pain pulsed in her temple as another of the myriad memories crowding her head broke through. She groaned at the revelation.

Kougar lifted a brow.

"We can't kill Hookeye, not while I still hold the poison. It will absolutely ensure I'm never free of it."

Kougar pushed away from the window. "Hell."

"Another queen faced something similar." She turned, talking to his back as he paced away. "The queen sent her mist warriors to destroy the sorcerer. But the poison killed her the moment the sorcerer died. I'm afraid if you kill him, you'll kill me, and possibly yourself, too. If I die, the poison will escape and infect my maidens. We'll all die."

He swung around to face her. "You can't know that. It might not be the same poison."

"No, I can't know for sure, but what she suffered was hauntingly similar to what I'm going through except that the poison she'd taken never spread to her maidens."

Kougar looked at her quizzically. "I thought you said the Mage had never attacked your race before we were mated."

Ariana frowned. "I didn't think they had. I didn't remember." She made a sound of frustration. "There's so much I don't remember."

The memories flitted and fluttered, brushing the insides of her skull like bats fighting to be free. All she could do was hope the answers were already in her head, because returning to the temple was impossible now, with Hookeye waiting to snare her, body and mind.

What she needed to do, as she had in the temple while Kougar slept, was take some time to sort through the new memories, to take each one out and look at it, replaying it fast-forward style. It would take time for the mass of thoughts to filter into her brain and become part of her consciousness. And time was something she didn't have.

Kougar had given her twelve hours to come up with an answer, and only ten remained. But Hookeye could attack again at any time, if he hadn't already. She feared that his insidious poison might be working on her even now, in ways she couldn't begin to guess. How long did she have before it bloomed? The thought terrified her. But she wasn't without warning this time. A thousand years ago, she hadn't known what was happening. She hadn't known she was under attack until far too late.

And by the time she knew what was happening, she'd no longer had Kougar by her side.

Her gaze caressed the man, his strength the only solid thing left in her world. And she knew she wouldn't make the same mistake again. Though she had no illusions that his primary concern was saving himself and his friends, she knew deep down he wouldn't turn away from her when she needed him.