Hunger Untamed (Feral Warriors #5)(67)

He dropped his head. "We were wrong. Others regained the power to shift. One here, another there." He looked up again, his eyes unseeing. "It was days before we began to realize only one from each clan had regained his or her power. But in many of the clans, no one had regained that power and never did. It was weeks before the fear set in that the healing was over. That those who had not been able to shift again never would."

He shook his head, lost in the past. "The anger. The fury. I know they were terrified, but . . . goddess." A pulse of pure anguish escaped the mating bond, telling her he must be holding the emotions close with an iron fist.

And suddenly she understood. "You were the only one able to shift among the cougars."

Kougar turned to her slowly as if he'd forgotten she was there. "Yes."

"And they turned on you." Ariana fisted and flexed her hands, easing the prickly discomfort of the poison's rising hunger.

His mouth compressed, his gaze glazing over as he once more faced the garden. And the past.

"The first of the jaguars to shift had been attacked by his clan in a jealous rage and killed. Three weeks later, another was marked. Rumor--true, as it turned out--raced through the clans that only one of each line would be marked at a time, another to take his place upon his death. And suddenly we were all in danger. Men I'd lived with, fought with, my family, turned on me."

Laughter rang out from below, a sharp counterpoint to the ugliness of the past.

"Three of my clan mates, the closest of my brothers, helped me escape. Together, we fled to a cave the clan often used during hunting, where they promised to defend me, to watch my back until the anger died down." The muscle in his cheek leaped, his mouth taking on a hard, terrible line. "It was a setup. A trap. My father, the clan chief awaited us in that cave, along with the clan's seven strongest fighters. It was his right to be the clan's shifter, he said. A right I'd stolen. And the punishment was death."

As Kougar spoke, his hands moved to the railing. Ariana watched silently as the gold reshaped beneath the fury of his fingers.

"I shifted and fought my way out of there, barely escaping with my life. Never before or since have I run from a fight; but, despite their betrayal, I couldn't kill them. They were my brothers, my family.

"A horse shifter, the horse shifter, came upon me as I raced on bloody paws across the valley, badly injured, my clan mates in pursuit. The horse told me to shift and hop on, and I did. He, too, had been attacked. While there had never been any love lost between the cougar and horse clans, we became brothers that day. He was the only one in my life who didn't have a reason to kill me. Over the course of the next few weeks, most of the remaining shifters came together, bound by a common strength and a common enemy--the rest of our race. Almost too late, we found the one remaining Radiant and brought her to us. Then we fled to build a stronghold from which to defend ourselves.

"When it became clear that our combined might could not be overcome, the Therians ceased to attack us. Slowly, over the course of years, the nonshifters lost the power they'd once had, the disparity in strength becoming greater and greater."

Kougar fell silent.

Ariana wanted to move closer, but stayed where she was, his past like a wall between them.

"The only ones you could trust were the Feral Warriors," she said quietly.

"Yes."

And they still were. He might have loved her once, but he'd never fully trusted her because she doubted he could trust anyone but his Feral brothers anymore. And she'd only made it worse by betraying him, too, by severing the mating bond and never telling him she was still alive.

Goddess. How could I have ever thought we might still have a future?

She swallowed hard, struggling to ignore the increasingly uncomfortable prickling in her palms as she wished there was a way to make up for the pain she'd caused him. As she wished she knew how to make it right between them.

She'd wanted the truth. Now, having heard it, she realized how much further apart they were--so much further than she'd thought. She'd wanted him to open up to her, and he had. With his words, his past.

But it was his heart she wanted. A heart badly damaged all those years ago by the betrayal of his clan. Then damaged again by her own betrayal.

If they survived Hookeye's poison, if they had a future to face, she'd offer him everything she had. But if he still believed he'd be happier without her in his life, she wouldn't fight him.

Never again would she willingly cause him pain.

Chapter Nineteen

Kougar felt flayed alive by the memories of that time he'd tried so hard to forget. His head ached, his chest was a coiled rope pulled too tight even as the poison burned in his heart. Anger bit at him, a deep frustration that Ariana had made him dredge it all up again.

But even if she asked for his head on a platter, he'd give it to her. He'd never stopped loving her.

Below, the celebration continued, the maidens all dancing naked beneath the moon's glow, the music lush and beautiful, played by no fewer than a dozen instruments, many of which he knew to be unique to the Ilinas.

Beside him, Ariana made a sound low in her throat. Half growl, half groan. In an instant, the past no longer mattered.

"What's wrong?"

"The poison. The darkness is growing hungry, and it's annoying the shit out of me."