Hunger Untamed (Feral Warriors #5)(70)

As the orgasm broke, she screamed with the glory of it. Then cried out with horror as she felt the bonds she'd locked around the poison all these centuries snap free.

As she turned to mist.

Chapter Twenty

The orgasm overtook Kougar in a blinding release, his and Ariana's combined--magnificent, brilliant perfection as he sank into her, their bodies merging in a blazing burst of pleasure he hadn't felt in . . .

Realization hit him with a stunning blow. She'd turned to mist.

"Ariana?"

For one fleeting moment, he wondered if she'd won. If the poison was gone. But Ariana's horror rushed at him through that open mating bond, and he knew.

They'd lost.

The cry that tore from her throat was part anguish, part fury, and she fled from him, a wraith he couldn't hold.

Kougar leaped to his feet as Ariana's mistlike form, rimmed in blood red, whirled on him, one of his switchblades snapping open in her hand. And he understood. Hookeye's controller spell had been set free.

"Do you belong to him now?" His voice remained calm, but he was roaring inside.

"The poison is trying to control me!"

That she knew that much meant she was still fighting, not lost. Not completely. Though she was mist, he knew she could turn to flesh in a microsecond, the blade becoming deadly just as fast.

"It wants you." Her expression was terrible, her neon blue eyes filled with dread, her mouth battle-hard. "It wants me to hurt you. The compulsion . . ." One moment she was there, the next she was gone.

A knife tore through his lower back with white-hot pain. He spun, but it was Melisande behind him, not Ariana. A second later, she, too, disappeared.

Crap. He needed his knives, even if they'd do him little good with the Ilinas turning to mist after every strike. Fighting mist warriors had always been an exercise in futility. And he didn't want to hurt them!

At the next flash of light, he dove for his pants, praying one of his knives was still there. He found it and rolled to his feet only to find the two women circling him, wraithlike, glowing with hot energy.

Neither attacking.

"What are you doing, Ariana?"

"He wants you injured, not dead. We're to take you to the temple. All of you."

All? The Ferals. "The spirit trap?"

"Yes. He wants me to open it for him. To drop you in."

Like hell. And suddenly he understood why the pain in his chest had, if anything, been getting better, not worse. Hookeye didn't want him dead. Not yet. What good was Kougar to him dead when another Feral would only be marked by the cougar? If he tossed him into the spirit trap, no cougar would ever come forth again.

Melisande flew at him, her ghostlike form pure energy as she attacked. She latched on to him, sucking him into her unnatural grip like a science-fiction tractor beam.

He shifted into his cat, the shift difficult and painful with her energy mixing with his; but he sprang away from her to turn and hiss, ears back.

Melisande flew at him again, turning to flesh just long enough to slice the blade deep through his shoulder. If she'd been a Mage, he'd have taken off her arm. He'd had the time. But Ariana . . .

His warrior queen yelled her fury and flew, not at him, but at Melisande. The two pulsing, mistlike figures collided in a spray of energy. Fighting, furious.

He could only watch, uncertain what was happening. What he needed to do was get back to Feral House and warn the others. He shifted back to a man. But as he reached for his armband to whisper the spell, the two Ilinas sprang apart, turning corporeal.

Kougar crouched, expecting another attack, but Melisande swayed on her feet, letting the knife drop from her fingers. Ariana sank to her knees, blood seeping from her pores like drops of sweat.

Goddess.

A wary eye on Melisande, Kougar reached cautiously for his mate.

"Ariana?"

She was doubled over, holding her middle, blood dripping onto the ground. "I beat back . . . Hookeye's control. And took Melisande's poison. It's changed. It's not what it was before. It's darker. Stronger." Her gaze flew to Melisande. "You're okay?"

"Yes." The petite blonde's face had drained of color. "What about the others? Are you taking their poison, too?"

"I can't . . ." Ariana's eyes filled with anguish. "I'm trying, but it won't come!"

Kougar brushed a lock of hair back from her bleeding temple. "He changed the poison so you couldn't take it this time."

"You took mine," Melisande said. "You're going to have to merge with them as you did me."

"Find Brielle. Bring her to me." As Ariana rose unsteadily to her feet, Kougar grabbed her arm, helping her. She looked up at him with fury and devastation. "Starving the poison should have worked!" Her hand went to the silver cuff, tearing it off her wrist and flinging it onto the rocks with a clatter, her face a mask of anguish. "How could I have turned to mist with the moonstones on?"

"The Mage are more powerful than they've ever been." Powerful enough to change the poison already in Ariana. Powerful enough to . . . ?

Kougar stilled. "Ariana, you've seen him in your mind. You've felt something strange going on in your head. What if it wasn't the memory downloads you were feeling, but Hookeye?"

She looked at him sharply. "What do you mean?"