Hunger Untamed (Feral Warriors #5)(8)

When he'd attacked her, she hadn't turned to mist. He'd been almost as surprised as she had that his claws had found purchase in her neck. And when she left just now, instead of simply turning to mist and disappearing as any other Ilina would do, she'd murmured a spell of transport, like a non-Ilina. As if she couldn't turn to mist.

And an Ilina queen who couldn't turn to mist certainly couldn't breach the spirit trap. If she'd been irrevocably injured or altered in some way, in that way, his only chance to save Hawke and Tighe was gone.

No f**king way.

"Melisande!" His voice echoed through the crystal hall, over and over. "Brielle!"

He waited, his muscles rigid, his breath tight in his chest. As he opened his mouth to yell again, Melisande appeared, hovering before him. A slip of angry female.

"Why isn't she turning to mist?" he demanded. "Why does she need a transport spell?"

Cold eyes flinched, but Melisande's expression remained defiant. "She's not your concern."

"Like hell she isn't! She's the only one who can save two of my warriors. Why did you reconnect the mating bond, Melisande? What's the matter with her?"

The woman's chin lifted. "Find another way to free your men, Kougar. You'll get no help from us."

His fangs and claws erupted, and he lunged at her, reaching for her throat as he had Ariana's even though she was already mist and he knew his claws would go right through her. For his efforts, she zapped him with her Ilina energy, lighting a fiery pain in every molecule of his body.

He struggled against the agony and, with a growl of pure fury, threw himself backward, out of that energy-induced inferno, slamming against the wall behind him. As he straightened, Melisande stared at him, her aura reddish orange, her sapphire eyes flashing with an anger to match his own.

"Don't ever touch me, Feral," she hissed between bared teeth. "If I didn't think it would hurt her more, I'd kill you."

He growled between his fangs, drawing on his full size and power to intimidate. "Then tell me what I want to know. Why isn't Ariana turning to mist?"

"Because she can't."

"Why not?"

"The dark spirit . . . changed her."

Melisande's words almost made sense, but the blond Ilina had always been a lousy liar, and she was lying now.

"Tell me the truth!"

Instead, she disappeared, leaving him once more alone in the hall. It was all he could do not to slam his fist into the wall a second time. It wasn't over. It was not over.

So long as Hawke and Tighe lived, he would never give up.

Yet his hands were all but tied. He couldn't stay in the Crystal Realm more than a day before he started weakening and had to return to Earth, but once he left, he couldn't return until Ariana did. And unless he missed his guess, she'd stay away as long as she could now that she knew he'd come after her.

Which meant he had to find his answers immediately. Before he was forced to leave.

As he turned to begin the hunt for an Ilina who would tell him what he needed to know, something on the floor caught his eye. A flash of white--a card in protective plastic splattered with a single drop of blood. He bent down and picked it up. Turning it over, he stilled. Ariana's pensive face stared back at him from a photo ID that read ANNA SMITH, R.N.

A nurse. Not just pretending. Was she living among the humans, then? If she truly couldn't turn to mist, then of course she was. No corporeal creature could live long in the Crystal Realm. Not even an Ilina.

He stared at the card, then tapped it against his hand, a savage smile lifting one corner of his mouth.

The hunt was on.

Deep below Feral House, Wulfe watched as Esmeria, the most gifted of the Therian healers, touched the forehead of the human male lying unconscious in one of the three now-occupied cells in the Ferals' prison block. Long ago, all Therians had been shape-shifters, before the race had mortgaged most of its power to defeat the High Daemon Satanan and his horde. Now, only one each of nine of the ancient shifter lines still retained the power of his animal and the ability to shift. The nine known as the Feral Warriors.

"It's time." Esmeria glanced at him as she rose, running fingers through her short, dark hair. "I'm amazed these humans have been able to last five days without food or water. That energy Olivia fed them must have been powerful stuff."

The humans had survived the battle from hell in Harpers Ferry five days ago, only to face an uncertain fate when the Ferals had realized they couldn't steal their memories. And goddess knew, they'd seen too much--shape-shifting Ferals, three Daemons that hadn't existed in the world in millennia, and the gruesome deaths of three of their friends.

During the battle, Jag's new mate, Olivia, had fed them all a potent life energy, the humans included. The Ferals never killed needlessly, but neither did they hesitate to take the lives of humans who in any way threatened the anonymity and safety of the immortal races. Humans could not be allowed to carry tales of shape-shifters into the human communities. Too many odd occurrences might start to make sense to the more open-minded, and a witch hunt of colossal proportions could too easily ensue. The mortals, with their firepower, could end up destroying the only ones who could save them from Satanan's hell if the Mage succeeded in freeing him and his Daemon horde as the idiots seemed determined to do.