Obsession Untamed (Feral Warriors #2)

Obsession Untamed (Feral Warriors #2)
Pamela Palmer


Chapter One

Five millennia ago, the Therian race of shape-shifters joined forces with their magic-wielding enemies, the Mage, to defeat and imprison the High Daemon, Satanan, and his vicious horde. They succeeded, but at a terrible cost, both races forced to mortgage the bulk of their power. All but one Therian from each of the ancient lines lost the strength of their animals and the ability to shift. Only nine shape-shifters remain.

They are the Feral Warriors.

Their duty is to protect the race, to hunt and destroy the dangerous, mindless, Daemon dregs called draden. And, most importantly, to guard the Daemon blade, in which Satanan and his horde are imprisoned, for the Daemons’ return would bring hell to the races of the Earth.

The Feral Warriors were in a world of hurt.

Tighe lifted his face to the night wind, trying to cool the frustration lodged beneath the surface of his skin as he traversed the rugged, rocky woods high above the Potomac River.

The Mage had lost their freaking minds and were apparently trying to free the Daemons. After sacrificing so much five millennia ago to imprison them, Tighe couldn’t fathom why, but there was no denying at least one Mage, the witch Zaphene, had been determined to free Satanan. Zaphene was dead, but she’d left a hell of a legacy.

One of the Ferals, Vhyper, was missing. The Daemon blade itself was gone. And one of Zaphene’s creations had run off with half of Tighe’s soul. Literally.

Where the Mage witch had come by the magic to split souls, no one knew, but she’d done so to make clones of the Ferals. Clones who would raise the Daemons from the blade in the real Ferals’ stead, since the real Ferals weren’t stupid enough to want that plague freed again. What were the Mage thinking?

A growl rumbled deep in his throat as he climbed the last of the stone outcroppings onto the cliffs above the river. The night was clear, the brightest stars little more than a dull glow, thanks to the damned humans and their incessant need to battle back the dark.

His clone was, by all indications, currently wreaking havoc on the human population. Tighe and two other Ferals had been tracking him for three days as he’d left a path of dead between Great Falls, Virginia, and nearby Washington, D.C.

And while, yes, the clone’s deadly rampage needed to be stopped, Tighe’s stake in his capture was a lot more personal. He needed his damned soul back. No one knew for sure how long he could survive with it split like it was, but the consensus was, not long. At least not with his sanity intact.

Dammit.

Which was why he returned to Great Falls and Feral House each night instead of remaining on the trail of his clone. He’d seen what could happen to a Feral with a split soul, and it wasn’t pretty. Hell, it gave him nightmares. He was determined to hold on to his sanity, even if every Feral watched him as if he expected to have to lock Tighe up in the prison deep below Feral House at any moment.

Wulfe stepped onto the rock beside him. “Any sign of draden?” Wulfe was the biggest of the Ferals, a monster of a man close to seven feet tall, with a face that looked like it had once been used as a cat’s scratching post.

Tighe released his frustration on a huff. “Not yet. They’ll come.” Then he’d rip their hearts out, as he did every night, and release some of this gut-eating frustration. Enough to feel relatively safe returning to the hunt for his clone in human-infested D.C.

“I’m surprised Lyon let us take you out without a leash,” Jag drawled behind him.

A growl rumbled in Tighe’s chest. The idiot wasn’t satisfied until he had every Feral ready to rip his throat out. And Tighe was in a foul enough mood to accommodate him.

“Shut up, Jag,” Wulfe snarled. “The last thing he needs right now is your needling.”

The last thing he needed was everyone treating him like he was filled with gunpowder, a lit fuse dangling from the corner of his mouth. He was fine.

But the burn in his fingertips gave the lie to that little assertion. He struggled for control, struggled to pull back from the feral rage engulfing him. Under normal circumstances the feral state was merely a place of lost tempers and healthy fighting. The place halfway between man and beast, where human teeth elongated into fangs, claws erupted from fingertips, and human eyes no longer looked human. A place where a hawk and a tiger could access their wilder natures yet fight on equal footing.

But these were not normal circumstances. Thanks to the rending of his soul, he didn’t know how much longer he’d have the strength or control to pull himself out of that state again.

He fought against the fury engulfing his body, clenching his teeth even as he willed himself calm, but it was too late. Claws unsheathed from the tips of his fingers. Fangs dropped from the top of his jaw. Daggerlike incisors rose from below as a backload of dammed-up rage ripped free of his control. In a rush of feral anger, he lunged, tackling Jag to the rocky ground.

In a haze of bloodlust, he felt the slash of claws and the ripping of flesh as Jag went feral, too. Blood spilled into his mouth, both his own and Jag’s, tasting warm and fine. His vision hazed in a wild bloodlust that had him suddenly longing to sink his teeth into Jag’s neck and rip out the bastard’s throat for real.

His logical mind recoiled. He was losing it. He could almost see the dark, swirling waters of chaos lapping at his sanity. As his sane mind clawed its way back from the precipice, Wulfe wedged himself between the two warriors, jerking Jag out of his grasp.