Obsession Untamed (Feral Warriors #2)(47)

End over end, his mind tumbled into the chaos, hurtling him headlong toward that black abyss.

Chapter Seventeen

Delaney stared in horror as the frightening vision in her mind gave way to a far more terrifying one in front of her. As Tighe released her, claws sprouted from his fingertips. Fangs sprang from his gums.

She stumbled back, slamming into the wall, her pulse pounding in her throat.

“Tighe?”

As she stared at him, colored lights erupted beneath his skin. And suddenly he was gone.

A tiger…a tiger…

This. Is. Not. Happening.

She was not staring at a huge tiger. The very beast who’d leaped at her in her head!

Her blood went cold. Her head began to spin. Not real. Not happening.

She was crazy. Crazy.

The tiger turned to her, staring at her with the same hunger she’d seen in her mind. He started toward her. Panic ignited.

With a strangled scream, she whirled and lunged for the door before he attacked her. Before he tried to rip her limb from limb.

As she reached for the door, she looked back only to see the tiger disappear in the same wash of sparkling lights, returning to the creature that was neither man nor beast, but something horribly in between.

With a strangled cry, she grabbed the door, frantic to escape. Too late. Sharp knives plunged into her shoulders. She screamed from the pain, from the terror of knowing she was about to become tiger food.

The creature pulled the knives from her and whipped her around. Blood dripped from his claws. Her blood. He squeezed her shoulders, sinking those claws into her a second time.

Her mind went white with pain as she flung her head back. Unable to move. Unable to breathe. Blood ran down her chest and back and trickled down her arms.

“Don’t fear me!” he growled between those terrifying teeth.

Tighe’s voice. “Tighe.” The word came out on a hiss of pain as her vision started to darken around the edges.

Behind her, the door burst open, knocking her into the creature. Tighe. Not Tighe.

His grip on her tightened. She screamed.

Two large men hurtled into the room and pulled Tighe off her in a haze of blood and agony, attacking him. Tackling him to the ground, ripping at him with fangs and claws.

Not real. Not real.

One hard swipe ripped Tighe’s face wide open. The flesh hung in bloody strips from the bones.

They were going to kill him.

She tried to lunge forward but was held back by a strong arm around her waist. “Let’s get you out of here.” That voice. The same one who’d rescued her from Tighe’s violence. The one who’d knocked her out beside the Tidal Basin.

“They’re going to kill him.” She struggled against the heavy weakness and terrible pain, struggled to free herself. “I can’t let them kill him!”

“He’ll be fine, Delaney. You’re the only one in danger here.”

He half pushed her, half carried her out of the room, then swept her up as her legs gave way. The pain was too much. Tears slid down her cheeks.

The man lowered her onto a sofa. She collapsed against the soft back, then cried out at the pressure against her wounds.

The man took her hand and she gripped his hard, gasping to breathe against the pain.

“I’m sorry you had to get mixed up in this.”

His long face swam in the narrowing circle of her vision. Her head was too heavy to hold up, and she had to let it fall back against the sofa, but she struggled to meet the man’s dark gaze.

“Help him. Please.”

Dimly, voices penetrated the haze of violence.

“She’s alive, but she won’t stay that way for long unless we get her to a healer. She’s bleeding like a sieve.”

“Let her die. She’s seen too much.”

No! The denial rang through Tighe’s head, but no human sound came from his mouth. Nothing but snarls and growls as he thrashed against the restraints, pinned beneath the weight of three men.

Hawke’s face appeared in front of him. “Fight your way back, buddy. Delaney’s going to die if you don’t.”

“Sounds to me like she’s going to die either way,” a third voice drawled.

Hawke scowled. “Shut up, Jag.”

The faces bled together, merging with the colors that passed for his sight. Reds and yellows and oranges. Violence. Fury.

He growled, struggling to free himself. To attack.

“Can you hear me, Tighe? Fight your way out of there, buddy. You hurt Delaney. She’s bleeding badly. She needs you.”

“Why the f**k do you think he cares?” Jag drawled.

“He doesn’t care,” Kougar replied. “He’s using her to reach the visions.”

“He cares,” Hawke said. “Don’t you, buddy?” Hawke’s face swam back into focus. “Do you know, she fought me when I tried to get her out of here? She was struggling to get to you. To save you. From us.”

The words penetrated the feral rage to reach his mind. She was trying to save him. Save him.

“Brown eyes.” The words were more growl than actual words, but he formed them.

“That’s it, Tighe. Come back to us. Fight your way back, buddy.”

She needs me. Brown eyes needs me.

He fought the chaos, struggling against its hard grip until he was sweating and panting from exertion. Finally, finally, with a groan of exhausted triumph, he pulled out of its grasp and away from the fury, snapping back into his skin.