Obsession Untamed (Feral Warriors #2)(51)

What if the FBI found out about it? That nonhumans actually existed? It would flip them on their ears.

And if the populace at large learned about them? Utter chaos.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she lowered her arms, opened her eyes, and met Tighe’s gaze. She’d never been one to bury her head in the sand. Clearly, she’d stumbled into something way outside her realm of experience. Her only real option was to figure out what was going on as best she could.

Then deal with it.

Another shudder tore through her. Easier said than done.

Delaney swallowed. “I kind of understand the physical shifting into a tiger. But how…how did you do it in my head? Is that going to happen again?”

“The tiger in your head wasn’t precisely me.”

She grimaced. “Someone else did that?”

“No.” He dug a hand through his short, sun-bleached hair, mirroring her move of a few moments ago. “I share my body with an animal spirit. A tiger animal spirit. His being in me enables me to shift into the tiger, but he isn’t the tiger. I am. I’m the tiger, I’m the man, and when I lose my temper, I’m even that thing that attacked you. Though, if my soul had been intact, I never would have lost control like that. I never would have hurt you.”

His fingers ran across the scars on his chest. Scars that looked like an animal’s claw marks, she realized. “I was twenty-four when the tiger chose me. Marked me. Before that I wasn’t human, but neither was I a shape-shifter. He joined his spirit with mine.”

“He controls you?”

“No, though on occasion he’ll make his will known. Particularly when it comes to females.” Tighe frowned. “He’s taken a liking to you. When I entered your mind, he tried to follow.”

“What was he going to do in there?”

“Nothing. He couldn’t have done anything. If you want to know the truth, I think he was really just trying to say hello.”

She laughed, though there was no humor in it. “Hello? He scared the shit out of me.”

“Believe me, I’m aware of that.”

“How am I not hooked up to a transfusion in the ICU? I know I lost a ton of blood.” She glanced down at one shoulder, then met his gaze. “I can’t even feel the wounds.”

Delaney hooked her finger into the neck of the large tee shirt and pulled it open so she could get a peek. They were still there, all right, red and swollen dashes, dried blood caked around the edges. But the skin seemed to have already knit closed. Almost as if someone had cauterized the wounds.

“You’d seen too much to take you to a human hospital, so one of our healers helped you. There was only so much she could do with human flesh. You’re not fully healed, but you’re a lot further along than you would be on your own. Your own body will have to do the rest.”

Delaney shook her head. She was trying to take it all in. Really trying, but…“This is unbelievable.”

“Get used to it,” he said coolly. “The mating ceremony will take place as soon as you’re ready.”

Mating ceremony. Her stomach clenched, his words coming back to her, hard and hurtful. No way. I’m not making her my mate.

“No.” It was too much. She couldn’t deal with this, too.

He studied her, his gaze enigmatic. “Either you bind yourself to me, or I kill you.” His expression said he didn’t much care which.

She looked away, blindsided by the swift, unexpected pain of that blow. A blow he probably hadn’t even intended.

She meant nothing to him. Less than nothing. And she hated that it hurt.

Delaney swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I need my cell phone,” she said tersely. “I have to call my boss and let him know I’m okay.”

“No.”

“Is the FBI looking for me? Did they see you kidnap me? Did they give chase?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

She gaped at him, lunging to her feet to face him. “Of course it matters.”

“They’ll never find you. You’re dead to them now.”

She stared at him, her jaw slowly dropping. “I have a job to do.”

“Your only job now is whatever I say it is. You’re not going back to the FBI.”

“If you’re trying to be an ass, you’re succeeding brilliantly.” She stalked toward him. “I heard you tell the guy on the phone that if I went through with this, I couldn’t betray you. So I can go back.”

“You’re staying here.”

Blast it. “Then I’m not doing this.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“I didn’t know you were going to lock me up!”

He turned and picked up a royal blue silk nightgown and tossed it to her. “Put this on. Nothing underneath. Leave your hair down and your feet bare. It’s your wedding dress.”

She stared at the thing. “I’m not getting married in a nightgown.”

“It’s not a nightgown. It’s a ritual gown.”

The fabric was gorgeous, but there was nothing to it. No sleeves, no lining. Nothing underneath?

“What’s the ritual? Sacrificing me to your tiger god?”

He didn’t reply, just continued to watch her with that hard, cold expression.