Obsession Untamed (Feral Warriors #2)(64)

“Stay in your skin!” Wulfe growled. “She won’t stand a chance if you lose it.”

Delaney. Goddess. Delaney.

He took deep breaths, fighting back the chaos. She needed him.

She tried to hit the clone, one feminine hand flying into his eyes only to be stopped and wrenched to the floor where a length of rope lay waiting. With Tighe’s own nimble fingers, the clone tied the rope tight around her wrist.

Delaney tugged, but her hand went nowhere. Tighe saw why. The rope had been attached to an eyebolt screwed into the floor. As if the clone had planned everything.

“Of course he planned it,” he muttered.

“Planned what?” Hawke asked.

“He’s tying her to the floor. Already had the eyebolts and rope ready.”

“Why? Why her?”

“Who knows. He must have seen us together. At the Lincoln Memorial. During that first apartment fire. He could have been anywhere. Anyone.”

The clone slammed his knee into the crevice beneath her rib cage, making her eyes bulge with pain as he yanked her other arm wide from her body and tied her second wrist.

Delaney grabbed the ropes, lifted her hips, and kicked hard at her captor’s face, but her strength and speed were no match for a Feral’s, and the clone’s were. He grabbed her heels and pulled off her boots and socks, one after another as tears glistened in furious brown eyes.

She was right there. Right there. Close enough to reach out and touch, and he couldn’t help her.

He gripped the seat, his stomach cramping.

“Jesus! He’s shredding the bleeding upholstery.” Jag’s voice. “Wulfe, do something!”

“How about I bang your head into the steering wheel?” Wulfe snarled. “Can’t you see he has bigger concerns than your damn car? We all do!”

Tighe heard a low moan and realized it had come from his own throat. “I can’t help her. She’s fighting him, and I can’t help her!”

With little effort, the clone stripped off her jeans and panties and tied first one ankle, then the other, to the last two eyebolts, spreading her wide.

“Goddess.”

Then he reached for her.

Tighe’s roar of fury threatened to shatter the Hummer’s windows.

“Stay in your skin!”

“He has her. He stripped her. He’s touching her.” The sight of that demon’s hands reaching between her legs…

His head pounded with the force of his fury. His fingers burned. The chaos swirled at the edges of his mind, black fingers of darkness curling toward him, ready to hook around him and pull him in. His claws began to unsheathe.

“Tighe! He’s not going to rape her. He doesn’t have any blood in that body, and a c**k can’t rise without blood. He’s just trying to scare her. Whatever he does, she’s alive, buddy. As long as she’s alive, you can get her back. But you’ve got to stay in your skin.”

He fought the darkness, pushing away the fury. She needed him. Needed him.

Slowly, painfully, he pulled himself back from that edge, his thoughts clinging to Delaney. She had to be terrified. He knew she was strong. If any woman could survive this mentally, it was his brown eyes. But he had to reach her. He had to save her. He had to stay in control.

“You don’t have enough fear in you,” the clone said with a touch of disgust, at last pulling his hand away.

As he rose, Tighe’s own sight of Delaney widened. The blue paint staining the floor suddenly took on an ominous significance.

“Shit.”

“What?” Hawke demanded.

“A pentagram. She’s lying in the middle of a Daemon’s sacrificial pentagram.”

“Stay in your skin!”

“I’m in it!” The vision ended. Tighe shook off Wulfe’s massive hand, a deep, furious growl rumbling in his chest at the thought of Delaney in that bastard’s clutches. His gaze flew to Hawke. “Why the pentagram? Why does he have her in a sacrificial pentagram?”

“Easy, buddy,” Hawke said. “Daemons used pentagrams for any number of purposes, most of which we don’t know. At least we know he caught her for a purpose other than to feed from her. We just don’t know what it is.”

“Think, Tighe,” Wulfe urged, his hand landing heavily on Tighe’s shoulder. “What did you see in that vision? We need clues.”

Tighe gripped his head, forcing himself to replay the scene though it tore strips from his soul. “Nothing but impressions. A big house. Lots of trees in the backyard. No houses easily visible.”

“Could be around here,” Hawke murmured.

“Could be anywhere in the Mid-Atlantic,” Tighe snapped, then took a shuddering breath. “My gut says it was near here. He didn’t take her far.”

“What else?” Hawke prompted.

“He said…right before the vision ended he told her she didn’t have enough fear in her.”

“She wasn’t feeding him. He may have gone to feed elsewhere.”

Tighe closed his fingers around his hair until his scalp ached. “Or he killed her.”

“You’d have seen it,” Hawke said. “You’re getting the visions again. At least when he feeds from Delaney.”

Tighe lifted his head and speared his friend with his gaze. “Why?”