Obsession Untamed (Feral Warriors #2)(76)

“Can you taste my emotions in this form?”

Not as well, but yes.

“Am I afraid?”

I hear your heart pounding like it’s about to take flight.

“But am I afraid?”

No.

“Right answer. I’m…awestruck, Tighe. Exhilarated. Completely enchanted. I have goose bumps because I’m staring into the eyes of one of the most beautiful, powerful, dangerous creatures on this planet, and in his eyes I see the man I adore.” Her eyes gleamed with emotion. Softly, she added, “I see the man I love.”

Harsh joy barreled through him, taking down his heart in a single blow.

Brown eyes. I need to hold you. Step back.

When she did, he shifted back into a man, then stood and swept her into his arms. His mouth covered hers, and he kissed her, tasting the truth of her words in the passion of her lips and the tenderness of her fingers in his hair. Hearing it in the beat of her heart. A heart beating in time with his own.

Goddess, but he loved her.

Finally, he pulled back to look down into her face. “You’re really not put off by all this?”

Her eyes shone with love, her mouth forming the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen. His chest tightened until he thought it would burst.

She cupped his man’s face as she had his tiger’s. “Put off is about as far from what I’m feeling as you can get.” Her thumb moved to trace his lip. He nipped her lightly with his human teeth, stroking her thumb with his tongue.

Then he kissed her again with all the tangled emotion trapped in his heart. Her words had soaked deep inside him, healing wounds he’d lived with for hundreds of years, shattering walls and defenses he hadn’t even realized he’d built against a pain he didn’t think he’d survive twice. A pain he finally understood and perhaps, at last, could relinquish.

In what might just turn out to be the last hours of his life.

With an aching heart, he pulled back from the kiss and stared into Delaney’s precious face, into eyes he could drown in. Then he swept her into his arms and strode with her through the gym, out into the hall, and into the ritual room.

Delaney’s eyes widened. “What are we doing?”

“What I should have done the first time.”

Deep inside him, the tiger gave a savage roar.

Chapter Twenty-seven

“You’re not going to try to marry me, are you?” Delaney hooked one arm around Tighe’s neck, holding tight to her towel with the other, as he carried her into the dark ritual room. With his elbow he flipped a switch and lit the pair of electric sconces that filled the room with a golden glow.

She didn’t want this, did she? He wasn’t thinking clearly.

“Tighe.”

“Hush, D.” He carried her to the wide, cushioned altar that stood on the far side of the room and deposited her in the middle.

“I don’t think this is a good idea.” She grabbed hold as he pushed the altar, with her on top, into the middle of the room.

Tighe yanked off his towel and tossed it aside as he strode to a small shelf on the wall and grabbed something. A lighter, she realized as he squatted and lit one of the ceremonial fires that had burned during their mating ceremony.

“Can we at least discuss this?”

“No.”

With a huff of frustration, she climbed off the altar, pulled her towel tight, and followed him to the second fire.

“Tighe, you have nothing to gain from this and too much to lose.”

He lit the fire, then moved to the third. “Take off your towel, D.”

“Are you even listening to me? If they get the clone, you’ll be bound to me when you know I can’t stay.”

He rose from lighting the third fire and turned to her, taking hold of her shoulders. His eyes were the golden orange of the tiger, yet within those golden depths swam a sea of emotion and a will of steel.

He squeezed her shoulders gently. “You asked me to bare myself to you, to show you my eyes and open my past as one last gift to you. Now I’m asking for one last gift from you. Don’t fight me on this, D. It’s too important to me.”

“But why? What difference does it make?”

Releasing her, he lit the fourth and fifth fires before answering.

“The difference is, if I’d bound myself to you in the first place, I would have heard your cries in my head when he first captured you. I would have been able to find you immediately. You wouldn’t have had to endure…”

Turning away, he lit the sixth and final fire, then turned off the sconces. Firelight danced on the walls, once more transforming the room into a cave of old and filling the room with whispers of magic.

Tighe ushered her back to the altar and tugged at her towel until she let go of it, then pulled it from her body. She grabbed hold of his shoulders as his hands spanned her waist, and he lifted her back onto the altar.

Stepping back, he began to chant the same odd sounds Kougar had during the mating ceremony. Three times, Tighe circled her, his powerful, naked body glowing in the firelight with strength and life, his armband gleaming.

Her gaze reveled in his raw, male beauty even as her heart clenched with the knowledge that he could be gone in a matter of hours. He could be dead. How would she live in a world without him? Any world?

Finally, he returned to her and came to stand before her. Taking her hands in his, he raised them to his mouth, one after the other, and kissed her knuckles.