Obsession Untamed (Feral Warriors #2)(78)

As she stared into those beloved tiger eyes, she screamed with the roaring rush of pleasure, then gasped as Tighe’s love rushed into her, embracing her like a tender warmth riding the wings of her soul, filling her with a fullness, a rightness, a completeness so perfect that chills raced over her skin and tears ran from her eyes.

She’d thought binding would enslave her. Instead, for the first time in her life, she felt whole.

Tighe watched her with moisture in his own eyes. He kissed her, and the sweetness, the passion, exploded inside her a hundred times more brilliant than before as if she’d been living life in two dimensions, two black-and-white dimensions, and through this ritual, he’d lifted her into a stunning new existence.

She felt transformed. Reborn.

Tighe lifted his face and stared into her eyes with infinite tenderness. Infinite sadness.

And the beauty of the moment shattered in bittersweet shards of truth.

Tighe was dying.

And even if, by some miracle, he survived, they had no future together. They both knew it. She saw the knowledge in the sadness in his eyes.

He gathered her into his arms, and they held one another, clinging to a dream that couldn’t last.

“You bound yourself to me,” Delaney murmured, finally, against his collarbone.

With slow, lazy brushes of his warm palm, Tighe stroked her body. “I did.”

“How? There was no blood.”

“The previous ritual paired us. Opening myself to you, in this place, was the only thing left to do.” His lips brushed her temple. “It was the most profound thing I’ve ever done, brown eyes. The most perfect.”

“I never dreamed it would be like that. That it could be like that.”

He brushed back her hair. “You’re okay?”

She shivered as his question brought back thoughts of the clone. “Yes. But, I swear, for a moment there I felt like he was watching me. For an awful moment, I felt like he was inside you, looking out.”

Tighe stiffened. She felt the energy going through him like a lightning bolt.

“D, that’s it! We see through his eyes, right? What if he’s seeing through mine?”

Delaney froze. “Do you mean visions? Like he’s seeing us? Me?”

“Why not?”

“Now?”

“I don’t know. We see him when he feeds. I have a hard time believing he’s seeing me when I eat. Don’t get me wrong, I like to eat, but there’s nothing powerful about it for me.”

“He said he loved me. And, Tighe, he knew my name. Just before he grabbed my head, he said my name.”

“He’s getting the visions when I’m with you.”

“With me?” Delaney croaked. “As in…?”

Tighe squeezed her shoulder. “Think, D. Maybe this is why he stopped feeding on people directly and moved back to fires.”

She gasped. “Of course. He realized we were getting visions of him when he killed. We were going to be able to trap him if he kept it up.”

His hand clenched her shoulder harder. “I know when it happened. It was while we were driving around after the Lincoln Memorial murders. He was killing the babies. I stopped at the light and looked down at you and told you what he was doing. And where he was. He stopped midstep. He heard me.”

“But you weren’t doing anything more profound than driving.”

“Wrong, sweetheart. I was looking into your eyes. And there’s nothing more profound to me.”

He sat up, then hopped off the altar and started pacing, studiously not looking at her. His hands raked into his hair. “I was looking in your eyes the morning you told me you were going to meet Kara in the foyer. He showed up instead.”

Delaney jumped off the altar and grabbed a towel. “Maybe that’s why he told me he loved me. Because he sees my feelings for you in my eyes. He’s reacting to that emotion.”

“Exactly. I was looking into your eyes when I gave you the cell phone and told you it had a tracking system.”

Delaney looked at him in astonishment even as he carefully kept his gaze averted. “How can you possibly remember all the times you looked into my eyes?”

He circled behind her, then pulled her tight against him, his arm warm and comforting across her rib cage. “Because every time I look into your eyes, I feel like I’m drowning. Like my feet are being swept out from under me. Looking into your eyes feeds my soul, D.”

She covered his arms with her hands and held onto him as he held her. “Does that mean I can’t look into your eyes anymore?”

“No.” He squeezed her tight, and let out an excited whoop. “It means we may finally have a way to catch him.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

Ten minutes later, Tighe paced the war room, adrenaline racing through his body on a riptide of hope. It might well knock his feet out from under him again, but for the moment, he had a chance at life, and that was all he could ask for.

Delaney sat at the big table, her back to him so they didn’t accidentally make eye contact. At the table with her were Lyon, Kara, and Kougar. Jag and Wulfe were on their way and would be filled in later. Paenther and Foxx were still in the Blue Ridge. They only waited for Hawke.

As the warrior walked into the room, each man and woman pulled out a knife and cut his or her palm.

Lyon turned to Tighe, eyeing him with controlled excitement. “Tell them what you told me.”