Passion Untamed (Feral Warriors #3)

Passion Untamed (Feral Warriors #3)
Pamela Palmer


Prologue

Virginia, 1738

The newly marked Feral Warrior, Black Panther, prowled the wide, flat stone overlooking the raging Potowmack River. Snow swirled around him, driven by a harsh wind as he waited for the ritual that would, goddess willing, transform him into a shape-shifter, one of the most powerful creatures on Earth.

Months ago, the animal spirit of one of the deceased Ferals had marked him as his own. A bare week later, as he'd set out to find Feral House, the Mage witch Ancreta had tricked him, capturing him. For long months he'd endured her torture as she viciously tried to pry loose the animal spirit inside him, burning a rage into his soul that never eased.

Now the time had come to know if she'd succeeded.

Around him, the six Feral Warriors paced bare-chested, a thick gold armband snaking around each man's arm as they raised the mystic circle. In their midst stood the Radiant, the lone woman accompanying them - the one through whom they pulled their power from the Earth. The mystic circle would enclose the great rock and hide all within it from the prying eyes of the Indians that still occasionally hunted these woods.

The day was dreary, the cold biting against the bare skin of his upper body, a body broken too many times beneath Ancreta's torture.

Hatred curled in his belly. Fury lived in his blood. For seven months he'd been her captive, the third of three newly marked Ferals the witch had captured over the past two years.

Only two had survived, Vincent and him. Ten days ago, Vincent had escaped. Nine days ago, he'd risked capture and death to return. Black Panther tilted his head, letting the wind brush his long black hair from his face. Vincent had returned for him. And finally, this very day, they would complete the ritual, the Renascence, to be reborn as Feral Warriors in truth.

Vincent stood beside him. The leather strip that bound his blond hair at his nape had loosened, and his hair whipped around his face, hiding and revealing eyes lit with a humor that never died, even when Ancreta had done her worst. The two newly marked, soon-to-be shifters stood as one, their wary, fascinated gazes taking in the Feral Warriors, the pride of the Therian race. To a man, the warriors were as tall as they were - all well over six and a half feet, with strong, powerful bodies. Black Panther remembered and relived the awe he'd felt the morning he'd woken to find the claw-mark scars across his eye and known he'd been chosen to join them.

As he watched, the warriors took their places around the circle, raising their voices in chant. The magic might keep out prying eyes, but it did nothing to dissuade the weather. The biting wind raked across his skin, the snow swirling around his ankles.

The woman pulled her billowing cloak tight around her, a petulant look on her face. "Why we cannot wait a mere day or two to perform the ritual, I do not understand. 'Tis snowing!"

The Chief of the Ferals, Lyon, met her discontent with calm command. "The warriors have been through much, Oudine. They need your radiance, and I need their strength added to our numbers. We've been six for too long."

The woman huffed. "You said yourself they may be too damaged by the witch to shift. They may be useless."

"Silence, Oudine." Lyon's voice was no less harsh for its quietness.

Black Panther's hands fisted at his sides. Useless. The word ripped through him like a cold steel blade, chilling his blood with sharp crystals of frost. Had Ancreta destroyed everything he'd lived for?

From the moment he awakened to find the feral marks across his eye, he'd waited for this moment. No, in truth, from the moment he was born. His grandmother, the Tauxenent tribe's seer, the woman who had given him the name Black Panther, had predicted at his birth more than 140 years ago that he would someday walk the Earth as both panther and man.

All these years he'd believed. All these years he'd waited.

Yesterday, arriving at Feral House at last, he'd learned that the Feral Warrior killed by the Mage shortly before he himself was marked had in fact been the black panther. The prophecy would, at last, come true. But only if Ancreta had not destroyed his ability to reach that animal as she'd sought to do. A Feral Warrior who could not shift would not live long.

"We shall shift as we were meant to," Vincent said quietly, curling his arm over Black Panther's shoulder. "Never doubt it."

Black Panther met his friend's level gaze, feeling a deep and abiding bond, deeper than any he'd felt for another. It was Vincent who'd kept him sane and strong through the months of shared torture. It was Vincent who'd shared his grief when the third of their number, Frederick, had finally died. And it was Vincent who'd found his way out, yet returned, risking everything for his friend.

He owed the man his life.

He nodded to his companion. "We shall shift." Tempered excitement lifted his pulse as he prayed to the goddess of the Therians that his hope wasn't in vain.

"It is time," said one of the Ferals, a man with cold pale eyes, the one called Kougar.

Lyon turned to the woman, the Radiant. "Prepare yourself, Oudine."

With a disgusted huff, the woman sat in the middle of the wide rock, her woolen skirts and cape billowing in the harsh wind.

As the men formed a broad, loose circle around her, Lyon motioned to the two newest members. "Join us."

Vincent at his side, Black Panther stepped forward, into the circle, with a mix of tense anticipation and pride. As he watched, Kougar slashed a knife across his own chest, slapped his palm against the bright red ribbon, and curled his fingers into a fist around the blood. Then he handed the knife to the warrior at his side. One by one, each man did the same until all held a fist damp with his own blood. The last of the six handed the knife to Vincent.