Passion Untamed (Feral Warriors #3)(48)

Jag's muscles bunched to spring.

"I can't shift," Paenther told Tighe even as he grabbed Skye from her chair and pushed her against the wall, shielding her with his body.

"I can." In a flash of lights and striped fur, Tighe shifted into his tiger and leaped at the same moment the jaguar did, colliding in midair, right over the table. The pair crashed on top of the platters of food, sending dishes, crystal pitchers, and silverware crashing to the floor.

Paenther pulled Skye to the other side of the room as the two big cats fought in a way strictly forbidden by the code of the Ferals.

"Jag, shift. Now!" Lyon ordered.

But the jaguar's only reply was a furious growl as he sank his fangs in the tiger's shoulder and was batted back by a huge, powerful paw.

Lyon turned on Paenther. "Get her out of here, or I'm going to kill her myself!"

Paenther snarled, pulling Skye hard against him, but he couldn't argue. Whether she was doing this on purpose or not, the result was the same.

"The Prisons, B.P.," Lyon yelled, as Paenther pulled Skye from the room. "I don't want her anywhere near the others."

In the hallway outside the dining room, Paenther grasped Skye's trembling hand and saw the fear in her eyes. A fear that echoed deep in his soul. Because whether she was doing it intentionally or through the cantric embedded in her heart, he could not allow her to endanger his friends.

As he led her down the long stairs to the prisons below, he felt his choices narrowing to a dismal few. In a terrible twist of irony, he'd found that rarest of creatures, a kind and gentle witch. Yet thanks to the treachery of her own kind, she was still dangerous.

And a dangerous witch, caught in the Ferals' trap, had only one kind of future. Bleak.

Chapter Fourteen

Skye turned to face Paenther as they reached the prison deep below the house. She was shaking, her stomach tight with misery after what had happened in the dining room. The jaguar inside Jag had been acting increasingly desperate to reach her. Not drawn to her. Not leaping to greet her as the panther was. He'd almost been acting as if he were being pulled against his will, turning him angry. Viciously so.

"I didn't do it on purpose."

Paenther looked down at her, his mouth hard, his eyes grim. "I didn't say you did."

"But you have to think I was responsible."

"I don't think it's you but your cantric that's to blame."

"Why? I mean, why would Birik load a spell into my cantric that would drive a Feral crazy? He couldn't have expected me to free you, let alone be kidnapped by you in return. It doesn't make any sense."

He opened the door of a cell across from where she'd stayed...and bled...at midnight. Someone had cleaned up the blood.

He ushered her inside, then followed her. There was a wooden bench in this one, and she sat on it as Paenther stood beside the door, his arms crossed over his broad chest, his body still. No expression crossed his face.

"It might not make any sense, but the only alternative I can see is that you're doing these things intentionally."

"I'm not."

He watched her closely. "I believe you."

She closed her eyes, absorbing the sound of those words.

"But that means it's the cantric." He moved, coming to sit beside her on the bench. "Or something else we haven't thought of."

As he stretched his long legs out in front of him, she turned to him. "What are you going to do, Paenther?"

He turned to meet her gaze. "What do you mean?"

"With me?" She knew her survival was at stake. She knew it. And knew he did, too. "I want to help you stop Birik. More than anything in the world, I want that. But I don't know how."

He reached for her, hooking his arm around her shoulder as he pulled her against him. "I know. I don't know how, either."

"You can't let me go for fear Birik will catch me and use me to free more of those things. But Lyon won't let me stay here, will he? Not when I'm causing so much distress to your animals."

"Maybe your staying down here is enough for now. We'll figure out something, Beauty."

With a gentle squeeze, he released her, then stood and turned to look down at her. "Stay here. I'm going to get you some food."

"I'm not hungry."

He cupped her face with hand. "I'll be right back." Then he locked her in and disappeared down the long passage, leaving her alone and trembling.

For all her adult life she'd longed for kindness. For goodness in another. She'd finally found it and fallen head over heels in love with a good man.

But love was never enough.

Paenther strode through the underground of the house, hating that he had nothing more to offer Skye than platitudes. Lies. Words of hope, some called them.

Hope was good, of course. Vhyper's words, repeated every day of their incarceration three centuries ago, had kept him sane, kept him believing he'd make it. "We are going to get out of this, we three. Together. Do not doubt it. Do not ever doubt it."

The words had turned out to be a lie for Frederick, the third of their group. He'd died in that dungeon, bleeding to death from a wound Ancreta had inflicted on him just for the fun of it. She'd cut off his foot to see how long it would take to grow back. It hadn't.