Passion Untamed (Feral Warriors #3)(75)

"When I found the Mage and turned over the blade to Birik, I told him about you. I knew Paenther would come looking for me. I suspected, correctly, that he'd bring you and your intuition. Of course, it wasn't really your intuition that led you here. All the time, you were acting on Birik's commands. He ordered you to come to the Blue Ridge and to stop at the Market, where Skye was waiting to choose a Feral."

Paenther's head was beginning to pound. Meeting Skye was no coincidence. It had never been an accident. Foxx had delivered him into her hands.

"Why are you telling us all this?" Jag grunted. "You're starting to sound like some movie villain, spilling your guts like this."

"Jag..." Paenther groaned. If he ever got out of here, he'd string that cat up by his tail.

Vhyper glanced at Jag with a smirk. "Just thought you'd like to know." But when his gaze swung to Paenther, something moved deep in his eyes. His friend. The real Vhyper was the one spilling the plan. Hoping Paenther could use the information?

"So I didn't escape capture when Skye caught B.P.?" Foxx's voice rose with his mounting disbelief.

"Of course not. They called you into the caverns, f**ked with your mind to make sure you were firmly under Birik's control, then stole your memories of the mountain and sent you away so the Ferals wouldn't find us." Vhyper grunted. "Birik misjudged the grit of his little enchantress and B.P.'s determination to escape. Once they left, he sent minions to call Paenther back through the shackles, but when that didn't happen, he called you."

"To Jefferson Street," Jag muttered.

Vhyper shrugged. "The rest fell into place as I predicted, with B.P. riding to the rescue and Skye his only way back in here." His look turned smug. "Now everything's in place, ladies and gents. Tonight, we just might free Satanan."

"Zaphene didn't steal my soul," Foxx wailed. "She didn't!"

"Fraid she did, Cub. Look on the bright side. Birik's sacrificing you tonight just saves the Ferals from having to destroy one of their own."

Foxx had turned pale, his freckles stark against his skin. "I'm ruined," he whispered.

Vhyper chuckled. "Birik plans to strip away your conscience before the ritual tonight just in case anything unforeseen happens. You'll be firmly in his camp soon enough. And after midnight? You'll be dead." He shrugged. "We all will."

"Vhype." Paenther nailed Vhyper with his gaze. "We'll get out of this, Vhyper. Together. Don't ever doubt it."

He saw it again. That flicker of awareness, of humanity behind those cold eyes, and the memory of those words that Vhyper had said over and over again as they'd lain trapped in Ancreta's dungeon all those years ago. His friend had heard him.

Vhyper frowned, then turned toward the door. "Enjoy your fantasy, B.P. I have a feast to indulge in before our big night."

With Vhyper's departure, the small cell turned quiet as a tomb.

Paenther eyed the youngest Feral, a deep regret encasing his heart. "Don't despair, Cub. The evil controlling Vhyper is a liar. We can't trust anything he says." But, if he was right, if the real Vhyper had been behind the gut spill, he'd been telling the truth.

Foxx looked up, his eyes at once furious and terrified. "She didn't take my soul, B.P. I know it. I know it."

Jag grunted. "Doesn't really matter whether or not you have a soul. They're controlling you." He eyed Paenther ruefully. "I hope to hell you still have a plan."

Paenther sighed. "So do I."

Skye's stomach was in knots, her eyes burning with unshed tears, her skin crawling with fear as she led Faithful and the other three deer down to the Hall of Feasts as Birik had ordered. Behind her, the two sentinels followed. All four deer pressed against her, feeling her fear, but it was Faithful she clutched the tightest.

The moment she'd stepped outside, with the two sentinels at her back, she'd realized what would happen. Faithful would be the first to answer her call. She'd tried to send her away, but her friend had refused to leave her side. And one of Birik's sentinels had slipped a rope around her neck.

Skye struggled to take a deep breath, to find some semblance of calm. If all went as planned, the deer wouldn't die. None of them would, creature or Feral.

But nothing was going as planned. And it was nearly midnight.

A hundred things could go wrong, Tighe had said. And it seemed they already had.

As she neared the Hall of Feasts, she heard the sounds of the tables being cleared and removed. The hall was huge, with a soaring, irregular ceiling covered in stalactites, and a floor cut this way and that by columns and curtains formed over millions of years from the stone. Not only was the hall the largest of the rooms in the caverns, it was also one the most sumptuously furnished after Birik's apartments.

Thousands of lightwicks floated through the air, gleaming off the gilt, crystal-laden tables and red brocade dining chairs. Thick rugs covered the floors, for though the stalactites remained, like icicles frozen in time, none dared drip in this place.

When she'd first come to the caverns, musicians had played, accompanying every meal with a symphony of sound. But that was before. No music sang in hearts robbed of souls.

As she led Faithful and the other deer down the wide entrance passage she saw that the cavern had been decorated for the Moon Feast - the most powerful night of the Mage calendar, when the energies of the moon and Earth were at their zenith. The lightwicks floating above the hall had been shot through with rainbows, the colors snapping and glittering over the rock.