Passion Untamed (Feral Warriors #3)(8)

So she'd done as directed and begun to haunt the small human Market, waiting for her prey. When he'd first stepped into the store, she'd felt the Earth come to a stop, as if the very air had caught its breath. Though she'd pretended to be engrossed in the magazine in her hand, she'd been excruciatingly aware of him with his huge, leather-clad body, his arresting face with the high, pronounced cheekbones and savage claw marks across his eye, and the feeling of fierce, tense control rolling off him in waves.

And when he'd turned that dark gaze on her, her knees had gone weak even as she'd been filled with a strange, shimmering joy. She'd felt herself smile even as her pulse had threatened to race away. It wasn't until after he'd left the store that she'd realized she'd felt his animal. And realized what he was. That he was one of the very creatures Birik had sent her to capture. But by then it was too late.

At the realization, her heart had pounded as confusion clouded her mind. Deep inside, she'd known he was hers. But taking him meant Birik would have him, too.

When he'd returned the next day, he'd walked straight to her, where she'd waited at the corner of the building.

She'd been so overwhelmed by his wild, masculine presence and her own confusion, she'd said nothing, merely backed around the corner, knowing he'd follow. And he had. He'd stared at her with such hunger in his eyes. The animal inside him had leaped in greeting, rubbing itself warmly against her mind.

Walking into his arms had been the most natural thing she'd ever done. The moment their mouths had touched, passion had exploded. All thought had flown from her head as she'd drunk of his clean, wild taste, diving her fingers into his silken black hair. Time had ceased to exist, Birik and his demands all but forgotten.

She'd felt this wild need rising inside her. And he'd known it. His hand had slid beneath her skirt, between her thighs. As one long finger burrowed deep inside her, she'd felt a pleasure she'd barely been able to credit. A pleasure so intense, she'd wondered if she could die from it. And she'd wanted him as she'd never wanted another.

But Paenther's redheaded friend had come looking for him, and she'd run.

That was yesterday. Today they'd finally mated, a joining she'd never believed possible. Without pain. Without cruelty. And she'd rewarded him for his tenderness by enthralling him, trapping him in a captivity from which he'd never escape. Now he hated her, hated her, with a vehemence that tore tiny strips from her soul.

Pressing her back against the rock, she raked trembling fingers through her hair, aching with regret and bitterness. He was hers, all right. Her prisoner. Her enemy.

If only she could have saved him. But if she'd sent him away, Birik would only have forced her to capture another. Birik always got his way. Always.

She'd had to choose a Feral.

And from the moment she saw him, she'd known this Feral was the only man she would ever want.

Paenther's gaze remained fixed on the door as he waited for the witch's return. Part of him, the part that hated, never wanted to see her again. But another part of him hungered for the sight of her. For another whiff of her violet scent. And he both dreaded and craved another touch of her hands. She'd woven her spell of enchantment over him but good, there was no doubt about it.

She had yet to do anything more than touch him, but he knew the Mage. The pain would come. He'd escape this captivity more damaged than he had the last.

If he escaped at all.

His gaze slid to the ceiling, to one of the lightwicks floating high above his head. The first time he ever saw a lightwick was the day he met Vhyper. After his ill-fated attempt to rescue a beauty who'd turned out to be Mage, he'd woken in a musty, dark cellar, chained on his back as he was now.

That time, though, he hadn't been alone.

Welcome to Hell, my friend, Vhyper had said. His face had taken on a fierce, fervent look. We are going to get out of this together. Do not doubt it. Do not ever doubt it.

And he hadn't.

Paenther fisted his hands as his gaze moved from the lightwicks to the stalactites and back again. Vhyper's words that day, repeated nearly every day of his captivity, had kept him focused through months of torture of the worst kind. They'd kept him sane.

Now he made a similar, silent promise to his friend. I won't give up until I find you, Vhype. Until I save you as you saved me. Don't ever doubt it.

But, dammit, he had to get free if he was ever going to be of any use to either one of them.

At the sound of footsteps outside the room, steps too heavy to be the witch's, Paenther turned his head to face the entrance.

And came face-to-face with Vhyper.

His friend walked casually through the door, looking the same as he always did, his sleek head gleaming beneath the lightwicks, a single earring in the shape of a snake dangling from the lobe of his right ear. He was dressed in his usual attire of open leather vest over a bare, broad chest, the golden Feral armband curled around his arm.

Paenther's heart lurched with triumphant relief, then plummeted to his stomach as he stared into Vhyper's eyes. Those dark blue eyes that had always glimmered with humor and warmth, even in the direst of circumstances, lay cold. Flat.

Soulless.

The eyes of a stranger.

Paenther felt the loss like a physical blow. What have you done with my friend? He could only pray that the man he knew, the man he'd trusted like no other, was still in there somewhere, trapped within the dark magic and not lost to him completely.