Rapture Untamed (Feral Warriors #4)(19)

"You must be kidding." What she wouldn't give to be able to tell him the truth, that she couldn't be harmed by the draden. Even so..."What do you think the Therian Guard are, Feral? Not all of us have the advantage of being able to shift, but you're not the only ones who can fight draden."

He leaned forward, anger flashing in his eyes. "How many do you fight at a time in Scotland? Not forty. Not even half that."

She bit off her argument, because he was right. And while she could handle more draden than any other guard, she did it through weakening them by feeding on them.

And she wouldn't be able to here. Not if Jag were anywhere around. She'd have to fight them with nothing but knives. And forty would be way too many.

Still, the thought of being consigned to the Hummer all night seriously rankled. Except she wouldn't be, would she? All she had to do was get far enough away from Jag, and she could hunt and feed all she wanted.

"I'm good at what I do, Jag." She was keeping up appearances, now. Arguing, as he expected her to.

"I didn't say you weren't."

She shook her head, releasing a disgusted huff. "So, what? My role is to play chauffeur to a cat?" Appearances or not, she was annoyed. Honestly, what use were any of the Therian Guard going to be if the Ferals insisted on keeping them locked behind warding every night?

His eyes took on a devilish gleam as his gaze slid leisurely down to her br**sts. "I can think of another role you could audition for."

"Not amused. Why am I here, Jag? And for once, can you forget the sexual?"

His mouth pursed, the carnal light leaving his eyes as he nodded. "If I find the Daemon trail, we'll follow it during daylight. With the Mage in the picture, I'm absolutely going to need backup, Olivia. Goddess only knows what we've stumbled onto."

Their gazes met, for once without the light of sexual awareness blinding everything else. In his gaze, she saw the steel-hearted warrior, the man determined to find and bring down this enemy no matter what it took. For once, he allowed her a glimpse behind the mask, and something inside her lifted, responding. Recognizing a kindred soul.

"All right?" he asked.

She nodded slowly. "Yes." She knew he thought she was agreeing to bide her time in the Hummer tonight in exchange for the promise of a purpose tomorrow.

But he'd be getting that backup sooner than he expected. And not exactly in the way he planned. Because he wasn't the only one going draden-and Daemon-hunting tonight.

And if she was very, very careful, he would never know.

Kougar drove Hawke's Yukon north along Skyline Drive while Hawke scanned police reports on his laptop beside him.

Pamela Palmer Rapture Untamed

"No reports of any murders in the area," Hawke said. "Which probably only means no one's found the victims yet."

Kougar had to agree. They'd been so close last night to catching one of the Daemons.

They'd had the bastard. He'd been right there, hovering over the pond, clearly drawn to the trap. But the magic that should have snared him hadn't.

His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he replayed the moment in his head when he'd first seen the thing, seen a Daemon again for the first time in five thousand years. Though Kougar no longer felt much in the way of emotions, his mind had been more than capable of taking in the chilling magnitude of the moment. Never in his worst nightmares had he thought he'd see the day when Daemons once more terrorized the world.

The one last night had been drawn to the trap, as they'd planned. But he'd hovered over it for several seconds, then flown off again instead of being pulled in. The magic hadn't worked.

The two Ferals had given chase, Kougar on the ground, Hawke in the sky, but the thing had eluded them and eventually lost them. Because they could fly, Daemons were brutally hard to hunt.

Pamela Palmer Rapture Untamed

"Any idea why the trap didn't work?" Hawke asked.

"We need Ilina blood. And Ilina magic. I was hoping we could get by without them, but apparently we can't."

"The two things we can't possibly get," Hawke said in a tone that warned that his mind had latched onto a subject that intrigued him. He looked up to stare out the window. "I've studied the Ilinas extensively, though there's little enough written about them. They were artists and philosophers, dancers and musicians, at one time. A peaceful race who suddenly turned violent. Like the sirens of lore, they began to lure men, human and immortal, with their beauty and song, into the Crystal Realm, where they tortured or enslaved them for the remainder of the captives' short lives. That's the legend."

Hawke turned to glance at him. "You know the truth."

"No one knows what happened to their victims once they entered the Crystal Realm.

It's all speculation."

"Because none returned to tell the tale."

Pamela Palmer Rapture Untamed

"Because none survived. No corporeal being, mortal or immortal, can live long in that place. But the rest of what you've described is as I remember."

Hawke nodded. "Most believe they were infected by dark spirit. That Queen Ariana destroyed her race herself when she saw what they'd become."

Kougar didn't comment. He didn't know the answer himself. All he knew was the beauties they'd all once adored had turned into evil bitches, perpetrating untold atrocities before faking their extinction and disappearing. He'd been duped like all the rest. It was only in very recent years that he'd learned the truth - that they weren't gone at all and never had been.