Rapture Untamed (Feral Warriors #4)(69)

She shook from the need to open herself and slake her terrible hunger. Sweat rolled down her temples and the back of her neck. She would not steal the lives of innocents!

Never had she killed merely to feed herself. Never! She'd killed in battle and killed those who would have attacked her. But never an innocent. Not on purpose. It was a line she'd never crossed. A line that might be blurred and murky to some but was sharp and clear to her conscience.

If she took lives, innocent lives, in order to feed, then she would be a life-stealer in truth, and all her convictions that the Therians were wrong, that she had never been what they feared, were lost.

Yet as she looked at the pair in front of her, she knew that refusing to feed from them wouldn't save them. Their lives had been forfeit the moment the Mage took hold of their minds. Either she killed them here, painlessly, or they would die in a nightmare of pain and blood beneath the Daemons' claws.

But even knowing that, she couldn't do it. Because crossing that line turned her into a monster, and she'd never be able to live with what she'd done. Her conscience wouldn't let her steal innocent lives any more than her pride would let her give in to her captors.

But goddess help her, she knew this wasn't the end of it. She might assert her stubbornness and refuse to fall in line with Mystery's plan.

But her control over herself and her fate were fast becoming illusions.

Chapter Twenty-one

The two large SUVs pulled off a little-traveled stretch of highway, past the decaying remains of an old barn, and off-roaded it into the woods less than a mile from the Mage stronghold near Harpers Ferry.

"Hawke, a little recon, if you will," Lyon said, as Hawke turned off the engine.

With a nod, Hawke opened his car door, shifted into his bird, and took to the skies.

The other Ferals climbed from the vehicle, the second team, including the women, joining them from the Hummer.

The air smelled of rain and spring, the forest quiet and peaceful. But there was nothing peaceful inside Jag. The moment his feet hit the ground, he yanked off his clothes and shifted into his jaguar.

Olivia? Liv!

But he got no answer. If she'd been turned, would she answer him? Would she call him into her web?

What if she wasn't out here at all? What if they'd taken her somewhere else, and he would never find her?

Dammit, he couldn't stand this not knowing.

The terrible weight of guilt tried to settle on his shoulders, and he shoved it away.

He'd find her, that's all he could do. All that mattered, now.

He prowled in his animal, seeking her scent without success. But if they'd brought her in a car, he wasn't going to pick it up. Not scenting her didn't mean she wasn't nearby.

A short time later, Hawke returned, landing in the small copse and shifting back into a man.

"The house looks exactly as it did last time. The windows covered, no sign of Mage."

"We'll go in as a single force," Lyon said, his expression grim, but determined. "If we run into the same situation you did last time, we'll be separated physically and fighting Daemons, but we're prepared this time. Stay in your animals and press all the way through to the center of the house. The warding has to be finite. If we press far enough, we'll get through it. Before we head out, though, we're going to be as strong as possible."

He lifted his hand and Kara came to him, his hand curling around her shoulders.

"We'll call a Feral Circle and start with radiance, then Skye, I'd like you to call your enchantress's power as well. We're going to need every advantage we can get."

Lyon's gaze landed on Vhyper. "When the women are through, I want you and the non-Ferals back in the Hummer where you can't be surprised by either Mage or Daemon. Hawke, you'll remain outside the house this time, circling above."

Vhyper crossed his arms over his chest. "I'd rather be in on the raid. I'm not going to turn on you again, Roar."

"If I thought you would, I would never leave you to guard the Radiant. That doesn't mean I'm ready to let you anywhere near another Mage." Lyon glanced fleetingly at Skye. "Present company excepted. Vhype, you don't know any better than we do whether they still have some kind of hold on you. We can't take the risk." He clapped his hands together. "Let's get that circle up. Prepare to be blooded."

As the Ferals stripped off their shirts, Kougar chanted the words that raised a circle in the middle of the copse that no humans would be able to see through or hear the sounds within. Jag shifted back into his human form and donned his pants.

The circle was wide enough to encompass them all, but only the Ferals gathered around Kara, each touching her as she held Lyon's hands, their upper bodies bare except for the golden armbands that snaked around each man's biceps and channeled the energy she'd call.

Jag stood at Kara's side, his hand on her forearm, as she pulled the radiance, sending power tumbling through his body on a rush of warmth. For more than a minute, they drank of the energy she gave them, then she doused her radiance. They released her, and she stepped aside. The Ferals widened the circle, and Skye took her place within it.

Skye was a wisp of a woman wearing a filmy blue ritual gown, her dark hair very short, her copper-ringed Mage eyes turned to Paenther. Never in a million years would Jag have expected Paenther to take a Mage to mate. Then again, Skye was no ordinary Mage. An enchantress, she had a rare and powerful affinity to animals. Even those that turned into men.