Rapture Untamed (Feral Warriors #4)(71)

Through swimming vision, she watched with growing unease as the two males laid the bowls in a circle around the outside of her cylindrical cage and lit something inside them. More than a dozen fires ringed her, fires that would no doubt be used in some kind of magic.

Not good.

Jag!

No answer.Don't be dead, Jag. Don't be dead. Lyon? Tighe!

But none of the Ferals seemed to be within hearing distance, or if they were, not in their animals. Or perhaps her cage, which kept her from feeding, also kept her from communicating with those outside.

She clung to the hope, however slim it might be, that the Ferals might find her before it was too late. That Jag might still be alive.

Mystery lifted her hands, and the power orb levitated to float directly over the test tube, spitting with its captured lightning.

Hunger tore at Olivia, searing her flesh, the pain a living, breathing thing inside her.

Her jaw felt locked in place, clamped together hard against the scream that tore through her head.

The humans stood before her, as they had all along. Enthralled. Offering up their lives.

No, not offering.

Mystery chanted in a dialect Olivia was fairly certain was ancient Mage. As the men took up the chant, Olivia's eyelids crashed down, but she couldn't fight the sound. The voices raked at her eardrums, repeating the same string of words over and over.

The power in the room began to grow, swirling around her, knifing at her already-burning flesh. Stronger and stronger, it began to seep into her pores, snaking down into her body like hot coals, stoking the flames of the hunger. The magic crawled inside her, into her organs and into her mind, gnawing at her tightly held control.

Pamela Palmer Rapture Untamed

"No!" The word broke from her lips on a cry.

"Yes, life-stealer," Mystery said tonelessly. "You'll thwart us no more."

Olivia fought to hold on, but even her formidable will proved no match for the magic.

And in a single scalding rush of fire, her control was ripped free of her grasp.

And she fed.

Her eyes flew open. Fury and horror tore at her mind even as her body rejoiced. She fed of the life force that had been bombarding her senses for what felt like hours. She fed even as the humans began to sway on their feet, even as she watched them collapse. She fed until no more life force existed within her cage except her own. And still she wanted more. Needed more.

Even as the pain of hunger lifted, the horror of what she'd done flayed her heart and mind.

She'd killed them.

Not willingly. Not willingly.

But the humans were dead just the same.

"It's time." Mystery walked over to the Plexiglas door and opened it. "You're ready, life-stealer."

Olivia stared at her. "Ready for what?" But she feared she knew. She fed hard, trying to suck Mystery dry, but the sorceress was prepared for that.

The Mage witch grabbed Olivia's arm, sending her powerful will against Olivia's compromised one.

"You are ready to help us destroy the Feral Warriors."

Before Olivia could do so much as draw a breath to argue, her vision began to darken, her mind clouding over as she fell into the abyss of enthrallment.

As one, the Feral animals raced forward, leaping onto the porch or through the back, shattering what remained of the windows of the dilapidated white house.

Jag crashed through the back door and landed not in a black hole of warding like before, but in an old run-down kitchen. The smell of rotting flesh raked at his senses.

Real flesh. Not Daemon.

The wolf and tiger joined him.

No warding this time,Tighe said wryly.It stinks in here.

Lyon padded through the interior doorway on four paws.Bodies. Spread out. Search in pairs.

Five long minutes later, the Ferals gathered outside, back in human form. Jag paced, every muscle twitching with his need to take off.

"Four dead humans rotting in one of the upstairs bedrooms, otherwise nothing,"

Paenther confirmed. "The Mage appear to have moved out."

"We have to find Olivia," Jag said through gritted teeth.

Lyon met his gaze. "Look inside you. If you've really begun to form a mating bond with her, you're the only one who can. Listen to it."

Tighe came to stand beside Lyon. "I feel the connection to Delaney in my mind. Like a bright thread. Yours may be different, but test it. See if it doesn't pull you."

Jag closed his eyes. This wasn't going to work. He might still feel that glow, because he loved her, dammit. But any connection that had been forming between them, he'd hatcheted but good.

Olivia!he shouted, knowing she wouldn't answer.

Jag?

Jag's heart leaped, his pulse racing.Liv? Liv! Where are you.

Don't come, Jag. Don't come.

Where are you? Tell me where you are! Liv!

But the voice in his head said no more.

Jag's eyes snapped open. "She spoke to me. She told me not to come, but wouldn't say where she is."

Pamela Palmer Rapture Untamed

"She's close, then. Hawke," Lyon snapped.

"I'm on it." The bird shifter took to the skies.

Tighe grabbed Jag's shoulder. "Feel her. Don't think about where she might be, just feel."

Deep inside, that warm glow that was Olivia began to turn, slowly at first, then faster until he felt as if it were spinning in his chest like an out-of-control compass. Would it stop at some point, in the direction he needed to go?