Wulfe Untamed (Feral Warriors #8)(69)

Kougar grabbed the ritual blade, then pulled the bowl—the top of the skull of a long-dead shape-shifter—from its shelf. He handed the blade to Lyon. The Chief of the Ferals made a small slice in his left palm, squeezed his fist, letting the blood run into the bowl, then handed the blade to Paenther, who did the same. One by one, each Feral added his blood to the bowl.

When it was Wulfe’s turn, he made the requisite cut across his palm, the sting of the blade sharp. Squeezing his fist over Kougar’s bowl, he handed the blade to Fox, beside him.

Kougar was the last to add his blood, and when he’d done so, he began to chant in the language of the ancient shifters. Slowly, the rest of them took up the chant, their voices low, then building, as Kougar dipped two fingers into the blood and streaked them across the heart of each male, one after the other.

Their voices grew, the chant turning into a pulsing beat in Wulfe’s blood. Magic rode the air, melding with the growing excitement.

And yet something was wrong, dammit. Something was off. He felt it deep inside.

“Radiance,” the Shaman called out. “You need radiance.”

Lyon’s face turned to stone. He’d been trying to save the last of Kara’s strength to bring a new Feral into his animal, hoping one would be marked that they were sure enough about. But that had yet to happen.

Finally, Lyon nodded, and Delaney and Olivia rose from where they watched against one wall and helped Kara into the circle, setting her on the ground at her mate’s feet.

“Continue the chant!” Ariana ordered, and the males did so.

As Lyon stroked the hair back from Kara’s face, she closed her eyes. But when she should have lit up like a sunbeam, she instead struggled, her face turning red, perspiration dampening her brow as she tried to pull the radiance. Wulfe felt his own muscles bunching as he willed her to succeed, hating that she was so weak, that this was so hard on her.

Finally, after long, gut-wrenching minutes, Kara went radiant. Relief flowed through the room as her soft glow slowly grew brighter and brighter.

“Touch her,” Lyon commanded.

Though Wulfe had felt the life-giving energy slide through his body the moment Kara lit up, when his hand slid around her upper arm, the pure energy of her radiance barreled through him. He threw his head back, drinking in the strength that came directly from the Earth. The chant resumed, the tight knot of Ferals lifting their voices until the words pounded against the walls, hammering in his veins.

“Stand back,” Kougar told them and, one by one, they released Kara to reclaim their places around the circle. As they continued to chant, Kougar poured the remaining blood into the central fire, making the flame flare and spit.

Tossing the bowl aside, Kougar raised both hands high above his head. “Reclaim your animals!”

Deep inside, Wulfe’s animal suddenly howled in pain, a pain Wulfe shared as fire exploded in his head. His animal snarled and growled, howling with agony, with fury. A terrible grief raked at Wulfe’s mind, wrenching a cry from his throat.

“No!”

Then all went silent. His wolf was gone. Gone. Wulfe roared, the cry of fury echoing back on him, suddenly the only sound in the room.

Belatedly, he realized that Kara’s glow was out. The chant had gone silent.

“It didn’t work,” Lyon said, his voice like gravel as he knelt to gather Kara into his arms. His gaze swung to Wulfe, devastation in his eyes. “You lost your animal.”

Wulfe nodded through the ice forming in his veins. His mind had turned all but numb like it often did during those first seconds of disbelief after one of his limbs was torn off, before the shock set in and the pain exploded. Gone. A shifter no more.

The ritual had failed.

Ariana stared at him, a hint of accusation in her eyes. “That was the ritual you told me to find, Wulfe.”

Every pair of eyes in the room turned on him. Wary eyes, hard eyes filled with devastation.

“I could feel the magic trying to rise,” the Shaman said. “I don’t know why it didn’t work.”

“The words were right,” Wulfe said tonelessly. “They were right.” They’d f**ked up in some other way. And suddenly he knew how. “We used the wrong blood.”

“What blood should we have used?” Paenther asked, a thread of barely leashed fury in his words.

“I don’t know.”

Jag let loose a string of invectives. “It was a f**king Daemon ritual! It probably calls for the blood of virgins or firstborn children or baby bunnies or something.”

“Or the blood of Daemons,” Kougar said thoughtfully.

Wulfe’s head pounded. “We could try it again using my blood alone.” But as he turned to Lyon, he saw that Kara was asleep in his arms. Pulling the radiance had taken everything she had.

Lyon shook his head, his jaw rigid, his eyes bleak.

“Maybe it was all wrong.” Wulfe shook his head back and forth, frustration and fury building inside of him. “What if Satanan’s f**king with my head, making me think I know things? He could have told me about that ritual specifically to destroy any chance that we might succeed. Fuck!”

Fury barreled up and out of him on a ferocious yell of anger, grief, and pain. When he’d quieted, as his gaze slowly roamed the circle, he saw despair in his brothers’ eyes, a despair he knew must darken his own.

Their last chance had failed.