Page 11
This mountain was messing with them big-time. They’d picked up Estevan’s scent without too much trouble, but it just kept circling back to this rock even when they felt certain they were traveling in a different direction. Twice now!
Lyon went feral, his eyes turning to cat eyes, his fangs and claws sprouting. He turned on Ariana even as Kougar stepped between them.
“Find. The. Way,” Lyon growled.
Ariana met that dangerous, furious visage without an ounce of fear. Instead, she shook her dark head with mounting frustration. “I can’t, Lyon. I can’t sense the way through this mountain’s magic any better than you can. You know I’d take you to her if I could. You know that. ”
Lyon dipped his head and swung away, his body radiating barely contained rage as he lifted a small boulder and threw it as hard as he could, taking down two pines with a pair of echoing snaps.
Wulfe ached for his friend. They were all desperate to find Kara. They loved her, every damned one of them. And the bastard Mage, probably Inir himself, had her.
“Why can’t I sense her?” Lyon released a roar of such anguish, such rage, Wulfe felt gut-punched.
If only they knew. Lyon was the Finder, the one Feral among them all capable of tracking down the Radiant, even if he weren’t mated to her. If Kara died, goddess forbid, it would be Lyon who would have to search out her replacement if she didn’t come forward on her own.
He physically hurt for his old friend. Lyon wouldn’t be right again, nothing would be right again, until Kara was once more safely back at Feral House.
Wulfe felt an echoing ache at his own empty arms and was ashamed to admit it wasn’t for his dead mate, Beatrice, but for another. For Natalie, a woman who’d never been his and never would be. A woman he didn’t even want to be his, not really. She was human. And he . . . He wasn’t fit to be any woman’s mate.
The Ilina, Brielle, fell into step beside him, surprising him. Few women ever came to him freely, most too put off by the riot of scars that crisscrossed his face.
“Who is she?” Brielle asked quietly, soft understanding in her eyes.
“Who is who?” he growled, nonplussed when she didn’t mist away in fright.
Brielle didn’t so much as blink. “The woman who lives in your eyes. ”
It was tempting to tell her that she was mistaken. Or that it was none of her business. Instead, he found himself answering. “She’s human. Marrying another. ”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why is she marrying another when you’re in love with her?”
He scowled, wishing he hadn’t said anything at all. “I’m not in love with her. ” It was ridiculous to think he was in love. He just wondered how Natalie fared. He was worried about her. “Besides, I wiped her mind. She doesn’t remember me. She . . . can’t. For her own safety. ”
“I’m sorry, Wulfe. ”
“It doesn’t matter. ” But the words felt like glass in his throat.
“Do you know where she lives?”
“I . . . ” He wanted to deny it and couldn’t. He’d been to her house once, in wolf form, on the pretext of keeping an eye on her for her brother, Xavier, who was now a guest and prisoner of Feral House since they’d been unable to steal his memories of the horrors they’d both seen. “I know where she lives. ”
“I can take you there,” Brielle said softly. “Anytime you like. ”
He met the Ilina’s vivid gaze. But though he searched for subterfuge, or agenda, all he saw was soft understanding.
“Thank you. But no. ” Hell. The longing to see Natalie again was an ache inside of him that never went away. But no good could come of it for either of them. Even if she never saw him as anything other than a friendly wolf.
No, after that last visit, he’d promised himself he wouldn’t go near her again. And he’d meant it.
Deep inside, his wolf howled, a pained, mournful sound. And his heart ached.
Nearly an hour and a half later, they still hadn’t found the creek again. Nothing looked familiar and hadn’t for most of the trip. Yet the two shifters insisted they were following Castin’s scent.
Melisande ground her teeth in frustration. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe them, it was just that she didn’t trust this mountain. Not at all. None of them did.
Over the last hour and a half, Fox had quit trying to flirt with either her or Phylicia, his mood deteriorating just as hers was, if in a different way. He walked ahead now, at Olivia’s side. Melisande’s gaze caught on his back, lingering over the snug, perfect fit of his army green tee, which so beautifully defined the shape of him—his broad shoulders, trim waist, and the thick, muscular arms. As much as she told herself to ignore him, her Ilina’s eye for fine male flesh had reawakened, and there was no turning a blind eye to so magnificent a specimen.
By the mist, in another time, another world, this shifter would certainly have become her lover and might have become her mate. The energy that continually leaped between them told her that. An Ilina rarely found such a connection with a male, but when she did, it was rarer still for her to be able to walk away from it. The Ilina ended up forming a mating bond with the male, a bond that destroyed her when her mate died, as males often did.
As she watched, that fine back bowed, Fox’s biceps flexing, his hands fisting until he looked like he was ready to let out a massive roar. Which would not be a good idea in enemy territory, and the male surely knew it.
“Jag,” Olivia called quietly.
The jaguar shifted back to man, turning to Fox. “You okay, Fox-man?”
“The mountain is messing with us, and I’ve fecking had it!” His voice remained low, but so tight with fury that Melisande could hardly believe the words were uttered by the same man who’d charmed her so relentlessly a short while ago. That fury slid over her, wisps of smoke. Deep inside her the need to ease that fury stirred. She tamped it down, shoving back the gift she hadn’t used since the softer parts of her died all those years ago. She wanted nothing to do with her softer self.
As she and Phylicia moved far to the side, Melisande caught sight of Fox in profile, his teeth clenched, his eyes taking on an animalistic light. He was shifting. No . . . going feral . . . that in-between place where the shifters could fight as equals regardless of the animal spirits who’d claimed them. Fangs sprouted from his mouth and claws from his hands.
Jag watched, a smile slowly spreading across his face. “Feel like another fight, Foxy-boy? I’m more than happy to give you one. ” Without further warning, Jag leaped at Fox, drawing his own fangs and claws, tearing a chunk out of fox’s shoulder.
The two powerful males threw one another to the ground, ripping at faces, arms, chests as if they fully intended to kill one another. Melisande watched them with a mix of disgust—they were animals—and fascination. She’d seen shifters fight like this in the old days, but to watch a male as calm as she’d believed Fox to be turn so . . . feral . . . was surprisingly exciting.
“It’s a wonder he’s able to hold it together as much as he has,” Olivia said, joining her. “Kieran . . . Fox . . . is more even-tempered than most males, an incredibly controlled fighter, but he’s still a new Feral. ”
The fight didn’t last long. Minutes later, they were pulling apart, grinning like a pair of idiots as their claws and fangs retracted.
Jag wiped the blood from his chin. “Feel better?”
“I feel brilliant. ” Fox turned to her, his face still wreathed in a grin, battle lust lingering in his eyes. “Give me a kiss?”
“Not even in your dreams,” she retorted.
To no one’s surprise, Phylicia took him up on his offer, running to him lightly, pulling his head down, and kissing him soundly.
Even with his mouth pressed to Phylicia’s, Fox’s gaze remained locked on Melisande. Then his eyelids dropped closed and his arms went around the other woman
, pulling her close.
Jealousy flared bright green behind Melisande’s eyes, but she bit down on the need to rip her sister from the troublesome male’s arms. They were welcome to one another. Melisande had no use for men, and every one of her sisters knew it.
Fox released Phylicia, slamming Melisande with both his gaze and a grin that crowed victory, as if he could see the jealousy smoking inside of her.
Damn Feral.
Her fingers curled, and she barely resisted the need to press her fist to her stomach, to ease the ache of all the emotions clawing at her insides, fighting to get out. With dismay, she sought the anger, the rage that had been her constant companion for so long, and found it distressingly absent.
What was happening to her? She could never again be the woman she was before her capture. That woman had died in too many ways to count.
But who was she if not the warrior who hated shifters?
I smell water, Jag said nearly two hours later.
Why it had taken so much longer this trip around, Fox had no idea. Well, that wasn’t true, was it? He knew exactly why. It was the fecking mountain and its fecking magic. Goddess only knew what kind of danger Kara was in, yet they’d made no progress toward finding her. None whatsoever.
Still, if Jag smelled water, hope stirred. Maybe that’s our creek.
Give that intuition of yours some leeway, Goldilocks.
Will do, boyo.
Minutes later, they came upon a creek similar to the one they’d seen before . . . or perhaps the same creek, just a different spot along it. Fox stopped beside the stream and reached out, desperate to feel his gut stir, or tug, or wave its hands in the air and sing the Irish National Anthem at the top of its lungs. Anything.
And he got nothing.
Let’s follow it a ways, Jag suggested. And not ten minutes later they found that rocky overhang he’d been searching for. This is the place. And damn if he didn’t feel that same urge he had before to leap down into the creek. We’re crossing. He shifted back into human form and got body-slammed by Melisande’s sensuous heat flowing over his skin, sinking into his pores, into his blood, blasting him with the need to feel her against him, under him, tight around him as he thrust deep inside her wet heat.
Dammit. To. Hell. It was no wonder his frustration kept building out of control.
He looked back to find her watching him with a heat that mirrored his own. A lost look raced across sapphire eyes a moment before her shields slammed down. Everything inside him urged him to go to her, to help her, to comfort her. But those now-frosty eyes and the rigidness of her shoulders told him she wanted nothing more than for him to leave her alone.
There would be time aplenty in the months to come for him to solve the mystery of Melisande. Once Kara was safe.
Is that your gut talking? the jaguar asked, looking up at him.
“I believe so,” he hedged, because at the moment all he was hearing was his body’s screaming demand to touch the lovely Ilina.
He shivered. And suddenly he knew.
Finally. “I’m completely sure. This is the way. ” Shifting back into his fox, he leaped off the rock and into the water, splashing through the creek on fox paws and climbing out the other side. Giving himself a shake, he shifted back into a man and got hit with the same bloody blast of sultry energy. If only he could find a way to shut it off.
Or satisfy the need it created.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Melisande and Phylicia disappear, and then reappear just as suddenly on the other side of the creek. Olivia pulled off her boots and waded across barefoot while Jag leaped across in his animal, then began rooting around for Castin’s scent.
With an effort, Fox yanked his mind off the woman who tormented him and shifted back into his animal. His gut might be telling him to go this way, but why? Was this the direction Castin went? Would this path lead them to the Mage stronghold and Kara? Was it the direction of the juicy chipmunk his fox was hungry for?
Got it! Nice work, Goldilocks.
Castin’s trail? Fox asked hopefully.
Yep. Plain as day. How in the hell it’s going this way and circling back, is anyone’s guess. Maybe Castin did the circuitous route the first time, too, thanks to the warding, then headed across the creek.
Fox could only hope that was the reason for the strange trail though it didn’t explain why it had taken them nearly twice as long to reach the creek the second time as the first. He was afraid the warding really was screwing with them. Which meant they could still conceivably wander this mountain for days and make no progress whatsoever.
They traveled through sundown and into the evening. For a time, they continued by moonlight, but when clouds began to slide in, shutting out all light, Jag called a halt to their progress.
“Olivia can’t see, and neither can I unless I’m in my animal. We’ll rest. Get some sleep unless the clouds and moon cooperate a little better. ” They’d seen no draden, which was good news. The small, gaseous Daemon remnants fed off Therian energy and would attack them in their human forms. Fortunately, they didn’t bother the animals or Ilinas, and Olivia was draden-kissed, one of only a handful of Therians who could turn the tables on them, draining the draden before they could harm her.
Jag pulled a small lantern out of one of the packs, built a small berm around it with underbrush and dead leaves, then turned it on low, offering enough light for them to see one another but not so much that it would be seen from a distance if there really were Mage around.
Olivia pulled sandwiches out of one of the packs and handed them out. Phylicia and Melisande settled on a rock nearby, but Melisande was the only one who accepted the food.
“You don’t eat?” Olivia asked Phylicia.
“I can. And I do sometimes. There are other ways Ilinas prefer to feed. ” She glanced at Melisande. “Most Ilinas. ”