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For a moment, he ignored her, his mind crowded with the damned premonition that hinted of disaster, yet told him nothing. Maybe what he needed was a distraction.
“Where’s Melisande?”
“Keeping watch. And not on us. ”
“She knows you’re here? With me?”
“Yes. She knows. ”
It was Melisande he needed, dammit. He didn’t even need to touch her, just . . . to be near her. But she didn’t want that, didn’t want him, at least not that she was willing to admit. And Phylicia did. He held out his hand to the dark-haired beauty, and she was instantly in his arms, straddling him, her hands sliding over his shoulders, her mouth dipping to find his neck.
Perfume exploded his senses, a rich, musky scent he found pleasant, but little more. If this was the legendary Ilina mating scent that was reputed to drive a male mad with wanting, it was missing the mark. No blood filled his loins.
With a groan of frustration, he gathered the woman against him, pressing his mouth against hers, seeking a passion that wouldn’t come. Phylicia rocked against him, making a sound of disappointment when she found no erection to greet her.
She never would. This wasn’t going to work. She simply wasn’t the woman he wanted.
He lifted her off his lap and set her beside him. “I’m sorry, Phylicia. You’re a beautiful woman. ”
“But you’ve only eyes for Melisande. ”
He looked at her, unable to see her eyes in the dark. “Goddess help me if that’s true. ”
“She won’t have anything to do with you, warrior, not in that way. ” She stroked his cheek, her voice sad. “Melisande has no desire in her for anyone. It would be a shame if you, of all males, turned celibate because of it. ”
Celibate? He’d rather be dead.
Then again, if his visions came true, he might soon find himself exactly that.
They set out again the moment dawn began to lift the night’s dark cover. Fox led the way this time, in his animal, while Jag and the others followed on two feet. Fox was antsy this morning, as if he’d woken with an itch beneath his fur. Everything was wrong out here. They’d found nothing—no sign of the Mage or Kara or Castin. Nothing but more fecking mountain.
He couldn’t even summon the will to engage Melisande. All he could think about was finding the way out of this godforsaken useless loop of a trail.
They’d only traveled a short distance when the blindness hit him suddenly. One moment, he was following Castin’s scent beneath a dawn sky, and the next, he had no sight at all. He hoped to hell it was another premonition and not something worse, something more sinister. With a whimper, he lay down on his stomach, afraid to move forward when he couldn’t see.
“Fox-man?” Jag asked.
He smelled Olivia beside him, felt her hand stroke his head, and wished it was Melisande’s. “Kieran? What’s the matter?”
He couldn’t focus enough even to speak telepathically. And then he couldn’t think at all as a scene opened up before his sightless eyes.
In the vision, he was walking down a hallway that looked to be one of the upstairs halls at Feral House. He recognized the wallpaper and the paintings on the walls, faintly lit by electric sconces. It was night. Stopping before one of the doors, he reached for the handle and turned it slowly. Quietly. Then let himself inside, closing the door behind him.
The room was huge—far bigger than his own—decorated with heavy wallpaper and dominated by a large bed draped in dark red and gold. He’d seen this room before though only from the doorway. The Radiant’s bedroom. Lying in the bed was a woman he didn’t know, a woman whose hair appeared, in the moonlight, to be red.
His heart clutched at the sight of this stranger in Kara’s bed which could only mean she was Kara’s replacement. The new Radiant. They were going to lose Kara.
He padded quietly to the bed, but even as silent as he was, the woman’s eyelids fluttered up. “Fox? What are you doing here?”
Without answering, he sat on the edge of the bed beside her. But when he lifted a hand as if to stroke her face, she jerked away and sat up.
“What’s the matter with you? I’m a mated female and well you know it. Wulfe would not be happy to find you here. ”
Wulfe. This woman would be Wulfe’s mate?
Saying nothing, he pulled his hand away, then suddenly lunged, grabbed her, and shoved his thumb beneath her ear, knocking her out. The woman crumpled, hitting her head on the headboard with a dull thud. Lifting her, he positioned her on the bed just as she’d been when he first arrived until she looked like she was sleeping. Then he rose and opened the window. Wide.
What the hell? It was nighttime. The draden were drawn to the Radiant’s energy above all others. If they got in, they’d drain her life in minutes.
But without a backward glance, he left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
“Kieran?” Worry laced Olivia’s voice. The stroke of her hand over the top of his head jerked him back to the present. “Are you okay?”
He shifted into man form, then rolled onto his back, covering his eyes with his arm, shutting out the people standing over him, trying to shut out the vision he’d just seen. He was going to kill her. The new Radiant. Was that what the Mage would do to his animal? Turn him evil, too?
“What happened, Fox?” Jag’s voice was, for once, warrior hard.
Fox sat up, blinking, and found Melisande watching him from behind the others. Golden brows were drawn in worry, a hint of compassion softening hard sapphire eyes, and he held onto that, his gaze clinging to hers, feeling it like a lifeline pulling him from the chaos of the vision, tethering him to the here and now. Slowly, as he stared at her, the confusion slipped away.
But not the despair.
“I’ve been getting premonitions,” he admitted, shifting his gaze to Jag. The scene played out all over again in his head, holding him hostage. I’m a mated female and well you know it. Wulfe would not be happy to find you here. Wait. Wasn’t Wulfe the mate of the previous Radiant, the one before Kara? Could he be chosen again? Or . . .
Holy fecking goddess.
Leaping to his feet, he swung toward Jag. “How did the previous Radiant die? Wulfe’s mate. ” What if he hadn’t been seeing the future but the past?
Jag eyed him keenly, as if he wasn’t entirely sure Fox hadn’t lost his mind. “The Cub killed her. The damned Mage had gotten to him months ago and cut out his soul without anyone’s knowing, including him. He acted the same as always, but he was partly under the thrall of the Mage. He killed Beatrice, our Radiant, six months ago. He opened the window of her bedroom one night. The draden, of course, came right for her. ”
“What color hair did Beatrice have?”
“Why?”
His patience snapped. “Just answer the fecking question, Jag. It’s important. ”
The other Feral held up his hands in a sign of surrender. “Red. Not as bright as Olivia’s, but she was a redhead. Again, why?”
His gaze slid back to Melisande, an inner need to connect with her pulling at him. If she were his, he’d have her in his arms right now, tight against his side, her heartbeat steadying his own.
Slowly, his gaze returned to Jag’s. “I think I just saw the Cub kill her. Through his eyes. ”
“Shit, Fox. Has this happened before? These . . . sight things?”
“Twice in the past twenty-four hours. I thought I was starting to get premonitions, but now . . . I’m not so sure. ”
Jag turned all warrior. “Tell me about the other two. ”
“I was captured. By the Mage. And they were trying to separate me . . . him . . . from his animal. ”
“The Cub?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. The vision looked completely different. Like I was seeing the world in sepia tones. ”
Jag frowned. “Color-blind, maybe? Sly, the fox shifter who prece
ded the Cub, was color-blind. Sounds to me like you’re getting flashbacks from your animal. I’ve never heard of that happening before. We never knew how Sly died. He was one messed-up fuck. ”
“How long was he missing?”
“About a year. He’d been a Feral for almost two millennia, second-oldest of the bunch, but a real loner. A year after he disappeared, the Cub showed up, twenty years old and newly marked. The new fox shifter. That’s how we knew Sly was dead. ” He looked at Fox carefully. “Do you think the Mage succeeded? In separating animal from Feral?”
“In other words, do I think my animal was compromised, too?” Bloody, fucking hell. He’d been so sure he was the lucky one for not being marked by one of the seventeen. Instead, he might be as damaged as the rest of them. “I don’t know. So far, all I know is they had him and were torturing him. ”
“Kieran should be fine,” Olivia said, but there were traces of worry in her eyes. “Haven’t you all decided that a dark infection transferred to the new Feral through the animal marking would only affect the next one marked? That the one marked after him should be fine? The Cub was the infected one. Not Kieran. ”
Her loyalty warmed him. But Jag didn’t look entirely convinced, and Fox couldn’t blame him. Why would an unaffected Feral be getting sudden flashbacks from his animal?
There was no doubt in his mind that something more was going on. He just hoped to hell the Ferals didn’t decide to toss him in prison, too.
Jag clasped him on the shoulder. “Let’s get going. We can think about what it all means as we walk. ”
Fox nodded, glancing at Melisande, who watched him with eyes once more cool and enigmatic. The compassion he’d briefly glimpsed in her was gone. Shaken and unsettled from that vision, he turned to follow Jag, remaining in human form, while Jag took the lead in animal.
They hadn’t traveled long when Jag let out a frustrated sound. I’ve lost the fucking trail.
Fox immediately shifted and joined him in the search, but there was no sign of it nearby. None.
“What now?” Olivia asked, her voice ripe with the frustration they were all feeling.
As one, the two males shifted back into human form. Fox felt the trip of sexual energy and glanced unerringly to where Melisande stood behind him, noting with satisfaction the way her chest rose, the way her eyelids drooped even as those sapphire eyes speared him, hot and frustrated.
Goddess, he wanted her. He wanted to haul her into his arms, to claim her mouth as his fingers loosened her braid and buried themselves in her beautiful hair.
Instead, he turned back to Jag. “I suggest we track in wider and wider circles. The trail has to be here somewhere. The male didn’t simply up and disappear. ”
“I agree. I’ll take the north and west, you cover the south and east. ”
As Jag headed left, Olivia at his side, Fox turned right, Phylicia and Melisande following him. He and the Ilinas hadn’t gone far, maybe ten yards, when Fox shivered, his gut offering him up a truth.
The trail is this way, according to my intuition, he said to all of them at once.
Hot damn, Jag replied.
But half a dozen steps later, a strange sensation lifted the fur on Fox’s body, starting at his nose and traveling toward the tip of his tail. It almost felt as if he were moving through . . .
His gut roared, his intuition exploding. Danger!
Behind him, Melisande and Phylicia began to scream. He whirled and leaped, knocking Melisande to the ground beneath his huge fox form.
But Phylicia continued to scream, and when he turned his head, he saw why. The dark-haired Ilina was engulfed in flame.
Chapter Eight
Agony blasted through Fox. Screams filled his ears as he lay on top of Melisande in his animal form, covering her, protecting her. One moment they’d been walking through the mountain forest and the next all of them were screaming with pain, Phylicia on fire. He’d recognized the thrill of magic too late. Too late.
“Get off me!” Melisande pushed at him, pounding at his sides. “Get off me, I have to reach Phylicia. ”
No, you can’t go near her. We hit warding. Mist, Melisande. Get the hell out of here.
“Can’t mist. ” The words came out on a gasp of pain.
What the fuck? Jag yelled in his mind.
Jag, help me get Melisande away from the fire. If I get up, I’m afraid it’ll take her, too.
Don’t shift! Your animal form may be all that’s keeping you from flaming.
The jaguar stumbled forward, lurching as if he’d suffered a near-fatal blow. Grabbing Melisande’s arm in his mouth, he tugged and began to pull backward. Fox grabbed her other arm in his mouth and joined Jag, hauling her back away from the warding, away from her burning Ilina sister.
“Save her, Fox!”
Melisande’s plea tore at him. It was her he needed to protect. But she appeared to be safe enough. For now. He swung to Phylicia, his stomach plummeting, clenching with horror as he stared at the woman. Her dark hair was now locks of flame, her clothes on fire. The scent of burning flesh raked at his nose, her screams tore at his eardrums as he leaped at her as he had Melisande, into the flames, taking her down. Fire scorched his fur, a second blast of burning energy plowed through his body.
But the fire didn’t go out.
Beneath him, the woman screamed and screamed as the fire leaped out from beneath him, licking at his snout, singeing his fur. But not catching.
Jag nudged him with his nose. Let’s move her.
Fox leaped up, and together they grabbed her burning arms in their mouths, dragging her from the warding as they had Melisande. Her screams quieted suddenly, the woman falling unconscious. The taste of burning flesh filled his mouth, searing his nose and eyes.
As they dragged her to Melisande, the blonde Ilina turned toward her friend, agony etching her face as she took Phylicia’s limp hand.