Hunger Untamed (4 page)

Her agitation grew as the seconds passed without answer. And while he could tell she was struggling to hold on to control, she was losing. The tears were beginning to spring up in her eyes though they'd yet to fall.

"Xavier!"

He'd been hoping to leave the woman to Kara. Like most males of his acquaintance, he took off . . . or wanted to . . . at the first sign of tears. But this one was fighting them so valiantly, he found he couldn't let her suffer.

"Is Xavier blind?" he asked from the shadows.

"Yes." The word burst from her lips, her gaze spinning toward him. Hope and fear shone in her damp eyes.

Damn.
He was hoping he'd been wrong about the blind part. "He's unharmed, unconscious, as you were. He's in one of the other cells." From the angle of her cage and where the blind male was lying in his, he doubted she could see him.

Her forehead dropped to the bars, her shoulders bending as if crumbling beneath the weight of her relief. After several, deep, trembling breaths, she straightened again, once more spearing him with that gaze that he found oddly . . . visceral.

"Who are you?" By the tone of her voice, he wondered if she feared he was one of the Daemons.

"We're the ones who rescued you. You're safe now."

"Then why are we caged?"

Good question. And he couldn't see any reason not to tell her the truth. "We can't set you free until we're able to take your memories of us and all you've seen."

She was silent for a moment, as if processing that. Would a human believe memories could be taken? Then again, after all she'd seen, she was likely to believe anything.

"Then you'll let us go?"

He hesitated. "Yes." There was no sense in scaring her. But it was unlikely Xavier was going anywhere. Alive.

"Let me see him.
Please.
"

Ah, crud. Where
is
Kara?
"Someone will be down soon . . ."

"Please.
"

He'd given her hope that her male was alive, but no proof. And she clearly needed that proof. Hell. "All right. But . . ."
I'm ugly as sin.
"I'm not going to hurt you."

He sighed and stepped out of the shadows, watching her carefully, surprised when she seemed almost . . . relieved. Well, hell, of course she would be. She'd probably feared he'd be a Daemon.

The band of tension eased from his chest, and he strode to her cell and unlocked her door. She was out like a shot, brushing past him. Spying the male, she surged forward, clinging to the bars of the male's cage while Wulfe unlocked the cell door. The moment he swung it open, she bolted inside and fell to her knees beside the young man.

"Xavier? Xave?" Her hand went to his throat, to his pulse. As she clearly felt what she was searching for, she sank back on her heels, gripping one of Xavier's hands, the tension flowing out of her.

"Is he your mate?"

She turned to meet Wulfe's gaze, looking at him as if seeing him for the first time. But still no revulsion or fear crossed her features. "He's my brother."

Had the other human male been her mate, then?

As if reading his mind . . . or his expression . . . she shook her head. "My fiance wasn't there." Remembered horror swam through those soft gray eyes. "The others . . . Jill, Mary Rose. They're dead, aren't they?"

He hated to add to her misery, but the knowledge lived in her eyes. There was no sense in lying to her. "Three died. Two females and a male. The remaining female is the one in that cage." He motioned across the block.

Her head snapped around where she could see the one with the lip ring clearly, but her expression didn't change. She clearly felt no relief.

"You don't know her."

"I . . . yes, I know her, or at least I know who she is. Her name is Christy. I only met her today. Her boyfriend is Mary Rose's brother. Was." She swallowed hard. "He was."

She'd handled all she could take, he could see it in the faint shaking of her shoulders and the way she was beginning to hunch over with pain. Though five days had passed, she thought it had all happened today.

"What's your name?" he asked quietly.

"Natalie." Her voice was thickening with tears. "Natalie Cash."

"I'm sorry, Natalie."

A fat tear dripped from her cheek. Then another.

Wulfe gripped several bars of the cage as he watched her struggle with the grinding grief, and loss. He'd expected to want to run at the first sign of tears. Instead, he felt a compulsion to move forward, not back. To try to comfort her, which was a laugh. He wouldn't even know where to begin.

Her crying grew worse, and she bent over, wracked with sobs.

If only he'd been able to take her memories in Harpers Ferry, she wouldn't have to suffer like this.

He straightened. Esmeria had said enough time might have already passed. He might be able to take them now.

Easing his big frame into the cell, he squatted beside her, hoping he didn't scare her by getting too close.

"Natalie?"

She straightened, looking at him with tear-drenched eyes, her hand going to her face as she choked on another sob.

"Look at me. Look into my eyes, and let's see if we can't make you forget."

Her head jerked. "I don't . . ." The sobs wouldn't leave her, and she quit fighting both of them and looked into his eyes as he'd requested.

He cupped her tear-damp jaw, his gaze dropping to the thick, grotesque gash across her cheekbone, then back up. Staring into gray eyes as deep as a storm-tossed sea, he attempted once more to cloud her mind and steal her memories, but as before, on the battlefield, nothing happened.

With a frustrated sigh, he released her and rose as she curled in on herself, swept away by the chaos of her emotions.

Kara and Lyon finally arrived, and he went to join them.

"No luck?" Lyon asked.

"No."

Kara made a sound of misery. "She's suffering, Lyon. Can't you steal her emotions as you did mine?"

"She's human."

Kara looked at him askance. "So? Until a few weeks ago, I thought I was, too."

Lyon caught Wulfe's gaze, his trepidation about going anywhere near a crying female clear in his expression.

Wulfe gave him a wry look. "This one's okay. Come on. She could use your magic touch." Lyon was the only one of the Ferals with that particular gift to any substantive degree.

He walked into the cage first and once more squatted beside the grieving woman. "Natalie? This is Lyon. He's going to help you. Give him your hand."

The woman struggled against the tide of tears, gasping as she straightened again, her gaze moving from Wulfe to Lyon with wary uncertainty.

Lyon held out his hand. "I won't hurt you."

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she slowly placed her hand in Lyon's much larger one. Almost at once, the tension began to visibly drain out of her, the tears subsiding. "What are you doing?" Even her voice sounded almost clear again.

Kara came to stand in the doorway of the cell, a water bottle in one hand, a small bag of crackers in the other. "He's a healer of sorts. He helps heal broken hearts."

Lyon grunted. "I take emotions."

Kara smiled softly. "It's often the same thing. I'm Kara. I'm sorry for all you've been through." She handed Wulfe the water and crackers.

Wulfe screwed off the top of the water bottle and handed it to Natalie.

The woman took a long drink, her intrigued gaze returning to Lyon beneath tear-spiked lashes. "That's amazing, what you can do. I feel . . . okay, now. Like I can handle this."

The moment Lyon released her, she dug into the bag and pulled out one of the crackers. Her gaze swung to Wulfe. "How long have I been asleep? I'm starving."

"Longer than you think. Eat up."

Lyon rose and joined Kara at the cage's door, his arm going around his mate's shoulders.

"Esmeria says only one bottle of water and a few crackers this first time," Kara told him. "She needs to take it slow."

Within minutes, the crackers were gone and the water bottle empty.

Lyon steered Kara out of the cage. "She needs to sleep, Wulfe."

"Agreed."

Natalie's gaze snapped to his, wariness leaping into her eyes. "You're going to knock me out again. I watched what you did to Xavier and Christy. I know you did it to me."

He didn't deny it. "It won't hurt you, and the less you hear, the better for you and us both. I'll leave you in here with your brother if you'd like."

Her tension slid away. Slowly, she nodded. "All right."

Sliding his hand to the side of her warm neck, he found the spot beneath her ear with his thumb and pressed. He caught her as she collapsed. Beneath the acrid scent of fear and sweat that still clung to her, he smelled another. Her own scent. A calm gray-eyes scent, like a warm summer breeze.

Lifting her into his arms, he laid her on the opposite side of the small cage from her brother so the male wouldn't accidentally kick her when he woke, as he was sure to do soon.

As Wulfe left the cage and locked it behind him, Lyon lifted a brow. "She didn't appear to be afraid of you."

"Why would she be afraid of Wulfe?" Kara asked.

Wulfe looked down at his chief's mate from his seven-foot height with his badly scarred face, and saw nothing but genuine puzzlement. Not for the first time he marveled at their good fortune in being blessed with this woman as their Radiant.

With a smile, he hooked his arm around her neck and pulled her to him for a hug as he met his chief's gaze. "Think of all she saw that day."

A quick smile of understanding flickered across Lyon's face. "Daemons. You're flat-out pretty compared to them."

Wulfe grinned, releasing Kara.

Lyon nodded toward the unconscious male. "Who is he to her?"

"Her brother. And she confirmed it. He's blind."

All hint of amusement left his chief's face. "Shit."

"Yeah." He felt the same way about the prospect of killing the male. But he wasn't sure how they were going to avoid it.

"Well, we don't have to do anything about them today. Do you want someone to spell you for a while?"

"No, I'm good."

Lyon clapped him on the back, slipped his arm around Kara's shoulders, and turned to leave.

Wulfe went to stand by the cage with the brother and sister, his gaze lingering on Natalie's tear-streaked face. A lightness filled his chest at the thought that for once, he looked damned close to normal. At least in the eyes of this woman. It was a novel experience.

Behind him, he heard the other female, Lip Ring, stirring. He turned slowly, watching as she sat up, as she opened her eyes and stared at him.

As she screamed.

Chapter Three

"Hi, Mr. McCloud. How are you feeling today?"

As Ariana strode into the ailing patient's hospital room, the elderly human looked up. Eyes tight with pain lit with pleasure at the sight of her.

"Hi, pretty girl. Did you finally transfer down here to the oncology ward?"

"No, I'm still in maternity." The poison inside her leaped to feed on the poor man's pain. Goddess, she hated feeding on others' misery, though it didn't hurt them. She took nothing from them and gave back what she could. "I'm off work and heading out, but I wanted to stop by and see you, first. I hear you're leaving us tomorrow."

He nodded, his face a mask of resignation. "Hospice. There's nothing more they can do for me here."

Stage-four bone cancer. Not only was he the quickest feed, but she'd learned he had little family and far fewer visitors than the others on the ward. So they gave to one another, though only she understood the true nature of the exchange.

An Ilina's natural energy was pleasure, not pain. But the poison inside her was another matter--a living thing that demanded the misery. Long ago, she'd discovered that the hungrier the darkness became, the less able she was to control it.

She gripped his frail hand. "I'm sorry."

"Me, too." He was silent a moment, then visibly shook off the pall. "Tell me about the Orioles. I hear they won."

As much time as she'd spent among humans these past centuries, she'd come to know and understand them well. She never failed to be humbled by the depth of their courage in the face of impending death.

"They did. They beat the Mets seven to six." She'd never acquired much of a taste for human sports, but Mr. McCloud was an avid baseball fan, and she kept tabs on the games so she'd have something to talk with him about. Something that might take his mind off his own terrible pain.

"You should have seen them in '96. What a team." While Mr. McCloud regaled her with stories of the Orioles' pennant race, the poison inside her exhausted body feasted.

For most of her years in exile, she'd acted as a midwife or maternity nurse, her Ilina nature feeding off the joy of childbirth even as the dark poison gorged on the accompanying pain. But sometime over the past couple of years, the balance had tipped. Either she was growing weaker, or the darkness inside her had grown in strength. Her feeding had had to grow along with it.

Deep inside, she felt a fluttering of panic that she was losing control. The fear that, after all these years of struggling to hold on, her strength would fail before Melisande caught the Mage sorcerer and forced an antidote from him.

And now, to make the disaster complete, Kougar was back, demanding explanations and aid she couldn't provide, their mating bond reconnected and endangering his life all over again.

She felt beaten, pummeled by emotions that had her torn between screaming and crying ever since Kougar walked back into her life three days ago and turned it upside down. She ached at the pain she knew he was in over the impending deaths of his friends. Yet she could do nothing. Nothing but ensure that he continued to hate her.

Letting his friends die ought to seal that hatred for eternity. Maybe someday she'd be able to make it up to him, when this nightmare was finally over. When they were both free of the threat of the poison.

It would happen. Melisande would find the bastard. Though she'd been saying that for nearly a millennium, she couldn't give up hope that someday this would all be a bitter memory. For a long time, she'd thought Kougar would be part of that future. Now she wasn't so sure.

If she didn't keep him hating her, he wouldn't be alive to see any future at all.

As the elderly patient's voice slowed, his eyes beginning to droop, Ariana patted his hand. "Get some rest, Mr. McCloud. You have a busy day tomorrow."

His eyes softened. "I won't see you again, pretty girl. Thank you for brightening an old man's last days."

Ariana bent down and brushed his cheek with her lips. "You'll have the best seats to all the games, soon."

His eyes crinkled. "From on high. I'll save you a seat, though you won't be needing it for a good many years."

He had no idea. She'd already lived nearly thirteen hundred and might live thousands more, despite her current inability to turn to mist. Killing an Ilina queen required cutting out her heart, which took a speed and slyness few possessed.

Ariana smiled softly, sadly. "Save me that seat." With a squeeze of his hand, she grabbed the purse she'd left on the chair by the door and headed home, her heart heavy, but the poison back under control. For a while.

The night was cool, a light fog blurring the edges of the streetlamps that lit the parking lot. As she made her way to her car, she shrugged, trying to ease the tension twisting her neck muscles, a tension she laid firmly in the lap of the mate she'd hidden from for a thousand years.

She strode through the parking lot, her gaze skimming for movement, noting only a pair of young parents hurrying toward the Emergency Room with a feverish-looking toddler in arms. Ariana's inner radar had long ago become finely tuned to threats of any kind, but she sensed none. Not even the Feral who'd become the biggest threat of all. He wasn't anywhere near. Yet.

As she'd dressed for work two days ago, she'd discovered her name badge missing, and she was all too afraid she'd lost it in the Crystal Realm when Kougar attacked her. If she had, he'd found it. All she could do was hope that he wouldn't be able to use it to track her down since the hospital's name wasn't on it. But she felt far from safe.

Kougar was nothing if not determined.

For the past two days, she'd monitored the mating bond, seeking any sense of his drawing closer than normal, but she'd felt nothing. That didn't mean he wouldn't find her, only that he hadn't yet.

If she could just avoid him for the next week or two, until his friends caught in the spirit trap had died, she felt almost certain he'd go away and leave her alone again. Something inside her twisted at the callousness of that thought. The loss of so many Feral Warriors since she and Kougar had last been together was a tragedy. She'd known none of the shifters well, but Horse and the Wind had always treated her with kindness and even gratitude for the happiness she'd brought their friend. She was sorry she hadn't been there to save Horse when he'd been caught in that spirit trap with the others. Sadly, it was the very fact that she'd come into Kougar's life that had ensured she couldn't save his friends. The Mage would never have attacked the Ilinas if they hadn't feared that the Ilinas might join forces with the Ferals against them.

She unlocked the door of her ten-year-old beige sedan, climbed in, and tipped her head back against the seat. Slowly, she unwrapped the bandage that covered her right wrist and the silver cuff set with six blood red moonstones, a cuff that she'd worn since that day she'd tried too hard to save her maidens and taken too much poison, then lost it all. The moonstones shored up her defenses, keeping her from accidentally turning to mist. Her boss wasn't fond of the bandage but preferred it to her flashing the jewelry. It was a compromise they could both live with.

With the bandage off, she pulled on the cardigan she'd left on the front passenger seat against the night's chill, started the car, and headed home. Over the years, she'd purchased three different homes in the D.C. area, rotating between them, careful to change her home and identity every fifteen to twenty years so the humans wouldn't notice that she never aged.

Each of her houses was situated at the outer edge of where she could sense Kougar and draw strength from the bond that had never entirely been severed between them, at least on her side. She was careful to stay away from the Therian enclaves, where another immortal might spot her, though she doubted any would ever recognize her. Few Therians still lived who were over a thousand years old.

The drive to her current home, her favorite of the three, a small three-bedroom Cape Cod located in downtown Baltimore, took only ten minutes. She drove into the narrow drive and turned off the ignition, the sweet scent of spring flowers welcoming her as she stepped out of the car and made her way up the pavers to the front door.

Kougar's presence remained at a distance, not as far, perhaps, as Feral House in Northern Virginia, but a good distance, nonetheless.

All that mattered was that he wasn't here.

With another shrug, trying to loosen some of the tension in her neck and shoulders, she inserted the key into the lock and let herself into the dark living room. The streetlights illuminated furniture and shadows, revealing nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing moved. No sound carried to her ears. But as she closed the door behind her, a faint tingle pricked her skin, tripping her pulse. Telling her she was being watched.

Her breath caught.
She wasn't alone.

But even as the adrenaline surged, her mind calmed. Even without her Ilina's energy, she was stronger than a human woman, equal in strength to any human male. And after a thousand years, her hand-to-hand combat skills were excellent. She could handle him, whoever he was. Because he wasn't Kougar.

The intruder moved, faster than any human.

Shit
.

She grabbed for her bracelet, to escape back to the Crystal Realm. Before she could reach it, an iron-strong hand clamped around her wrist, yanking it away from her body as a second snagged her other wrist.

He was too strong. Too fast. Too big.

Feral Warrior.

Crap, crap, crap. Damn Kougar.
He'd known she'd be able to sense him and had sent another in his place.

With a swift backward kick, she slammed her heel into her assailant's knee and might as well have hit a brick wall.

"Do your worst, Sugar."

She slammed her head back, hoping to hit his nose, but he was too tall and she barely clipped his chin. "Where's Kougar?"

"On his way."

Double shit.
She tried to twist out of his grasp, and for a moment thought she was succeeding until she realized he'd used her own momentum against her. Before she could stop him, he picked her up and pushed her against the nearest wall, wrenching one hand wide from her body. She'd forgotten how strong the Ferals were!

The cold bite of steel snicked around the wrist of her outstretched arm. And though she struggled, her second wrist quickly met the same fate. And then he was gone.

A moment later, she heard the click of a lamp, and light flooded her living room, illuminating her captor. Like the Ferals she'd known in the past, he was tall, broad-shouldered, muscular. A man women of all races noticed . . . and most lusted after. His hair was in need of a good cut, his pants camouflage, his black T-shirt revealing the golden armband that wrapped around his upper arm, an armband with the head of some kind of predatory cat.

The shifter pulled out his cell phone even as he watched her with curious eyes. "Got her. Now are you going to tell me who she is?" A brief look of disgust passed over his features as he put the phone away.

"Verbose, the man is not. So who are you, Sugar?" the Feral drawled. "Why are you so important that I'm babysitting you instead of making love to my new mate?"

She didn't answer, her mind furiously searching for a way out. Within the throbbing, erratic mating bond, she felt Kougar beginning to move toward her.
Hells bells.

The shifter studied her. "You're not Mage. Number one, you don't have the copper rims around your irises. Number two, Captain Death didn't warn me not to let you touch me, and he would have if you'd been Mage." He gave a brief scowl. "Probably."

She cocked her head at him. "Captain
Death
?"

His mouth kicked up on one side. "The man's cold as, and delivers it mercilessly. Always has." His expression turned serious, his gaze flicking down over her scrubs. "I don't know what he wants with you, Florence Nightingale, but for your sake, I hope it's nothing more than a quick roll in the hay."

"Who are you?"

"I'm Jag. You've got to be Therian. You're stronger than a human, though not by much."

Smart-ass.
"Kougar's making a mistake, Jag. A grave mistake. You need to let me go."

"Nice try, sweetheart. Do I have
idiot
engraved across my forehead?"

If only she still had the ability to turn to mist. With her hands cuffed, she was all but helpless. There was nothing more she could do but wait for Kougar, then hope she could manage one more escape.

Kougar strode up the front walk of the small bungalow, certain he had the right house. He could feel Ariana inside as strongly as any beacon, small bursts of anger pulsing through the mating bond. His plan to capture her had worked like a charm. Now came the hard part--forcing her to free his friends from the spirit trap.

Opening the door without knocking, he strode into the living room to find Jag on the sofa, his feet propped up on the coffee table, a baseball game on the television. Ariana stood with her back to the wall, her wrists caught in manacles Jag had attached to the wall.

He had to hand it to Jag. He'd carried out Kougar's directions precisely, though attaching her to the wall was a small bit of brilliance that was all Jag's. The drill he must have used sat on the coffee table.