Rapture Untamed (15 page)

And just as quickly, the bile stirred inside him, the bitterness that drove his life, decrying every thought he’d just had, rejoicing in the fact he would never see a smile in Olivia’s eyes. Not for him.

He didn’t want her smiles. He didn’t need her reaching for him. He’d never wanted that shit from anyone. Not since…

Goddess.

Not since he’d watched Cordelia die and done nothing to stop it. Done nothing to help her.

His mind turned abruptly from that dark pit of nightmares, his gaze seeking Olivia’s small, bright head.

His hands fisted on his thighs as he fought to keep from reaching for her.

And he ached.

The rain started on the drive out of Harpers Ferry.

Great.
Olivia pressed her fingertips against the inside of the Hummer’s cool window. It was as if Mother Nature knew exactly what they had in mind and was already expressing her displeasure. If they killed any Mage, the weather would only get worse.

Though midafternoon, the day was gray and colorless.

They parked the vehicles in the woods, and the Ferals shifted. Hawke took to the sky while the three house-cat look-alikes accompanied the four non-Ferals through the rain. Delaney walked beside Olivia, the hood of a raincoat covering her hair. Niall and Ewan brought up the rear.

“Did you get a good look at the Daemon?” Delaney asked, as they made their way through the underbrush. The ex–FBI agent’s expression revealed little, but her eyes possessed a keen edge of dread. “Skye tried to explain it to me, but she said words failed her.”

“I did see it. And Skye was right. The thing’s a nightmare.”

She’d had little interaction with Delaney, but after six hundred years, she’d become a good judge of character, and the woman had impressed her. Olivia’s instincts told her the woman possessed both intelligence and compassion, with a fierce streak of warrior that would bode well for her ability to handle whatever they came up against.

Olivia suspected the woman had the heart. But she couldn’t help but wonder if she had the strength. They claimed she’d been turned immortal, but immortal didn’t mean indestructible. Would she bounce back from injury as quickly as a Therian? Tighe must think so, or he wouldn’t have let her come.

“So the Daemon attacked you?” Delaney asked.

“Yes. It could have easily killed me.”

“Why didn’t it?”

“I struck back. I punctured something up under his shoulder with my knife, and he screamed and took off.” She doubted that was the whole truth. Though she couldn’t be certain, she suspected her feeding off him had had as much to do with his flying away as her knife attack.

They were nearly within sight of the house when a huge hawk swooped down through the trees and took human form in front of them. Unlike Jag’s, Hawke’s clothes remained when he shifted, and he stood now in all black.

“There’s no one in the woods, thanks to the weather. The house up ahead—the run-down white clapboard that I assume is our Mage stronghold—appears occupied, but I couldn’t get a look inside.”

Tighe’s voice rang in her head, as it did in all theirs, she was sure.
Any sign of Mage?

“None. Not a sentry in sight, either outside or in. We may genuinely be able to keep the element of surprise, despite the daylight raid.”

A few minutes later, the house came into view. Olivia and Hawke drew to a halt, the other nonanimals stopping more slowly.

Delaney glanced at her with surprise. “What’s the matter?”

Olivia looked at her a second before she understood. “We’re here. You can’t see the house, can you?”

Delaney frowned. “Apparently not.”

Olivia looked to her men. Each shook his head once. Ewan’s eyes warmed as they slid down her body, clearly looking for an invitation. They’d been intimate from time to time when both were in the mood and had no one else to share it with. She’d always found her encounters with him adequately enjoyable.

But the thought of him holding her and entering her today, even as perfunctory as the encounter would necessarily be, left her cold. As did the thought of Niall. She couldn’t even look at him now, knowing the need she’d see in his eyes—a need far more emotional than physical. A need she’d never been able to return.

The sad truth of it was, from the moment Jag had come barreling into her life, her body had lost interest in everyone else.

Tighe shimmered into his human form, his clothes also intact. Jag joined them, standing naked as a babe without swaddling and infinitely comfortable with it.

Tighe looked at Delaney, reaching for her hand as he turned to Olivia. “While I try to help Delaney, get your men’s minds open or send them back to the vehicles. Blind warriors are useless. We’ll be back in a few.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for company.” Hawke shifted back into his bird and lifted into the sky. Kougar, still in his house-cat form, took off, heading toward the Mage stronghold.

As Olivia turned to her men, Jag’s arm went around her shoulders and he pinned her hard against his side.

A low warning growl rumbled from his throat. “Jack off.”

“Jag.” She did not appreciate his undermining her authority even if she’d been about to tell them the same thing, if not quite in the same way.

Ewan shrugged and walked away, presumably to find
a little privacy to take the mind clearing into his own hand.

But Niall held his ground, his lip curling. “That decision is Olivia’s, not yours.”

Shit.
She felt like a bone being fought over by two hungry dogs. She elbowed Jag hard in the ribs. “Quit being so damned territorial.”

But his grip on her didn’t loosen one whit. He was too strong to fight without stealing a bit of his strength, and the irksome man would know if she tried. He was giving her no choice.

With a huff of frustration, she met Niall’s gaze. “Find release on your own, Niall. You’ll not be using me for this one.”

The man’s mouth tightened, hurt flaring in his eyes. “I’ve never used you.”

Oh, Niall.
Now was not the time. “That was a poor choice of words on my part. But you understand my meaning. Get your mind opened and do it quickly, or you’ll be waiting in the car.”

His mouth tightened, his jaw hardening until she thought he might crack a tooth. “He’s forcing you.”

Olivia hesitated, then told him the truth, or close enough. “For the moment, we’re together, Niall. And I’ll not be having sex with another.”

“No other?” He looked at her askance. As if she were never exclusive.

She supposed he was right. She never was, for no
man had ever caught her interest in that way. Until Jag. The Feral’s effect on her body disturbed her almost as much as his hold over her life. Never had a man ensnared her so completely. Yes, he had a remarkable gift with those hands, but his touch affected her long before he intentionally pleasured her. The barest brush of his fingers made the heat rise inside her as it was doing now.

“Go Niall,” she snapped when he still hadn’t moved.

With a growl of frustration, Niall swiveled on his heel and stalked off, leaving her alone with Jag.

The rain continued to fall through the trees, splattering on her head and running down her cheeks, but rain had never bothered her.

Jag’s grip on her loosened the barest bit, his thumb tracing circles on her shoulder. “What were you thinking about during lunch? All I did was touch your neck, yet you were rising.” His mouth dipped, his warm breath teasing her temple.

“Nothing. Let me go, Jag.”

He didn’t. Instead, he moved to her earlobe and took it carefully between his teeth, his breath tickling the sensitive lobe and sending delicious shivers through her body.

His teeth released her ear, a soft stroke of his tongue easing the light pinch before his lips trailed down her rain-slick neck, heating her from the inside out. Deep inside, her body turned warm and soft, and damp. The
restlessness began to build again, throbbing and tightening all over again.

“Jag, stop. You’re doing it again,” she gasped, her breath turning shallow, labored. “You can do it with your knuckles, your mouth. The heat. The pleasure.”

He released her and turned her to face him, his grip on her shoulders absolute as he stared into her face. In his expression, she saw a mix of bemusement and satisfaction. In his eyes, fire.

“Goddess, you are rising again.” His hands shot up under her jacket, curving around her waist.

Through the thin cotton of her shirt, she felt a sudden rush of coolness battling back the tide of heat, and shivered.

“Enough, Jag,” she pleaded. “You’re giving me temperature whiplash.”

His mouth kicked up, a soft, amused smile. “You rise for me even when I don’t try. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I can’t say I’m thrilled about it.”

He chuckled low. “It’s a good thing I can cool as well as heat.”

“I suppose. That’s quite a gift you have.”

“It comes in handy from time to time.”

“Have you always been able to do that with your hands?” She stepped closer, drawn as much to his heat as to the man himself, and slid her arms around his waist. “Or was it one of your Feral gifts?”

His hands slid to her back, pressing her closer. “I’ve always had the ability. When I was a boy, I used to catch forest creatures—rabbits, deer, squirrels—calming them and making pets of them if you can believe it.”

She found herself smiling at the thought.

“I wasn’t always an ass.” A hardness entered his voice with his words, a hardness turned on himself.

Her smile died. The man he’d become, the Jag she knew, was no longer that boy. Instead, he’d grown into an angry and difficult man. Because of something that happened, something he blamed himself for, she was positive. Something that concerned Cordelia.

“Jag?”

His chin brushed over her hair. “What?”

She shouldn’t ask. It was none of her business. “Who’s Cordelia?”

He stiffened as if he’d been stabbed through the side. Slowly, his hands dropped away from her.

“Why?”

“You said her name in your sleep this morning.”

“She’s nobody. Not anymore.” He stepped back and turned away. “She’s dead.”

Unh
. “I’m sorry, Jag.” She knew she was treading dangerous ground, yet something told her she needed to know. If she were ever going to help him, she needed to understand what drove him. Why she thought she could help him—or even wanted to—she wasn’t sure.

“Was she your mate?”

“No.” He turned his head, looking at her over one broad, muscled shoulder, meeting her gaze with eyes filled with an ancient pain. “She was my mother.”

Oh, Jag.

He walked away, as if needing to distance himself from her, from the truths she’d pulled from him. She ached from the pain she’d seen in his eyes, and from the deep well of empathy she felt for him. His parent was dead, and he blamed himself. She knew that dark, bitter landscape far too well.

For long minutes she stood in the woods, alone but for the need to somehow ease Jag’s torment. But how, when he wouldn’t listen? When he wasn’t ready to hear?

Finally, the others began to return, rescuing her from her frustratingly inadequate thoughts. Tighe and Delaney came through the trees first, hand in hand, Delaney’s cheeks flushed, Tighe’s eyes warm with satisfaction and love.

As Olivia watched them together, she couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like to be cared for like that. To be loved. Sometimes she caught a similar look in Niall’s eyes as he watched her, but Niall’s feelings lacked the depth of Tighe’s for Delaney. In comparison, they felt weak and thin. Unhappy.

Unreturned. And perhaps that was the difference. Love could never be rich and full when it went only one way.

Niall and Ewan came in from opposite directions.

“Success?” Tighe asked. “Delaney’s a go.”

“Shit hole of a house,” Ewan commented by way of an answer.

Niall nodded. But the look he gave her was nothing less than morose. Niall knew her better than anyone ever had, except, oddly, Jag. Niall had always sensed her moods surprisingly accurately and could no doubt feel that her relationship with Jag wasn’t quite right.

He’d just have to deal with it.

Hawke and Kougar returned, shimmering into man shape in a concert of sparkling lights. Interestingly, while Hawke’s shifting lights were multihued, as Jag’s always were, Kougar’s were almost colorless. White and silver and gray.

“Report?” Tighe asked.

The group had reassembled behind a thick stand of brush where no one from the house would be able to see them if they looked. Jag came up behind her. Though he didn’t quite touch her, she felt his body heat at her back.

“No change,” Hawke replied. “They either have no clue we’re out here, or they’re waiting for us inside.”

Tighe nodded. “Let’s hope it’s the former, but we’re going in either way. Hawke and Kougar, you’ll take the back door with Olivia.”

“No,” Jag said abruptly. “Olivia stays with me.”

Olivia shot him a questioning look. Was he afraid
she’d start feeding again and hurt his friends? But when she met his gaze, she saw only a fierce and startling protectiveness. Of her.

She turned back to Tighe, her heart pounding an awkward rhythm. Jag positively confused her. He was the last man in the world she needed to be involved with. And yet, wasn’t that exactly what they were? Involved?

With a twist of her gut, she knew they always would be, on some level. Because as long as he alone knew her secret, he’d always hold her life in his hands.

Hell.

Tighe’s gaze moved between her and Jag. Like Niall, she could tell Tighe wasn’t entirely trustful of what he sensed between them. His gaze landed on her, a question in his eyes. She dipped her head in a brief nod.

Tighe shrugged. “Okay, then. Kougar, you’re taking the front, with Niall and me. Ewan and D are staying outside to catch anyone who tries to escape.”

As Tighe met his mate’s gaze, Olivia could tell neither was thrilled with the situation. Delaney wanted to be in on the attack. Tighe didn’t like the idea of being separated from her.

But she heartily concurred with Tighe’s refusal to take his mate inside with him. Fighting the Mage, with their ability to enthrall, was a skill acquired over decades. A skill no human possessed. Delaney might
be a fighter, but she lacked the training that would keep her alive.

“Hawke, let me know when your team’s in place,” Tighe said. “Let’s move out.”

Almost as one, the Ferals shifted into their animals, the cats downsizing. The jaguar led the way and Olivia followed close behind as they delved deeper into the woods to circle the stronghold. They kept low, ducking behind trees whenever they came within sight of the house.

The battle was bound to turn dangerous whether or not the Mage saw them coming. The Mage had magic at their disposal they hadn’t had…perhaps ever. Magic strong enough to steal souls, free three wraith Daemons, and goddess only knew what else. Dark magic. Maybe even Daemon magic, though no one knew for sure. They needed to be prepared for anything.