"I'm fine, Brie. I've suffered the punishment, but only a few of the memories have returned. I'm going back down there until I've retrieved the rest."
"We're
going," Kougar corrected.
She met his gaze. "We're going." He refused to let her handle this alone, and yet, did she really want him to? If she were honest with herself, no. She turned back to Brielle. "I'll let you know when it's done."
Lyon grunted. "If you need help of any kind, the full might of the Feral Warriors is at your disposal, Queen of the Ilinas. Nothing is as important right now as helping you save our warriors."
"I understand."
Melisande eyed Kougar with a hard challenge. "If you let any harm come to her . . ."
"I won't."
Lyon picked up Melisande and slung her over his shoulder, ending the discussion.
Getrill took Lyon's arm as Brielle crossed to Jag and took his.
Jag grimaced. "Here goes nothing."
A moment later, the five were gone. In the sudden silence, sounds once more carried faintly through the newly sealed door. A dull pounding. A muffled shout. The hand caught in the door hung lifelessly, either severed by her magic or by the owner's own sword. She felt a moment's regret for catching the man in such a trap. But only a moment's. Not only did immortal hands regrow; but the sentinel would have killed any of them in a heartbeat if given the chance.
Kougar turned to her, his wounds all but healed, though he was still covered in blood. In his eyes, she saw concern and a fierce determination. "Are you ready to go back down there?" He bent and grabbed the shirt he'd discarded, hooking it over his shoulder.
"Yes." But as she pushed to her feet, she swayed, her strength all but gone.
Kougar swept her into his arms without discussion, and she didn't object. While the others' pain had fed the poison, it had done nothing to nourish her. She needed pleasure for that, her own or another's. If she were back in the human world, she'd dream hop, walking into men's dreams, stripping for them, playing with her own body as their hormones skyrocketed and their bodies grew hard and needy. Then she'd urge them to take themselves in hand and pleasure themselves as she siphoned off that sexual pleasure and grew stronger and stronger.
Long ago, she'd performed the acts on them herself, riding them in their dreams, drinking in their passion. But once she'd mated with Kougar, sexual acts with other men had ceased to bring her much pleasure. Kougar was the only one she'd wanted.
And she wanted him now. She hooked her arm around his neck and pressed her forehead to his jaw.
"What do you need?" he asked quietly, as if he knew.
"The mating bond . . ." She looked up.
" . . . is going to do what it does." His eyes turned warm and serious. "There's little we can do to stop it. Unless Paenther and Skye get lucky in their search, our only chance of beating your Hookeye may be through reclaiming the knowledge you've lost. I'm not worried about the mating bond, Ariana. Tell me what you need from me, and it's yours."
They watched one another for long moments, their gazes holding one another, caressing. Connecting. She slid her hand over his healed cheek.
"Strengthen me, my warrior."
A low growl of agreement sounded in his throat. "Here or below?"
"Below. Within the circle of the pillars is where the knowledge will come to me, if it comes. That much I've remembered. I need to be there."
"All right." He brushed his cheek against her hair, a tender caress that made her chest ache.
Goddess, she'd missed him. For so long she'd lived with an emptiness only Kougar had ever been able to fill.
As he strode toward the lower stairs, she tightened her hold on his neck, leaned forward, and kissed his jaw, just behind the spot where his beard ended, then flicked the lobe of his ear with her tongue.
The shiver that slid through his hard warrior's frame sent a flow of warm power sinking into her veins. A surprising amount given the simplicity of the touch. But she'd always reacted to Kougar as to no one else. A light bite to his earlobe earned her another shiver and a low growl.
As they passed through the door and began the descent to the lower chamber, she began to sing the soft Ilina chant to seal the door behind them in case the Mage managed to break through to the upper chamber. The temple's magic shouldn't allow any to pass through, but Kougar had. And the Mage were apparently far more powerful than they should be.
As Kougar carried her down the twisting steps, she slid her fingers into his hair again, watching the play of light over his strong features. "I love the feel of you," she said quietly, absorbing the touch of his soft, springy hair between her fingers. "I love the way you smell."
"You like the smell of sweat and blood?"
She smiled, marveling that she could, given the circumstances, but being in his arms made their situation seem not quite so dire. Leaning forward, she placed another kiss on his jaw.
"You couldn't smell bad to me."
His hold on her tightened as he stepped off the bottom step into the chamber and she knew he worried that the temple would attack her again. He carried her across the stone floor slowly, as if they had all the time in the world, then set her down beside the pool, close enough that she could reach out and trail her fingers in the water.
Kougar knelt at her feet, his gaze drifting down her still-naked body with hot deliberation, slowly stealing the air from her lungs. He grasped her knees and lifted them, then pulled them wide, spreading her to his gaze. His fingers trailed down her calves to her ankles as he sat back on his heels, his gaze hot between her legs, heating her with eyes that had turned silver. Deep inside, she began to tremble with need and anticipation.
His grip tightened, his neck muscles cording, and she sensed he fought an inner battle. A battle for control.
"You're not going to take me." She could see it in his eyes. "Not fully."
"No."
Disappointment plucked at her, hurt trying to wedge its way in. He'd claimed the mating bond didn't matter, that what happened with it, happened. Clearly that wasn't true.
It occurred to her that he must fear making love to her fully would only open the bond further. That twinge of hurt disappeared, washed away in a rush of warmth as she realized what his hesitation really meant.
He feared he couldn't make love to her without his heart opening to her more.
He moved on her like a cat on prey, sliding his broad hands beneath her hips and lifting her to his mouth. Thoughts scattered, wild sensations shooting through her body as his tongue stroked her upper thighs, then moved directly between her legs to that throbbing, sensitive flesh.
As he stroked her and played with her body, she cried out, flinging her head back. She'd forgotten what a talented tongue this cat had. He stroked her nether lips inside and out, one after the other with long, languorous strokes, flicking the nub of her clitoris at the end of each one, just enough to elicit a gasp from her. Then his tongue moved, circling her clit, teasing without touching, yet driving her up all the same.
A flick of his tongue directly on the spot had her crying out, but then he returned to circling.
"Kougar . . ." Goddess she wanted him inside her, deep, driving.
One.
But it was too dangerous.
He did enter her, though not in the way she craved. His tongue slid down into her opening, deep inside, delving and fluttering and licking until she was a writhing mass of need.
Then his mouth closed over her as he tugged on her, flicking her with his tongue until she was writhing beneath him, rising, cresting. . .
She came in a screaming rush of fire and pleasure. And still it wasn't enough.
"More.
"
His finger dove inside her, and a second, thrusting in and out in a fast, hard rhythm. A sudden pain tore through her skull, a burst of agony that radiated outward like flares of light, leaving her gasping for breath and all but blind.
"Ariana." Kougar's hands left her thighs, one cradling her cheek.
Her brain felt as if it were being wrenched open with a crowbar. Thoughts began to spill across her inner eye, glimpses of people she'd never known and things she'd never seen. Memories that weren't hers.
"The knowledge is coming back."
Her first
awakening
hadn't been painful, she remembered that, now.
Clearly, Morwun and the temple weren't through making her pay.
Kougar stripped off his pants, pushing them down over a hard, painful erection, and scooped up Ariana. His body burned with the need to claim her, but it was his heart's need to protect her that drove his actions.
"What are you doing?" She still held her head with one hand, though the pain blasting him through the mating bond had died considerably.
Stepping into the shallow pool, he lowered himself, cross-legged, in the middle, cradling Ariana on his lap. He groaned at the feel of her bare hip crushing his swollen cock against his body. "You said you had to be within the pillars. Maybe the memories will come less violently in the water."
She tipped her head against his shoulder, her soft hair brushing his chin. "I hope you're right."
He did, too. Tenderness welled as he held her against his heart. Inside, his cat paced and snarled at the feel of her pain. The cat didn't like it any more than he did. Exactly when he'd stopped wanting to see her suffer for what she'd done to him, he wasn't entirely sure, but he had. That piece of him that had always been hers bled to see her hurting.
His fingers slid into her hair, while his other hand stroked her hip, sliding back and forth with fingers that shook with a need to lift her, to fill her. Lily of the valley and warm, soft woman filled his senses, and he wondered at his insanity in taking off his clothes. Wet pants might have helped control the heat raging in his body. Bare flesh to bare flesh just fanned the inferno.
He slid his hand from her hip up to her breast, her beautiful skin healed now from the lightning strikes.
Ariana curved her arm around his neck. As he cupped her breast, she arched into his touch, telling him plainly that it pleased her. He kneaded the soft flesh, then stroked it, his finger and thumb twirling the hard bud of her nipple, pinching and tugging on it lightly.
Her sigh of pleasure changed abruptly to a gasp of pain, her body going rigid, her face tightening in a mask of agony.
Goddess, he hated this. He went back to stroking her hip, wanting to cause her no additional discomfort of any kind.
"Kougar," she said when the worst was clearly past.
He cupped her neck, meeting that brilliant gaze. "Tell me how to help you."
"Pleasure me. Strengthen me. If nothing else, take my mind off it."
Pleasure her. Goddess, it was all he could do just to hold her without taking what he needed. He wasn't sure he had that kind of self-control. Not with her. Anything more, and he'd find himself sinking deep into her body and joining her on that ride to ecstasy.
But he didn't want that, not at all. The more time he spent with her, the closer they got, the better he remembered why he had fallen in love with her in the first place. And the more danger he was in of doing it all over again.
A mistake he refused to make a second time.
Even if he got out of this alive, he knew better than to think a place existed for them in one another's worlds. Ariana would always be queen to her people, their needs coming first. And he refused to be second. Nor could he honestly put her first in his own life. His loyalty was to the Feral Warriors, first and always, and to stopping the Mage who tried to free the Daemons.
Even after a thousand years, he remembered too well what a soul-transforming experience making love to her had been . . . every single time. He feared that if he made the mistake of joining with her in that way, he'd never be able to walk away from her. And they'd only end up hurting one another all over again.
He wouldn't make love to her.
How in the hell was he going to give her the pleasure she needed when he was already struggling, already clinging to every ounce of control?
Goddess, help him.
He slid his hand into the water, between her legs, the springy hair of her thatch brushing his palm as he cupped her. His cock twitched and throbbed, begging for attention.
Think of something else. Anything else.
Tighe's baby in danger of being born without a father. Hawke lost to the world. Humans in Feral House. The burn in his heart that was almost sure to kill him.
But it was the burn in another part of his anatomy that stole all his attention. The need to be one with the woman in his arms.
As he slid two fingers deep inside her warmth, she arched into his hand with a moan of need, ratcheting his own to the level of torture. Stripping away his control. He needed to touch her, to taste her with a desperation that had his body quaking. He lifted her, dipping his head to take one sweet breast into his mouth. As he suckled her, he shoved his fingers in and out of her, meeting the hard thrust of her hips, stirring the water in the small pool until it lapped frantically, spilling over the edges onto the stone floor.
Ariana cried out, arching and stiffening in such a way that he thought she was in pain but for the intense, rhythmic clenching of her inner muscles around his fingers. When her eyes opened, he realized she'd gotten another memory download right in the middle of her climax.
Gasping, she straightened on his lap, and he cupped her jaw.
"How much have you learned?"
"I'm not sure." Her voice was tight, breathless. "It's a jumble of pictures and thoughts, literally thousands of memories in no particular order." She shook her head, then winced at the movement. "I don't know how I could have missed so much that had been a part of me."
She sat up, sliding her arms around his neck, holding him. And he held her tight against him in return as the tension caused by the pain slowly eased out of her. He felt a small sweet kiss on his shoulder blade a moment before she lifted her head and pressed her lips against his neck in a kiss of erotic sweetness. His hands tightened around her as she kissed him again and again, her mouth trailing down his neck, across his shoulder, down his arm to the edge of his Feral armband, then slowly back up again.
With each touch of her lips, she dissolved a little more of his control until his hands were gripping her too tightly, moving over her back and hip. Shaking from the force of his need to take over and push himself deep inside her heat.
Even as he struggled to maintain control, she slid her hand between them, down over his hard, throbbing erection. The brush of her fingers across the slit in its head nearly made him come. Goddess, how much more of this could he take?
Turning her hand, she trailed her fingers down the length of him and back up again. With a groan, he arched into her touch, shaking with a need as rare as it was terrible. He refused to take her, yet never had he wanted . . .
needed . . .
anything more. Her fingers closed tight around his length, sliding up and down with firmer and firmer strokes, splashing the water between them.
His control shredded. He cupped the back of her head and slammed his mouth against hers, plunging his tongue between her lips, drawing a groan of need and carnal pleasure from her throat. While he plundered her mouth, she released him to slide lower, her fingers slipping between his loosely parted legs to trail across the sensitive skin behind his balls. As her knuckles brushed his tight, hard sac, fire speared into his cock, hardening him nearly beyond bearing. Turning her hand, she gripped his balls, and he knew there was nothing he'd ever enjoyed more in this world than the exquisite pleasure of Ariana's hands on his body.
She returned to his cock, stroking him with gentle roughness until he felt his eyes roll back in his head. With shallow, ragged breaths, the pulse careening in his veins, he kissed her, hotly, deeply, as her hand drove him up. And up.
Kougar's control snapped as suddenly and completely as an overstretched rubber band. All the reasons for not joining with her that had been rioting in his mind fled. All thoughts disappeared but one. Without gentleness, without finesse, he pulled back from her, grabbed her around the waist, and lifted her.
"I need you, Ariana.
Now
."
Without objection, she swung one leg wide to straddle his hips. Gripping his shoulders, she spread her thighs to take him into her wet and ready body.
With a single, desperate thrust, Kougar drove into her, into heaven. The feel of her tight and hot around him sent him careening over the edge. Tilting back his head, he gave a feral roar of pleasure, of rightness, while inside something shifted, clicking into place.
Gripping her silken hips, he drove into her over and over, harder and harder, coming fast, with a guttural cry.
Not enough. Not nearly enough. Need burned inside him, crazed and out of control. A need that hadn't abated in a thousand years.
He lifted her off him. "I need you again."
"Yes, Kougar.
Yes
."
Flipping her onto her hands and knees in the water, he gripped her hips, slid his cock between her thighs, and took her from behind, his own hips slamming against her sweet ass as he drove deeper and deeper.
Ariana cried out with her release, her inner muscles contracting, milking him to a second roaring climax. And still it wasn't enough.
Lifting her, he carried her out of the water, laid her on the floor beside the pool, and fell on her, shoving deep inside her as she wrapped her legs around his waist and her hands tight around his neck as if she never meant to let him go. As if this joining was forever.
As he drove deep inside her, the haze of insanity lifted, and he slowed his thrusts, disturbed by the harsh way in which he'd been taking her.
"Did I hurt you?" His voice, rough as sandpaper, hardly sounded like his own.
"No." She lifted her gaze to his, bright eyes shining with the brilliance of blue diamonds, heat in their depths. And something more. Something warm and tender that clutched at his heart, making it ache and swell, nearly obliterating the burn of the poison. "Never."
He kissed her as he drove into her with long, sensual strokes, unwilling to be parted from her in any way but feeling a sudden driving need to give instead of take. Inside, his cat gave a roar of deep satisfaction.
She came with a cry, her inner muscles clutching him tight, and he followed her in an explosion of raw heat and tenderness.
Slowly, his pounding heart calmed, his breathing returning to normal. As he lay atop her soft curves, his hips nestled within the cradle of hers, his body buried deep within hers, he felt right for the first time in centuries. Whole, despite the acid shredding his heart. As if this was all he'd needed.
She
was all he'd needed. If he could have frozen time and remained one with this woman for all eternity, he'd have done so.
The sharpness of the longing rocked him, propelling him up and off her, shattering the perfection of the moment. He turned and strode away, needing distance, struggling for perspective.
He could blame his colossal loss of control on his fucked-up emotions, but that was only a small part of the truth. He'd never had much control when it came to Ariana. From the moment he'd met her, she'd turned his world on end, and it had never righted.
In the aching, throbbing depths of his heart he knew the truth he'd been trying to ignore. Whether she was dead or alive, whether he kept his distance from her or made love to her until they were both breathless from exhaustion, he would never be able to go back to being the man he'd been before he'd known her. All he could do was hope that they survived the next days, and that when this was over, and they'd gone their separate ways, this ungodly need for her would dim to the point he could think of something, anything, else.