She pulled out of his arms and turned to face him. "I never forgot you. I always intended to find you again, when it was over."
His eyebrow shot up. "A thousand years?"
Ariana flinched. "I never dreamed it would take so long. Melisande was always so close to finding Hookeye. A few more weeks, a few more months, and it would be over. Except it never was."
"And you didn't think you could trust me with your secret?"
"It wasn't that simple." She dropped her gaze to his shoulder. "I don't even know how to explain it. I still loved you, but . . ."
"But?"
Slowly, she lifted her gaze to his. "Hookeye never would have attacked us if not for our mating. What I felt for you was no longer as simple as love. It was a tangle of grief and bitterness, regret and guilt. And so much time had passed. I told myself that someday I'd have to resolve things with you, but not when it could possibly hurt my maidens again."
Emotion flared in his eyes. Anger, or perhaps pain.
Ariana turned away. She couldn't undo the past, however badly she might want to.
"One of your maidens died on the battlefield soon after you left that day," he said, his voice quiet. "She was, as you said, crazed. She told us all the Ilinas were dying. It wasn't moments later that you severed the mating bond. I was afraid it was true, but I had to know. I went to the temple."
Ariana jerked around to face him. "You climbed the Himalayas in the eleventh century?"
"I had to know. The Wind and Horse accompanied me."
"How long did it take you?"
"Nearly a year. We were weak as newborn kittens from lack of radiance by the time we got back to Feral House. But in that temple, which I'd visited with you only once, I found the fires out, the magic gone. No evidence of life, and I believed you were gone."
Remembered pain sliced through his eyes, and, for a moment, she glimpsed the terrible grief she'd put him through. She reached for him, her hand going to his cheek.
"I'm sorry."
The pain in his eyes disappeared, shuttered behind strong male pride. But he lifted her onto his lap and held her, setting up a deep ache in her heart as she wished things between them could be simple.
As she wished he could be hers again.
Wulfe led Xavier into the kitchen, the young man grinning with an untempered emotion most seeing individuals would have long ago learned to mask. With his hand on the young man's upper arm, Wulfe led him to the center island, then pulled up as Pink glanced around from where she was working, mixing ingredients into a bowl.
"Xavier offered to give you a hand, Pink."
The bird-woman stiffened. Though she said nothing, it was clear he'd offended her.
Wulfe cleared his throat. "Let me put it another way. Xavier is human, and blind, and we can't steal his memories."
Pink's bird eyes tightened with understanding.
"Our options are limited." Wulfe shrugged. "I thought maybe you could use an assistant."
He didn't have to spell out the alternative if she refused. Pink might look as odd as they came, but she had a quick mind and a good heart.
"Then I'd be happy for the help, Xavier."
"Cool!" The human felt the space in front of him carefully, then extended his hand in her direction as if wanting to shake. "It's nice to meet you, Pink."
Pink didn't move. As Xavier's smile died, his hand slowly dropping to his side, her gaze flew helplessly to Wulfe.
Hell, just because the kid couldn't see didn't mean he didn't need to know. He laid his hand on Xavier's shoulder and explained. "Pink should have been a shape-shifter, Xavier, but an accident before her birth killed the animal within her and left her an anomaly. She's half woman, half flamingo. Her hands are like ours, but covered with pink feathers instead of skin."
Xavier's smile covered his face. "Cool. If you don't want to shake my hand, Pink, just say so. I can't read your expression or body language, so
subtle
doesn't work with me. Just tell me what you want me to do, or don't want me to do. Or you can hit me over the head with a rolling pin or something. I've got a hard head. Just ask my sister."
The kid grinned. "You can't hurt my feelings. Believe me, I've heard it all. That I'm too weird, that my eyes go every which way, that I smile too big, and my expressions aren't normal. It's hard to mimic 'normal' when you've never seen it." He smiled a soft, friendly smile. "If you can handle my strangeness, I promise I can handle yours."
Yeah, they were going to have to find a way to keep this kid alive.
"Xavier?" Pink said quietly. "I'd be happy to shake your hand."
The kid's grin widened as he reached out slowly, as if not wanting to startle her. As Pink slid her feathered hand in his, the human's expression changed to one of delight and amazement. Though Wulfe knew both he and Pink were watching for it, he saw not an ounce of revulsion.
"Your feathers feel . . . soft. Really nice."
"Thank you, Xavier."
Xavier released her hand with a laugh. "So, tell me what you want me to do. I'm slow at first, until I learn my way around, but I can do anything. Especially vegetables. I'm great at chopping vegetables."
"Chopping? But . . ." Her voice trailed off.
"Hey, blind people can chop. When you get going with the knife, you can't tell me you're watching and measuring every cut."
"No. I suppose I'm not." A pause. "Then I'll give you vegetable duty. I've only recently added them back into the menu on a regular basis."
Wulfe grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator and strode through the swinging doors back into the dining room, where he settled his big frame on one of the chairs, out of their way, yet close enough to listen. He wanted to see what happened when he wasn't in the room. Xavier was a talker, and he wondered how long it would take the quiet Pink to tire of it . . . and him. But as he listened, he was surprised to hear Pink's soft words.
"Do you mind if I ask you a question, Xavier? I've never met a blind person before."
"Ask away."
"How do you cook . . . when you can't see?"
Lyon and Jag strode into the dining room. Lyon stilled at the sound of Xavier's voice, scowling. "What's he doing up here?"
"Xavier can cook." Wulfe took a swig of his beer. "I thought Pink could use a little help around here."
"No."
"We can't clear his memories, Roar." Wulfe rose to face his chief, eye to eye. "He can stay here."
"No. It's too dangerous."
"The bird could use some help," Jag said. At Wulfe's look of surprise, Jag shrugged. "Our numbers are growing, and while she lets the women help her, I can tell she doesn't like it. It makes her feel uncomfortable. Like she no longer has a purpose."
"Xavier needs her," Wulfe said quietly. "Just like her, he's stuck here. And he can help her."
Lyon shook his head. "If he escapes, or is even just spotted outside, the human authorities will be crawling all over Feral House before we know what's happened. I don't have to tell you all the ways that could turn into a disaster."
Lyon wasn't budging, and Wulfe was getting desperate. Even though Natalie would never know, he didn't want her brother's blood on his hands.
"We can bind him, Roar. Skye's people might be able to come up with some kind of cuffs like the Mage used on Paenther that will keep him tied to the house and away from the phones and computers so he can't tell anyone he's here."
"Can blind people use computers?" Jag grunted. "Wouldn't they need braille keyboards or something?"
"Not the point," Wulfe growled.
Lyon shook his head. "It's too danger--"
The sound of laughter stopped him cold. A sweet, high-pitched laughter as rare as a blue moon. Pink's.
Jag smiled, cutting Lyon a look that said the chief had just lost, and they all knew it. "Sounds to me like the bird has a new friend."
Lyon's growl was one of pure frustration. "Find a way to secure him. One slip, and he dies. No second chances."
Wulfe nodded, fighting back his own smile. "Yes, sir."
Lyon lifted a brow, then swung away.
Jag's smile was slow and satisfied. "Good job . . .
Dude.
" With a chuckle, he slapped Wulfe on the back, then headed into the kitchen.
Wulfe let his own smile loose. As screwed up as everything else was, at least one thing had gone right. He lifted his finger to trace the newest scar on his cheek. Natalie had given him a gift in her smile, in her laughter. Most of all, in her lack of fear and revulsion.
He'd given her two in return even though, if all went as planned, she wouldn't remember. But he would.
He'd never forget.
Kougar woke suddenly, his feral senses and warrior instincts taking in the situation in an instant, telling him they were in no immediate danger. He and Ariana were lying, spooned, on the cool temple floor, her body warm and tensed with pain beneath the curve of his arm. And he knew, now, what had awakened him. She was getting another memory download.
He lifted his arm off her and stroked her hair, marveling that he'd actually slept. Not that he hadn't needed the sleep. He had. But, goddess, they were hardly safe down here, not with the Mage a mere two stories above, trying to reach them.
Ariana had suggested he sleep while she waited for Hookeye to dream, but he hadn't thought he'd actually do it. He hadn't thought he had that kind of trust in anyone but another Feral.
Apparently, he trusted her more than he'd realized.
He continued to stroke her hair until the tension slowly left her body. "You okay?"
"Yes. I'm remembering." The wonder in her voice eased his concern, lifting his pulse and his hopes. "I've remembered something important."
She sounded preoccupied, as if she was watching a movie he couldn't see. Which was probably exactly what she was doing. A movie in her own head.
He relaxed, sliding his hand up and down her arm in slow, soft movements while he waited impatiently for her to tell him.
When she began to speak, her voice was quiet and far away. "The Temple of the Queens was built in the Himalayas for a reason. This mountain actually breaches the Syphian Stream, the same mystical energy stream in which the Crystal Realm was built, although the Crystal Realm is far from here and high above the Earth."
That had always been incomprehensible to him--how a castle had been built in the air, in the clouds. Then again, the women who'd built it were themselves mystical creatures of light and mist. And magic.
"The queen who first discovered the wormhole into the Daemons' spirit trap lived during those dark days of the Daemon Wars. She'd been badly injured in a Daemon attack, unable to live without regular infusions of that mystical energy. Her name was Rayas. And the crystal through which she channeled that energy, much as a Feral's armband channels the power of the Earth, kept her alive.
"To reach the Syphian, Rayas stood atop the temple, at the very crown, lifting her hands into the air to draw down the power she needed to survive. One day, while she was up there, she turned to mist and found herself able to merge with the energy stream. She found the wormhole by accident and followed it down into the spirit trap. She'd known the Daemons possessed such a trap, but none had ever known where it was or how to breach it. Now she knew."
"So it's true. Olivia, Jag's mate, seemed to think there's only one actual trap. That it's accessed through various wormholes."
"Yes, there's only one. As the wars escalated, and word came of Mage or Therians who'd been caught in the trap, she went in and pulled them out. Often, she was too late with the Mage. Their souls and bodies were separated quickly. But not so the Therians, who, in those days, were all shifters. The separation of animal from body took days."
Eleven days, if the seventeen were anything to go by. Eleven days, of which eight had passed for Hawke and Tighe. The knowledge felt like dragon's breath on the back of his neck.
Ariana pulled away from him to roll onto her stomach, lifting onto her elbows. Her eyes shone like a pair of gems. "I know where that crystal is, the Crystal of Rayas."
Finally, something was going right. He lifted onto his elbow. "Let's get it."
"It's not here in the temple. It's in the Crystal Realm. And I can't leave the temple until it's through with me. It answered my plea this time, but I guarantee if I walk away now, it won't again. I can't leave until I've retrieved all the memories I've lost."
"You can get into that spirit trap and rescue them."
The light in her eyes died. She sat up, turning her back on him to face the pool. "I still can't turn to mist, Kougar. Now I know what to do once I can, but that's all."
They had one answer but not the other. He sat up beside her. "Still no idea how to solve that piece of the puzzle?"
She glanced at him, her expression pensive. "No. But I can feel the gathered energy still waiting to strike me with more memories. It may take days for me to sort through them all."
"Hawke and Tighe don't have days."
Her eyes softened, saddened. "I know. I'm trying, Kougar. I'm as desperate to defeat this thing as you are."
He reached for her, cupping the back of her neck. "I know." He pulled her toward him. When she turned to him, he covered her mouth, losing himself in the feel of her warm lips against his, her sweet taste and scent. The need to do something, to save his friends, was eating a hole in his gut. But kissing Ariana, he could almost forget anything and anyone else existed.
He stroked her bottom lip with his tongue, and she opened for him, her tongue sliding over his lips greedily. Blood began to pulse through his veins, pressure building in his head, in his chest. He pulled her tighter against him, the need to hold her, to be one with her, a pounding in his body. How had he survived a thousand years without her?
His fingers dove into her silken hair as his lips moved over her cheek, her jaw. Her taste was nectar on his tongue, her soft moan, as he trailed his mouth down her throat, the sweetest of music.
Fire burned inside him, a need as much of the soul as the body. A need to touch and hold, to be one with her.
Soft palms slid over his cheeks, her fingers curling around the back of his neck as she pulled him down to take one perfect breast in his mouth. He drank in the sweet scent of lilies of the valley mixing with Ariana's unique, seductive mating scent as he pulled her to him and suckled her soft flesh.
Some part of his brain warned him not to give in, that he was in serious danger of losing all perspective, of losing himself, if he didn't pull back. But his cat hissed, ears back, urging him to take her, to claim her all over again. And that's exactly what he wanted to do.
Sweeping her into his arms, he laid her down, his gaze locked with hers, the question asked and answered in a lush, carnal smile.
He told himself to take it slow this time, and he tried. But when she spread her thighs, lifting her arms to him, he was lost.
Holding her gaze, he came to her, entering her, tumbling into the beauty and fire and strength that was Ariana.
Over the next few hours, he made love to her twice more and held her through three more painful memory downloads while she waited for Hookeye to sleep. He was lying temporarily sated in her arms when she tensed beneath him. Not with pain, this time, but excitement.
He lifted off her, and she sat up, her eyes glowing with triumph. "The bright chaos just turned dark. Hookeye's asleep." Her eyes gleamed. "Are you ready for a bit of dream walking?"
Hell, yes.
A feral smile lifted his mouth. "Anything I need to do to prepare?"
Her gaze trailed seductively down his body. "He'll see us exactly as we are now. I'm getting dressed." She slid her fingers up his erection. "Up to you."
He purred at the feel of her fingertips on that highly sensitized flesh. It didn't matter how many times he'd come inside her, if she was anywhere near him, he wanted her. Especially when she turned on her siren's charms. Goddess, if she kept touching him like this, he was going to come again, right there in her hand.
If they hadn't waited so long for the bastard to sleep, he might take her first, but dreams didn't last.
Wrapping his hand around her wrist, he lifted that talented little hand of hers to his mouth and kissed her palm. "Can I shift when I'm in the dream?" He licked her palm and watched with satisfaction as she shivered, her mouth twitching at one corner.
"I don't know. I guess we'll find out." She pulled her hand from his and leaped to her feet to retrieve her clothes.
Kougar joined her, dressing quickly, then sat cross-legged on the smooth stone floor beside her. He eyed her quizzically, feeling a frisson of unease. "How exactly does this work?" Goddess knew how anything worked in the Ilina world.
A hint of a smile played at her mouth. "You'll see." But the smile didn't reach her eyes. As she took his hand, he understood. Her hand was damp, a faint trembling deep in her bones. The thought of facing the creature who'd caused her so much pain had her rattled as he suspected little ever did.
He squeezed her hand, reminding her silently she wasn't going alone.
"Close your eyes and keep them closed," she told him.
He did as she asked, and, a moment later, an odd sensation hit him, a brief moment's dizziness not unlike Ilina travel for him now, a dizziness that was gone almost as quickly as it came. And suddenly he was standing beside Ariana in a firelit cave the size of his bedroom at Feral House. The hair rose on the back of his neck.
Along the walls, corpses hung--five adults and a small one that must have been a child, though he was hard-pressed to tell how many were male, how many were female. They were dressed in the simple, gowned peasant garb of millennia ago, a manner that had been largely unisex. But though their garb appeared unharmed, the flesh of the people had been all but burned away as if they'd died in a fire that had left their clothing unscathed.
The cave was clearly a living space, a cooking pot hanging over the central fire. To one side sat a table laden with bowls and vials and colorful, plastic containers. Kougar frowned at the anachronism of plastic in an ancient cave until he looked at the man standing behind the table, reminding himself he was in a dream.
The man was short, his build slight, his appearance unassuming for one who'd caused so much pain and death. His thin brown hair was cut around his face at odd angles as if he were in the habit of hacking off whatever got in his way with the nearest knife. He was dressed, not as the victims around him, but in the green sorcerer's robes the Mage had taken to wearing in recent centuries. On his wrist he wore a modern black resin sports watch.
The Mage looked up as if seeing them for the first time, then back down at what he was doing as if they were just figments of his imagination. But in that brief glance, Kougar had glimpsed his eyes. Copper-ringed Mage eyes, one of which had a pupil that appeared to have bled through the iris in the shape of a hook.
Bingo.
Hookeye
.
Beside him, Ariana's hand spasmed in his, then fell away as she stepped away from him. A knife appeared in her hand, from where he wasn't sure, but a quick glance told him exactly what she meant to do with it.
If she'd felt any anxiety about facing the bastard, it was gone, replaced by a seething hatred.
He grabbed her upper arm. "Wait."
"They didn't survive." Hookeye's tone was conversational. "But they rarely do." He glanced up, his gaze meeting Kougar's. "I'm the poison master, you know. But you know." That gaze turned amused as it flicked to Ariana, then back down at his work.
The scene shifted suddenly, the room and victims changing as if the walls of a Hollywood set had been yanked away, another shoved into place with all the accompanying vertigo. An old castle, this time, built of bare stone. Once more, bodies hung, chained and tortured. The four surrounding them now were covered in the swollen buboes and dark patches of subdural hemorrhaging that reminded him all too well of the dead from bubonic plague.
"You collected plague victims?"
Hookeye smiled absently. "No. This one I caused. One of my more spectacular successes, though it only affected mortals, which was a shame."
The bastard had caused bubonic plague. Kougar's mind reeled. And how many other devastating human diseases?
It was well known that the Therians had often been the target of Mage poisons, though few had ever died from them. Tighe believed his childhood enclave had been the victim of one such attack, but such successes were rare, or the Mage would have wiped out the Therians long ago.
"You were my greatest failure, Queen of the Ilinas." Hookeye chuckled, but the sound was ugly. "Except you weren't, were you?" His tone hardened. "You just made me think you were."
Ariana stilled beneath Kougar's grip. "You meant to control me."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Hookeye shrugged one scrawny shoulder, still concentrating on the vials and liquids he mixed together like some kind of medieval alchemist.
"To turn you against the Feral Warriors, of course." He picked up a vial and shook it, peering at it closely. "I'll succeed this time, you know." His gaze flicked to her, evil shining in those copper-ringed depths. "You'll bring the Feral Warriors to me."
"Never."
Kougar's impatience for battle cooled with the chilling words. "How will you succeed, Mage?" He growled. "How will you succeed in capturing the Feral Warriors?"
"The way I always do. I'm the poison master." He turned away, scraping away a bit of flesh from one of his victims into a plastic container.
But as he turned back to his table, the walls of the room shifted yet again. The new ones were eerily familiar, glittering with inlay on ivory-colored stone.
The Temple of the Queens.
Kougar's heart began to thud in his chest.