The orgasm overtook Kougar in a blinding release, his and Ariana's combined--magnificent, brilliant perfection as he sank into her, their bodies merging in a blazing burst of pleasure he hadn't felt in . . .
Realization hit him with a stunning blow.
She'd turned to mist
.
"Ariana?"
For one fleeting moment, he wondered if she'd won. If the poison was gone. But Ariana's horror rushed at him through that open mating bond, and he knew.
They'd lost.
The cry that tore from her throat was part anguish, part fury, and she fled from him, a wraith he couldn't hold.
Kougar leaped to his feet as Ariana's mistlike form, rimmed in blood red, whirled on him, one of his switchblades snapping open in her hand. And he understood. Hookeye's controller spell had been set free.
"Do you belong to him now?" His voice remained calm, but he was roaring inside.
"The poison is trying to control me!"
That she knew that much meant she was still fighting, not lost. Not completely. Though she was mist, he knew she could turn to flesh in a microsecond, the blade becoming deadly just as fast.
"It wants you." Her expression was terrible, her neon blue eyes filled with dread, her mouth battle-hard. "It wants me to hurt you. The
compulsion . . ."
One moment she was there, the next she was gone.
A knife tore through his lower back with white-hot pain. He spun, but it was Melisande behind him, not Ariana. A second later, she, too, disappeared.
Crap.
He needed his knives, even if they'd do him little good with the Ilinas turning to mist after every strike. Fighting mist warriors had always been an exercise in futility. And he didn't want to hurt them!
At the next flash of light, he dove for his pants, praying one of his knives was still there. He found it and rolled to his feet only to find the two women circling him, wraithlike, glowing with hot energy.
Neither attacking.
"What are you doing, Ariana?"
"He wants you injured, not dead. We're to take you to the temple. All of you."
All?
The Ferals. "The spirit trap?"
"Yes. He wants me to open it for him. To drop you in."
Like hell.
And suddenly he understood why the pain in his chest had, if anything, been getting better, not worse. Hookeye didn't want him dead. Not yet. What good was Kougar to him dead when another Feral would only be marked by the cougar? If he tossed him into the spirit trap, no cougar would ever come forth again.
Melisande flew at him, her ghostlike form pure energy as she attacked. She latched on to him, sucking him into her unnatural grip like a science-fiction tractor beam.
He shifted into his cat, the shift difficult and painful with her energy mixing with his; but he sprang away from her to turn and hiss, ears back.
Melisande flew at him again, turning to flesh just long enough to slice the blade deep through his shoulder. If she'd been a Mage, he'd have taken off her arm. He'd had the time. But Ariana . . .
His warrior queen yelled her fury and flew, not at him, but at Melisande. The two pulsing, mistlike figures collided in a spray of energy. Fighting, furious.
He could only watch, uncertain what was happening. What he needed to do was get back to Feral House and warn the others. He shifted back to a man. But as he reached for his armband to whisper the spell, the two Ilinas sprang apart, turning corporeal.
Kougar crouched, expecting another attack, but Melisande swayed on her feet, letting the knife drop from her fingers. Ariana sank to her knees, blood seeping from her pores like drops of sweat.
Goddess.
A wary eye on Melisande, Kougar reached cautiously for his mate.
"Ariana?"
She was doubled over, holding her middle, blood dripping onto the ground. "I beat back . . . Hookeye's control. And took Melisande's poison. It's changed. It's not what it was before. It's darker. Stronger." Her gaze flew to Melisande. "You're okay?"
"Yes." The petite blonde's face had drained of color. "What about the others? Are you taking their poison, too?"
"I can't . . ." Ariana's eyes filled with anguish. "I'm trying, but it won't come!"
Kougar brushed a lock of hair back from her bleeding temple. "He changed the poison so you couldn't take it this time."
"You took mine," Melisande said. "You're going to have to merge with them as you did me."
"Find Brielle. Bring her to me." As Ariana rose unsteadily to her feet, Kougar grabbed her arm, helping her. She looked up at him with fury and devastation. "Starving the poison should have worked!" Her hand went to the silver cuff, tearing it off her wrist and flinging it onto the rocks with a clatter, her face a mask of anguish. "How could I have turned to mist with the moonstones on?"
"The Mage are more powerful than they've ever been." Powerful enough to change the poison already in Ariana. Powerful enough to . . . ?
Kougar stilled. "Ariana, you've seen him in your mind. You've felt something strange going on in your head. What if it wasn't the memory downloads you were feeling, but Hookeye?"
She looked at him sharply. "What do you mean?"
"What if some of what you've remembered wasn't from the queens at all, but false memories planted by the sorcerer? At one time, you were sure the Ilinas had never been attacked by the Mage before. You blamed yourself, blamed us both for Hookeye's original attack after you took me as your mate."
Brow furrowing, she bent down and picked up her dress. "You think my new memories about other attacks, about starving the poison, were Hookeye's doing? For just this reason . . . to make me lose control?" She pulled on her dress, a new horror filling her eyes as she met his gaze. "If you're right, how do I know what's real?"
He grabbed his pants. "Can we kill him?"
"No." The word shot from her mouth without hesitation. Which told him all he needed to know.
"That's what he wants you to think. It's a lie. The only way to get him out of your head is to kill him."
"You can't know that." But as he dressed, he could see her processing his words and watched as hatred leaped past the anguish in her eyes. "
We kill him
."
Kougar nodded. "I've got to get back to Feral House to warn the others."
"It's too late." Melisande appeared behind him. "The maidens have left. The Crystal Realm is empty but for us."
Ariana's gaze collided with his.
Feral House.
She sprang at him, turning to mist and catching him in her energy in a flash of light. Moments later, he felt grass beneath his feet, his head spinning even as he started running for the patio door. He could hear shouts of battle from inside Feral House. Shouts of pain.
Ariana materialized at the door. "Do you want Melisande's help?"
He glanced back to find Ariana's second standing where they'd landed, a wary expression on her face.
"Yes!"
The three rushed through the dining room together. They found the battle in the foyer, Lyon, Jag, and Vhyper in their animal forms, leaping at the mist warriors, attempting to strike during those seconds the maidens attacked with their knives. The floor was smeared with blood. And Wulfe was missing.
"Don't kill them!" Kougar barked. "They've been enchanted. Melisande and Ariana are with me." In a spray of light, he shifted into his cat, leaping at one of the Ilinas as she tried to strike Vhyper.
Melisande flew at Brielle as the latter was about to stab Lyon.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kougar saw Ariana lift her hands above her head. "Mel, hang on!" Then she began to chant fast and furiously. Two seconds later, the Ilinas disappeared, leaving nothing behind but cries of fury.
Even Ariana and Melisande were gone. Kougar searched for her through the mating bond, opened fully once more.
Ariana?
I remembered a warding to keep Ilinas out, Kougar. There was no time to explain. Feral House is safe.
Where are you?
Behind the house.
What of your maidens?
The others took off. Melisande has gone to find them.
Even telepathically, he could hear the devastation in her voice.
I'll be right there.
He shifted back to his human form.
"Wulfe and Paenther?" Kougar demanded as the other Ferals shifted.
"Neither was here." Lyon turned to Jag. "Call them. Warn them." His gaze met Kougar's. "What the hell is going on?"
"Come." Kougar strode through the house and out the back door, Lyon and Vhyper close behind him. Ariana waited, her skin and dress streaked with blood, her eyes shattered even as they radiated with a warrior's fire.
Lyon's eyes narrowed as he took in her appearance. "Explain."
"I lost control of the poison," Ariana told him. "My maidens are infected, except for Melisande. They're controlled by the sorcerer who attacked us a thousand years ago. He sent them to capture you with hopes of dropping you into the spirit trap."
"He failed."
"For now." Brittle eyes turned to him, breaking Kougar's heart. She thought her friends were lost to her. That after fighting for so many centuries to save them, she'd failed.
He wouldn't let that happen.
"I'll get your Ferals out of the spirit trap." Her voice was low, vibrating with a pain that sliced what was left of his heart into ribbons. Her gaze turned to him. "Then we go after Hookeye together. I don't care if the entire Himalayan range comes tumbling down." Her lips pulled back from her teeth. "
I want him dead.
"
Even in devastation, the warrior within her rose to the battle. He lifted his hand, an invitation born of a need to hold her, to comfort her, but she gave a small, tight shake of her head. This wasn't the time for comfort.
Her eyes widened, a look of raw doubt shattering her warrior's persona. "What if I don't really know how to save them? What if the Crystal of Rayas is just another thing Hookeye planted in my head?"
"Then we kill Hookeye first."
Melisande appeared in a rush of air that smelled of snow rather than pine. "They're at the temple," she stated without preamble. "The Mage have armed them and set them up as the first line of defense." She looked at Ariana, her eyes almost as hollow as her queen's. "The place is so thick with magic, I couldn't get near it. There will be no misting in. They'll snare us for certain." She scowled. "I don't know what they want with us."
"Hookeye knows we're coming after him." Ariana's voice shook.
Melisande frowned, confused. "Hookeye isn't there, Ariana."
Kougar froze. Ariana's gaze collided with his.
"He's gone?" Ariana demanded.
"He was never there." Melisande shook her head, her brows still drawn. "Why did you think he was there?"
"I
know
he was there, Mel. Why do you think he wasn't?"
"I . . ." Her eyes darted back and forth as if searching for the answer. "I just know." She tilted her head. "Why do I think I know?"
"Shit," Ariana said beside him, echoing his thought. "He's done it to you, too. That original poison must have had some kind of magic in it that would keep us from ever finding him. How many times were you on his trail, then lost it at the last minute?"
Disbelief flashed in Melisande's eyes. "Dozens. Are you trying to say I nearly had him all those times? That every time I got close, the magic kicked in to tell me he wasn't there?
And I walked away?
"
"I'm sorry, Mel. He's stronger than we knew. He's always been stronger."
Melisande's jaw turned to stone. "And now he's taken our people. All of them."
"He probably knows we're going to try to rescue the Ferals from the spirit trap. He's going to make me cut down my own sisters to reach the temple."
"Ariana . . ." Melisande's shoulders bent as if bowed beneath the weight of grief. "They're full of poison, now. They're already dead to us."
Ariana's grief blazed down the mating bond, a cry of anger and devastation that crumbled his soul. Deep inside, his cat let out a howl of answering pain.
Ariana stood beside him, blood-soaked and too pale, her eyes alive with grief and anguish. It was all he could do not to pull her close or, at the very least, take her hand. But the iron in her eyes stayed his hand. Now was the time to fight.
"Mel, tell me about Queen Rayas," Ariana demanded. "I have a memory of her standing atop the Temple of the Queens, channeling the energy of the Syphian Stream through this crystal to access the spirit trap." She lifted the chunk of rock that still hung between her breasts. "Is the memory true?"
Melisande nodded. Kougar knew she'd lived in that time. "Rayas often went into the spirit trap, Ariana. That memory is true, I'm certain of it."