Melisande flew off her feet as if she'd been launched, turning to mist and disappearing an instant before she slammed into the wall. A neat trick.
Silence descended except for the low growling and snarling in the throats of the wolf and jaguar.
"How the hell did they get in here?" Lyon roared.
Kougar eyed the remaining Ilinas, satisfied they were firmly under their queen's control. "Mist warriors come and go as they please."
"Like hell."
Out of nowhere, Melisande reappeared atop the conference table, holding a short sword at either side, her eyes blazing with fury. A fury this time aimed at her queen.
The jaguar crouched as if to spring.
Kougar lifted his hand.
"Hold, Jag," Lyon ordered.
Melisande's form faded to ghostlike, a faint red glow around her edges. Anyone who attempted to attack her like that would think he'd shoved his fist into a light socket. Ilina defensive energy was a bitch, and damned dangerous. A human or Therian could be caught in it and dragged to the Crystal Realm to die. A Feral was too strong to be transported against his will unless the Ilinas ganged up on him. Then it was anyone's game.
Hatred lit Melisande's eyes. "They have to die!"
Ariana pulsed with fury beside him. He could feel it through the mating bond and see it in the angry lines of her body. But when she spoke, her voice was low, woven with steel.
"Stand down, Melisande. They are not the enemy."
"They know about us, now!"
"He
knows, Mel. Hookeye knows."
Slowly, Melisande's eyes widened, her fury evaporating beneath real fear as she jumped from the table with a soft, graceful leap to land in front of Ariana.
Kougar grabbed Ariana, gripping her upper arm to keep the other Ilina from stealing her away. Ariana's bound wrists might keep her from transporting herself, but any one of her maidens could take her, bound or not. If they tried while he held on to her, they'd have to take them both.
"How does he know?" The words were little more than a breath, as if driven from Melisande's body by a gut blow.
"It doesn't matter. He knows. I saw his eyes again."
Melisande swayed, her face turning chalk white. "It's over."
Kougar had always found it hard to like the woman, especially knowing how strongly she detested him and his entire race, but he found himself almost feeling sorry for her. Almost.
Ariana shook her head. "Maybe not, Mel. Maybe it's not over yet. The Ferals need me to turn to mist before their friends die in the spirit trap. Maybe they can help us find a way to end this." Ariana glanced at Kougar, meeting his gaze briefly with eyes that held little trust in her own words.
Melisande scoffed. "The spirit trap will destroy their friends within days."
"We've nothing to lose by enlisting their help."
A scowl darkened the mist warrior's face. "Do you really believe that?"
Ariana didn't reply, her lack of response answer enough.
Lyon's voice broke the uncomfortable silence. "Save our friends from the spirit trap, and we'll do whatever it takes to help you find a cure for the poison."
"Stupid shifter," Melisande muttered.
Ariana silenced her with a look and turned to Lyon. "You don't understand, Chief of the Ferals. The only way I can breach the spirit trap is as mist. And if I turn to mist, my maidens will perish."
Kougar felt the hope that had briefly flared in the room die a quick, agonizing death. Tighe's wife, Delaney, sank back in her chair as if she barely possessed the strength to hold herself upright.
Kara's voice broke the thick atmosphere from the doorway. "The Shaman's here, Lyon." Kara, Lyon's mate, strode into the room, the Shaman close behind her.
The ancient Therian stopped just inside the doorway, staring from one mist warrior to the next, his eyes growing wide with excitement.
"Ilinas," he murmured. "Extraordinary."
Though he looked like a fifteen-year-old kid, Kougar knew the Shaman to be well over six thousand years old, probably closer to ten. He'd been considered one of the Old Ones when Kougar was a boy.
Lyon lifted his hand, once more demanding the full attention of those in the room. "Queen Ariana, I'm willing to move heaven and earth to save my two warriors. If that means saving the Ilina race first, then we'd better get started. But I want your warriors out of my house and your promise that they'll never return unannounced or uninvited again. Or next time, the Ferals will rip their hearts out." His hard gaze landed on Melisande. "Is that understood?"
That commanding gaze swung to Ariana. "You'll remain with us until this is over."
Ariana stiffened. "I'm safer in the Crystal Realm, where he can't reach me."
"Unacceptable."
Kougar could feel her agitation rising. He understood her need to be with her maidens, especially when she considered them at risk, but he suspected equal to that need was her distaste of the idea of staying in this house. With him. He couldn't say he was thrilled himself, yet Lyon was right to demand she remain. If they let her go, she might never return.
Ariana's jaw turned hard. "My warriors have to be able to reach me. To contact me."
"Communicate telepathically," Kougar said.
"I've been corporeal so long that I can't hear them any longer. Communication between us is only one-way. A few of them can still hear me. Or sense my emotions if they're strong. I'm sure that's why they attacked."
Brielle nodded.
"One warrior only, then," Lyon said. "Flesh and blood, and she comes to the back door and knocks. Not Melisande. She's no longer welcome anywhere near Feral House, and if she approaches any of my warriors or their wives again, it will be considered an act of war."
Melisande threw up her hands with a look of disgust.
"Return to the Crystal Realm, Mel." Ariana's voice, though quiet, brooked no argument. "All of you except Brielle."
Lyon lifted an eyebrow.
"She knows things that could be of help. I'll send her away when we're done here."
"Fair enough," the Chief said.
With an angry wave of her hand that made the windows rattle, Melisande disappeared. A moment later, the others followed, leaving only Brielle and Ariana behind.
A heavy silence blanketed the room for several moments, then Jag and Wulfe shifted back into their man forms, both sans clothes. Jag strode to the chest in the corner and pulled out a couple of pairs of sweatpants, tossing one to Wulfe.
Delaney leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with a desperate determination. "Where do we start? Tighe and Hawke don't have much time."
"Everyone, have a seat," Lyon ordered quietly.
Kougar held Ariana's chair, releasing her arm, but she shook her head, restless agitation radiating from her in waves. As she stepped away from him, Kougar tensed, ready to grab her again, not trusting her not to try to escape him.
But when she turned to him, the raw despair in her eyes turned to a physical ache beneath his breastbone, and he let her go. His gaze never left her as she walked to the window, her stride graceful and sure despite her bound hands, her shoulders bowed by the weight of her fear.
Lyon's gaze, too, followed her. "We need to know everything you know, Queen Ariana, if we're to help you."
Ariana turned to face his chief, her bearing proud, her eyes flashing with determined fire despite her agitation. Kougar doubted anyone else sensed that agitation but him. Watching her, he saw again the indomitable, fierce beauty he'd fallen in love with.
A mistake he would not repeat.
"We were attacked by Mage magic a thousand years ago." Her voice clear and strong, she continued. "I'd chosen to take Kougar as my mate, an act one of my maidens was convinced I'd soon regret." Melisande, no doubt. "Without my knowledge, she procured a Mage potion to keep the mating bond from fully attaching. We now believe that the Mage who produced the potion wove additional magic into it. Two years later, he attacked us through that mating bond."
Lyon glanced across the room. "Shaman?"
The Shaman's air of excitement made him look even younger than fifteen. "I knew something was up, but I could never have imagined this." He rose and walked toward the window and Ariana slowly, cautiously.
Ariana watched him approach with equal wariness.
The Shaman, little taller than Ariana, stopped just shy of arm's reach in front of her and held his hands out as if she were a fire he meant to warm them with.
Ariana stiffened and cocked her head with warning, but the Shaman didn't seem to notice. Backing up a few steps, he motioned her to follow, pulling her away from the window, then closed his eyes and began to circle her, his hands still up as if warding off a blow.
The Shaman frowned. "It's Mage magic. An abundance of it, thick and powerful, yet it doesn't seem to be harming her." He opened his eyes and stared at her. "How long have you held it like this?"
Ariana glanced at Kougar, her stance open as if she prepared to defend herself, her gaze wary. She clenched her jaw, turning back to the Shaman as he continued to circle her slowly, his face a mask of patience and concentration. "A millennium, though it's grown stronger in the past couple of years."
The Shaman nodded. "No doubt because the Mage have acquired dark magic. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say the change occurred when your sorcerer lost his soul and acquired that dark magic for himself. If his magic is connected to you, and it seems to be, it's been growing stronger."
The Shaman's mouth pursed, and he turned abruptly to Brielle. "Now you." With a flick of his hand, he motioned the other Ilina to him, but Kougar quickly intervened, not wanting Brielle anywhere near Ariana.
"No, Shaman. Go to her." With swift strides, Kougar reached Ariana, clamping a hand around her arm, unwilling to take any more chances that Brielle would whisk her away before he could stop her.
Ariana threw him a disgusted look but didn't fight him.
The Shaman's examination of Brielle took less than a minute. When he was done, he was frowning.
"Tell me everything." He lowered himself slowly onto one of the chairs, his brows knit in thought.
At first, Ariana said nothing, her stance guarded and defensive. But the Shaman was infinitely patient and waited in calm silence as her gaze met Kougar's, then slowly returned to him.
"At first only a couple of my maidens became infected. At least, I thought it was only a couple. I thought they'd come in contact with dark spirit. Those infected turned from seeking the pleasure of others to craving their pain. They attacked humans, torturing and killing for days, possibly weeks, before they died. Those residing in the corporeal world showed the symptoms far earlier, though I didn't know it at the time. But the deaths came all at once. By the time I realized what was happening, more than half my maidens were in their death throes."
"They attacked only humans?"
"No." She explained how Kougar had called her to the battlefield that day after several of her maidens had attacked his shifters. "I returned to the Crystal Realm to find all of my warriors showing signs of the darkness. Brielle was the first to suspect it was a Mage attack, and as soon as she said the words, I knew she was right. Every few days for weeks I'd dreamed of a pair of copper-ringed Mage eyes floating before me, one with an oddly shaped pupil. I called him Hookeye, and I believe he's the one who attacked us."
She glanced at Kougar, and in her eyes he glimpsed the horror of that day.
"My maidens were dying. All were infected. I didn't think, I simply acted, willing the poison into me instead of them. And it worked. At first. Until I took too much. The moment I turned to mist, the poison rushed back into them. Several dozen more died before I was able to reclaim the poison."
Kougar heard the anguish in her words, the fear that it was all going to happen again, and he felt the edges of his anger soften. Listening to her tell the tale, he could see it all happening. He could feel her terror, her confusion. He'd known the Ilinas were in trouble that day; but as always, she'd insisted on handling the situation on her own. And when the worst had happened, she'd shut him out.
But why had she severed the mating bond? That was the part he couldn't understand. Why hadn't she at least told him what had happened? Why had she made him believe she was dead?
The Shaman's expression softened with compassion. "It's a miracle you were able to retrieve the magic to save as many of your maidens as you did."
"My maidens are no longer saved."
Beneath his fingers, he felt her tremble, a faint shudder that echoed inside him, reminding him of the powerful need he'd once felt to protect her. A need that wasn't entirely gone.
"Hookeye knows I'm alive."
"How?" Lyon demanded.
Ariana glanced at Kougar, their gazes clashing briefly before she turned toward the front of the war room and told his chief what had happened in her living room, how Kougar had removed her cuff, and she'd seen the eyes again.
"He won't be able to reach you." Kougar's grip on her tightened protectively. "Not here."