"It's not the man I'm worried about. It's his poison. And he can absolutely reach me here. He can reach me anywhere."
"Shaman?" Lyon asked.
"I have to concur," the Shaman said. "It appears to me that your hook-eyed sorcerer snared you with a connector spell. Extraordinary, really."
"What's a connector spell?" Jag asked.
"Think of it as a valve inserted into the middle of the tube of the mating bond. A valve controlled by the creator. Anytime he wishes, he can open that valve and pump more poison in."
Kougar looked at Ariana, though she didn't meet his gaze. "Is that why you severed the mating bond?" He felt as if he'd been lashed to a rack and was being slowly pulled apart as he struggled to make sense of that day, of why she'd turned her back on him and everything they'd meant to one another. "Did you sever the bond to break the Mage's connection, Ariana? To keep him from pumping more poison into it?"
She refused to turn to him, her gaze falling to the floor, the air thickening with tension around her.
"The bond was only severed on your end, Kougar, not hers," Brielle said, earning a sharp look from her queen. "She was still connected to the source of the poison. Hookeye could have attacked her anyway, which was why it was so important he not learn the truth when he thought we were extinct. Ariana is barely holding on to the poison she has. Melisande reconnected the bond a few days ago because . . ."
"Brielle." The name escaped Ariana's mouth through clenched teeth.
Hell, the poison . . .
Brielle turned to Ariana, then back to him, her fingers twined, her hands pressing against her waist. "I'm sorry, Kougar. Ariana didn't know. I tried to talk Mel out of reconnecting it, but Ariana's been struggling so much, and Mel hoped you could ease her burden."
"Is she saying what I think she's saying?" Lyon demanded. "That poison . . . ?"
The Shaman nodded. "Was Melisande aware that the poison would kill Kougar?" he asked Brielle quietly.
Kougar heard the words as if from a distance.
"Yes." Brielle flinched. "Melisande knew."
Jag's fists landed on the table. "That
bitch.
"
Brielle turned to Jag. "If Ariana loses control of the poison, we all die. Her entire race. Would you not sacrifice one of us if it might save all of your own people?"
Jag snarled. "In a heartbeat, sister. I might do it anyway."
"Jag," Lyon warned.
As his Feral brothers' eyes turned toward him with dismay and shock, Kougar remembered that moment three days ago when Melisande reconnected the bond. He'd been caught in a Mage sensory-deprivation trap with several other Ferals and a pair of wraith Daemons with no way out. Melisande had come to him in that darkness and offered to save him, to give him a chance to save them all in exchange for the reconnecting of the mating bond. He hadn't wanted to do it. Not because of the poison--he hadn't known about it. No, it had been his soulless mate he hadn't wanted anything to do with. But he'd let Melisande reconnect that bond because he'd had no choice. Without the Ilina's interference, they'd have died.
Now it looked like his death had only been delayed.
Lyon met his gaze, barely banked emotion gleaming in his chief's eyes. "Explain, Shaman. How is the poison harming Kougar?"
The Shaman dipped his head. "The mating bond is woven directly into Kougar's heart. And where the threads connect, the poison flows like acid, eating away at the flesh. Literally. His immortal physiology fights to renew the decaying heart, but eventually the magic will win. And he'll die."
The room went quiet, the silence deafening, ringing in Kougar's ears. In that silence, another memory nudged him, a memory from long ago. He'd felt pain like the Shaman described, pain centered right where his heart sat, a long, long time ago. A thousand years, to be precise--that day on the battlefield that he last saw Ariana. He'd rubbed his chest against the discomfort, and she'd remarked on it.
Understanding hit him in a silent blast, the piece that had been eluding him--the reason she'd severed the mating bond.
"You knew."
Ariana flinched.
Kougar jerked her around to face him, searching those blue eyes for the truth. "You knew the poison was going to kill me.
That's
why you severed the mating bond."
He gripped her shoulders and felt her body shaking beneath his hands. By the set of her mouth, he could tell she wanted to deny it. But the truth was in her eyes, glistening in her unshed tears.
She hadn't severed the bond, as she'd claimed, because she was done with him. Not because she hadn't loved him. Not even to save her maidens.
She'd done it to save
him.
"Tell me.
"
"Yes."
He stared at her, his world flipping end over end all over again. In some part of his mind he knew that this should make a difference, that it should quell his anger at her.
But deep inside, anger churned and grew, rising like lava about to explode. Because knowing she'd done it to save him just made her betrayal cut all the deeper. She'd saved him, carved out his heart, then walked away, leaving him to choke in a pool of his own blood.
Not once
in a thousand years had she contacted him to let him know she was still alive.
Not once
had she sought him out.
If she'd shared her burden with him, if she'd told him what she was up against, he'd have found that damned Mage. He'd have protected her. He'd have ended this!
"I was right the first time," he said, his voice low and cold. "When I thought you soulless."
She flinched, and he didn't give a damn.
"If we kill the sorcerer, can we kill the poison?" Lyon asked.
The Shaman took a long, slow breath. "You might destroy the magic. But it's equally possible that killing the one who created the poison will keep you from ever disabling it."
With a low growl, Kougar released her, needing distance. And perspective.
How dare she claim she'd done all this to save him!
He spun away, stalking to the window, while behind him, the Shaman addressed Ariana.
"The Ilinas have always known far more than most, given the memories you're able to pass down from queen to queen. I'm surprised you've nothing in your knowledge arsenal to battle this magic and its effect on you, Queen Ariana."
"Believe me, I've looked," she replied softly. "We tried everything I could come up with, and nothing worked. Melisande has been working tirelessly to track down Hookeye, but she's never been able to find him. To this day, we don't know who he is or what he looks like other than his eyes."
"We have contacts within the Mage," Lyon said. "We'll find him. In the meantime, since that mating bond was severed once, can it be severed again?"
"Kougar?" The Shaman's query had him turning away from the window.
With a low growl, he returned to the spot he'd stood moments before and allowed the Shaman to grip both his and Ariana's wrists at once. The Therian closed his eyes, tipping his head back as if sending a prayer directly heavenward.
He released them, shaking his head, and stepped away. "Whatever magic kept the bond from fully attaching the last time is gone. The attachment is complete this time. Permanent, though somewhat of a mess--twisted and collapsed in on itself. The flow of poison is very slow at the moment, little more than a trickle. Even so, it's quite deadly."
Dammit. To. Hell.
On one level, Kougar didn't entirely care. He'd lived a long, long time, the last thousand years in a numb, colorless wasteland of an existence. But the Ferals needed him. They couldn't afford to be down yet another warrior in the months it might take his cougar to mark another.
No, he wasn't about to give up this fight.
"How long does Kougar have?" Lyon asked.
The Shaman met Kougar's gaze. "The way it is, a few months at best. If the bond opens fully, and the poison flows freely, possibly as little as a week. I'm sorry, warrior."
A week.
Kougar's teeth ground together as he dipped his head in acknowledgment, a furious quaking setting up deep in his muscles. A week was all he needed. Because if he hadn't found a way to stop the poison and allow Ariana to turn to mist by then, Hawke and Tighe would be dead.
But he'd have more than that week. The bond wasn't going to open because he'd have to care for that to happen.
He was going to kill that Mage, disable his magic once and for all, and save his friends. Then, mating bond be damned, he wanted Ariana out of his life. For good.
A week.
The words hung in the air of the now-silent war room, but Kougar acted as if he hadn't heard. The anger in his eyes, anger directed at her upon her admission that she'd severed the mating bond to save him, hadn't abated even a flicker.
Goddess, she'd hoped if she could keep the mating bond in its current mangled state, he might survive the poison. Now the Shaman was giving him only a few months, at best.
This shouldn't have happened!
She could wring Melisande's neck for going behind her back. And she would if not for the fact that she knew Mel had only done it to help her. To help them all.
But, dammit, she would not see Kougar die. They had to find Hookeye fast. Not that they hadn't been trying. Goddess, they'd been trying for centuries.
Maybe the Ferals could help. Maybe they really would succeed where Melisande had failed. Ariana's fingers clenched into fists. She had to keep that mating bond closed tight and give Kougar as much time as possible. Time enough to save his life, even if they weren't in time to save his friends.
A muscle leaped in Kougar's jaw as she watched him, his arms and shoulders rigid as steel. Fury enveloped him like a red haze.
"Under the circumstances, Kougar," Lyon began, "I think it might be better if one of the other Ferals guards Queen Ariana. The longer that mating bond remains closed, the better."
A low animal growl rolled from Kougar's throat as his hand circled her upper arm, biting into her flesh. "It'll stay closed." Beneath his tight grip, she felt a fine vibration, a volcanic anger ready to blow.
Anger at her or Hookeye? Or the fates for handing him down a death sentence? Probably all three, and there was nothing she could do to make it better.
"Then meeting adjourned," Lyon said. "Get some rest, if you can. Kougar, I'll let you know the minute we find something on that Mage."
Yanking her with him, Kougar steered her out of the room and down the wide hallway toward the foyer.
She wasn't entirely certain herself why she'd never contacted him. For a while, her situation had been impossible. But later . . . she wasn't sure. She'd never made the active decision to stay away from him. For a thousand years, she'd loved him, missed him, and always intended to go back to him. Someday.
But even if she knew what to say to ease his anger, she wouldn't say it. His anger was keeping him alive. For now.
He steered her through the foyer and up one of the curved stairs to a long hall that, like much of what she'd seen of Feral House so far, looked like it had been decorated a hundred years ago. The green-and-gold wallpaper of the foyer had given way to walls papered in swirls of gold peacock feathers on a beige field, covered in paintings of all styles and types--landscapes, medieval portraits, battle scenes. Electric sconces hung at regular intervals like oil lamps of old. She'd always loved the style of that era. The gilt and color pleased her Ilina eye.
Kougar stopped at one of the doors that lined the long hallway, opened it, and pushed her none-too-gently inside what was clearly his bedroom.
His bedroom. Could their reunion have played out any differently in her head? How many times had she imagined his reaction when she found him again, his face wreathed in joy, his eyes gleaming like silver like they used to whenever he saw her. She'd imagined him lifting her, like he had in those days, until they were eye to eye as if she weighed nothing, then kissing her as if he'd been holding his breath all that time and would only breathe again when their lips were fused. He'd always made her feel as if she were his sun and his moon when they were together, though those times had been all too seldom and those two years far too short.
But the reunion of her imaginings was nothing like the reality. There were no smiles. No sweet kisses. No softness at all. Only anger and hopelessness, and death hanging like a low, dark cloud over their heads.
Harsh fingers released her arm, leaving the flesh throbbing. Behind her, the door closed with a bang that rattled the windows. Ariana turned, ready to face her accuser; but Kougar paced away, violence seething beneath the animal grace of his walk.
Without warning, he yanked the straight-backed wooden chair out from his desk, lifted it, and sent it crashing down on the broad wood surface, splintering into a dozen pieces. As chunks of wood clattered against the wall and onto the floor, he threw what was left of the chair across the room, then arched as if in terrible pain. Hands fisted at his sides, he threw back his head and let out a roar filled with such fury that she knew she should be quaking with fear. But along with that roar, she heard pain. A pain she'd caused.
Guilt twisted inside her. She'd never meant to hurt him like this. But, dammit, he wasn't the only one who'd suffered!
His fangs and claws erupted as he started toward her, stalking her with eyes turned the yellow of a jungle cat.
Ariana held her ground, her wrists still bound before her as she faced him. Inches away from her, he stopped, staring down at her from his great height like an animal about to strike. Though her heart pounded in response to his fury and the memory of the last time he'd drawn claws on her, up in the Crystal Realm, she wasn't afraid. Not of Kougar. No, she was getting mad. He acted as if she'd carelessly tossed him aside, and nothing could be further from the truth.
His lips drew back in a snarl over teeth clenched tight, his fangs long and sharp. "
You. Put. Me. Through. Hell.
"
She lifted her chin, meeting that fiery gaze, giving rein to the anger that was building inside her, knowing that the best thing she could do for both of them was to feed his own.
"Join the club!" She met him nose to nose, glower for glower. "I wasn't the one who insisted we mate despite both our peoples' being dead set against it. I wasn't the one who insisted we were fated for one another!" She punched the rock-hard plane of his abdomen with her bound hands. "I wasn't the one who pushed and pushed . . ."
He snarled. "You think this was all my fault? You blame
me
?"
"I blame us both!
Ninety-six
Ilinas died because I let you talk me into a mating that should have never been. It was both of our faults." She punched him again. "If you'd left me alone, my maidens would be alive. The Mage would never have turned on us. I wouldn't have lost
ninety-six
of my friends, my sisters, then spent nearly three hundred years tending the remaining forty-four, most of whom were barely alive. My world was destroyed!"
She slugged him again. "I put
you
through hell? I used to dream I could change the past, dream that I'd turned and walked away instead of letting you kiss me that first time. For a thousand years, I've rued the day we met!"
She was as angry as he was, her chest heaving, her eyes burning with righteous fire and unshed tears. Somewhere in her diatribe he'd retracted his claws, and he grabbed her shoulders hard, his eyes once more pale, sparking with fury, and something more. A passion of a different kind.
"You haven't rued that day half as much as I have." But the tone of his voice had changed, turning husky. He curved his hand around the back of her neck, pulled her to him and crushed her mouth beneath his in a kiss filled with anger and frustration, and hot, searing need. He didn't want to be kissing her, she was more than sure of that.
Ariana struggled against his hold, trying to escape the kiss that was already sending drugging warmth flowing into her blood. The kiss changed from one of possession to one of passion in an instant, and she was lost.
She gave herself up to the kiss, reveling in the power of the man and the need that sparked like an electric wire in a raging storm. So much lay between them. So much grief, so much pain. But, goddess, she'd missed him. Missed his demanding, yet gentle touch, his warm, masculine scent, and the feel of his hard body moving against hers.
Passion exploded. Pleasure engulfed her, flowing through her like warm honey as their lips parted, and his tongue swept into her mouth. Unlike the kiss he'd forced on her in her home, this one contained no true hatred, only an anger that was already washing away in the passion. His mouth gentled, his hands gripping with a growing hunger as sharp as her own.
In her blood, the passion dissolved in a sweet rush, shifting into an essence more important to an Ilina than food. Normal pleasure strengthened. A tasty dinner, a beautiful ballet, even a little quality time with her vibrator. But what she felt in Kougar's arms transformed. She'd forgotten. A moan trembled in her chest. Dear goddess, she'd forgotten.
For so long she'd needed a man.
This
man. Though she'd taken a few lovers over the centuries, Kougar was the only one she'd wanted.
His mouth left hers, dipping to her neck, and she tipped her head back, absorbing the exquisite feel of his mouth on her body. She needed to touch him, to slide her fingers into his hair and hold him as he held her, but her bound hands were pinned between their bodies.
"Unbind me, Kougar. I need to touch you."
He ignored her, kissing her neck, his hands sliding to her waist, to the fastening of her jeans. Her pulse vaulted. He shoved her jeans and panties down over her hips in a single tug, then thrust his hand between her legs, entering her with a single, quaking, seeking finger.
Her body melted. "
Kougar. More.
I need you inside me."
She wasn't sure what happened, only that the moment the words left her mouth, he pulled away. His finger left her, his expression turning back into a hard, brittle mask. Without a word, with a coldness she didn't entirely understand, he turned and walked to the window, where the morning sunlight poured into the room, gleaming on the chair wreckage that littered the floor.
He spoke, his back to her, his words flat and devoid of the anger of a moment ago, and all the more cutting because of it. "When we kill that damned Mage, and I'm free of this poison, I'm out of your life, Ariana. And I want you out of mine."
"Done." And she meant it. She
meant
it.
Goddess, had she blamed him all this time without consciously realizing it? Had she been punishing them both by staying away from him? Even if it wasn't the only reason, she couldn't deny it had undoubtedly played a part in staying her hand all those times she'd thought of seeking him out.
She took a deep breath and let it out on a ragged sigh. There was no going back, only forward. What was done, was done. All they could do now was try to find Hookeye before he attacked again. As if Melisande hadn't been trying for hundreds of years. Hopelessness pressed on her as she stared at Kougar's rigid back. He was going to die. The poison would take him, just as it had taken so many she'd loved. And when it did, now that the mating bond was well and truly attached, she was going to suffer.
Even if she hated her mate, the bond's rupture would damage her.
And she didn't hate Kougar.
But neither did she love him as she once had, with that certainty, that wholehearted exuberance. What she'd once felt for him had long ago become twisted with dark layers of grief and horror and anger. Instinctively, she knew the best thing was for her to keep it that way.
Then maybe, when Kougar died, she wouldn't feel like she'd died, too.