"I hate you." Kara lunged toward Lyon, fury blazing through her. Then stopped abruptly as she saw the light spark in his eyes, his irises expanding until they were glowing amber fury.
Real fear mixed with her anger.
He grabbed her shoulders, his claws pressing against her flesh. "What was your plan, Kara? To try to control us?"
"No! I haven't been, working against you."
"To break down our defenses until you could what?" He shook her. "What have you done?"
She tried to knee him in the groin, but his reflexes were too quick. His knee knocked hers away, deflecting the blow. Outrage threatened to choke her. The injustice of his accusations. The betrayal of everything she'd believed he was.
"I thought I was human. Human. You were the one who ripped me from my life, who insisted I was Therian, who told me I was the Radiant and was doomed to be your power plug for the rest of my life. I don't know what I am . I've never pretended to know." She kicked at his jeans-clad shins, hurting her bare toes, but her fury needed an outlet. She had to hurt him somewhere. Somewhere. Because, dear God, his betrayal was killing her.
"You said you'd protect me, and I trusted you. I trusted you ."
He growled and pushed her hard against the rock wall at her back, getting in her face, his fangs glistening. "What spells have you cast over me, witch ? You made me want you. You drove me to my knees with lust for you. I've never cared whose legs spread for me, but you changed that, didn't you? You made me want you ."
"I didn't do anything! Or if I did, I didn't do it on purpose."
"Tell me what you've done."
"Go to hell,", she shrieked at him. "You don't believe me. You're not even listening to me."
"You made me want you. Now you're going to live with it." His face loomed close, his fangs disappearing a heartbeat before his mouth was on hers, grinding against hers until she couldn't breathe.
She'd wanted him to kiss her. How many times had she wanted him to kiss her? But not like this.
Kara wrenched her mouth away. "I thought you refused to touch me."
"I thought your mate had been chosen for you. Now I know you bewitched me, then made me think I couldn't have you. To torture me."
She laughed, but the sound was bitter, then gone when his mouth captured hers again.
Kara pushed against his shoulders, but she might as well have been trying to push away a tank. No matter how hard she beat at him, he didn't budge, just ground his mouth harder against hers until she tasted blood.
Her eyes burned with tears. She'd loved him. How could she have been so wrong?
His hands covered her breasts, squeezing, kneading, raising a fire she didn't want, and pulling a moan from her throat. The kiss changed, no longer punishing, but hot. Desperate.
His tongue stroked her lips until she let him in, that single stroke melting her body, melting her resistance. With a groan, his tongue swept inside her mouth, staking its claim, stroking her own until she was spinning out of control. The first release ripped through her, scattering her to the winds.
She came back to herself clinging to him, her fingers buried in his hair, her body rocking hard against his.
Lyon growled and pulled her hard against him. "You want me."
"Yes." Her affirmation was little more than a gasp, but there was no denying it. She didn't want to want him, but her body was on fire, burning from the inside out.
He pushed her back, then sheathed his claws and stripped out of his clothes, tossing them onto the rock. He stood before her, bathed in moonlight, wild and untamed, more beautiful than any man ever made. On his arm, the silver armband gleamed and shone, the jeweled eyes of its lion's head shining as brightly as Lyon's own. His shoulders wide and strong, his chest ripped with muscle, tapering to a hard abdomen, he was glorious.
Between his legs, his erection curved toward her, thick and long and ready.
His eyes met hers, their golden glow hard. Hot. "Take off your gown, witch, or I'll rip it off you."
She stared at him, her breath lost somewhere between her lungs and her throat, the pulse pounding in her neck. Her legs had gone weak, a dampness forming between her thighs: With trembling fingers, she lifted the hem of her short nightgown and pulled it over her head, tossing it aside.
Lyon's eyes grew impossibly hotter as his gaze traveled slowly down her body, stopping at the juncture of her thighs. The melting inside her intensified, the heat between her legs growing until she thought her entire body would go up in flames.
He closed the distance between them and grabbed her arm. She gasped with pain as his hand closed over one of the draden bites. She'd forgotten the bites, the nipping pain spiraling into the greater haze of sensation as he turned her around and pushed her against the rock face.
"I've got to have you, Kara. I can't wait." As his hands grabbed her wrists, pinning her hands to the rock above her head, his leg parted her thighs. His thick erection slid down the curve of her rear, sliding through the crease. In one hard thrust, he entered her from behind, filling her, stretching her almost to the point of pain. He gave a guttural cry of pleasure, pulled nearly all the way out, then slammed home again, pressing her hard against the rock.
At the exquisite feel of his domination, Kara felt a wild stirring inside that made her almost believe her ancestors, millennia back, were shape-shifters, too. Animals. In the distance, a dog barked as if sensing the wildness.
Lyon's mouth came down on her arm, his tongue stroking one of the draden bites, stealing the pain. Each stroke of his tongue sent heat shooting to her core, making hex wetter, easing the thrusts of his erection.
Her body tightened, rising higher, to a crescendo she knew instinctively would surpass everything that had come before.
Four strokes, five, and she was gasping, shattering, her inner muscles squeezing him as she came. Still he rammed into her, his mouth moving to a different wound until she fell apart again. Over and over, seven times, eight, he brought her to climax before he finally roared his own release.
For long moments, he pressed against her, filling her, his ragged breath stirring her hair. Then he pulled out of her and turned her to face him, still pinning her hands above her head.
"I'm not through with you."
She tilted her head back to look up into his eyes, eyes shining with a fierce brightness that mocked the dark. "Good."
His teeth flashed for one instant before he swept her up and deposited her on her back on the cold rock, then knelt at her feet and lifted her ankle to his mouth where another of the little fiends had bitten her. She remembered how the rock had warmed to her when she'd tried to pull the power that morning, and later when she'd finally gone radiant. Pressing her palms to the cold stone, she pulled.
Almost at once, the rock began to warm, easing the chill of the air on her damp flesh.
"Do it," Lyon growled.
"Do what?"
"Pull the flame. See if you can go Radiant. It'll help heal these wounds." His tongue stroked her ankle, stealing her thought as her pulsing womb tightened all over again. He brought her to climax four times before she could concentrate enough to pull the flame. She'd just pulled it when his tongue stroke sent her into a fifth raging climax. Without realizing what she was doing, she pulled the flame inside and felt it burst within her, filling her with light and warmth even as she cried out with the pleasure of the release.
And then Lyon was on top of her, shoving deep inside her, his mouth drinking from hers, his body hard and demanding as he drove her up yet again.
But this time, when she broke, the pleasure nearly sent her out of her body, and Lyon was there with her. They cried out as one. Fell as one.
Kara cradled his weight, loving the feel of him on top of her, inside her, as she struggled to catch her breath and knew he did the same.
Of their own accord, her hands stroked his damp back, reveling in the play of muscles along its width. She hated what he'd done to her. Hated that he didn't believe her. But she didn't hate him. She couldn't hate him. Even when he thought she was his enemy, he'd saved her from certain death. Even when he was stealing his pleasure from her body, he'd returned it a hundred times over. And he'd taken the time, made the effort, to heal her wounds.
Her emotions were a confused mess, too tangled to figure out. She still loved him. That was the only thing she was sure of. But she was beginning to understand the importance of the Radiant. And she didn't know if she could convince them she could do the job even if she wasn't the Therian they'd thought her. She didn't know how to convince them. She barely understood the difference between the races herself.
Her life, her fate, were out of her hands. From the moment she'd first seen Lyon in her kitchen at home, her fate had ceased to be her own. Maybe it had never been her own. Even though she hadn't known it, she'd always belonged to this world. Of Ferals and Mage, of magic and radiance and terror.
As she held Lyon, a strange and profound peace settled over her. A rightness. As if this place, this moment, this man, were what she'd been waiting for all her life.
All she could do was hope this wasn't the end.
Lyon wasn't sure how long he'd lain Within the cradle of Kara's arms and the tight welcome of her body. All he knew was, he never wanted to leave. Was this, too, bewitchment? Or something more? Something all Kara.
He pulled out of her and rolled away, to lie on his back beside her.
He turned his head to look at her, his breath catching at her shining beauty. "You're radiant."
Her head rolled toward him until she met his gaze. There was something warm within the wariness and confusion in her eyes. "How can I go radiant if I'm a Mage?"
"I don't know. Why don't you have the Mage eyes? You're probably only half-Mage."
"Can you have a Radiant who's half-Mage?"
He turned his face to the stars, unable to voice the truth. But Kara was too sharp to need it spelled out for her.
"You'll kill me to make way for my replacement." Her words were simply said, without emotion. But he felt her pain, the pain of betrayal. "Why didn't you just let the draden have me? Why did you save me and heal me if you're only going to kill me again?"
"I don't know. It's probably the spell you put on me. I still feel protective of you."
"I didn't put a spell on you, Lyon." She rolled onto her stomach, rising on her arms to look down at him. Her body still glowed, but in her eyes, he saw a hurt and a bleakness that raked at his soul. "You've been sensing and pulling my emotions since you found me in Spearsville. Wouldn't you know if I've been lying?"
He tucked his hand behind his head as he looked up at her. "Yesterday, I'd have said yes. Absolutely. I believed everything you told me. Tonight, I'm not so sure." But searching her eyes he saw no cunning lurking in those blue depths. No slyness. In the emotion that rolled out of her he felt an anguish of the spirit that had his beast whimpering in pain. With his free hand he reached for her, needing to touch her, to comfort them both.
He stroked her cheek. "Goddess help me, but I want to believe you."
She turned her face and kissed his palm. "If I've done anything to hurt you or yours, it was an accident, Lyon. I would never hurt you on purpose." The truth of her words swam in her eyes and sank into his heart, making him ache.
With his thumb, he traced her cheekbone. "Even after I cut you?" The thought of what he'd done to her made him ill. He reached for her and pulled her on top of him, cradling her head beneath his chin.
He shouldn't care. She's Mage , his mind railed.
She's Kara , his heart replied.
All he knew was she was hurting, and it was his fault.
"I'm sorry, little one. What I did was inexcusable." Barbaric. He'd felt that cantric and all he could think was that she'd betrayed him. That she'd opened him up, made him feel, and it was all a lie. She was a lie. He'd attacked her. Turned on her without asking a single question. Judge, jury, and executioner in one brutal act.
His hands slid over her back, comforting. Begging forgiveness. "You had to have felt that cantric before."
"I didn't. As deep as it was buried, how would I have felt it? I'm not in the habit of exploring the bones in my rear. You only found it because you were pressing so hard."
What she said might be true, he supposed. "When I felt it, I went a little berserk."
Her cheek brushed his collarbone, her soft hair sliding against his chin. "I noticed. Is there anything left of my room?"
"Not much. I don't think I hurt the bed, but I can't entirely remember." His hand slid carefully over the place where he'd cut her. "Are you okay?"
"It's healed."
Physically. The emotional pain he'd caused her would take far longer. He marveled that she trusted him to hold her after that. He felt no hate coming from her, though he thought he just might hate himself.
He stroked her hip and buttocks where he'd hurt her, his fingers exploring the sweetness of her curves. His body responded and rose to the feel of. her along his length, her naked breasts soft against his chest, the sweet scent of her hair. His senses swam and goddess, but he wanted her. He had to have her again.
His fingers dug into her buttocks, kneading, pressing her against the arousal growing thick and heavy between their bodies. He reached lower, sliding to the crevice of her rear, and down, past the tight pucker of her anus, to the soft, wet folds he sought.
As he stroked her, dipping his finger into her heat, Kara moaned, rocking against his hand.
His mouth brushed her hair. "Do you want me again?"
"Yes. Always ." She lifted her face for his kiss, and he didn't disappoint her. He pulled her head down, cradling it as his tongue drove into her mouth. A groan broke free of his throat while between their bodies his erection surged and bucked, demanding attention.
He kissed her hard and long, then released her head to reach for her hips. She propped herself up on his chest, and he lifted her and drove himself deep inside, her hot, slick walls expanding to fit him. He lifted her hips, pulling nearly out of her, then pushed home again, his hips rushing up to meet hers. Over and over again, he took her, watching the passion drench her radiant face. But it wasn't enough.
He rolled her beneath him and covered her mouth with his kiss, needing to erase the distance between them. His body craved the feel of her, everywhere. Inside, outside. No space. In that moment, if he could have crawled inside her, he'd have done so. Or better, yet, tucked her inside him. Where he could keep her safe. His.
As he captured her mouth and stroked her tongue, he sent her crying out with a release that clutched him hard enough to send him spinning after her.
His body warm and sated, he dropped his head to her shoulder even as his mind railed at his body's betrayal. She's Mage. The enemy .
Unable to stop himself, he opened fully to her, feeling her emotions, knowing her heart.
And his mind was finally forced to accept what his heart had known all along. No matter what Kara was., she was innocent of malice and subterfuge.
She might be Mage, but she wasn't his enemy.
Unfortunately, he wasn't sure it mattered.
As Chief of the Ferals, his first duty was to his men and his race.
No matter what his heart wanted, or what his beast demanded, he would do what he must.
Even if it meant destroying the only light that had ever warmed the dark caverns of his soul.
CHAPTER 17
Kara felt them before she saw them. That odd energy like ants crawling over her skin. Her eyes flew open at the exact moment Lyon tensed and rolled off her.
"Draden," they said together. The little demons were back, hovering barely ten feet above their heads.
Lyon lunged for his pants and his knives. "The circle's weakening."
"Can you call it again?" Kara scrambled up and grabbed her nightgown. Safety was a fleeting thing around here.
"Not until it dissolves, but by then, it may be too late." He pulled two switchblades and a cell phone from his pockets and snapped open the phone.
"Goddess rock. We've got a draden swarm. Bring the smallest ritual robe and three men to guard her."
He flipped the phone shut and dressed. "Stay radiant, Kara. If this magic fails, they'll be all over you again if you don't."
"What about you?" She pulled on the little nightie, wishing she'd worn something thicker to bed. Like a suit of armor. "Don't they bite you, too?"
"They do, but when you're around, they tend to do little more than nip before they realize I'm not the one they want. The tiny nips will usually heal on their own."
"Why am I the one they want?"
"Because your energy, now that it's been tapped, is the purest. It's the only energy the sires can feed from."
"The sires?"
Dressed and armed, he stood beside her, his gaze fixed on the enemy above. "The easiest way to understand draden is to think of a bee colony. The sires are like the queens, the only ones capable of reproducing, though they reproduce through energy. Each sire has its own swarm."
She stared at him. "I thought the term sire was male. And queen is definitely female."
His gaze dropped to her with a quick roll of his eyes. "These are mindless, soulless energy creatures, so just go with me on this one."
"The sires can only feed from me? So they can only survive by attacking me?"
"They don't have to attack, though they will it they get the chance. They can survive by simply being near you and feeding off your energy from a distance, though not too great a one. They also get energy secondhand through the swarm. Whatever energy any of the draden swarm picks up from you goes back to the sire."
She watched them above heir, the glow from her own body illuminating the hideous faces and jagged, terrifying teeth. A hard shudder tore through her. As one swooped toward her, stopping only a few feet in front of her face, she pressed back against the rock behind her.
"They're getting closer."
Lyon stepped in front of her, hacking up until he pressed her against the rock. "The circle's failing. If they break through, cover your face and stay radiant. I'll kill as many of them as I can until my men arrive."
"I thought I was safe as long as I stayed radiant."
"You are. But the moment you lose it, they'll be on you. I don't want to take any chances."
"What about you? If they can't attack me, they'll feed from you." Her fingers gripped his waist as the awful realization hit her hard. "They'll kill you."
"Just stay radiant, Kara. Stay radiant to keep the draden off you and to prove to my men when they arrive that you're more than Mage. Or you're dead either way."
Her arms slid around him. "Let me stand in front, Lyon. As long as I'm radiant, let me shield you."
She felt his hand grasp hers and squeeze gently. "No."
"Then at least give me one of your knives. I can help keep them off you as you did for me."
He didn't respond immediately, then he moved, reached for something. And a deadly blade glinted in her own glow as he handed it back to her.
"Though you might have cause, after what I did to you tonight, I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from stabbing me. At least until we get home. If you weaken me any further, this circle is going to fail entirely."
"I'm not going to stab you. On purpose, at least. I've never used a knife before on anything that moved."
"I'll consider myself warned."
"How long dp you think we have?"
"I don't know how long the circle's going to last. But my men will be here in a couple of minutes."
"Won't the draden just swarm them, too?"
"Right now, because they sense you, they're far more interested in you. By the time they pay the other Ferals much notice, they'll be inside the circle, helping me shore it up. Once the draden take off again, we'll leave."
If his men got here in time.
Kara pressed her forehead against Lyon's warm back, her heart beginning to pound in her chest as it had so many times since she'd arrived here.
But this fear felt different. It was different. Because she knew the source. It came from her mind and senses and the knowledge that if the circle failed, they would almost certainly both die.
"How did you ever survive as a child? Weren't there draden in London back then?"
"There were, from time to time, but they were rare. London wasn't the home of the Radiant at that time. Since the sires follow the Radiant and swarms follows the sires, there are few draden elsewhere, though there are always rogues."
"So most of the world's draden right now are here."
"Yes. Which works for us since, in our animal forms, we're well designed to hunt and destroy them."
"But you never get them all."
"No. We can usually keep them under control, but nine Ferals can only do so much."
"I don't understand how they're like bees if they were somehow left over from the Daemons."
"They're not like bees except for the fact that they swarm and, like bees, have only one member of a swarm who can reproduce. Otherwise, they're totally different. The Daemons may have possessed separate consciousnesses, but they were ail linked to the High Daemon, Satanan."
"Satanan? Satan ?"
"Hard to say if they're one and the same, though the legends of the humans' Satan may well be based on Satanan. Goddess knows, they had reason to fear him. But he never lived in a place called Hell. Satanan was very much a creature of the Earth, as we all are.
"When Satanan was imprisoned in the blade, so too were the souls of the others. An entire race. Since Daemons are energy creatures instead of blood and water, the life forces that were left behind were only wraiths of the original. Draden. Without minds, without souls, they live by sucking energy from Therians, especially the Radiant. Like all nature's creatures, they learned to reproduce or they would have died off."
"What would happen if the Daemons were ever freed from the blade?"
"They'll flow back to the draden, reanimating them to their original form. But since the Daemons in their true form are cunning, sentient beings, they'll return to feeding the way they did millennia ago, on the pain and fear of the creatures they captured."
"Animals?"
"Humans. Most often children. By the thousands."
Kara shivered. "They won't be freed, will they?"
"No. Only through the will of all the Ferals and the blood of their Radiant will that scourge be released upon the Earth again. And none of us will ever let it happen."
The draden seemed to be pressing lower.
"Get down, Kara."
She slid down the rock, pulling her knees tight to her chest as Lyon squatted in front of her.
"What's happening?" she asked. "The circle seems to be getting smaller."
"It is. I can feel the edges of it. The dome usually covers the entire rock, but we're down to about six feet by six. I'm shoving at it as hard as I can, but my power's drained too far. Until we get you ascended"
He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to. They both knew her Ascension was suddenly in serious doubt.
A dog barked in the distance. To Tier surprise, Lyon answered, mimicking the sound rather amazingly.
"They're coming."
"That was one of your men?"
"A dog bark is a natural sound around here and draws less attention than shouting. Especially at this hour."
"Yeah, I guess a roar would stand out."
He reached behind him, his hand gripping her knee. "Whatever happens, I want you to know I'm proud of you."
"Why?"
"Because I know how scared you are. It throbs around me like a pulse beneath my skin. Yet you're solid. Demanding a weapon. Trying to guard me."
His words warmed her.
"You'd have made us a damned fine Radiant."
Would have. If she hadn't been Mage. The warmth died in a wash of cold.
"Here come my men," Lyon said as he crowded her against the wall.
In a pounding rush, a swing of knives, and a shout of magic incantation, the Feral Circle burst wide again, and the draden were flung away. Lyon rose and pulled her to her feet beside him. In the dradens' stead, stood three Ferals, watching her. In Tighe's eyes, she saw deep disappointment, in Jag's, wary curiosity. And in Paenther's nothing less than raw hatred. Any hope she'd harbored that the men might come to her defense died with that blast of enmity.
"How's she radiant if she's Mage?" Jag wanted to know.
"Black magic," Paenther growled.
Lyon shook his head. "I think she's part Mage. And I don't think she knew it. But that discussion will keep until we get home."
"Leave her for the draden," Paenther urged. "We'll never ascend her."
Kara recoiled from the hatred in his voice.
"I said we'll discuss her fate when we get back to the house," Lyon snapped. "For now, she's your Radiant, and you will protect her with your life. Whether you like it or not."
Tension pulsed between them, but Lyon was fully in charge. His hand landed on her shoulder. "I want you to stay radiant as long as you can, but you've got to stay covered. If any humans see you, it'll cause problems."
Jag tossed a black bundle to Lyon, and he shook it out, revealing a hooded robe, like the ones in her nightmares. A shudder went through her, but she let him put it over her, hiding her light, casting them all back into the night's shadows.
The robe had obviously been made for a Feral The hem pooled on the ground at her feet, the sleeves hanging below her fingertips. Running in this thing wasn't going to be fun.
"Roar," Tighe said. "Her radiance will only draw the draden back faster."
" She will be protected . No more discussion. We're going." He pulled the hood over her head until she could barely see out.
She grabbed up the robe, holding it high enough that she wouldn't trip over it with one hand, while Lyon took hold of her free hand.
"We're going back through the woods, the same way we came when I drove you over here this afternoon. Keep your head down and run."
Paenther led the way, Jag close behind him. Tighe took up the rear as they ran up the steep, rocky path and into the woods. Lyon held her tight, pulling her nearly off her feet, but she flew beside him, knowing he was her only hope of survival, in so many ways.
As the tree limbs tore at her hood, desolation clawed at her courage. They didn't want her. They didn't trust her. Yet they couldn't get another Radiant until she died. Even Lyon, who said he believed her, couldn't promise he'd protect her. Because his goal, his own desperate need, was to get a Radiant ascended.
He didn't want to destroy her. She felt that in everything he did. But he was too determined a leader to shy away from whatever must be done.
They reached Jag's Hummer just as the first of the draden were about to descend.
"The cars are warded against draden attack," Lyon told her, as Jag put the car in gear and took off. "They can't even sense you in here, so they shouldn't follow us."
She hadn't asked, though her question had been there. Had he felt it, that question? Was he that attuned to her now?
"That's good," she murmured. "I lost the radiance."
"You've lost contact with the Earth."
She was wedged tight between Lyon and Paenther, the two huge males taking up far more than their share of the seat. But Lyon's arm was around her and stayed that way for the drive back to Feral House.
Jag drove right up to the front door, and they ran into the house without incident. As Lyon predicted, the draden hadn't followed them.
If she'd thought she was returning to a house as dark as the one she'd left, she was mistaken. Kougar, Hawke, and Vhyper stood in the various doorways of the fully lit foyer, watching her with dark, menacing eyes. Mage meant enemy to them and, dear God, she couldn't think of any group she less wanted as her enemy.
She sidled closer to Lyon and he snatched her hand, pulling, her against him.
Vhyper pushed away from the wall where he'd been waiting, fury in every line of his body as he entered the foyer, stopping inches from Lyon's face.
"You mated with her, you bastard. I can smell it. She's mine!"
Lyon growled, deep in his throat. "She's Mage. She's no one's."
"Like hell. The Pairing was true. But you couldn't keep your hands off her. You took her for yourself. And now you're trying to make excuses. She's mine ."
Lyon snarled. "No one touches her but me until we get this sorted out. No one!" He looked at Paenther. "How soon until the Shaman gets here?"