Jag smiled. Hot damn, this is going to be fun.
Chapter Two
“Those heading west should be aware that last night Hawke and Kougar came across a draden swarm of nearly forty. They’re not just multiplying here, but apparently everywhere.” Lyon glanced at Olivia from the front of the war room. “You and your men are going to have to remain behind warding at night unless you’re with a group large enough to handle that many.”
Olivia nodded even though the warning didn’t apply to her at all. The draden were no threat to the draden-kissed. Their life forces were her favorite food. Of course, she couldn’t tell Lyon that. She couldn’t tell anyone. Not if she wanted to remain alive.
And her life was finally starting to mean something.
She’d had some initial discussions with Lyon about potentially setting up a permanent Guard auxiliary nearby, whose sole mission would be to aid the Feral Warriors in this new war against the Mage. Up until now, it had been her life’s work to destroy as many draden as possible. But now, with the Mage trying to free Satanan, her mission had changed. Finally, she had a chance to fight on the front lines, to make a difference on a grand scale, fighting Mage and Daemons…if Lyon was pleased with her work and the work of her men.
If Jag didn’t screw this up for her. She glanced toward the back wall, where her men, Niall and Ewan, stood, still glaring at Jag for his open sex talk and blatant disrespect of their team leader. Which of the three of them would she force to partner the jackass?
Even as she struggled to ignore Jag, the raw sexual nature of their very public discussion had left her throbbing and damp. If only she weren’t so bloody attracted to him. Despite his lousy social skills, every time he came near, she felt his hot gaze on her, stripping her of her clothes and heating her body from the inside out.
But she refused to let anyone know he affected her the way he did, especially Jag himself.
“Tighe, are you taking Delaney?” Lyon asked.
“I am. I need her FBI expertise.”
“Good enough.”
Olivia watched Jag’s gaze zero in on Tighe, a gleam of devilment leaping into his eyes. As his mouth opened, she instinctively tensed, knowing he was at it again.
“Sorry I won’t be joining you and your FBI mate, Stripes. I’ve been looking forward to that little three-some. Like I’ve said before, I’m happy to let you take her from the front while I take her in the rear.”
Olivia gave a jerk of disbelief, her gaze swinging between Lyon’s hard displeasure and Tighe’s raw fury. She was used to ribald male sex talk, but such blatant disrespect for another’s mate in front of not only the female herself, but one’s own superior, went beyond the pale.
The growl that ripped from Tighe’s throat sounded exactly like that of a furious jungle cat.
“Tighe.” Delaney grabbed her mate’s wrist. “Jag, for God’s sake, quit provoking him.”
Jag just grinned, as if that was exactly what he’d done.
“I know you want me, too, FBI. I see the way you look at me when I’m naked.”
“Jag.” Delaney’s voice was a deep groan of frustration.
Tighe’s fangs dropped, his claws unsheathing as his irises grew to fill his eyes, making them look like true tiger’s eyes. Though he hadn’t shifted—he’d only gone feral as they put it, that halfway place between man and beast—he presented a terrifying visage as he lunged across the table, taking Jag to the floor with a crash.
Olivia rose to her feet, watching in fascinated disbelief. As Tighe went for Jag’s throat, Jag’s own claws and fangs sprouted on a vicious smile as if the fight was exactly what he’d been gunning for.
What was the matter with the guy? Did he know how many Therians woke each morning racing to the mirror to see if they’d been marked as they slept? Did he have any idea how badly many Therians wanted to be part of this rarefied band that he so clearly took for granted?
The two Ferals fought tooth and fang, drawing blood, ripping one another’s flesh and clothes to shreds.
At least now she knew Jag didn’t have it in for her specifically. No, he seemed determined to make everyone furious with him.
As if he wanted their fury.
Recognition slammed into her. Damn. He acted as if he needed the punishment on some dark level he probably wasn’t even aware of. She’d lived with that kind of self-destructive need once. Was that his problem?
Or was he just a sociopathic jerk?
Lyon allowed the fight to continue for nearly three minutes before finally calling a stop to it.
“Enough!” Lyon roared, his voice thundering off the walls.
Instantly, Tighe shoved himself off Jag, his fangs and claws retracting. Blood splatters patterned his ripped clothes.
Jag stumbled back, the blood running freely down his face and neck. His cheek had been ripped open, but his eyes were alight with an unholy fire and keen satisfaction. He’d taken the worst of it by far, even though the two Ferals were, to all appearances, evenly matched. Instinct told her Jag wasn’t any less of a fighter. No, he’d intentionally drawn Tighe’s fury, then done little more than defend himself against any real damage.
Which just supported her theory that he’d invited the attack. He’d wanted the beating.
Lyon stepped between the two combatants, his own claws unsheathing as he shoved Jag back against the wall and dug his claws into the shifter’s bleeding neck.
A deep growl rumbled from Lyon’s throat. “For two and a half centuries, I’ve put up with your surly attitude because nothing I do makes a difference. Rile the other Ferals and me all you want, but you will not disrespect the women in this house. Do you understand?”
Jag just grinned. “Riling away.”
And he had, hadn’t he? Tighe was furious with him, as was Lyon.
Another deep lion growl rolled through the room. “Back off, Jag, or the instant those Daemons are dust, I’m going to throw you in the prison and leave you there to rot. I need a team, dammit. A team I can count on to work together to contain this threat. And I need you on it.”
Jag just smiled that small, nasty smile. “You’re looking a little tense there, Chief. That little mate of yours finally figure out she’s too good for you?”
Lyon yanked his claws from Jag’s throat and shoved him away. “Shut up, Jag.”
Olivia watched the confrontation with interest. She’d have been lying if she had said she didn’t enjoy watching Jag get his butt kicked. Except for that stab of unwanted empathy caused by the niggling feeling that she understood what drove him and the suspicion that deep inside he was hurting as badly as she once had. And she wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
She resumed her seat, crossing her legs. Regardless of what drove him, he was one messed-up male. She’d be out of her mind to agree to partner him. Yet could she really, in good conscience, make one of her own men go with him?
Jag straightened, his T-shirt hanging in shreds on his well-muscled torso, his camouflage pants stained with blood. As he reached for his chair, a flash of pink caught Olivia’s eye, and she turned to see the Ferals’ housekeeper, a striking, pink-feathered bird-woman, slowly amble into the room with a tray of steaming mugs, her flamingo legs taking long, awkward steps.
Olivia had met Pink briefly on her first visit and found the woman to be retiring in nature, uncomfortable with her odd appearance in the company of strangers.
“What the hell?” Niall muttered against the back wall, loud enough, unfortunately, for all to hear. He hadn’t been with her when she’d met Pink.
Olivia cringed.
Jag froze, going feral once more as he leaped at the unsuspecting man, pinning Niall against the wall with one clawed hand.
“Don’t disrespect the bird,” the Feral growled through wicked fangs.
Niall turned pale, the blood running into his shirt as he stared up at the furious shifter.
“I…” Niall’s gaze shot past Jag to Pink. “I apologize. I meant no offense.”
&n
bsp; “Jag,” Pink said softly.
Amazingly, the shifter responded to her as he’d responded to no one else, releasing Niall and whirling away with a low growl.
As Jag took his seat, retracting fangs and claws as he swiped away the blood from his already-healing face, his hard gaze slid over Olivia. In his eyes she saw real anger and a flash of true protectiveness.
Interesting. Apparently there were those he wouldn’t torment.
Pink moved away, offering mugs around the room.
Jag’s gaze locked on Olivia, his lip curling, his look turning insolent as his gaze dropped to her breast. Coming to Pink’s defense had cracked his hard-ass façade and he knew it, which was why he was doubling up on the insolence. Transparent as glass.
Yet knowing why he stared at her breast did nothing to protect her from her body’s untoward reaction. Though she fought to ignore his laser stare, she felt her breasts tightening beneath his fierce regard, her nipples turning to small, hard buds. Heat burst inside her, raising her temperature in a telltale flush that warmed her skin and charged her blood. Goddess, what he did to her.
The more time she spent around him, the less control she had over her body’s reaction to him. And she needed that control, badly. Part of her trouble was that she was getting hungry. Not for food, but for the life energy all draden-kissed needed to survive. Little pinpricks danced over her skin, telling her it was time to feed.
Slowly, carefully, she drew energy out of the air, as she often did. She drank a mere sip of the raw, testosterone-laden strength that filled the room, skimming a fine layer of life force that none would feel. That none would miss.
Jag snarled, a low, dangerous, animalistic sound, drawing Olivia’s startled gaze. And everyone else’s.
Jag rose to his feet, his own gaze whipping across the table to spear Paenther. “That witch of yours is doing something again. I can feel the energy rippling over my skin.”
Skye’s head snapped up with surprise.
Olivia ceased feeding abruptly. He’d felt her. No way. Impossible.
Paenther uncrossed his arms, one hand clasping Skye’s shoulder protectively as the other hovered over his knife. “Skye is as loyal to the Ferals as anyone here.”
Tighe shook his head. “I don’t feel anything.”
“Me either,” Wulfe said.
Lyon’s gaze zeroed in on Jag, his expression revealing wariness and concern, but no doubt. “What exactly are you feeling?” Jag might be a jerk, but clearly the Chief of the Ferals knew him well enough to know he wasn’t making this up.
“Something…” Jag shook his head. “It’s gone.”
Olivia flushed hot, then cold. No one had ever sensed her feeding before.
“It felt like magic?”
“I don’t know. Not like Skye’s. At least not like what I felt with her before.”
Lyon turned to the scarred warrior. “Wulfe, get the Shaman over here. B.P. and Skye, make sure there’s no damned Mage in this house.” He cringed. “Forgive me, Skye. I meant, no unwanted Mage in this house.”
Skye nodded, a small, wry smile on her mouth. Paenther squeezed her shoulder, then held out his hand to her, and the pair followed Wulfe out the door.
Lyon’s gaze swung back to Jag. “If you feel it again, I want to know.”
Jag gave Lyon a cocky salute. “Aye, aye, Captain.”
Olivia swallowed hard, willing her pulse to slow before she gave herself away. Ferals were reputed to be able to hear even a racing heart. Whether their hearing was really that acute, she didn’t know, but now wasn’t the time to test it.
Dammit, how was she supposed to feed if Jag could feel her doing it? She couldn’t. Not with him anywhere close.
Which made her decision about partnering him easy and critical.
She most certainly could not.
She’d long ago learned to control her feeding so that she stole only low levels of energy, not enough to harm anyone. But she wasn’t sure she could shut it off completely for any length of time. She’d never had to try. What if she forgot? What if, in her sleep, she started to suck energy? With Jag close enough to feel her, sooner or later he’d figure it out. Sooner or later the game would be up.
Her life would be over—the life her father had sacrificed his own for. Although Therian law no longer demanded death to the draden-kissed, those revealed had a habit of swiftly disappearing. At the very least, she’d be kicked out of the Guard and ostracized by the entire race. The only ones who would let her live among them were the humans, who didn’t know what she was in the first place.
No, this was not a risk she could afford to take. Her heart sank as her grand hopes crashed around her feet. There would be no living near Feral House, not for her. Someone else would have to lead the Feral’s Guard auxiliary.
She’d help them find the Daemons because she’d committed to doing so and because it was too late to fly in a replacement. But once this assignment was done, she’d return to Scotland, far, far away from the only man to pose a real threat to her life since she was draden-kissed all those centuries ago.
The first man to get under her skin in too many years to count.
Jag.
Chapter Three
Kougar sliced the knife across his wrist, murmuring the words of the ancient chant as he slowly followed Hawke around the small pond deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. The night was clear but for a thin fog that had formed after midnight. The breeze toyed with Kougar’s short hair, but it barely registered any more than the sting of the blade or the blood running across his wrist. He’d long ago lost any ability to feel deeply.
His mind was focused on the task at hand, setting the trap to catch one of the three wraith Daemons the Mage had set loose on the world. For once, everything had come together.
This time, it was going to work.
Wraith Daemons required a certain kind of trap—a small body of water. In the old days, when Daemons were everywhere, the Therians had created their own by digging holes and letting the rains fill them before binding them with blood. But such traps were of limited use when hunting a single moving target. So far, of no use.
While Hawke sprinkled the concoction of binding herbs, Kougar added the key ingredient.
Blood.
“If my calculations are right, we should be directly in his path,” Hawke said over his shoulder, his voice even and low. “Finally.”
For a week, they’d been tracking one particular Daemon; the three appeared to have taken off in different directions after the destruction of the cave where they’d been freed. This one headed northeast, traveling at a fast clip, though Kougar doubted he had a specific destination. Wraith Daemons had always been nonthinking predators of the worst kind.
Hawke’s calculations said the Daemon would pass close to this spot tonight. For once, they’d found a small pond right where they needed it to be.
Tonight, they had to catch him.
When they’d finished the circle, Hawke turned to him, one wing-shaped brow lifting. “Another round, just to be sure?” In the shadows of night, Hawke reminded him fiercely of the hawk shifter who’d come before him, the one the Ferals had called the Wind. An old, old Feral, and old friend, who had been killed in a Mage ambush a century and a half ago. The Wind had been Hawke’s father, and Kougar often saw the father in the son.
Kougar nodded. “Another round.”
As they once more walked the pond’s damp perimeter, he felt the silent communion of the two animals, cougar and hawk, creatures who’d known one another for eons. In both the hawk spirit and the feral in which he resided, Kougar had always found wisdom and a fierce, yet quiet strength. When the Wind died, Kougar had lost his last link to the old times, his last link to the man he’d been before. He’d feared that the coldness that had long ago encased his heart and stolen his ability to feel might finally destroy the last of his humanity. But the son and the hawk spirit itself had both reached out, filling the void left by the Wind’s passing, t
ethering Kougar to the world of flesh and blood. Of duty and honor.
Kougar’s heart might be gone, but thanks to Hawke, he still felt glimmers of emotion. Friendship. Loyalty. Though Hawke knew little about Kougar or his past, he knew something, which was more than anyone else. Of all the Ferals, Hawke was the only one he ever found himself opening up to. Despite Hawke’s keen and innate curiosity, he never pressed for answers. Which was why Kougar sometimes gave them to him.
When they’d gone around the pond a second time, binding tight the net of magic, the two shape-shifters moved back into the shadows of the trees to wait.
“It’s said the Ilinas used to help the Therians set these traps,” Hawke murmured.
A shard of ice contracted inside Kougar’s chest. “They did. Ilina blood and magic was mixed with Therian.”
“But you believe the traps will work with Therian alone?”
“They’d better.”
Hawke’s body went still as it often did when his mind was in full swing. “It’s said the Ilinas were mist creatures, spiritlike in their natural state.”
“That’s true.”
“Yet they bled?”
“They could turn to flesh and blood at will, and remain that way. In that state, their bodies were much like any Therian’s.”
“You knew Ilinas, of course.”
Hawke alone knew how old he was. “Of course.”
The hawk shifter glanced at him, curiosity a living thing in his eyes. “Do you know how they came to be extinct?”
The muscles in Kougar’s face clenched. He knew, but he couldn’t have told Hawke if his life depended on it. He said nothing, and Hawke didn’t press.
“Were they as beautiful as stories claim?”
“They were as varied in looks as Therian women, petite in build, with eyes…” He glanced at his companion. “They possessed the brightest blue, green, or aqua eyes of any women I’ve ever seen.”
Hawke’s brow lifted, a glimmer of humor easing his expression. “If anyone else had said that, I might accuse him of waxing poetic.”
Feral warrior 4- Rapture Untamed Page 3
