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Ariana's fingers twisted together as she saw glimpses of the world he'd lived in, flashes of the horrors the Ilina queen had witnessed in that time. The suffering.
Her chest hurt from the pain she was causing Kougar by forcing him to go back there. To remember his own suffering. Part of her wanted to tell him to stop. That he didn't have to continue. But a wiser part of her knew he did. If he didn't want to speak of the past, there was a reason.
"Satanan's power was growing quickly, alarmingly so. Many of the Therian clans banded together and attempted to stop him, but we failed. Many died. The Mage fought their own war against the Daemons; but as Satanan's power grew, their magic was of less and less use. It all came to a head during the winter solstice when I was half a century old. During the week before the solstice, the Daemons captured dozens of shifters and Mage, and at least a thousand humans. We tried to find where they'd taken them; but the Daemons had magic and flight, and even the bird shifters among us couldn't follow.
"Finally, we learned what Satanan was up to--a powerful ritual to create more Daemons, tripling their numbers. " He stopped, his gaze spearing her, going right through her. "For centuries afterward, that night was called the Night of Screams. " Turning away in the next breath, he moved toward the balcony again, and she followed.
"The situation went from bad to desperate as the Daemon numbers trebled, and it became clear Satanan's goal wasn't survival but domination. Most agree the Daemon Wars started that night, the Night of Screams. And it took another fifty years for the immortal forces to finally band together into one cohesive unit to vanquish him. The Mage were the ones who came up with the ritual to lock Satanan and his horde in the Daemon blade, but the magical energy required was far more than they had, and Ilina energy was ill suited. The Therians had to come on board. All of them. And it was a hard sell. All knew draining their power was dangerous. If the ritual failed, Satanan would easily destroy us all. "
Leaning forward, he rested his powerful forearms on the thick gold railing and stared out over the garden as if oblivious to the celebration taking place below. He was caught in another time, and all Ariana could do was stand beside him. And listen.
"What no one knew was that the vast majority of the magic that went into that ritual would never return. It's said that the Therians and Mage willingly mortgaged their power to defeat Satanan, but that's not entirely true. We gave of our power believing it would be replenished in short order. It wasn't.
"The ritual worked. Satanan and the souls of his horde were captured in the blade. But the Mage and Therian alliance severed almost immediately afterward as both claimed the right to guard the blade. Still, celebrations broke out in every corner of the immortal world, until the sun set, and we saw the draden for the first time. While we'd captured the souls of Satanan's horde, small, vicious remnants of them remained. Life-eating remnants that fed primarily on Therian energy. Hundreds of Therians died over the next weeks as we fought to find a way to protect ourselves against them. For nearly a week, no Therian shifted, but we still believed our power would return. The Radiants worked feverishly to pull the energy from the Earth--in those days, every clan had its own Radiant; but they, too, had lost their power and could do nothing. Finally, one of the lions shifted. I heard his roar that day, and it was a glorious sound. It was beginning, we thought. All would be back to normal soon. "
He dropped his head. "We were wrong. Others regained the power to shift. One here, another there. " He looked up again, his eyes unseeing. "It was days before we began to realize only one from each clan had regained his or her power. But in many of the clans, no one had regained that power and never did. It was weeks before the fear set in that the healing was over. That those who had not been able to shift again never would. "
He shook his head, lost in the past. "The anger. The fury. I know they were terrified, but . . . goddess. " A pulse of pure anguish escaped the mating bond, telling her he must be holding the emotions close with an iron fist.
And suddenly she understood. "You were the only one able to shift among the cougars. "
Kougar turned to her slowly as if he'd forgotten she was there. "Yes. "
"And they turned on you. " Ariana fisted and flexed her hands, easing the prickly discomfort of the poison's rising hunger.
His mouth compressed, his gaze glazing over as he once more faced the garden. And the past.
"The first of the jaguars to shift had been attacked by his clan in a jealous rage and killed. Three weeks later, another was marked. Rumor--true, as it turned out--raced through the clans that only one of each line would be marked at a time, another to take his place upon his death. And suddenly we were all in danger. Men I'd lived with, fought with, my family, turned on me. "
Laughter rang out from below, a sharp counterpoint to the ugliness of the past.
"Three of my clan mates, the closest of my brothers, helped me escape. Together, we fled to a cave the clan often used during hunting, where they promised to defend me, to watch my back until the anger died down. " The muscle in his cheek leaped, his mouth taking on a hard, terrible line. "It was a setup. A trap. My father, the clan chief awaited us in that cave, along with the clan's seven strongest fighters. It was his right to be the clan's shifter, he said. A right I'd stolen. And the punishment was death. "
As Kougar spoke, his hands moved to the railing. Ariana watched silently as the gold reshaped beneath the fury of his fingers.
"I shifted and fought my way out of there, barely escaping with my life. Never before or since have I run from a fight; but, despite their betrayal, I couldn't kill them. They were my brothers, my family.
"A horse shifter, the horse shifter, came upon me as I raced on bloody paws across the valley, badly injured, my clan mates in pursuit. The horse told me to shift and hop on, and I did. He, too, had been attacked. While there had never been any love lost between the cougar and horse clans, we became brothers that day. He was the only one in my life who didn't have a reason to kill me. Over the course of the next few weeks, most of the remaining shifters came together, bound by a common strength and a common enemy--the rest of our race. Almost too late, we found the one remaining Radiant and brought her to us. Then we fled to build a stronghold from which to defend ourselves.
"When it became clear that our combined might could not be overcome, the Therians ceased to attack us. Slowly, over the course of years, the nonshifters lost the power they'd once had, the disparity in strength becoming greater and greater. "
Kougar fell silent.
Ariana wanted to move closer, but stayed where she was, his past like a wall between them.
"The only ones you could trust were the Feral Warriors," she said quietly.
"Yes. "
And they still were. He might have loved her once, but he'd never fully trusted her because she doubted he could trust anyone but his Feral brothers anymore. And she'd only made it worse by betraying him, too, by severing the mating bond and never telling him she was still alive.
Goddess. How could I have ever thought we might still have a future?
She swallowed hard, struggling to ignore the increasingly uncomfortable prickling in her palms as she wished there was a way to make up for the pain she'd caused him. As she wished she knew how to make it right between them.
She'd wanted the truth. Now, having heard it, she realized how much further apart they were--so much further than she'd thought. She'd wanted him to open up to her, and he had. With his words, his past.
But it was his heart she wanted. A heart badly damaged all those years ago by the betrayal of his clan. Then damaged again by her own betrayal.
If they survived Hookeye's poison, if they had a future to face, she'd offer him everything she had. But if he still believed he'd be happier without her in his life, she wouldn't fight him.
Never again would she willingly cause him pain.
Chapter Nineteen
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br /> Kougar felt flayed alive by the memories of that time he'd tried so hard to forget. His head ached, his chest was a coiled rope pulled too tight even as the poison burned in his heart. Anger bit at him, a deep frustration that Ariana had made him dredge it all up again.
But even if she asked for his head on a platter, he'd give it to her. He'd never stopped loving her.
Below, the celebration continued, the maidens all dancing naked beneath the moon's glow, the music lush and beautiful, played by no fewer than a dozen instruments, many of which he knew to be unique to the Ilinas.
Beside him, Ariana made a sound low in her throat. Half growl, half groan. In an instant, the past no longer mattered.
"What's wrong?"
"The poison. The darkness is growing hungry, and it's annoying the shit out of me. "
"Would you normally try to feed it at this point?"
"Yes. " She met his gaze. "The battle begins. "
"Brielle!" His shout rang down into the garden. A moment later, the Ilina appeared beside him, a naked, mistlike wraith cloaked by a tumble of waist-length dark curls. "Go to Feral House and tell Lyon I need flowers. As many of them as he can get his hands on in the next twenty minutes. " Ariana was going to need all the strength . . . all the pleasure . . . he could give her.
Wulfe stood in the shadows between two old brick buildings in downtown Harpers Ferry, spring sunshine warming the sidewalk at his feet. But he barely noticed the sun or the people strolling by, their steps quickening as they caught sight of him. His gaze was fixed on the store across the narrow street, on the window crammed with T-shirts, Confederate soldier caps, plastic place mats with Civil War battlefield scenes in faded colors. And Natalie.
A short while ago, he'd laid the unconscious women on the grass not far from where the Ferals had left the bodies of their friends days ago. Then he'd stayed close enough to keep watch over them until they woke. Until Natalie led Christy into town as he'd directed her to when he took her memories.
Standing in the window, holding a borrowed cell phone to her ear, Natalie looked out of place, her clothes rumpled, her hair tangled and unwashed. The Ferals had made the conscious decision to return the two women to their world looking like they'd been held captive, deciding their stories of not remembering anything would be far more likely to be believed than if they appeared well cared for.
But even unkempt and a little wild-looking, Natalie exuded an air of calm confidence. And he had a hard time tearing his gaze away from her. She remained on the phone until a silver Mercedes pulled up in front of the store, stopping in the middle of the narrow road with an impatient screech of brakes. A strong-looking young man in a business suit leaped out and ran around the car even as Natalie rushed out the door to meet him, Christy close behind her. The man swept Natalie into his arms and cradled her against him, the sun glinting off the tears on his cheeks.
Wulfe shook out his knotted fists and consciously relaxed his jaw. This was good, the way it should be. Natalie was back in her world with a man who clearly loved her, a man who would stand by her and help her through the tough days to come.
Natalie Cash was no longer his concern.
Ariana watched as a dozen of her maidens misted into her private garden, once more dressed in their festival gowns, their arms laden with blooms of every kind and hue. Gorgeous arrangements in glass vases were set atop sapphire rocks in the small private garden outside the queen's chambers. Beribboned pots were lined up like fragrant soldiers along the crystal walk. And single-stemmed roses, tulips, and lilies were scattered over the rocks and silk pillows, and across the lip of the pool, as if strewn by a gentle wind.
Kougar stood at her back, his arms around her, his chin on the top of her head as his pelvis pressed against her backside, his thick erection telling her he was more than ready for the task ahead.
But amid such beauty, with seduction and passion moments away, all she could think of was blood. The darkness, with its ravenous hunger, clawed at her control, demanding pain. And blood. Anyone's blood.
"Smell," Kougar said, his hand sliding restlessly across her abdomen, down one of her hips and back up again. "Smell the flowers, Ariana. "
And she did. The blooms filled the air, a glorious profusion of sweet scents that pleased her Ilina need for beauty of all kinds.
"I'm going to make love to you among the flowers," he whispered against her temple, his hands growing more restless, more needy by the moment. "I'm going to caress your body with rose petals, then follow every inch with my lips. "
His words battled back the growing need for violence within her. The flowers themselves warmed her heart--the fact that after all this time, he remembered what pleased her most.
One by one, the maidens left, some walking out, some misting. Only Brielle remained, her hands clasped before her, her eyes unhappy.
Ariana frowned. "What's the matter, Brie?"
Brielle's gaze didn't meet hers but remained fixed on Kougar. "I have a message from Lyon. " She glanced at Ariana, apology in her eyes, before meeting Kougar's gaze once more. "The tiger shifter's mate is with child. "
Ariana felt Kougar's surprise, his grip on her tightening. The tiger shifter would be Tighe. One of the Ferals in the spirit trap. Oh, no.
Brielle continued. "Because his mate is not true Therian, the child appears to be drawing much of its life force from its father. The shifter's mate has been in contact with him and is still able to sense him, but he's lost all consciousness and appears to be weakening quickly. She fears he doesn't have much longer. Hours, not days. Lyon wished you to know. "
With each word, Kougar's body turned stiffer, more rigid, until she felt as if she were being held by a man of stone. A stone that was beginning to quake.
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