Pain ripped through her again, braiding with the anger. An anger she knew she had to push aside. She’d tried to save him. She’d done her best.
But she could handle the anger so much better than the alternative. On the edges of her consciousness, just beyond the fury and pain, lay another monster waiting to devour her. The grief, the horror, of watching Niall die.
She couldn’t deal with that now. Wouldn’t.
Another wave of agony tore through her limb, and she grabbed Jag’s hand with her good one, curling her fingers around the back of his as she sucked in a hard breath and held on. His fingers curled around hers, giving her an anchor. A lifeline.
As the wave of agony passed, she began to feel her new appendage. With a shudder, she hazarded a glance down. The one thing she’d learned from prior experiences was never to watch her limbs re-form. The pain doubled when she saw the bones sticking out and growing before her eyes.
What met her gaze now relieved her. The bones were all there, the muscle knitting as she watched. One more growth spurt, maybe two, and she’d be done.
The Hummer jerked, buffeted by nature’s fury over the death of four more Mage. Jag held her tight.
“You going to be able to keep this thing on the road?” Tighe asked from the backseat.
“Nature’s throwing a minor tantrum,” Jag muttered.
The Ferals had ultimately dispatched the Mage Olivia hadn’t killed. Both Ewan and Delaney were still unconscious, but only Ewan was tied. Tighe had left his vehicle in Harpers Ferry so that he could ride in the backseat of the Hummer, his arms about Delaney, his eye on Ewan.
The fire exploded in her wrist again, bone pulsing. Lights exploded behind her eyes. Sweat ran down her temples, and she gasped for breath.
Jag squeezed her good hand, but it was Tighe who offered words of comfort.
“Hang in, Olivia. It shouldn’t take too much longer. You’ll be good as new in a few more minutes.”
“I…know.” Goddess, but it hurt! When she could breathe again, her gaze went to Jag, driving so stoic and silent. Had he been hurt? Had more happened than she’d realized? Or was he worrying about taking her home? To be honest, she hadn’t expected him to take her back to Feral House at all now that he knew her secret.
She looked back at Tighe, Delaney unconscious on his lap. “Are the four of you Ferals all right?”
He nodded, his eyes grave. “As far as I can tell. We fell into some kind of sensory-deprivation trap with a Daemon or two waiting. We couldn’t see them, but damn, we could feel their claws.”
“Venom?”
“We’re all still feeling the effects, which is why we’re heading back to Feral House instead of rallying the forces. We need radiance. I’ve already called Lyon.”
Olivia glanced at Jag, but he didn’t look her way. He’d said virtually nothing since they set out, and she hated that she couldn’t read him, that she didn’t know what was going on in his head.
Another wave of pain hit her hand, shallow and weak compared to the others, and she knew from experience it would be the last. Slowly, she straightened her arm and held out her new hand, identical to the one she’d lost. As it should be. On an exhausted sigh, she tipped her head back and closed her eyes, feeling the grief pressing in. In defense, she struggled to find the anger instead and pulled it tight around her.
“What the hell?” Ewan’s voice sounded groggily in the back of the vehicle.
Olivia turned, watching as Tighe pulled a wicked blade. “How are you doing, Ewan?” the tiger shifter asked calmly.
“What happened?”
“What do you remember?” Tighe’s voice remained soft and even.
“Shit. Why am I tied?”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Ewan levered himself into a sitting position despite his bonds, his gaze finding hers and holding fast. In his eyes, she saw confusion, but no enthrallment.
“He’s fine,” she told Tighe.
Understanding lit Ewan’s eyes. “I got tackled by the Mage, didn’t I? Enthralled.”
“Afraid so,” Tighe replied.
“What happened to the Daemon?”
“He got away. Ewan…” Olivia hesitated. “Niall…” The words caught in her throat, and she fought to hold on to the anger. “The Daemon got to him. I couldn’t stop him.”
Ewan’s brows drew down, his mouth tightening. “What are you saying?”
“He’s dead.”
Ewan stared at her. “No. No!”
He whirled to face the back, and she turned front. There was nothing more she could do.
Dammit. Dammit.
The fury turned and twisted inside her, cocooning the emotions she couldn’t deal with until they were nothing but a hard mass deep in the pit of her stomach.
They continued on, the country roads quickly giving way to the congestion of heavily populated Fairfax
County. Delaney woke as they pulled into the long drive of Feral House, her mind once more clear.
Jag parked the Hummer, and Olivia climbed out, went around the vehicle, and released Ewan from the back. His gaze met hers, his eyes dark with pain, his cheeks damp as she’d feared they might be. Niall and Ewan had been as close as brothers for centuries. Seeing his devastation tore something loose inside her. She clamped her teeth together hard and climbed into the back with him as she pulled her knife and released him from his bonds.
As the big man swiped at his cheeks, hiding the telltale weakness, she crawled back out before he could touch her, or in any way try to share his grief with her. She didn’t want it. Didn’t need it.
Goddess, she couldn’t deal with his, too. She had enough of her own.
Jag waited for her outside the vehicle, his brows low, his face hard.
Hawke and Kougar pulled up behind them in a black Yukon and got out. Each looked the worse for wear, but both were healing, their movements almost normal. Niall’s corpse had been loaded into the back of Hawke’s vehicle and would have to remain there until tonight, when they would perform the ancient rites, sending the body back to the earth from which it sprang.
Her mind shied from the thought of Niall consumed by that mystic fire, but Jag stole her attention when his
hand gripped her arm, pulling her aside as the others passed.
His grip pinched. “Don’t feed when any of the women are around, including Pink.”
“All right.” His words made her feel dangerous. Unclean. Like a predator he feared would turn on his friends.
And, goddess, wasn’t that exactly what she was? She’d never turn on them intentionally, but she was, absolutely, dangerous.
Jag steered her after the others, and they followed them up the stairs and into the grand foyer of Feral House.
Lyon and Kara waited for them, Lyon in a gold silk shirt, his sleeves rolled up, and Kara in trim black slacks and a neat peach-colored sweater, her blond hair in a ponytail, her feet bare. Both watched them enter with eyes filled with concern.
“Wulfe and Vhyper are preparing the circle out back,” Lyon said. “We’re going to start with radiance and take it from there if we need to. I want my warriors healed and whole before we plan our next attack.”
Two abreast, they walked through the wide hallways, into the huge dining room, and out the back door. The trees were beginning to sprout leaves, but the spring canopy was still thin, allowing rain to filter through with relative ease. Fortunately, they’d left the hurricane behind miles back, and the bulk of the natural weather front had moved through.
Lyon led them to a clearing in the back of the mansion. Even before they drew close, Olivia could feel the mystic energies. A feral circle, she’d heard it called, though as a mere Therian she’d never experienced one.
Kara stepped into the middle of the circle, and the Ferals gathered around her. Kara might be taller than Olivia, but the men still dwarfed her. Yet, to a man, they treated her with a respect and affection Olivia suspected they reserved for very few. Even Jag left his usual attitude behind when he stepped into that circle.
Lyon stood before his mate, holding out his hands. As Kara slipped hers into the cradle of his much larger ones, the others moved in close. Tighe stood directly behind her, his palm against her neck. Hawke took his place on one side, his hand on her arm, Jag on the other in the same way. Wulfe, Vhyper, and Kougar knelt at her feet, their hands on an ankle or calf.
“Ready?” Kara asked.
Lyon nodded once, his gaze gentle on his mate. “Do it, little Radiant.”
In an instant, Kara lit up as if she’d swallowed the sun, her skin glowing. Radiant. And Olivia was slammed with a force of pure, perfect energy. Like an alcoholic with an open bottle thrust before her nose, she craved with a violence that scared her.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Delaney murmured beside her. “I never get tired of watching her do this.”
Olivia nodded, desperately fighting the pull of
the energy, terrified that if she gave in and fed, she wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t be able to stop. For minute after minute, the energy battered her senses, the hunger clawing to be fed.
Kara’s light finally went out and that terrible hunger abated.
Goddess.
Olivia’s knees nearly collapsed beneath her.
The men rose and stepped back, lifting arms and shrugging shoulders, loosening and assessing muscles like warriors preparing for battle.
Lyon crossed his arms over his chest and watched them closely, waiting. “Do we need another round?”
“I’m good,” Tighe said.
Hawke nodded. “As am I.”
“Kougar?” Lyon watched the cold-eyed Feral most closely.
“The fog is cleared, Roar. The radiance has completely counteracted the venom.”
“Good.”
Tighe walked toward the two women, his gaze all for his wife. His big hands cupped Delaney’s face, his eyes filled with a depth of emotion Olivia could hardly fathom.
“Are you okay?” Tighe asked his mate softly.
“I’m fine,” Delaney replied, her voice rich with love as her hands rose to cover Tighe’s.
Envy twisted around Olivia’s heart, squeezing that already-bruised-and-battered organ. Niall had loved her
in his way. Or he thought he had. Yet he’d never truly known her.
The hard cocoon in her gut twisted, tightening every muscle in her neck and shoulders, filling her head with a tension that had her feeling like she’d explode at any moment.
Anger ate at her. Envy. Fury. She hated her life, hated what she was, hated that the only man who had ever understood her wasn’t happy unless he was making her miserable. Hated that her heart wanted too much more from him. So much that he wasn’t able, or willing, to give.
When Tighe dipped his head to kiss his mate tenderly, Olivia whirled and stalked off toward the house, the anger eating at the insides of her flesh until she clamored for a battle. Any kind of battle.
And suddenly Jag was at her side.
“Where are you going?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have a damned answer. This wasn’t her house.
Jag’s hand gripped her upper arm, pulling her to a stop.
Her anger erupted and she whirled on him, whipping out a knife. “Remove your hand or you’re going to be the one regrowing a limb.”
She saw her own fury mirrored in his eyes, his brows drawing down and hard. But he didn’t remove his hand. “Do your worst, Sugar, but not here.” He took off for the back door, dragging her along behind him.
Jag hauled Olivia through the house and up the first flight of stairs, pushing her through the door of his room. She was spitting mad, itching for a fight, and he was in a mood to give it to her.
She stared around the room, clearly unimpressed, and it ticked him off.
“What did you expect, the Taj Mahal?” he sneered. Though goddess knew the room was as barren as his soul.
He looked around, seeing it through her eyes. A large bed sat in the middle of the room, little more than a mattress and springs below a solid, unadorned white wall. No curtains hung at the windows, no mementoes sat on the dresser. No paintings on the wall. How many
times had their previous Radiant, Beatrice, tried to put up paintings of jaguars and jungles? Exactly as many times as he’d torn them down.
Other than the fact that there were sheets on the bed—plain white—the room could have been unoccupied.
He happened to like it like this.
Olivia whirled on him so fast he took a fist to the nose before he realized what she had in mind.
He laughed, but the sound was ugly. Anger ate him alive, a mass of emotion he only knew two ways to get rid of—a good old-fashioned fight. Or sex.
He had a feeling he was about to get both.
Snagging Olivia around the waist, he lifted her and tossed her on the bed, then yanked off his shirt, intending to follow her down, but her eyes flashed with fury, and he could see she’d had enough of being his slave. The storm inside her contained not an ounce of fear. No, if he had to guess, she was transferring grief. For Niall. Which pissed the hell out of him.
“He wasn’t good enough for you.” He dove on top of her, careful to brace himself with his arms.
She slammed her knee between his thighs, but he clamped them together, barely keeping her from un-manning him, trapping her leg between his.
“He was a hell of a lot better man than you’ll ever be.”
A fist clenched inside him, driving his anger. “He was a pansy-assed wuss who let you walk all over him.”
With a furious growl, she head-butted him, catch
ing him in the damn nose again. He reared back, and she slipped out from under him and launched herself at him, stronger than any female had a right to be, especially one who barely reached his shoulder.
His male instincts told him to be careful with her. His breaking ribs told him she could handle whatever he dished out.
He tackled her down. “Did you have feelings for him?”
She punched him in the jaw. “Of course I had feelings for him! I’d known him for more than three hundred years. You wouldn’t know feelings if they bit you in the ass!”
They fought, her throwing punches, him blocking most of them. The bed creaked and swayed beneath them.
“Did you love him?”
“You know the answer to that. As a friend, yes, but you know I didn’t return the feelings he had for me.” Her elbow slammed into his solar plexus. “But so help me, if you think I shouldn’t care that he’s dead…” Her heel drove hard into his knee. “If you think I can just forget the sight of that monster stripping his face away one strip of flesh at a time…” Her voice cracked. “So help me, Jag, I’m going to beat your cold ass to hell and back.”
The bed collapsed beneath them with a crash. He rolled onto his feet, but Olivia followed, spinning and
slamming her heel into his knee again, splintering his kneecap. With a roar, he collapsed onto his other knee just as the door burst open wide.
Tighe and Wulfe pushed inside, then halted in the doorway, staring at the wreckage of the bed, him on his knees, blood running down his face and his fire demon of a partner standing over him about to drive her elbow into his skull.
Jag grinned. Goddess, but he loved a strong woman. He wiped the blood from his mouth and gave Tighe a jaunty salute.
Olivia whirled on the pair in the doorway, her eyes blazing with unholy fire. “Unless you want to join the fight, get the hell out of here.”
Tighe lifted his hands in quick surrender. “I’m gone.”
Wulfe, the bastard, grinned. “Don’t kill him.”
The respite had given his knee a chance to heal. As Wulfe pulled the door closed behind him, Jag shot to his feet, ready for another round. He loved a good fight, and this one had gotten his blood pumping, and at the same time given him an outlet for the awful tension that had been riding him ever since that goat fuck of a battle.
But Olivia’s eyes showed no such relief. Deep in those gray depths, he could see her shattering. His heart clenched in his chest as he understood. She fought the grief and her own emotions more than she fought him.
And while he’d gladly let her beat the crap out of him if it helped her, he could see it wasn’t helping at all.
The emotion needed another way out. The sheen in her eyes told him that.
She launched herself at him again, but even as she did, tears began to run down her cheeks, seeming to make her madder. He let her get in a couple of good punches, then he grabbed her in a bear hug and pressed her face against his chest as she struggled.
“Let it out, Liv,” he said quietly. “You’re not going to get rid of it until you give in. Just let it out.”
She fought him a moment more, her fists pummeling his shoulders until the storm overtook her. Sobs wracked her small body, her fists opening, her fingers clinging to him as grief swept her away.
He felt a deep and sudden need to comfort her and didn’t have a clue how to do it. He’d always been great at causing anger. Soothing raging emotions was beyond him. He could always use the calming touch of his hand, but he sensed that wasn’t what she needed right now. She needed to get it out.
He patted her back awkwardly.
She buried her face tighter against him, clinging to him harder, as if his attempts weren’t that awkward at all.
He lifted his hand and cupped her small head, holding it tight against him. Deep inside his chest, he felt a cracking of the ice that had for so long encased his heart.
He didn’t want that. Didn’t need it. But even as the thought went through his head, his arms enclosed her in a vise of a protective cage through which nothing would ever harm her again.
As if she heard his thoughts, she lifted her head, meeting his gaze with eyes that swam in misery even as they clung to him. As he stared into those gray depths, he felt himself falling. Deep inside, warmth flowed from that crack in his heart, rushing through his blood and limbs, into all the cold, dark crevices. Waking his body, his mind. His soul.
And stirring the bitterness and bile into a frenzy.
Never had he felt such a pull between wanting and not wanting. Even as the darkness inside him tried to shore up the cracks in the wall of ice, draining his heart of the unwanted warmth, he found himself pulling her tighter against him.
He pressed his lips to her forehead and clung to her as she did him, conflicting emotions a tempest inside him. He was what he was. A man without love. Without family, but for the men forced to include him. Without friends.
He’d been this way for too many years to count, and would always be, even if he sometimes wished he could be someone else. How many thousands of times had he wished he were a different man? Not Jag.
Olivia lifted a single hand to press against his cheek, and he was lost. The warmth filled him, pressing back
the bile and bitterness and filling him until he thought he would burst from the pressure of it.
She looked up at him, her eyes filling with tears all over again. “I thought I’d lost you,” she whispered, her voice breaking.
“Lost me?”
“In that house. Delaney felt Tighe’s pain, but we couldn’t reach you, couldn’t hear you. Then the Daemon flew out of there, drenched in blood, and I thought…” Her voice cracked.
He lifted his hand and stroked the bright fall of hair back from her lovely face, barely crediting her words. “You were worried about me?”
A watery smile broke over her face, sending sunshine pouring into his soul. “You drive me crazy, Jag.” Her mouth tightened, her bottom lip trembling. “But I don’t want anything to happen to you. I need you.”
He’d been so angry, thinking her tears were all for Niall. But she’d been dealing with the remnants of fear, too, just as he had. Because, goddess, he’d been terrified when he’d realized one of the Daemons was loose in the yard.
He cupped her face in his hands. “I’m sorry about Niall. I’m sorry I let my jealousy of him get in the way of letting you know that.”
Her eyes grew dark as a nightmare. “No one should die like that.”
He tilted her head toward him and placed a gentle
kiss on her brow, then lifted her face to his again, meeting her gaze. “We’ll get that bastard, Liv. We’ll get them all. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll promise you that. Because you’re right. No one should ever have to die like that.”
She nodded, a fierce determination lighting those gray eyes even as they remained locked on his, pulling him deeper and deeper. His gaze broke from hers, for only a second, dropping to her ripe, tear-swollen mouth. Tenderness surged through him, melding with the heat he felt every time he touched her.
His gaze returned to hers and held as he slowly lowered his face. Something shimmered in her eyes, a sweet longing that stole the last of his control, and he dipped his head and kissed her for the first time.
Her lips were soft and warm, and as sweet as he’d always known they would be. Why had he never kissed her before?
Her lips moved beneath his, a low, soft moan escaping her throat. Heat and desire swirled inside him, but tenderness won the battle, an overwhelming gentleness he hadn’t felt in too long to remember.
His hand slid into her hair, cradling her head, while his other slid around her waist, holding her tight, bending her back as his mouth fused with hers.
He touched her lower lip with his tongue, fire shooting through him and eliciting another moan from her as she parted her lips, giving him access. But he felt
no desire to hurry, no need to rush. He wanted to savor every taste, every touch. Goddess, he wanted this to last forever.
Soft fingers slid into his hair. Her mouth moved beneath his, her tongue darting out to stroke his own. He opened his mouth over hers and slid his tongue across the full length of hers, deep into her mouth, tasting her sweetness, falling into her warmth.
Over and over, he kissed her, memorizing the contours of her mouth, the feel of her tongue and lips, the taste of her. The kiss grew hotter with every stroke of his tongue against hers, with every stroke of hers against his until his breath was ragged, his hands tense and roaming, pulling her tighter and tighter against his growing need.
His desire for her intensified until it was a living, breathing thing inside him. And at the same time, he thought he’d be perfectly content to remain like this, just kissing this woman and holding her, for the rest of his immortal life.
His lips finally, reluctantly, left her mouth, driven by a need to taste more. To taste her everywhere. He swung her into his arms, meeting her sweet, sexy gaze.
Olivia curled her arm around his neck and stroked his cheek with her hand.
Neither spoke. No words were necessary. Besides, how many times had words gotten him into trouble? He’d become so adept at using words as weapons, he
was no longer certain he knew how to use them any other way.
And now, here, he wanted no more battle between them.
Deep inside him, the jaguar purred, then let out a soft roar of possession.
Mine.
The thought rang in his head and his heart, echoing all the way to his soul.
Olivia trembled as Jag silently lowered her to the broken bed and followed her down, taking up where he’d left off, kissing her cheek, her jaw, the underside of her chin.
With infinite gentleness, he undressed her, then himself, and gathered her into his arms, laying kisses upon her breasts, her shoulders, the inner curve of her elbows.
Never had she known such gentleness. Never had she allowed it. And never in a million years would she have expected it to come from Jag.
She trembled from the uncertainty as much as from the need he lifted inside her. Every time they’d made love, it had ended badly.
But never before had they connected as they had today.
He’d held her as she cried, as the emotions tore her apart. He’d opened himself for her, giving her comfort
and tenderness when she’d needed them so desperately. A tenderness that made her want to cry all over again.
His lips trailed down her body unhurriedly, pleasing her. Loving her. And when they’d finished their return path, she opened her arms to him, and her thighs, uncertain if he’d finally make love to her face-to-face or flip her onto her knees as he had before.
His gaze held hers as he lowered himself into the cradle of her body and sunk deep inside her, the move unhurried. Slow and sensual and infinitely erotic, he made love to her gently, the antithesis of the violence that had come before.
Tears burned her eyes as she cupped her hands behind his neck and held his gaze as his body melded with hers, over and over, sliding in and out, driving her up on a gentle ride of such tenderness, her heart opened like a starving flower in a warm, soft rain. Loneliness washed away after so very many years.
Deep within his eyes, she saw an understanding, a sharing of that bone-deep need for a completion of the heart. The soul. But rising with that need, she saw pain in his eyes. And dark wisps of resistance.
The sensual tension rose slowly, steadily, until they were both gasping, both driving for the release that broke over them as one. Not until they were cresting together did Jag break eye contact with her. He kissed her, the kiss only fueling that exquisite release.
Never had Olivia known such perfection in joining
with another. Never had she opened herself so completely. And when Jag pulled out of her, then rolled to his side, pulling her deep in the cradle of his arms, she ached with a fragile joy.
“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered sleepily against her hair. “I don’t deserve this.”
The depth of pain in his words brought tears to her eyes, and she wrapped her arms tight around him and held on.