Chapter One
Olivia perched on the edge of the leather chair, her back straight, her legs crossed, one high-heeled foot swaying with carefully controlled excitement as Lyon, the powerful chief of the Feral Warriors, paced at the front of the wood-paneled war room in Feral House. Outside, the sky had grown dark, but inside, the room blazed with light and energy.
Her gaze skimmed along the edges of the large conference table, staring at the Ferals with barely concealed awe. Only five were in attendance today - Lyon, the leader of the group, Tighe, Paenther, Wulfe, and the pain-in-the-ass Jag - but they radiated such force, such raw, untamed power, their numbers felt much larger.
Each of the Ferals was exceedingly tall, thickly muscled, and the object of lust of many a Therian woman. Of many a woman, period. They were the guardians of the Therian race, the only remaining shape-shifters on the planet. And they were, quite possibly, all that stood between the world and true destruction.
Amazingly, they'd asked for her help.
Well, not hers specifically. Several weeks ago, Lyon had called the British Guard - the most elite of the highly trained Therian fighting units, and requested a small team of warriors be sent to assist his own. With the Ferals' numbers down to eight, and the battle heating up on numerous fronts, the Ferals were fast becoming spread too thin, and no one knew it better than their leader.
Olivia had been given the assignment to lead the team of three Therian guards to Feral House. The assignment of an immortal lifetime.
Only one thing, one person, dampened the perfection of this moment.
The Feral Warrior, Jag.
From across the huge conference table, Olivia could feel him watching her as keenly as any predator. Though she tried to ignore him, she kept finding herself glancing his way, spearing him with an icy look that only made his eyes crinkle with amusement.
Goddess, but he annoyed her. Yet he intrigued her beyond all comprehension. He was a first-rate jerk. She knew it. Everyone she talked to knew it. Jag had quite a reputation in the Bethesda Therian enclave where she, Niall, and Ewan had been staying.
And yet every time she saw him, her legs turned weak, her body warm. Every time their gazes locked, her pulse took off, lifting and whirring like chopper blades. She was utterly attracted to him and couldn't figure out why. Certainly, he was handsome enough, with his strong jaw, cleft chin, and oh-so-intriguing mouth. But more often than not, the handsome lines of that face were marred by a scowl, or that delicious mouth was twisted into a sneer.
None of the Ferals was entirely tame, but there was something significantly less tame about Jag. His hair hung shaggy around his face as if he'd hacked it off with his knife, and he dressed in camouflage pants and T-shirts, as if he were heading into the jungle - and not as a cat.
She had to admit, though, those close-fitting T-shirts set off his impressive musculature to fine advantage, drawing attention to his broad chest. Around his thick upper arm curled the jaguar-head armband that marked him as a Feral.
She'd only met him one other time, just over a week ago, and been thoroughly disgusted with him. And hadn't been able to stop thinking about him since.
"You've secured the FBI link?" Lyon asked, his gaze swinging to Tighe.
The tiger shifter nodded. "Delaney and I met with one of her old colleagues, but he won't remember a thing. He's our eyes and ears, now, and doesn't even know it."
Of all the Ferals, Tighe was the most charming, in her opinion, his smile framed by dimples, his eyes dancing with laughter, especially when he looked at his wife, Delaney. They made a strikingly attractive pair, his hair as fair as hers was dark, compounded by the strength that seemed to rise from each one individually, yet blended as one powerful force emanating from the two of them together. She'd heard the story, that Delaney used to be a human FBI agent. That she used to be mortal. And was no longer either.
Extraordinary, really. Then again, things had a way of changing.
Long ago, all Therians were capable of accessing their animal natures. All were able to shift. But five thousand years ago, the Therians and their traditional enemies, the Mage, joined forces, each race mortgaging most of its power in a desperate bid for victory over the High Daemon, Satanan, imprisoning him and his Daemon armies once and for all in the enchanted Daemon blade. When the battle was over, only one Therian from each of the ancient animal lines still retained the strength of his animal and the ability to shift. Today, there were only nine - or would be once the new fox showed up.
Nine Feral Warriors.
All that stood between Satanan and his latest, and far most dangerous, bid for freedom from his magical prison.
Somehow, the leader of the Mage had become infected with a bit of powerful dark spirit - what some believed to be a wisp of Satanan's very consciousness. Through that dark spirit, they feared Satanan now controlled the Mage leader, and through him, the Mage. With Satanan's dark knowledge now at his disposal, he'd found a way to steal the souls of his own people, of those who'd sacrificed so much to stop the Daemon threat all those years ago. The soulless Mage sought only one thing - the freedom of Satanan and his evil horde.
If the Mage succeeded, life as the world knew it would end.
Tighe continued. "We've been able to glean enough about the two serial killers haunting the Blue Ridge to be fairly certain they're two of our Daemons."
Daemons.Even the word gave Olivia chills. The draden were nothing more than the remnants of the powerful and terrifying Daemons. The thought of those small, deadly fiends reanimated with Daemon souls and grown to human size sent a cold shaft of horror raking down her spine. Ten days ago, the Mage, determined to free Satanan's Daemon horde from the magical blade that imprisoned them, had succeeded in liberating three. Not the thinking, plotting kind of Daemons - these were only predatory wraith Daemons - but already the death they'd caused was terrible.
Pamela Palmer Rapture Untamed
"I want you to head up a team to catch them, Tighe," Lyon said. "I don't have to tell anyone here how critical it is that we destroy those things as quickly as possible."
The thought that Olivia was to be one of the ones to stop this threat excited her all over again. She'd been a member of the elite Therian Guard for more than three hundred years, since its inception, but this was the first time she'd ever worked with the Feral Warriors. To her knowledge, this was the first time the Ferals had ever accepted the help of any non-Feral Therians.
Olivia shifted in her chair, uncrossing her legs and recrossing them the other way, studiously ignoring Jag. Yet it didn't seem to matter. Just being in the same room with him made her feel restless. Fidgety. It did today as it had that first day. She and her men had come to Feral House at Lyon's request to discuss the possibility of their working together. As she was talking with Lyon, Jag had walked right up to her, slid his arm around her shoulder, and squeezed her breast, suggesting she accompany him upstairs and spread her legs for him.