"Thank you," she murmured, but got no reply. She forced herself to take a slice of ham from the platter in front of her with hands that were once more shaking. The men's silent disapproval wore on her until she could barely force a bite in her mouth, let alone swallow. They clearly blamed her for trying to leave them, as if she were some kind of spoiled brat.
She wasn't. She was just… scared. Constantly. Exhaustingly. Inexplicably.
Maybe she was going insane.
A far door swung open to a flash of pink feathers. Kara tensed as Pink entered the dining room, carrying another platter of food.
She tried not to stare at the strange bird-woman, but couldn't keep from watching surreptitiously as the woman crossed the room in her odd, bird-like gait, Kara owed the woman an apology. There wasn't anything she could do to ease the men's anger at her, but this she might be able to fix. The bird-woman set the platter on the table and turned away, without ever glancing in Kara's direction. As she headed back to the kitchen, Kara tried to rise to follow. Paenther grabbed her wrist.
Kara met his fierce, black gaze. "I… I need to apologize to her."
He stared at her, the feral claw marks raking across one hard eye. A chill skittered along her flesh.
Finally, his fingers loosened, and he released her arm. "Don't try to leave. You won't get far."
Kara's breath left her on a trembling sigh. "Believe me, I know how short my leash is."
As she stood, so did Paenther and every man at the table. At first, she thought Paenther had changed his mind. They were all going to stop her. But they didn't move toward her, merely stood.
Manners.
From wild animals. Who would have thought?
"Sit. Please. I'll be right back." She hurried toward the kitchen before she lost her nerve. Just seeing the flamingo gave her goose bumps. How much harder would it be to try to talk to her?
As Kara pushed through the swinging kitchen door, Pink looked up from filling a water pitcher, then turned back to her task, ignoring her.
Kara swallowed. "Pink?"
"Yes, Radiant?" The bird-woman's voice sounded high-pitched, though basically human. She set down the water pitcher and turned to face Kara. Her eyes.
Kara's scalp crawled. Pink's eyes were round and wide. Not human. She forced herself to meet that unblinking gaze. "I'm sorry for the way I acted yesterday, when I first saw you. I wasn't prepared. Lyon forgot to tell me there was such a thing as shape-shifters."
If there was any warmth in Pink's gaze, Kara couldn't see it. She wasn't entirely sure the bird-woman even heard her.
Kara shrugged self-consciously. "I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry. If there's ever anything I can do to help you, I'd be happy to." She gave the woman a wry smile. "I'm not a bad cook."
Pink said nothing, in no way acknowledging her words. Self-pity tightened Kara's throat. All her life, she'd been surrounded by people who knew her. Who liked her. She might not have been the class president or the track star or the town brain, but she'd always been well thought of. Everyone in Spearsville loved Miss MacAllister.
Even at Feral House, the men had been friendly to her. Most of them, at least. But now she'd lost even that. She had no friends here except Lyon, and though she was certain he desired her, she wasn't entirely sure even he liked her.
Blinking back her misery, Kara turned to go.
"Radiant."
Kara pressed her finger and thumb to her closed eyes, then turned back to meet Pink's unnerving gaze.
"I forgive you for startling at the sight of me. Most do. I do not forgive you for betraying those who depend on you for life."
Kara met the woman's, hard gaze, opening her mouth to deny she'd done anything of the sort, then closed it slowly and sighed.
"Thank you, Pink."
Kara turned to retrace her steps, Pink's words ringing in her ears… those who depend on you for life. Was it true? For life? Lyon said they needed her ascended to be able to shift again, but they didn't really have to shift, did they? She'd never stopped to think what would happen to them if they couldn't. If she got away.
As she pushed back through the swinging door, the men rose, their manners so ingrained as to be automatic. But while the others remained with their chairs, Wulfe stepped forward, lunging toward her, his scarred face cold, his brown eyes slowly turning golden green as the irises grew to those of a feral wolf.
"You faithless little bitch!" he snarled, fangs slowly elongating top and bottom.
Kara reared back.
"Wulfe!" Tighe barked, but the warrior continued to stalk her.
"You'd leave us like this? Without our ability to shift? Don't you care that your people will weaken and die without the life-giving energy you provide? That once the Ferals are gone, there will be no one left to keep the Daemons from rising again? And that once they're freed, the world you think to run back to will crumble beneath the chaos and terror they bring?"
Kara stood rooted, shaking.
Claws snapped out from his fingers. A snarl vibrated in the bones of his face. "You're unworthy of your calling."
She was frozen as much by his words as from the menace in his eyes. Her mind screamed run! but she remembered what had happened when she'd run from Lyon. This man would tear her to shreds.
Both Paenther and Hawke leaped on Wulfe from behind, but the huge man didn't go down until Foxx swept his feet out from under him, sending the lot of them crashing to the floor.
Tighe grabbed her and pushed her behind him, his claws unsheathing as if he intended to protect her.
Lyon stormed into the dining room. "What's going on?"
Kara peered around Tighe's solid form to get a glimpse of the fury on Lyon's face. His gaze landed on her, and some of the tension seemed to leave him.
"The dog lost it," Jag muttered. "He was getting ready to shred our pretty little Radiant."
Lyon crossed to where the four men were struggling, Paenther and Hawke looked like they were trying to end the fighting, but Foxx looked nearly as out of control as Wulfe.
"Enough!" Lyon shouted, but nothing changed. Foxx and Wulfe were fighting and clawing one another as if they wanted to kill. "Jag, give me a hand."
Lyon and Jag wrenched Foxx free and held him back while Paenther and Hawke finally pinned a thrashing Wulfe to the ground.
"Get back in your skins! Both of you," Lyon snarled. "You must be able to regain control."
Kara eased farther to the side, where she could get a better view. Paenther and Hawke were already back to looking fully human. As she watched, Foxx's features slowly returned to normal. But Wulfe continued to thrash and fight.
"Jag's right," Tighe said. "He's lost it."
Lyon's brows narrowed. "We can't leave him like this. We'll have to open the prison until he's back in control."
Paenther nodded. "We're going to need some help getting him down there. Not Foxx."
Tighe and Jag stepped in, and the four men struggled to pull their feral companion from the room. When they were gone, Lyon turned to Kara.
"Are you all right?"
She nodded. Her heart was still thudding, but that was nothing new. "He didn't touch me.""We've got to get you ascended," he said. His hand slid behind her neck, the fear instantly beginning to drain. "I need to get some lunch first."
He turned her toward the table, where Foxx was sitting beside the auburn-haired woman. "It's not safe for you here, Zaphene. I suggest you stay at one of the enclaves until things settle down."
Foxx scowled. "I can protect her."
"Can you?" Lyon asked pointedly. "You didn't look like you had it entirely under control yourself."
"I'm fine. Zaphene's fine. Aren't you, Zaph?"
The auburn-haired woman smiled. "I rather enjoy the sight of blood. It's so… wild."
Lyon steered Kara back to the table, where he moved her plate to one of the two empty places at the end.
"Are you staying?" she asked hopefully, looking up into his strong face.
His amber gaze met hers. "I'm staying." He grabbed a plate from the stack in the middle and began filling both his and hers from the nearby platters.
"I can't eat all that."
"Try. It doesn't look like you've eaten anything at all."
And she hadn't. She forced herself to cut a piece of meat. As she set down her knife and picked up her fork with her right hand, Lyon's palm covered her left. Immediately, the rising fear began to ebb away.
"You have prisons in the basement?" she asked him. She didn't remember seeing anything like that when they were down there for the Pairing.
"If we ever get searched by human authorities, they'll find a basement with our ritual room and our workout gym. But the chambers below the house are far more extensive, flowing out beyond the footprint of the house. There are actually two levels of subterranean chambers, though the lowest level has never been used. The prisons are in a hidden section of the upper level, beyond the gym. We haven't had to use them since the last Mage war, soon after the house was built."
He grunted as he speared a piece of ham. "At the rate we're going, we may have those prisons filled again in no time."
As they ate in silence, her mind returned to Wulfe's accusations. And Pink's. Were they right?
Was she really that important… to the world? She'd kind of assumed they wanted to he able to shift, again because, well, it was fun. And if they'd implied that it was more important than that… much more important… she hadn't wanted to hear it. She hadn't been ready to hear it. She still wasn't sure she was ready, but Wulfe hadn't given her the choice any longer. And this time she'd heard him loud and clear.
Finally, four of the men returned, their clothes changed, the blood gone. Wulfe wasn't with them.
Tighe smiled at Lyon as he took his seat across from Kara. "Glad to have you join us, Roar."
Lyon nodded, his expression serious. "Any improvement in Wulfe?"
"No. He's still feral." Tighe looked at Lyon with worry in his eyes. "He's like a wild animal. It's as if his beast has completely taken over. There's no sign of the man at all in there."
Paenther sat on the other side of Kara. "How soon can we get Kara ascended?"
"Soon. I'm going to take over the prepping myself. If she's as strong as Hawke predicts, it may not take a full week."
"Thank the goddess," Paenther said.
As the men dug back into the meal, Kara picked at her food as she struggled to process her role as she now understood it.
She was some kind of power plug for the Feral Warriors. And if Wulfe was right, if she failed, even Spearsville could be in trouble. Shame filled her at the realization. She'd been so worried about saving herself, she'd given very little thought to what her leaving would do to everyone else.
Dear God, she couldn't continue to live with her heart constantly trying to pound its way out of her chest, though. But maybe there was a reason for it, a reason Lyon would find and eliminate. Or maybe once she ascended, she'd be able to see it for herself, if it didn't go away.
Either way, it didn't matter. She had to stay.
As bizarre as it might seem, the world was depending on her.
Miss MacAllister. Preschool teacher. Radiant.
The source of power for the guardians of the world.
* * *
Chapter Eleven
"You can feel my fear, can't you?"
Kara gripped the interior car door handle as Lyon drove back to the falls after lunch, taking the hills and sharp turns like a roller-coaster car.
He took his eyes off the road ahead for one moment to meet her gaze. "I can, yes."
"Have you felt the way it's been dropping as we've gotten farther and farther from the house?"
"The mind is a powerful thing, Kara. You're probably associating bad feelings with that place. Your grief the night your mother died. The nightmares."
Kara frowned at him. "You think I'm insane."
He met her gaze with a rueful lift of his lips. "Not insane."
"Deluded, then."
"Maybe a little unsettled by the shock of everything."
"Even though, as soon as I leave the house, I'm suddenly better?"
Lyon shrugged, his thick, golden hair brushing the broad shoulders of the rust-colored silk shirt he'd changed into after lunch. "Once we get you ascended, everything will be fine. You'll see."
"Fine?" Somehow she couldn't imagine life with Vhyper would ever be fine. But she didn't want to think about him right now.
She was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that she was so blasted important to the world. If she was going to stay in this world of immortals and shape-shifters, she supposed she'd better start trying to understand it.
"Tell me more about the Therians, Lyon. Why were you at war with the Mage?"
"Most recently, because they'd killed one of my warriors. The previous jaguar."
"So the spirit of the jaguar somehow found Jag? That's how this works, right?"
"Yes. Upon the death of the man, the animal spirit flies to the strongest Therian with the blood of his line still running through his veins. Jag was the strongest."
"Was he a child?"
"No. Children are rarely the strongest. Jag was over seventy at the time."
"Why did the Mage kill the previous jaguar?"
His jaw hardened. "They wanted the Daemon blade. They've always felt they should be the ones to guard it, and we've always disagreed. More than once the question of its guardianship has caused war between us."