Yeah, she was annoyed. “Right.”
“It’s for your safety as well as ours. Just because you can’t intentionally betray us doesn’t mean you couldn’t do it accidentally. I want you to have a way to reach me if you get another vision, and I’m not right here with you.”
Tighe handed her the phone. “Take it, D. Please?”
Delaney did and slipped it into her pocket.
Tighe retraced his steps back to the door. “I’ll find you as soon as I’m through with this meeting.”
“Then what?”
His expression turned grim. “Kougar’s working on something. Let’s hope he’s having some success. I’m running out of time.” He left.
Delaney put on her boots, then did a quick search of the room to see if she could find her guns. Nothing. Her gaze scanned the knives on the walls. Heavy weaponry, to be sure, but not a thing suitable for day wear. She’d have to have a talk with Tighe about that. They were going to have to come to some kind of agreement about weapons.
Tighe had left the bedroom door partially open when he left. Since he hadn’t locked her in, she assumed she was free to wander the house while she waited for Kara. And her curiosity about the place and these people was intense.
As she descended the wide, curved stair, the front door opened. Hawke and Kara walked in.
Hawke looked up and smiled as he met Delaney’s gaze.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning.” At least there seemed to be one friendly face among the Ferals.
As Hawke strode down the hallway, Delaney turned her attention to Kara. No smile lit the other woman’s eyes this morning. Delaney’s trouble radar went up.
“Everything okay?” Delaney asked, descending the last of the stairs.
“I need to talk. Come take a walk with me.”
Delaney nodded and followed the blonde out the door and into an overcast morning. She felt a little funny leaving, though Tighe hadn’t told her she couldn’t.
What was to keep her from running? That mating bond, apparently.
But even if she could, where would she run to? With the understanding of what he was, and what the clone was, everything had changed. No longer was she simply fighting for her own survival. There was so much more at stake. Tighe’s life, for one. And almost seven billion other lives, if what he’d told her about the Daemons was true. Considering all she’d seen, she had no reason to doubt him.
No, of course she wouldn’t run. Not when the battle was here. And when she possessed one of their only real weapons, her visions.
It pleased her that Tighe understood her well enough, trusted her enough to know that.
As they traversed the rocky woods, Delaney glanced at her silent companion. “What’s up, Kara?”
“I need to show you something.” She didn’t elaborate.
“Okay.” But they continued to walk until they’d once more left the woods and were walking along a residential street. Delaney’s instincts began to crawl with unease. “Kara, tell me what’s going on.”
To her surprise, Kara pulled a set of car keys out of her pocket and pressed the button. The red minivan parked on the side of the road in front of them beeped in response.
Delaney shook her head. “Kara, I’m not going anywhere. Not without telling Tighe.”
Kara held out her hand, a sly expression entering her eyes. “Give me your phone. I’ll call him.”
“No.” The hair on her nape began to rise. This was not the woman she’d talked to for two hours last night.
And suddenly, in the blink of an eye, she wasn’t.
The person standing beside her was no longer Kara but Tighe. No, not Tighe. The clone.
Delaney’s heart skipped a beat and began racing with terror. Her head went cold. She whirled to run, reaching for the phone in her pocket. But like Tighe, the clone was too fast. He grabbed her hair and jerked her off her feet in a blast of tearing pain. As he swung her around to face him, she slammed her elbow into his solar plexus.
He slammed his fist into her jaw.
“I want that bastard found!” Lyon’s hard growl echoed through the war room, giving voice to Tighe’s own frustration. He turned his hard gaze to Kougar. “Anything on those Daemon traps?”
“I’m close. I’ve got three that may potentially work if I can finish piecing them together, but they have to be done at night.”
“Tonight, then.” When Kougar nodded, Lyon turned to Hawke. “What have you found out, Wings?”
Hawke folded his hands on the table in front of him. “The Shaman’s been digging through old Daemon lore and believes the clone can indeed steal Tighe’s half of the soul. He just isn’t sure how he’ll go about it. He’s come up with a spell he can place on Tighe’s soul so that if the clone tries to steal Tighe’s half, both halves will be destroyed.”
“What the fuck good is that?” Jag drawled.
Hawke’s expression was grim. “It won’t keep Tighe alive, but it will at least contain the further threat of the clone.”
Lyon shook his head. “The only solution I want is one that destroys that clone and leaves Tighe alive.”
“There’s still only one of those. Kill the clone. Straightforward and simple.”
“And damned impossible to do.” Lyon’s fist slammed into the table. “It shouldn’t be this hard to catch him!”
Tighe looked up to see Kara standing in the doorway.
Lyon held his hand out to her, but she shook her head. “Sorry to interrupt. I was just wondering if Tighe’s seen Delaney. I can’t find her.”
Tighe was on his feet in an instant.
So was Hawke. “She was with you.”
Kara’s brows drew down with confusion. “I haven’t seen her. I just came downstairs a few minutes ago.”
“I saw you,” Hawke insisted. He blanched. “Or someone who looked just like you.”
Tighe’s blood went cold. “He’s got the witch’s glamour. He’s taking on the form of other people.”
“Anyone he’s seen.” Hawke’s mouth tightened. “That’s how he’s been eluding us. It’s how he got away when Kougar and I had him cornered.”
Lyon pulled out his knife. “Palms. Pink! Join us please.”
A fist of terror tightened in Tighe’s stomach, every muscle raging to take flight, to find her. He drew out his own knife and sliced his palm, holding it up for his chief to see, then he pulled out his phone and called the phone he’d given Delaney just that morning. Maybe the clone was still pretending to be Kara. Maybe Delaney would answer. But as the phone rang and rang, he knew that son of a bitch had her. His skin felt as if it were tying to crawl off his bones.
That son of a bitch would kill her. No, not kill her. Not yet. His chest felt like someone were stabbing him through the heart with a hot poker. He’d make her suffer first. He’d feed off her pain and her terror, little by little, like the Daemons of old. Until her tears were spent, her mind was gone, and her body couldn’t take any more.
He had to find her. Now. He turned to Hawke. “We can track her if she still has the phone.”
Hawke ran for the door. “I’ll get my laptop.”
“Wulfe, follow her scent,” Lyon barked.
“I’ll grab Tighe’s pillows for you,” Kara said.
“No need.” Wulfe stood. “Her scent is all over Tighe.”
Within moments, they burst from the doors of Feral House. As Wulfe shifted into his animal and followed Delaney’s scent, Tighe, Hawke, and Jag ran for Jag’s Hummer.
“I’ve got the signal,” Hawke said as Jag swung out of the circular drive. “It’s fixed. Over on Oak Woods.”
Tighe braced himself in the backseat, his senses going out to her. Call for me, Brown Eyes. When she’d been trapped, lost in that vision, he’d heard her calling for him. He’d been able to follow. Call for me, Delaney.
Was it possible she didn’t yet realize she was in trouble? No. She’d have answered her phone.
Only one reason she wouldn’t answer either call.
Goddess. Don’t let her be dead. Not when I’m just starting to understand how much I need her.
Minutes later, Jag pulled onto Oak Woods.
“Here.” Hawke snapped the laptop closed as Jag pulled the Hummer to a screeching halt. Tighe dove out the door, his senses open. She wasn’t there.
But her phone was. He saw it gleaming in the light. As he picked it up, as he touched the metal that had been in her hands such a short time ago, he felt a piece of himself die.
Wulfe came bounding out of the woods, a monster of a gray wolf. He sniffed around the area where the phone had been, then lifted his head to Tighe.
The scent ends here. She must have gotten into a car.
Fury rose in a hot wash, burning through Tighe’s blood. He had her. That son of a bitch had her.
A hand gripped his shoulder, and he turned to face Hawke.
“I’m sorry.” Hawke shook his head, his expression grim. “I’d like to give you platitudes like we’ll find her, but I’m out of ideas of how to catch him, buddy.” His eyes narrowed. “How did you find her the last time? After she set you up?”
“I heard her. I think I inadvertently formed a mind connection with her when I was trying to steal her memories. I heard her crying out for me that night and followed. I can’t explain how I knew where she was, but I knew.” He met his friend’s gaze. “She’s not calling out for me, this time.”
“She may be.” Hawke frowned. “You just can’t hear her anymore.”
Tighe closed his eyes, listening. He had to be able to hear her. But, except for his own turbulent thoughts, his mind was silent. And he suddenly realized that the warmth that had brushed against the inside of his skull was gone. The connection was gone.
“What happened?” But like a fist to the gut, he knew. “The binding.”
Hawke nodded, his expression bleak. “I’m afraid so. The accidental connection was probably severed when the new one between you and her was formed.”
“Except it only went one way. If I’d bound myself to her, I’d be able to hear her like I did before.”
“Yes. Probably more than before.”
The knowledge pierced him like a dozen blades. He’d intentionally cut himself off from her. In not binding himself to her, in trying to protect her, he’d sealed her fate.
Inside him the tiger spirit shook his head and let out a furious roar.
Tighe squeezed his eyes closed, fighting the tiger’s accusation. And losing.
Because he hadn’t done it for her, as he’d told her. The pain of that realization shredded his heart. He hadn’t been protecting her. He’d been protecting himself. Against a marriage he couldn’t believe would turn out any better than his first one had.
He’d protected himself. And lost the only thing in his life that mattered.
Delaney.
Chapter Twenty-two
Delaney groaned, trying to rise out of the fog that encased her brain. God, my jaw hurts. An ice-cold vise clamped around her wrist and pulled, yanking her across…
Her hip plowed into something hard, jarring her fully awake. She was in a car. In a garage.
In a shock of an instant, everything came flooding back. The clone. He’d caught her.
She grabbed hold of the door handle as the man who looked just like Tighe tried to haul her across the center console and out the driver’s side door. He’d kill her. If he got her out of the car, he’d kill her.
The clone reached in, hooking his arm around her shoulders and yanked her toward him, tearing her loose from the car door. No. She whirled toward him, jamming her finger deep into his eye socket.
A shudder of revulsion traveled from her hand all the way to the soles of her feet. His eye socket was perfectly dry. Inhumanly dry.
Her attack had no effect. He didn’t scream as any normal man would have. He didn’t even rear back. Instead, he jerked her harder, manhandling her out of the car and into the house as she kicked and fought for her life.
The moment he hauled her through the door, into a small laundry room, the smell hit. The hair rose on her arms. Decomposing bodies.
“You killed somebody here.”
“Yes. This was my first stop after I escaped. My first feeding.” Tighe’s voice washed over her, at once wonderfully familiar and terrifyingly wrong. Because the man…the thing…speaking wasn’t Tighe. “I’ll show you.” He said the last with a lilt of pride that had her stomach roiling.
“I’ve seen dead bodies before.” She struggled to keep her voice calm and even. The creature fed off fear and pain. Swallow your fear. She tried, but her skin was turning clammy, her breaths coming in tight, uneven pulls.
Pinning her against him, the clone half pushed, half carried her into the kitchen.
Dear God, dear God, dear God.
In the middle of the floor, beside a cracker-strewn high chair, was a pile of rotting corpses covered with flies. A pile. As if the despicable creature had killed them and tossed them away one by one.
Delaney looked away, swallowing desperately against the rising bile, but the image was carved into her brain. Flies crawling across the face of a small boy, his head dangling over the curve of a man’s shoulder, the rest of his body hidden by the bathrobe of a woman. A woman draped faceup over the pile, her arms spread as if even in death she tried to protect her family.
Delaney breathed through her mouth, panting between swallows. Her mind screamed at the wrongness, at the waste of life, even as hatred burned through her with the force of a wildfire.