She forced her eyes open, then squeezed them shut as something sailed over her head. A battle. They’d caught him. But the sounds that reached her ears were oddly, frighteningly familiar. Growling. Snarling. The breaking of furniture, just like the two times Tighe had lost it.
Oh, no. Please, not that.
She tried to move and realized she was only tied by one wrist. So cold. Exhaustion tugged at her battered mind, and she curled onto her side.
Stay awake. Warn them.
Out of the corner of her eye, another Feral appeared. Jag, her mind suggested.
His gaze went to the pile of dead bodies, his face screwing up in disgust. “Jesus. Someone needs to teach that demon to clean up after himself when he’s done eating. He’s feeding the whole bloody fly population of Northern Virginia!”
“Bleed, Jag!” Wulfe roared.
Jag scowled, pulled out a knife, and cut himself. Blood rolled down his palm.
“Get Delaney. We’ve got to get Tighe locked up.”
Locked up. Her chest squeezed. Lost in the darkness.
Jag bent over her, cutting the last of her bonds.
She tried to focus her eyes on him, but she was fast slipping away. “Not…Feral House. Did something to me. I’m…dangerous. And…get my boots!”
Delaney woke to the sound of the river and voices, and the feel of a cool wind in her face. She lay still, her battered mind trying to identify the voices as friend or foe. All male. No, a female voice.
She opened her eyes, finding a ceiling of stars high above her head, all but blotted out by a bright light just to her side. Kara. Her forehead wrinkled at the sight of the woman sitting with her legs crossed, glowing like a camp lantern.
“Hi there,” Kara said softly, meeting her gaze. “You’re safe, Delaney.”
Delaney tried to shake her head, but nothing happened. “You’re glowing.”
“That’s what I do,” she said with a lilt in her voice. “Remember I told you I was the power plug? I wish I could use some of my power to help you, but they tell me only Ferals can handle it. But I’m keeping the light on and the rock warm for you. Are you still cold?”
“No. Warm.” Surprisingly warm, despite the cool wind. She felt as if someone had wrapped her in blankets and laid her on a heated bed.
“Good.”
“Where am I?” Her gaze moved to an oddly dressed teenager kneeling on her other side, his hand on her forehead, his eyes closed.
“The goddess stone,” Kara told her. “The men called a Feral Circle, a mystic circle, to keep out draden and prying human eyes. The Shaman is trying to figure out what was done to you and whether you’re really a danger.”
“Tighe?”
Kara’s brows knit unhappily. “He’s at Feral House.”
“In the prison?”
“I’m afraid so. He may still snap out of it.” But her tone said she didn’t believe it.
“I need to…see him.”
The young man she assumed was the Shaman lifted his hand from her forehead. As she turned her gaze to him, he looked down at her with ancient eyes in his youthful face.
“Hello, Delaney.”
“Hi.”
He turned to face a distant point beyond Kara’s light.
“He definitely left a mark on her, Lyon,” he said. “Unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Not a dark charm. Nothing that concrete. More like shadows on her soul.”
“Is she a danger to us?”
“I can’t answer that for a certainty, but my instincts tell me those shadows are wounds, not magic. She needs to rest. To heal, both physically and mentally. It’s too bad Tighe’s not available to help the process.”
Tighe. Tears formed in her eyes. But she felt the Shaman’s hand on her forehead again, and slept before they had a chance to fall.
When Delaney woke again, she was in Tighe’s bedroom. The room was dark, but light shone from beneath the closed door, and the rumble of voices carried from far below. It was probably still evening. She stretched, taking quick inventory, deciding nothing hurt, then shuddered as memories rushed into her mind. The clone. Tighe. Kara had said he’d lost it and was in the prison. She envisioned him trapped in a darkness as bleak and terrifying as the one he’d pulled her from.
If there was a way to free him from his own dark hell, she was going to find it.
She pushed off the covers and swung her feet over the side of the bed, noting that the pajamas Kara had loaned her were back on her again. For a brief moment, she considered trying to find something better to wear downstairs than Kara’s p.j.s, and as quickly dismissed the concern. They certainly showed less of her than the ceremonial gown. And if she remembered that nightmare in the kitchen correctly, they’d seen her in less. Far less.
Flicking on the light, she did a quick search of the walls and pulled down a wicked-looking twelve-inch dagger. She was not going unarmed again. Barefoot, she flew from the room and down the richly curved stairs.
Kougar glanced up as he crossed the foyer, his pale gaze expressionless.
“Where’s Tighe?”
He turned away. “He’s lost to you.”
“Like hell he is.” She moved to cut him off. “I want to see him.”
He towered over her, but stopped, eyeing her like he might an interesting little bug.
“Why?”
“I want to see if I can get him out of there.”
“You can’t.” He started around her.
She lifted the blade, threatening him if he took another step. “Sometimes when I touch him, it helps calm him. I might be able to pull him back.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“I’m willing to risk it.”
He lifted his hand and stroked his goatee as he studied her. “You would’ve attacked me.”
Delaney blinked, at first thinking he meant just then, when she’d raised the blade. Then she remembered the mating ceremony, when he’d cut Tighe. When she’d jumped off the pedestal, thinking they were in for a fight.
“His enemies are my enemies. At that moment, I wasn’t sure whether you fell into that category.”
Without so much as an acknowledgment that she’d spoken, he turned and went back the way he’d come.
Delaney stared at his retreating back and released a frustrated sigh, then turned, figuring she’d have to find Tighe on her own.
But she’d barely taken two steps when Kougar spoke. “The human wants to see Tighe.”
Delaney whirled back to find Kougar standing in a doorway partway around the corner.
“Like hell.” Lyon’s voice.
She strode to Kougar and walked past him into what had to be Lyon’s office. The big man sat behind a desk with a computer, shelves full of books and binders on the wall behind him.
Lyon’s brow lifted as he dropped his gaze to her weapon. “Is there a reason you’re armed?”
“Tighe took my guns. And the last time I walked down those stairs, it didn’t end so well.” She lifted the blade, her eyes going hard. “I’m thinking maybe you should bleed for me.”
A spark of respect lit his eyes. He pulled out his knife and drew blood from his palm, holding her gaze. “Kougar?”
She turned and watched as the pale-eyed Feral did the same, then before they could ask, she pricked her own finger on the tip of her blade. After showing Lyon the blood, she sucked it from her skin.
“I want you to take me to him.”
“He wouldn’t want you to see him as he is now.”
“I’ve already seen him like that. The night he punched me full of holes. I need to touch him. I might be able to reach him.”
“Impossible. You’re only a human.”
She moved forward and leaned on his desk. “We won’t know whether or not I can help him until I try.”
Something approaching sorrow warmed his amber eyes. “We’ve been trying to reach him for two days, Delaney. There’s nothing to be done.”
She stared at him, his words a painful shock. “Two days? He’s been lost in there for two days?”
Lyon’s eyes turned almost sympathetic. “I’m sorry.”
But his revelation only made her more desperate to reach him. She turned to Kougar. “Show me where he is.”
He gave an almost imperceptible nod and turned.
Behind her, Lyon leaped to his feet with a growl. “Delaney!”
She turned to face the chief of the Ferals, understanding why he was the leader as she felt the force within those amber eyes.
“He’ll take your arm off if you reach in there. There’s nothing in that cage but a vicious, wild animal.”
She flinched.
He saw it. His expression tightened with a pain that might almost have matched her own. “There’s nothing I can do for him except catch that clone.”
Delaney shook her head. “I’m not leaving him in there another second if I can get him out.” She looked at him forcefully. “I need you to hold him down.”
“All it will take is a single slash of his claws, or one errant bite, and you’re dead.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take. Twice he saved me when I needed him. Now he needs me.”
Lyon stared at her for a long, heavy minute. “You’re in love with him.”
She nodded slowly with a wry purse of her lips. “I am.”
On a huff of frustration, Lyon came around the desk. “If he kills you, he’ll never forgive me.”
“If I pull him out of there, you’ll have another warrior at your side.”
Lyon sighed. “True. Come on, then.”
He led her back through the foyer and down the same stairs Tighe had taken her to be mated. They passed the cavelike room and entered a wide, open gym, a section of which contained surprisingly modern equipment, including weight benches, stationary bikes, and six of the biggest treadmills she’d ever seen. At the back of that room, Lyon opened yet another door hidden within a wall of mirrors onto a long, narrow, stone-lined passage. Rustic and a little bit spooky.
As she’d suspected, she never would have found Tighe on her own.
“The house doesn’t look this big from upstairs,” she murmured as she followed him. Kougar brought up the rear.
“It’s not,” Lyon said cryptically.
Sounds began to reach her ears, the grunts and snarls of an animal. Tighe. She’d seen him feral before. A classic horror-show wolf man, only terribly, terribly real. Her fingernails dug into her palms as she prepared herself for that sight again.
The passage finally opened onto what was clearly a prison block with three thick-walled cells on either side, each with a heavily barred steel door. The floor was stone.
Gripping the bars of one door with fingers tipped by three-inch claws was Tighe.
Or rather the creature Tighe had become.
As before, his teeth were the wicked fangs of a tiger. His sunglasses were gone, his eyes those of an animal rather than a human—large, orange-gold pupils streaked with black. Not even a flicker of humanity lurked in their depths.
Tighe roared with fury, shaking the bars as if he wanted nothing more than to rip them out of their hinges and tear the limbs off anyone he could sink his claws into. With icy understanding, she knew that was exactly what he’d do if he got loose. She was not only risking her own life for what was almost certainly a waste of time, but she might even be risking the lives of the two men she’d dragged down there with her.
“Tighe?” Delaney stepped closer to the cage, but not so close he could reach through and catch her with those claws. “Tighe! Can you hear me?”
His growls only intensified.
“Tighe, it’s me. Delaney. Tighe, I need you. Your men need you. You’ve got to fight your way back.”
But the creature in front of her just snarled and shook the bars, his eyes at once wild and dead.
“I did warn you,” Lyon said softly.
She turned and met his gaze. “I need to touch him. I may need to look into his eyes.”
Lyon watched her for a long moment before he tossed her a key and nodded to the far cell. “Lock yourself in until we have him down. Don’t come out until I tell you to.”
With a nod, she went into the cell he’d indicated, pulled the metal door shut with a clang, then reached through the bars to lock it from outside. A shiver of claustrophobia had her curling her fingers tight around one cool steel bar. And Tighe had been caged like that for two days. Did he even know? Was he somewhat aware of where he was or, as she had been, was he floating around some dark void?
As she watched, Lyon and Wulfe shifted into the wolf-man feral state, their fangs and claws sprouting. Goose bumps rose on her arms. Unlike Tighe, though, they seemed to be in complete control. It wasn’t the feral state itself that had sent Tighe into oblivion. It was his halved soul. The feral state was only the door into that place.
The moment Lyon unlocked Tighe’s cage, all hell broke loose. Tighe sprang at them, slashing and ripping with his claws, going for Lyon’s throat.
Delaney pressed her hand to her forehead. Kara was going to kill her if Lyon died because of this.
But Lyon had clearly been prepared for the attack. In a carefully coordinated move, the two thinking Ferals went at Tighe from both sides and, in a matter of minutes, had him pinned to the floor, facedown. While Wulfe sat on him, pulling his arms up his back nearly to his shoulder blades, Lyon crushed his face against the floor.
“Ready,” Lyon said.
Delaney’s heart threatened to pound right out of her chest. Her palms turned damp. Was she really going in there?
She remembered Tighe’s voice when she’d been the one lost in the dark. The unbelievable relief.