A single, icy finger slid down the slope of her nose. “To open the channel to the dark power deep in the earth. Power I need in order to call the other half of my soul and to find the master of the witch who created me so that I might add my strength to those who work to free Satanan and the Daemons from the blade.”
Her mind flared with denial. She wouldn’t help him! “You can’t free them from the blade. Only the Ferals can do that.”
“For a time, that was true. But the dark powers are amassing, and that time is gone.” He stepped back and motioned to the rock behind her. “Bare your chest for me, Delaney, and lie down in the center of the pentagram.”
Her blood went cold. Her brain screamed with refusal. But her body obeyed. She tugged off the long-sleeved tee shirt, pulled off her bra, and lay on her back on the cold stone in the middle of the blue-painted star.
As she looked up at the glowing clouds against the dark sky, her mind and heart reached for Tighe. Pouring her love into that link, unable to hide her terror or her outrage that she was to be used as the instrument of his death and that she was powerless to stop it.
As the clone looked down at her, for a desperate moment, she thought Tighe had come. But then she saw the flash of a wicked blade and knew that the nightmare wasn’t over at all. It was just beginning.
As the knife pierced her chest and began a downward slide, a scream launched through her head, echoing off the walls of her skull and tearing, like blades of ice, through her brain. But no sound left her mouth, no sound shattered her eardrums. The clone’s control over her was total.
The knife slid down, then beneath each breast as if cutting a design in her flesh, engulfing her in a river of agony from which there was no escape. Blood ran down her sides. And the scream in her head went on, and on, and on.
Tighe lifted his head and let out a ferocious roar of misery and fury.
Tighe? Lyon’s voice.
Tighe knocked into another tree, stumbling through the woods, blind, blood caking his fur from the dradens’ bites. He has her on the goddess stone. He intends to use her to access dark power. To steal my soul and help free Satanan.
Like hell. Can you reach her?
A wild rage ripped through his tiger’s body, sending him thrashing through the trees. Not until I can free myself from this damned vision!
We’ll converge there as fast as we can.
Sweat ran with the blood, but he kept moving, following the sound of Delaney’s terror.
He was cutting her.
He had to get out of the vision!
Quit feeding, shitbag. Let me get out of your head. But he watched as the knife carved…a pentagram. On her chest. He was going to be sick.
Breathe.
The vision suddenly disappeared in the same moment the draden took off. A weird frisson of energy pierced the air, but Tighe wasted no time wondering about it. He ran on all fours, parting the woods in a flash of orange fur.
Something’s happening, Lyon said.
Tighe gave a ferocious roar. He’s trying to raise the dark power. I’m on my way to the goddess stone, now.
As he raced through the forest to reach his heart, to save the woman he loved, he prayed he wasn’t already too late.
Tighe reached the goddess stone at the same time as the other Ferals.
What the fuck? Jag said, still in his jaguar form.
As one, they stared at the goddess stone. Or at the spot they knew the goddess stone should be, because they sure as hell couldn’t see it.
The draden swarmed the stone by the thousands, the millions.
And Delaney was there.
With a roar, Tighe leaped down the rocks on his tiger’s paws, following the sound of the scream, Delaney’s scream, flowing down the line that connected their hearts. He felt the others close behind him as he launched himself into the draden.
The collision knocked him back on his haunches as if he’d run into a concrete wall.
What the hell? He should have gone through!
As he sprang to his tiger’s paws, he saw the others picking themselves up, too.
Magic, Lyon said. Damn powerful magic.
I’ll make it, Tighe growled. He had to make it. Delaney needed him.
Opening his mouth wide, he tried to grab the little suckers in his jaws, but his teeth scraped the surface of the magic and never touched the fiends themselves.
His frustration tore through the night on a furious roar. In a desperate move, he shifted to human, praying he’d draw them out of the magic to attack him.
They didn’t move. The draden wall remained solid.
“Delaney!”
His blood boiled even as his heart felt as if it had been shot through with ice. He had to reach her. He had to reach her!
With a rage born of desperation, he slammed his fist into the unnatural wall and felt it sink up to his elbow.
It worked.
But the pain and tearing had him instinctively yanking back, only to stare, disbelieving at what was left of his arm. Little more than shredded remnants of flesh clinging to the bone.
“Holy shit,” Jag murmured, taking human form. Then tried to slam his fist through, too, but his fist only bounced off as his jaguar’s body had.
Lyon, Kougar, and Hawke, too, shifted and tried to punch through, but only Tighe was able to breach the wall.
Lyon’s gaze met Tighe’s. “Looks like this is your fight.”
Tighe nodded. As he dove headfirst into that feeding frenzy, he heard Lyon behind him.
“Kill the son of a bitch.”
As he pushed through, inch by inch, he felt his flesh being devoured by savage mouths, his life force being sucked from his body. When he finally emerged onto the goddess stone, he stumbled, barely able to stand.
“Tighe.” Delaney lay as he’d seen her in the vision, but so much worse, her eyes tight with pain and despair, and horror at the sight he must be with his flesh nearly gone. Her own flesh was open, her blood spilling over the rock too fast for her to possibly be still alive and conscious.
Opening himself to her, he felt it. The dark hold the clone had on her, the talons gripped around her heart. It was all that was keeping her alive.
And in a shattering moment, he understood. The second the clone died, so too would Delaney.
His fury swung to the one responsible.
The clone stood a few feet away, his face and chest raised to the heavens like a man inhaling air…or power.
Tighe tried to shift into his tiger form, his stronger form, but he was too weak to do even that. So he did the only thing he could. He launched himself at the clone. And took a fist to the face that sent him reeling back into the wall of draden. The small bits of flesh that had started to regrow were chewed off before he could push himself out of the little monsters’ grasp again.
The clone chuckled, grinning Tighe’s grin. “You can’t stop me, Feral. I’m nearly through, and when I’m done, you’ll be dead.”
“You’ll never get away.”
“With my draden guard, who’s going to stop me?”
The Ferals would stop him. He prayed to the goddess they’d be able to stop him. But he wasn’t at all certain they could.
Tighe. Delaney’s voice floated through his head, soft and weak. Come to me.
I’m here, sweetheart.
No, my tiger. Come over here where I can touch you. I need to touch you.
He wasn’t sure how she could even stand to look at him, let alone touch his decimated flesh. Though second by second his body regenerated, he still looked more ghoul than man.
Lowering his center of gravity to a fighter’s stance, he began to circle the clone, inching his way toward Delaney until his feet were slick with her blood.
Brown eyes. Grief swept through him, swift and terrible. She was going to die, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Sweetheart, I’m sorry. I should have been there to stop you. To protect you.
We tried. It was a good plan.
Are you in terrible pain? He’d been able to feel her pain initially, but either it had waned, or his own was blotting it out.
I feel nothing but my love for you, Tighe. I’ll always love you. I’ll always watch over you.
His heart cried with anguish. Don’t give up, D. I’m going to find a way to save you. I have to find a way to save you!
Another step, and he felt it, her too-cool fingers sliding around the bones of his shredded ankle.
I love you, Tighe. Her love flowed through him on a rush of warmth. The tiger spirit inside him stirred and raised his head. Strength began to flow once more through his body. She was pouring her love into him, making him strong. Healing him.
Brown eyes, I love you. More than life.
He felt her smile enfold him through the connection between their hearts.
Tiger! Delaney called softly. Help him.
The animal spirit inside him leaped to its feet. With a ferocious roar, he sent power rushing though Tighe’s body. Perhaps power enough to shift. But enough to fight?
He wouldn’t know until he tried.
Let go, D. Let go, sweetheart.
As her fingers fell away, he prayed to the goddess this worked, and pulled on the energy inside him to access his tiger form.
The lights flickered, then died, then flickered again as he fought to shift. He had to shift. Only in his tiger form could he possibly beat the man who had his own strength but who was whole and strong, as he wasn’t.
Finally, finally, the transformation slid through his body, with none of the accompanying rush of joy. He’d shifted. But the draden had taken too much from him.
The clone whipped out his dagger, the light of battle in his eyes.
Tighe’s vision wavered. His heavy tiger’s body lurched drunkenly, and he doubted he could rally the energy to ward off the clone’s attack, let alone launch one of his own.
He had to. For Delaney, he had to.
He started forward on unsteady legs, watching as the clone lifted his dagger, ready to plunge it into his brain. A single stab wound wouldn’t kill him, but in his weakened state, it might be all the shitbag needed to drive him to his knees, where he would cut out his heart. And no creature survived without a heart.
I love you, D.
Don’t give up on us yet, Tighe. That small power boost from your lovely tiger spirit went both ways. I’ve broken free of his hold. I can move again.
As the dagger began its deadly descent, Tighe bunched his hind legs, desperate to find the strength to ward off the attack. To protect Delaney.
The first explosion rang through his ears, sending him back on his haunches. Two more rang out, the clone’s eye disintegrating, holes erupting in his face, before he understood what was happening.
Delaney. She’d reached her gun. Round after round exploded into the clone’s face.
Giving him a chance.
Tighe stumbled forward, grabbed the clone’s bloodless leg between his powerful jaws and tore it off his body, sending the demon spawn crashing to the ground, his dagger skittering away. With another powerful bite, he tore off an arm and tossed it aside. Collapsing across the clone’s broken body, he pulled off the other arm, then turned and gnawed off his second leg.
But the creature’s heart remained. And his head.
Tighe’s own heart cried out with the knowledge that destroying them meant destroying Delaney as well.
Tighe. Move me! Out of the pentagram. He’s still sucking the power. He’s still trying to steal your soul.
Rallying what little strength his body had managed to renew, he changed once more into a man, then stumbled to Delaney’s side and knelt in her blood.
“Oh, D.” Her skin was white as the clouds. As bloodless as the clone. With shaking hands, he scooped her up and into his arms, cradling her against him as he turned to his foe.
In a squawking frenzy, the draden took off, disappearing into the dark, as if suddenly released. The Ferals rushed onto the stone to surround him.
Delaney’s head lolled over his arm, as she fell unconscious. But her heart continued to beat.
The clone met Tighe’s gaze, his own face staring back at him. “You can kill me, Feral. You’ll retrieve your soul. But you’ll lose your heart. She’s mine.” He grinned, dimples flashing, evil gleaming from eyes almost completely covered in black shards.
Jag kicked the demon spawn in the head, but the clone just continued to grin.
Jag pulled out his knife. “Mind if I do the honors?”
“Don’t,” Tighe growled. “He’s right. He’s tied himself to Delaney. When he dies, so will she.”
“Tighe.” Lyon’s palm squeezed his shoulder, transmitting a fine tension. “You see his eyes? There’s only a sliver of green left. Yours are the same. When that last bit of green goes, you die. You may only have minutes. We can’t lose you.”
His soul cried. Delaney must live.
Inside, his tiger paced and leaped, growling and snarling. With a jolt, he realized the spirit was trying to get his attention. He was trying to…
“He’s trying to pull my soul back through Delaney’s body,” he murmured. And suddenly he understood. Pulling the soul back through her might just undo that evil connection.
Tighe’s gaze snapped to Lyon’s. “I need a power raising!”
“Done,” Lyon barked. “Now!”
The tiger inside him gave a powerful roar, his approval flowing through Tighe like a warm river. They would raise the spirits of the beasts. And in doing so, empower the spirit of the tiger.
Please, goddess, let this work. Let her live.
Jag and Lyon were already naked from their shifting, as was Tighe from the decimation of his flesh. Kougar and Hawke yanked off their shirts.
Tighe’s flesh was quickly reknitting and almost healed again.
Lyon helped Tighe hold Delaney as he handed Tighe a knife. Tighe sliced his chest, slapped his palm to the blood, and shoved his fist into the air. The men formed a circle around the clone on the broad, flat goddess stone, and, one by one, sliced their own chests, slapping their bloody palms on top of his.