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.
In the shape-shifter's defense, he'd been attacked by malicious magic and had genuinely needed a good sexual cleansing to get rid of it. To be honest, had he approached her with a wink and a smile, and a little respect, she might well have done as he asked. Therians were nothing if not sexual. And even as rudely as he'd acted, her body had responded, leaping with excitement at his touch, his nearness, his scent.
But he'd shown her no respect, and she'd responded by smiling at him coldly while driving her spiked heel halfway through his instep.
That should have been the end of it, but Ferals were a stubborn lot, and this one, she suspected, was worse than most. As she met his gaze now across the conference table, her mouth lifted in a cold, taunting smile, silently reminding him of that meeting, of her painful retaliation. But instead of earning herself the scowl she'd hoped for, laughter lit his eyes, a devilish gleam that told her the feel of her breast in his hand had been worth the pain. And would be again.
A thrill skittered through her traitorous body, and she turned away. She had far too much pride to be drawn to a male with a lousy attitude and a foul mouth, but her body couldn't have cared less. Jerk or not, the man possessed a raw sexuality that sizzled across her skin, seeping into her pores.
Determined to ignore him, she let her gaze travel. Beside Jag sat Wulfe, his badly scarred face set in lines of concentration. She wasn't sure how a quickly healing immortal could end up with scars like that, but wasn't about to ask. He'd greeted her cordially enough when they were introduced, but his manner was diffident, almost as if he'd expected her to be put off by his scars.
Beside Wulfe, Lyon's mate, Kara, played beneath his protective and loving eye with the kitten perched on Skye's shoulder. Skye was Paenther's mate and a Mage, though one with a soul, and a particularly sweet one at that. Directly behind the two women, Paenther stood with his arms crossed over his chest like a fearsome bodyguard, the impression ruined by the hint of a smile that twitched at the corners of his mouth every time his gaze landed on his mate.
The Ferals were nothing if not protective. An extremely tight, close-knit brotherhood.
Except, she sensed, for Jag.
As hard as she tried, she couldn't ignore him a moment longer, and she found his eyes still boring into her with that unnerving stare. If he weren't in human form, she was certain his tail would be swinging slow, snapping back and forth as he watched her like a cat waiting for the right moment to pounce.
Definitely uncivilized. Not that she needed civilized. Not at all. Especially not in bed.
But she absolutely demanded respect. And from what she'd seen and heard about this Feral, he respected no one. Her body might be intrigued by the man, but her pride called the shots. Jag was just going to have to find some other woman to stalk. This one wasn't interested.
If only her wayward gaze would stop making a liar out of her.
Jag couldn't remember the last time he'd been this intrigued with a woman.
Beneath hard brows, he studied Olivia, his gaze taking in the trim pantsuit, this one deep tan with a dark green sweater underneath. Though he couldn't see them beneath the conference table that separated them, he knew that on those slender feet she wore pumps, or whatever the hell women called them - with four-inch heels. He'd noticed them right off when she'd walked into the room, his instep giving a throb of recognition. The memory made him smile. Damn, he liked a tough woman.
He watched her sitting across the table, her gaze toward the front of the room as she pretended to ignore him. Her bright red hair, thick and straight, hung just to her shoulders, making his fingers itch to know if it felt as soft as it looked. Her features were even and pretty, but nevertheless gave off an impression of strength - her chin determined, her mouth firm and haughty, her gray eyes sharp as glass and cool as a winter sky.
Those eyes flickered over him now. Her gaze tried to dismiss him, yet couldn't keep from returning over and over again. Any more than his could stay away from her.
He'd never been partial to redheads, and feature by feature, there was nothing particularly special about this one. But Olivia proved a prime example of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole. The woman was stunning, and she turned him on in a way he couldn't pretend to understand. From the moment he first saw her, she'd lit a fire in his blood that showed no signs of going out.
Not until he got her into bed and slaked this obsession. Which, considering the way he'd first approached her, was going to be a challenge.
Usually, he didn't much care how women took his peculiar brand of charm. Being a Feral Warrior was enough to get him into plenty of beds despite his piss-poor attitude.
Once there, he knew what to do to make certain he got invited back...if he didn't piss them off too much later. Which happened sometimes. His charm was an underappreciated thing.
The thought made him smile, a small biting twist of his lips.
Olivia had definitely underappreciated the way he'd greeted her last week. Even for him, walking up to a strange woman and squeezing her breast had been going a bit far.
But he'd been out of his mind from the magic crawling on him at the time, and there'd been something about her that had pulled him like a magnet. Maybe that hair of hers was the problem, that glorious red beacon and the way it caught the light. Or the hint of a Scottish brogue he sometimes heard in her words.
Maybe it was way she barely reached his shoulder yet filled the room with her presence until he could think of nothing else.See nothing else. Or maybe it was the heat in her eyes that had snared him, the temper she kept carefully banked and masked beneath a layer of chilly frost.
He honestly didn't know, but whatever the hell had drawn him to her showed no signs of letting go.
The woman intrigued him, all right. Sooner or later, he'd have her moaning his name, begging him to take her to bed. She wouldn't want to. He had no illusions about that.
Pride was written all over her face and woven into every line of her sweet little body.
No, she'd see wanting him as a weakness, begging him to fill her as a self-betrayal. But she'd beg him all the same because few women could resist him once he set his mind to seduction.
Jag smiled. Not even Olivia. Hard as she tried, the cool, sexy little redhead couldn't ignore him. He'd gotten under her skin. Just as she'd gotten under his.
Beside him, Wulfe cracked his knuckles. "Have we learned any more about these Daemons?"
Lyon's mouth tightened. "No. They appear to be little more than soulless feeding machines, but that doesn't mean they're not dangerous. Hawke and Kougar have been trying to re-create one of the ancient Daemon traps, but so far without success. After five millennia, too much of our understanding of the creatures has been lost. Kougar hasn't given up on the traps, but we can't count on them working. We're going to have to hunt down those bastards the old-fashioned way."