Paenther stared at the man, taking his measure, finding both strength and fairness, making him all the more proud to be a Feral Warrior.
"Return to your places within the circle," Lyon growled.
Paenther slammed his fist against his chest as he met Lyon's gaze. "My loyalty is yours."
Lyon nodded once. "Good."
By the time Ancreta was dragged onto the rock, Paenther's hair was dripping from melted snowflakes, his hands nearly numb.
The blond beauty cowered at his feet in fear.
"Face your fate!" Paenther snarled, a borrowed knife in his hand. He looked at Vincent. "The head or the heart?"
"The head."
Paenther nodded once, then shoved the struggling witch onto her back. He wanted her to see death come for her. As fear lanced her copper-ringed irises, he saw again the innocent young beauty he'd believed her to be as he'd come to her rescue all those months ago. A bit of chivalry he had rued every moment since.
He knelt beside her, lifting his blade to strike, Vincent mirroring his action on her other side.
"Die, witch," they said as one.
As Vincent's blade hacked off her head in a shower of blood, Paenther's blade carved out her heart. Raw, savage satisfaction poured through his body, doing much to heal his soul.
It was done.
The two men rose as one, blood-splattered but grimly satisfied.
"Are you ready to try again?" Lyon asked.
Vincent nodded, a glimmer of a smile lifting his mouth, though his eyes remained hard and wary. "Ready as a stallion in rut."
Once more, the circle formed, blood bloomed on the warriors' chests, fists rose into the air. This time Paenther didn't shift, but in a flash of sparkling light, Vincent did. Where he'd stood, a huge black-and-green snake now curled on the rock, his scales shimmering as he grew in both length and width. Nine feet long. Twelve feet. Fifteen feet.
In a second flash of light, Vincent reappeared, grinning like a loon, his hair gone, his bald head gleaming, a gold armband with the head of a snake curving around his arm.
Paenther felt a rush of joy five times what he'd felt when he'd shifted himself.
"Henceforth," Kougar intoned, "you will be known as Vhyper."
Vincent/Vhyper whooped, a grin splitting his face as the two men embraced, slapping one another on the back. They pulled apart, grasping one another's shoulders.
"Is it not an astonishing feeling to shift, my friend?" Vhyper asked. "The rapture. The utter feeling of well-being."
"It is a fine feeling, Vhyper," Paenther said. The others had told him to expect as much. But for him, the shift had brought only pain. A pain to match the rage Ancreta had burned into his soul. The witch might be dead, but he feared her legacy would torment him until the very end of his immortal existence.
His hatred of all things Mage would endure through eternity.
Chapter One
Paenther floated, his mind in a sensual fog trapped somewhere between dream and reality. Remembering...
She held out her hand to him, an ethereal beauty with short, dark hair and soft eyes the color of a summer sky. Eyes that smoldered with passion as she led him behind the building, through the parking lot, and up the steep, heavily wooded hill behind the Market deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western Virginia.
He didn't even know her name.
Beyond the sight of prying eyes, he pulled her to a stop and kissed her, passion exploding as he pressed her against the nearest tree, desperate to be inside her. The deep rumble of a truck sounded in the distance. She kissed him back frantically, as if she feared they didn't have much time. The feel of her hand on his zipper made his blood pound. The touch of her fingers along the length of his bare flesh nearly stopped his heart.
Gentleness and care be damned, he needed her now. Shoving his hand beneath her dress, he found her bare and ready. His finger probed her depths, and she forced him deeper, whimpering with desire.
Yanking her dress up to her waist, he lifted her, positioning her sheath to his height. As she wrapped her bare thighs around his waist, he pushed inside her, filling her in a single, perfect thrust.
Heaven. Nothing in his life had ever felt more right. Within moments, her release broke over her with a cry, her inner muscles contracting hard around him, driving him over the edge.
"Look at me," she cried.
And he did, staring into eyes suddenly encircled by shiny copper rings.
The eyes of a Mage.
Paenther fought his way back to consciousness like a man hacking a path through a fog-shrouded jungle. Little by little, he parted the misty enchantment that encased his brain, impressions flying at him through his senses. Cold, rough stone dug into the bare flesh of his back as he lay with his arms pulled taut above his head. He flexed his muscles and tried to move, but harsh metal bit into his wrists as the sound of chains clanked against the rock.
Icy disbelief clawed through his mind. His pulse began to race.
He was chained. Naked.
Finally, finally, his vision tore free of the enchantment. His eyes snapped open, and he stared around him at the unlikely sight. He was alone.
In a cave.
High above him, dozens of daggerlike stalactites dripped from the roof. Floating around them were small flames encased in luminescent bubbles. A sight he hadn't seen since Ancreta's dungeon. A sight that filled him with cold dread.
Mage lightwicks.
He fought against his bonds in furious desperation as he struggled to remember what had happened.
The beauty. Innocence and wisdom shining from eyes the color of a summer sky. He'd buried himself inside her and found a passion and release more intense, more incredible, than any he'd ever known. Until, at that moment of raging perfection, she'd revealed herself to be Mage, and he'd felt the net of enchantment snare his mind.
The memory stopped his breath, cramping his guts. For the second time in his life, he'd been captured by a Mage witch.
Fury charged through his body, a yell of denial roaring through his head as he struggled to free himself.
This couldn't be happening. He had not fallen into another Mage trap! He'd barely survived the first one.
Goddess, he had to get out of here.
He studied his cage with a strafing gaze. It appeared to be a room, an uneven room roughly fifteen feet by fifteen feet, with a steel door that had been left open. Through the doorway, he glimpsed more stone, telling him he was probably in one of the extensive caverns that riddled the Blue Ridge. The air was damp and cool, but he barely felt the chill through the rage boiling his blood.
The rock slab beneath him appeared to be high off the ground yet attached to the wall like some kind of wide, natural shelf. The wall curved just enough to shield him from the mineral-laden water dripping from the stalactites into the puddles on the floor.
As he tipped his head back to look behind him, he caught the odd sight of a showerhead sticking out of the rock. Plumbing? Was this actually the Mage stronghold, then, and not simply a prison?
He turned to look in the other direction behind him, and froze. Hanging from wooden hangers, from a single peg on the wall, were three softly colored dresses in a shapeless, long-sleeved style he recognized all too well. Hers.
Fury ripped through his mind as he remembered, in painful clarity, lifting the hem of one of those soft, worn dresses and sliding his hand beneath to encounter only warm flesh and damp heat. A heat the witch had invited him to drive himself into. He had, and it was an act he'd regret for the rest of his life.
He wondered just how long that would be, now.
Ice congealed in his heart. His only reason for being in these mountains at all was to find Vhyper. Something had happened to his friend during a ritual a few weeks ago. He'd been cut by the Daemon blade, as they all had. But unlike the rest of them, Vhyper had changed. Some of the Ferals thought the evil in the blade had stolen his soul.
Paenther refused to believe it. He would save Vhyper just as Vhyper had saved him all those years ago. But he had to find him first. Getting trapped and chained in a witch's lair sure as hell wasn't the way to go about it.
His muscles corded as he fought the chains with every ounce of strength he possessed until his skin was damp with sweat and his wrists slick with blood. Yet he accomplished nothing. He was pinned fast, his arms trapped above his head, his legs spread and tethered.
Ah, goddess. If only you'd stopped me. No fate could be worse. He'd have sold his soul to have escaped this.
Heaven help me. His soul was probably the very thing the witch wanted. To finish what Ancreta had started all those years ago - tearing him loose from his animal once and for all.
"Go! Flee!" Skye clapped her hands at the small herd of deer gathering around her. Pouring her will into the air, she set them to flight with a swish of their white tails. "I'm death," she cried, as they scattered into the surrounding woods. "I'm nothing but death to you!"
But even as the beautiful creatures disappeared, Skye knew they'd return. They always returned, drawn to her as deeply as she was to them. Tears burned her eyes. Not for the first time, she bitterly wished she'd never been born with this affinity for the Earth's creatures. The gift that should have been a source of joy had turned her life into a living nightmare.
Skye collapsed back against the nearest tree trunk, her heart thudding with agitation, her stomach sick from the weight of hatred.
"Dear Mother," she prayed. "Take Birik and burn him in Hell!"
But the Mother never heard her. How many years had she been trapped in this darkness, chained to this mountain as surely as the warrior she'd captured was chained to the rock slab in her room, even if her chains were less visible?
Two days ago she'd been sent to capture him - a shape-shifter. One of the elite Feral Warriors. One of the most rare creatures in the world and, without a doubt, the most beautiful. He'd shown her such extraordinary gentleness, such fierce passion, and she'd repaid him with the ultimate betrayal.
But she'd had no choice. If only she could end this nightmare. If only she could escape Birik and this mountain!
The nudge at her hip had her sinking to her knees to embrace the doe who'd come right back to her. "Ever loyal, aren't you, Faithful?" The white-tailed deer with the notch out of her ear was her favorite. Her only true friend. One she would never take into the caverns. Ever.
The doe nuzzled her cheek, staring at her with those huge brown eyes, giving her the only loyalty she'd known in too many years. Unhappiness burned the backs of her eyes. Fear twisted inside her. Though Birik had assured her he had no intention of killing the Feral, she was terrified he'd lied.
She curved both arms around Faithful, burying her face in her soft brown neck, wishing for a miracle that would save them all. But she'd long ago ceased believing in miracles.
Slowly, the other deer returned to gather around her, as did several dozen other forest creatures. Drawn to her, every one, much to her joy...and sorrow.
With a last caress, she said good-bye to Faithful, sending her away as she chose another doe to accompany her back to the caverns, along with several smaller animals.
As much as she dreaded facing the Feral, dreading the anger she knew she'd see in those dark eyes that had looked at her with such gentleness, she had to get back to him.
And pray she could keep him alive.
Paenther caught the witch's scent, that delicate, damning smell of violets, moments before she stepped into the doorway, the ethereal beauty who'd shown him heaven between her thighs, then captured him in her net of bewitchment. At the sight of her, lust slammed into him all over again.
Even as hatred seared its way through his blood, his gaze drank in the vision. She was slender, with few curves revealing themselves beneath the soft, shapeless blue dress. But her short hair accentuated a long, graceful neck and features that were too fine, too delicate for a coldhearted witch.
Mage or not, she stole his breath.
She watched him, her eyes wary, as she gently stroked the rabbit in her arms. At her side, a doe pressed her head against the witch's hip while several excited squirrels chased one another around her ankles.
He'd thought she was human.
Closing his eyes against the sight of her, he prayed that grave error didn't turn out to be the last mistake he ever made.
At the soft sound of her movement, he opened his eyes and watched her cross the room, leading her small menagerie to a cage in the corner. The rabbit and squirrels ran inside, and she fastened the door, then tied the docile doe loosely with a rope attached to the wall. Empathy for the creatures jolted him. Creatures she'd captured as surely as she'd captured him.
The animals seemed to like her. Pets, no doubt. A growl rumbled low in his throat. He would never be her pet.
The hatred inside him was so raw, so pure, if his gaze could kill, she'd be dead. Goddess, he couldn't remember the last time he'd let his cock do his thinking for him. No woman had pierced his icy control in centuries. The fact that this one had should have rung a thousand warning bells that she wasn't what she seemed.
"Witch," he snarled. "What do you want from me?"
She rose from her animals with the grace of a dancer and turned to him. There was a fragility about her that tried to tug at his protective instincts. But like everything about her that pulled at him, he knew it was a lie. If he ever managed to free himself from these shackles, he'd carve the heart out of her chest just as he had Ancreta's.
"What I want doesn't matter." Even her soft voice, rich with a regret he didn't believe, held a musical lilt that stroked his senses. "I'm sorry to have brought you here."
"Then let me go."
"I can't." She came toward him, stopping at the foot of the stone platform where he was chained. To his consternation, she watched him, her gaze sliding over his flesh. His body rose, hardening, as if her hands and not her gaze caressed him.