"I'll call the Shaman. I believe he knows a binding spell to keep your witch from practicing her magic. And he may know of a way to get you out of those shackles. Hold on, Kara's got Tighe on her cell phone." He repeated the address Paenther had given him. "They're about an hour north of there, B.P. He'll find you. We'll regroup here."
"Agreed."
Paenther replaced the phone in its cradle, left the house as quietly as he'd arrived, and went to retrieve Skye. As he climbed the hill to the trees where he'd left her, he heard the low growl of a dog. His heart lurched. He'd left Skye unconscious, unprotected.
But the dog, a medium-sized mutt, was curled up beside her. As if protecting her.
"Go!" he shouted softly to the dog. The animal jumped up and barked at him. Paenther went feral, baring his teeth. The dog turned tail and ran.
Even unconscious she drew the animals. Looking down at her, at the dress plastered against her too-slender body, he couldn't deny he struggled against the same need to protect her. When he thought the mutt had hurt her, he'd been furious.
Paenther scowled. Even unconscious she wove her spell around him. Protect her, hell. All he wanted to do was hurt her.
Except that wasn't true.
Maybe once he was free of the shackles, he'd be able to see her clearly at last. He'd be able to see the cunning, calculating bitch who'd played on his sympathies and pretended to be beaten and vulnerable so he'd fuck her and help her raise the power to free those abominations.
He settled onto the ground beside her, leaning back against one thick oak trunk, where he had sight of the road and could watch for Tighe's white Land Rover.
Reaching for her instinctively, he stopped and pulled his hand back, fighting the urge to pull her onto his lap and hold her against the rain. Even knowing what she was, he felt this need to touch her, to hold her.
Which made him hate her even more.
He would get his retribution. Goddess help him, he would. She'd rue the day she'd turned those sad, blue eyes on him and pulled him under her spell.
"Panther-man," Jag drawled, thrusting out his arm and slapping his forearm to Paenther's as each man grasped the other's wrist in the traditional greeting. "Glad to see you made it out of there, Geronimo."
Paenther nodded, then turned to Tighe. As one, they embraced. Little emotion ever escaped past the fury that consumed his life, but he felt a relief to see his old friend that went all the way to his soul.
"You finally got that clone."
"Hell, yeah." Tighe pulled back. Sharp, warm emotion glittered in his eyes. "We've been looking for you for days."
He didn't have to say the words for Paenther to know they'd feared he was dead.
"How long have I been gone? I lost track of time in that place."
"About six days." He nodded at Skye, still lying asleep in the grass. "Is that the witch?"
"That's her."
Tighe scowled. "Do we really want to bring another one of those things in the house?"
"I'm not leaving her behind. But we need to tie her hands. Got any rope?"
Tighe flicked his hand at Jag. "Give me your belt."
Jag grunted but unfastened the belt on his camouflage pants and tossed it over. Paenther knelt in the wet grass beside Skye and tied her arms behind her back. Mage generally couldn't enchant a Feral or Therian without the direct touch of their hand. This one had claimed she couldn't do even that, but he didn't trust her.
As he slung her over his shoulder, an attractive brunette slid out of Tighe's SUV and joined them. When Tighe slid his arm around her shoulder, Paenther lifted a brow. He'd heard Tighe had taken a human as his mate, but he'd thought it was only to keep her from betraying him while he used her to capture his clone.
"This is Delaney, B.P."
The woman extended her hand to him, and he shook it, impressed by her fearless, straightforward attitude. He wasn't exactly the most docile-looking of males. None of the Ferals were.
Paenther nodded to her. "It's dangerous out here for a human."
The woman smiled, her sharp gaze meeting his own. "Turns out I'm no longer human. No longer mortal, anyway."
Paenther's surprised gaze swiveled to Tighe.
Tighe grinned. "It's true. But it's a long story. Let's get - "
"Draden," Jag warned. "A tiny little flock of them."
Sure enough, half a dozen of the fiends were descending from the sky. Paenther grabbed the knife he'd taken from the farmhouse and plucked out the hearts of the ones that came near him as his friends dispatched the others.
"Let's get out of here before more find us," Tighe said, closing his switchblade. Paenther carried the unconscious witch to the SUV and laid her in the cargo area in back, then climbed in beside Jag while Delaney took the front seat beside Tighe. If Skye woke, he'd be ready to grab her before she could touch anyone.
The last thing he needed was her enchanting more Ferals. Not when he suspected he was still under her spell.
Even before she was fully awake, Skye's heart began to pound like a hammer on an anvil. She was lying on her side, yet moving, the low hum of an engine tight against her ear. A car.
This couldn't be happening. Birik would never let her go. Yet clearly, somehow, she'd escaped the cavern.
In a rush of memory, it all came back. She'd tried to free Paenther, and he'd grabbed her, knocking her out.
He'd captured her.
As his last words rang in her ears, her stomach cramped with fear. Do you really think I'd leave you behind, witch? When all I can think of is taking my revenge on you?
Skye began to tremble, perspiration dampening her back. Slowly, carefully, she opened her eyes to find herself swallowed by a darkness punctuated by flashes of light from the windows above.
"How's Foxx?"
Paenther's voice rumbled close by, the sound strangely comforting even as it filled her with dread. He was furious with her, convinced everything she'd told him was a lie. Vhyper had told her as much.
If she could ever convince him she wasn't his enemy, that she hated Birik more than he did, she felt in her heart he'd help her again, just as he had that night Birik attacked her.
But if not...
Her mouth turned to dust. If not, she was going to suffer.
"Foxx is fine," a male voice replied from the front of the car. "He avoided capture though they managed to slam him with some kind of confusion spell. He couldn't remember where he'd lost you."
A third man grunted. The one directly in front of her. "It took three fucks to clear him of the magic."
"Watch your language around my mate, Jag," the man in front warned.
A low sound of warm feminine laughter erupted, also from the front, a sound Skye might have found pleasing if she weren't so frightened.
"Six years with the FBI. Believe me, I've heard worse. I've said worse. But I'm still having a hard time believing sex cures magical enchantment. That sounds like a line if I ever heard one. Right up there with, But honey, it'll make your acne go away."
"It's during - " the man began.
"I know, I know," the woman replied. "It's during the moment of sexual release that the mind and body are most open." She made a sound that was half humor, half sigh. "I don't really doubt it's true. It's just one of a hundred things I'm having trouble wrapping my human mind around."
"You know, D, after being in the car with a witch..." The man's voice trailed off suggestively.
The woman laughed, that same sultry burst of air. "As if you needed an excuse." Her voice was rich with warmth and deep with affection.
Skye blinked into the darkness. How long had it been since she'd heard such affection between two people? She and Lucian had spoken to one another like that once, years ago. She'd barely been full grown when they'd fallen in love behind Birik's back. But then Inir had come and Lucian's eyes had turned as cold as the others' and he'd decided hurting her was more fun than loving her.
"We're all going to need a good fuck after riding with the witch," the one called Jag drawled. "Ever taken two cocks at once, FBI? I'm not real particular which hole I shove mine into."
The driver's growl turned deep and vicious. The car swerved, rolling Skye onto her back as the smell of blood suddenly filled the air.
"Tighe, drive," Paenther barked.
"Then rip his throat out for me," Tighe snarled.
"Jag..." Paenther's voice was as hard granite, yet laced with a deep frustration. "That's too far, even for you."
"Just making conversation." No hint of remorse warmed Jag's words. If anything, a note of smug satisfaction rang in his tone. But she felt the animal inside him, the jaguar, and heard him howl softly as if in pain.
Instinctively, her mind reached out to him, trying to offer comfort. But the animal turned on her, hissing.
Jag growled low in his throat swinging around to stare down at her with malice in his eyes. "Your witch is fucking with my animal."
Skye scrambled to sit up, pressing her back against the hatch door, the beat of her heart turning erratic. Paenther might wear shackles that kept him from shifting, but the other men in this car didn't. And the animals inside them were huge, fierce felines, every one.
Paenther turned as well, his face shadowed, his displeasure palpable.
She tensed out of long habit, bracing for the strike of a fist.
None came.
"Stop it, Skye. Stop screwing with their animals."
She stared at him, at the anger in his eyes. Anger, but no violence. At least not yet.
"I...didn't mean to," she said quietly.
"She has a way with animals," Paenther said coldly. "She slaughters them."
Skye opened her mouth to object, then closed it again as Paenther continued.
"And dances in their blood."
She pressed her lips together, the knot in her chest tightening. She couldn't argue that she danced in their blood. And while she never killed her creatures, there was no denying she led them to the slaughter. Even if it destroyed something inside her every time.
How could she ever convince him that she did none of it willingly? He'd already made up his mind against her. She felt his animal sense her and give welcome, his silent purr a balm to her quaking heart.
But Jag's animal was still hissing and a third cat - a tiger, maybe? - didn't seem to be much happier about her presence. Why? Animals always greeted her. Why not these? Was the men's animosity toward her affecting the animals inside them? Or maybe she simply didn't have a way with animals that were also men.
Except the one inside Paenther.
As Jag turned back around, she met Paenther's warning gaze, briefly, before turning to look out the windows. There was nothing she could do, either way. She couldn't control their animals any more than she could control the men themselves.
Fear lived and breathed inside her as her distracted gaze took in the vast array of vehicles, and the buildings lit with a thousand lights. For the first time in her adult life, she was free of the cavern.
Free of the slaughter.
The realization swept over her on a deep tide of relief and anxiety. Her precious creatures were safe, at last. She wasn't. Birik's reach was long. She'd thwarted him, escaping without meaning to, and there would be hell to pay. The thought of it trembled inside her, but not even fear could dull the warmth in her heart of knowing her creatures would never again suffer because of her.
Whatever happened, she could not allow the Ferals to send her back.
The scenery passed, the office buildings giving way to houses and rolling roads, and finally to a long, circular driveway that told her they'd reached their destination. Feral House, she'd heard it called. The home of the Feral Warriors.
It sat at the back of the drive, a magnificent three-story brick house with black shutters at the windows and dormers tucked under the roofline. The windows were ablaze with light, giving the house a look of warmth and welcome that reminded her with bitter longing of the house, the Mage stronghold, where she'd lived as a child.
Any appearance of warmth was an illusion. There would never be any welcome at Feral House for her.
Along the edges of the drive were parked an array of cars, everything from low-slung sports cars to unremarkable sedans.
The car came to a stop, the hum of the engine going silent as the men and the woman flung open the doors and escaped into the night, slamming the doors behind them.
Skye scooted toward the seat backs as the door behind her lifted. Paenther's hard and shadowed face stared down at her as he reached in and gripped her arm, hauling her out of the car and depositing her on her bare feet. She stood in the light coming from the windows of the well-lit house, her hands tied behind her, trembling. As the cool breeze tugged and pulled at the skirt of her dress, she watched Paenther reach up and pull down the hatch, the muscles of his bare arms and torso flexing.
He was a beautiful creature. Strong. Powerful. If he decided she needed to die, she'd be dead in the heartbeat of his choosing. He turned and came to her with a dangerous catlike grace that drew her even as it scared her. Never had she wanted to be this man's enemy.
He grabbed her arm again without meeting her gaze, his jaw hard as granite, and led her up the brick walk as if she were a prisoner on her last journey. She wondered, briefly, despondently, if she'd ever again breathe the night air.
The couple she assumed were Tighe and his mate waited for them to catch up. Tighe was handsome in a classic sort of way, with his short blond hair and hard, unfriendly eyes. The woman was beautiful, with her dark hair and confident bearing. She watched Skye with an assessing, curious gaze.