Obsession Untamed (3 page)

Wulfe shifted back into his animal and joined the slaughter of the disordered swarm.

Tighe caught one after another of the little demons in his massive jaws. Neither the hearts nor the creatures themselves had any real taste, for they weren’t flesh and blood but made almost entirely of energy.

We’ve got company. Jag’s voice sounded in his head.

Tighe swung his massive tiger’s head in the direction Jag was facing. Sure enough, two teenaged boys stood in the woods not twenty yards away, watching a sight that must be unbelievable to them. Humans couldn’t see the draden, but they could sure as hell see the huge tiger, wolf, and jaguar.

Tighe gave a mental groan of frustration. Damn humans, always getting in the way. Fortunately for them, draden only attacked humans if there were
no Therians for miles around. Still, the humans were a problem.

Jag, come with me, Tighe said. The two cats possessed the ability to change the size and, to some extent, the forms of their animals at will. While Wulfe continued to fight the draden in his wolf form, Tighe and Jag shifted into what most humans would see as house cats, then circled behind the two boys.

“Where’d the tiger go?” a youthful voice asked.

“Dude, is this for real? I thought it was the weed.”

As Jag closed in on one, Tighe moved behind the other. As one, the two Ferals shifted into human form and rendered the youths briefly unconscious with a quick application of pressure beneath their ears.

As Tighe knew they would, the draden followed his and Jag’s now-Therian scent. He pulled the switchblades from his pockets and tossed them to Jag, then knelt on the ground beside one of the boys. Wulfe joined them, and as the draden swarmed, the two Ferals, one man, one wolf, covered Tighe as he called on the ability all Ferals possessed to some extent, though his was undeniably the strongest.

Tighe gripped the face of his captive. “Open your eyes.” When the boy did, Tighe looked deeply into those glazed irises. “You saw nothing in the woods tonight except a couple of dogs. When I tell you to, you’ll go home and never venture into these woods at night again. And you’ll flush the weed and swear off it for good, you little punk.”

As the battle raged around him, Tighe rose and moved to the second kid, performing the same bit of mind control. When both boys’ minds were successfully clouded, he told them to go, then shifted back into his animal and rejoined the fight.

Hours later, they were still destroying draden when the nocturnal fiends began to take off as they always did an hour before sunrise. In all that time, the Ferals had only managed to destroy half the swarm.

“This is bad,” Wulfe muttered, shifting back into human form and grabbing his clothes.

Tighe couldn’t deny it.

As they headed for home, Wulfe turned to him. “What happened to you as they descended, Stripes?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” But he was going to have to tell Lyon.

Goddess forbid he get loose and become that…thing.

“Bleed,” Lyon said, striding forward as Tighe walked into the dining room of Feral House a short while later.

Tighe glowered at the Chief of the Feral Warriors, but thrust out his left hand, palm up. Lyon made a short, shallow cut in the center of Tighe’s palm, nodding when the slice welled with blood as his clone’s would not have.

The thought that the draden-based fiend that wore his face could sneak into Feral House gave him chills.

Though it annoyed him to have to submit to someone’s knife every time he walked into a room, the alternative was worse. Much worse. The clone could potentially kill one of the Ferals. Or Kara, Lyon’s mate and their Radiant. No one was willing to take that chance.

But knowing what he was to become, he feared the clone might no longer be the greatest danger.

Lyon closed his switchblade and greeted Tighe properly, offering his right arm. The two men slapped forearms as they grasped one another just below the elbow in the traditional greeting of the Ferals.

“You’re going to have to lock me up, Roar.”

Lyon’s gaze narrowed. “Why?”

He told him about the premonition. “I’m not going to turn into that monster. And I will if you don’t lock me up.”

“You will if we don’t catch that clone in time.” Lyon’s amber gaze bored into his. “But we will, Stripes. We’re going to catch him.With your help.” He clasped Tighe’s shoulder. “We’re spread too thin right now to give you a vacation in the prisons.”

Tighe growled. “Vacation my ass.”

Kara entered the dining room and joined them, her pert, blond ponytail swinging as she slipped her arm around the waist of her much larger mate. As Lyon pulled her tight against him, she met Tighe’s gaze, a sweet smile lighting her blue eyes.

“Hi, Tighe.”

His own ready smile slid into place with an ease
born of deep affection for this slip of a woman who’d shown more strength in the past days than all the Radiants who’d come before her over the centuries, combined.

“Hi, yourself.” Tighe held out his arms to her, pleased when Lyon released her, and she gave him a quick, badly needed hug. He closed his arms around her and held her tight, absorbing the closeness as much as her sweetness.

At any given time, there was one Radiant, one Therian woman through whom the Ferals reached the great stores of nature’s energy and the power they needed in order to shift into their animals. They’d nearly missed finding Kara. She’d been raised human, thousands of miles away. Their energy had been flagging, their ability to shift gone when Lyon finally managed to locate her. And thank the goddess he had. They’d never have defeated the witch Zaphene without Kara’s power, courage, and surprising talent with radiance.

He tightened his hold on her. Lyon was a lucky man to have been chosen her mate, an honor Tighe had secretly hoped would go tohim . Kara was a sweet Therian beauty, as kind as she was courageous.

No man could do better.

As he looked down at her, his eyes began to tingle as they did whenever he was about to go feral. Or when he was in the presence of a beautiful woman.

He alone among the Ferals had that little problem. For the others, feral was feral. The eyes, the
claws, the fangs came as a package deal. Not so, Tighe. His claws and fangs only sprouted when he was ready to fight, but his eyes were another matter. If his body stirred with interest, his eyes shifted, the pupils growing until they blocked out the white, their color changing from their natural green to the golden orange of his tiger’s.

It was a major nuisance, necessitating dark, wraparound sunglasses whenever he was in human public, day or night. Tiger eyes were damned hard to pass off as human. And the humans needed to think he was one of them. If there was one agreement between the immortal races, it was that the humans continue to believe they were alone.

Lyon growled. “Your eyes.”

Tighe shrugged and grinned at his chief. “She’s a beautiful woman, Roar.” He winked at Kara. “Do you want me to put on the shades?”

Kara’s soft trill of laughter eased the craziness inside him. “It’s not like I don’t know why you wear sunglasses in the house.” She pulled out of his embrace and returned to her mate, looping her arm around Lyon’s waist. “I’m flattered, Tighe, and head over heels in love with my lion.” She grinned. “But you know that.”

Tighe laughed. “Yeah, I noticed. Lucky bastard.”

The growl that came from Lyon’s throat held a note of hard satisfaction. “You need to get one of these for yourself.”

“A mate? Hell no.” He winked at Kara. “Not unless I can have yours.”

At the teasing words, Lyon tightened his hold.

Tighe shook his head. “I never thought I’d see you like this, Roar.” The pleasure he felt that his friend had found his one true mate after all these centuries was bittersweet. Tighe remembered all too well how love could transform a man, clearing his vision and changing his world. And how it could destroy him.

Lyon smiled, his gaze dropping to Kara’s sweet face. “Sometimes you have to risk your heart.”

Tighe prayed Lyon never felt the cutting pain from the other side of that double-edged blade.

“Let’s eat.” Lyon turned Kara toward the large formal dining table that sat in front of the wall of windows looking onto sunlit woods.

Foxx, Paenther, and Wulfe were already seated, but as he approached the table, each rose and greeted him.

Foxx, who’d only been with them a couple of years and was genuinely twenty-three, nodded to him, his shaggy red hair falling in his face. “Tighe.”

As Foxx returned to his seat, Paenther, Lyon’s second-in-command, grasped his arm, his intense black eyes boring into him. The warrior, three-quarters Native American, had the bronzed skin and black hair and eyes of his human ancestors. A tribal tattoo snaked up his neck, while across one eye slashed the claw marks that marked him as a Feral Warrior. Dressed head to toe in leather, vibrating with a fine rage long ago burned into his soul by the Mage, he was a man whom others gave a wide berth. Except those few who knew him well.

Paenther, alone, never asked him how he was doing. But his friend’s deep concern came through in the too-tight grip on his wrist and the length of time he held the greeting.

“Find him,” Paenther said, his voice low, but tight. “I wish I could help.”

Tighe shook his head. “We’ll find the clone. You and Foxx find Vhyper and that blade. Of the two tasks, yours is by far the more important, B.P. If I die, another Feral will be marked. You won’t be down a man.”

That black gaze never wavered. “You’re not expendable, Stripes.Find him . I won’t lose you, too.”

Tighe found his grin. “Then I’ll find him.” The smile died as quickly as it was born, worry closing around his heart. “I’m doing my best, B.P.” But he was seriously worried his best was going to be too damn little. And too damn late.

“News.”Wulfe’s deep voice echoed off the walls of the dining room.

Tighe turned to the newly installed flat-screen hanging on the wall behind him. And froze.

“The killer some are calling the D.C. Vampire struck again last night in southwest. Jeanine Tinnings was slain in the same mysterious manner as at least ten others in the past three days.” In the middle of the screen was a photo of a laughing blond woman holding a chubby-cheeked toddler.

The air left Tighe’s lungs as if he’d been sucker punched. He was staring at the face of the woman who’d been folding the laundry, the first of the two women he’d thought he’d killed. Orwould kill.

She was already dead.

The hard knot of dread slowly dissolved in his chest. He wasn’t going to kill her.

Ah,shit . That meant there would be no saving the other one, either. The dark-haired FBI beauty with the warrior’s eyes must already be dead, too.

Which meant…Chills rushed along the surface of his flesh. “It wasn’t a premonition,” he said out loud.

Lyon’s gaze swung to him. “What wasn’t a premonition?”

“I saw her die last night. Through the eyes of the killer. I thought I was seeing the future.”

Paenther looked at him with surprise. “You’re starting to see through your clone’s eyes.”

Tighe nodded slowly. “At least when he kills.”

“This is the break we need.” Lyon’s eyes began to glitter. “If you can identify where a murder is taking place, we may finally have a way to catch that son of a bitch.”

The crushing weight of the two deaths lifted from Tighe’s shoulders, but the relief was slight. The women were still dead even if he hadn’t been the one to kill them. And there was still a strong likelihood he’d end up as crazed and deadly as he’d feared. As Wulfe had. Little by little, he’d lose control until he finally tumbled into a feral rage from which he couldn’t escape.

Until then? It seemed he was doomed to watch the terror of the dying through the eyes of the one desecrating his soul.

Chapter Three

As the sun rose over Washington, D.C., Tighe slammed open the door of the safe house and stormed inside, his fingers and teeth tingling with the need to go feral and rip something apart. Anything.

Frustration bled from his brain, down into every cell in his body.

They were getting nowhere.Nowhere .

“Easy, Stripes,” Hawke said behind him as he and Kougar followed him in the door. “Stay in your skin, buddy.”

Tighe strode to the refrigerator of the small row house on Capitol Hill, grabbed a Budweiser, and drank it down with one long pull.

Once the residence of a Therian family, for years
the house had served as a safe house for Therians caught too far from the enclaves at night. Nocturnal creatures, the draden only fed at night but were capable of passing through untreated glass to reach their Therian victims.

The glass of Therian homes and cars were treated with magic to keep them safe from draden penetration. Safe houses were scattered throughout the areas most often frequented by members of the race. Last he heard, there were nearly a dozen around the D.C. area in addition to the five actual enclaves.

This particular safe house was only four blocks from the apartment building where he’d watched the dark-eyed beauty die yesterday morning. For twenty-four hours, the three Ferals had roamed the area, both in their human and animal forms, searching for the clone. In their animal forms, they should have been able to smell him, but they’d gotten nothing. Worse than nothing.