Obsession Untamed (36 page)

Delaney took it, gently curling her fingers around the soft feathers. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Unblinking birdlike eyes watched her, then slowly lit. A smile formed on her not-quite-human-looking mouth. “I’m happy to make your acquaintance, Delaney. I wish you and Tighe much happiness.”

“Thanks, but…” The words caught in her throat. “We’re…only a temporary item.”

Pink’s expression clouded. “Tighe’s a good man.”

Delaney was horrified to feel tears pricking her eyes. “I know. It’s just…” She smiled unhappily. “I’m human.”

Without warning, Tighe swept her back into his arms. She forced a laugh, trying to make up for the damper she’d thrown on the mood, even as misery burned in her chest, and her eyes filled with tears.

“We need to have a talk.Now .” As he swung her toward the stairs, he called back to Kara. “Send the Shaman up when he gets here.”

“How about I call you first to make sure you’re not…busy?”

“Talk, Kara. I said we’re going to have a talk.”

But he said nothing until Delaney was sitting in the middle of his bed and he’d paced the room a good seven times before finally swinging to face
her, his body and expression as fierce and rigid as a man going into battle.

“I don’t give a damn that you’re human. I want you to stay.”

“Tighe…it’s impossible.” She swiped at the tears running down her cheeks, but more just followed. “I have to go back. I can’t stay here.”

His expression turned almost hostile. “Why not?” In his eyes an emotion flared.Pain.

“Oh, Tighe.”Delaney climbed off the bed and went to him, sliding her arms around his rigid body as she pressed her damp cheek to his chest. “It’s not that I don’t love you, because I do. But I don’t belong in this world. You know that.I can’t stay. ”

Tighe gripped her shoulders and pulled her away from him. The desperation in his eyes nearly crushed her heart.

“I’ll make you happy, D.I swear it . You can carry all the guns you want, and all my knives. You can come draden hunting with me anytime, or you can stay here with Kara and Pink.Whatever you want. ”

“Tighe, you’re not thinking this all the way through.”

His hands caressed her shoulders. “I know I’m being unfair in asking you to give up everything for me. I have no right, brown eyes, no right.But I need you .”

“It’s because you bound yourself to me. You shouldn’t have done it.”

He squeezed her almost painfully. “Do you think that’s what this is? The bond? You’re wrong, Del
aney. I was already in love with you.” His voice rose, his words turning angry. “This isn’t the ritual speaking, dammit, this is my heart!”

His anger tore at her. His pain twisted inside her, merging with her own until she was almost doubled over from the onslaught.

“It’s your heart, Tighe,for now. But you’re not seeing the big picture. If you keep me here, you’ll be tying yourself to a woman you won’t want in twenty years. Maybe far, far sooner.”

He looked at her as if he was ready to draw swords and fight it out.“I’ll always want you.”

“No. You won’t. Think, Tighe! I won’t stay this way. In forty years, I’ll have gray hair and wrinkles. My figure will be gone. I’ll be anold woman. ”

With a snarl, he gripped her face. “And I’ll have fangs. And orange eyes every time I look at you, because I’ll always want you.Always. ”

The fight went out of him, his face crumbling into a mask of aching tenderness as he slid his palms over her jaw, cradling her face with infinite tenderness.

“Don’t you understand?” His words were soft as silk, yet woven with a thread of desperation that tore at her heart. “I’m going to use your own words back at you, D, because they healed my soul. When I look into your eyes, I see you. I willalways see you, no matter what changes time makes to the body you’re in.”

Her tears turned slowly to sobs as she slid her hands over his and held him as he held her, wanting to believe. But she couldn’t.

“You think that now. But…”

“Don’t doubt me, D,” he snarled. But his thumbs were feather-soft as they stroked her skin. “If you live longer than most humans, I’ll still only have, at most, another seventy years with you. That’s a blink of an eye in my life. For six hundred years I’ve made love with women. Most young-looking, I admit. Most beautiful. Scores of women, D.”

“Is this supposed to be making me feel better?” She tried to laugh, but it caught in her throat, tangling with her tears.

“Other than those few short years with Gretchen, not a single one has ever touched my heart. Until you. Beauty is meaningless without love, D.I know this. ” His hands were beginning to tremble. “It’s lust. Little more than scratching an itch.But it’s not that way with you. From the moment I first saw you, it hasn’t been that way with you. It’syou I want to spend the next seventy years with, not your breasts. Not your skin.You , D. Your heart. Your soul.”

He bent until his gaze was nearly at a level with hers, his eyes as certain as the sunrise. His love poured into her through his gaze and rushed into her through that warm connection between their hearts, filling her. Lifting her.

He pressed his hand to her chest, over her heart. “You belong with me. And I with you. You fill me, Delaney, in a way no one ever has before. And never will again.No one. ” He pulled her tight against him, stroking her hair, as his big body shook. “If you really want to go, I won’t make you stay.” His
voice was hollow, his eyes bleak as he pulled her back where she could see him through the glaze of her tears.

Moisture glistened in his own eyes. “I would never do anything to hurt you, brown eyes. But, sweet goddess, D,I want you to stay. ”

As she clung to him, she thought of all she’d be giving up if she took the risk and followed her heart. All her adult life, she’d sought revenge for her mother’s murder with a drive born of a need she’d never really understood. A need to make her life right. To make herself right. But, she knew now, no number of arrests were going to do that. Not even if by some miracle she caught the man who’d killed her mom.

Because the thing she’d been truly lacking all these years wasn’t closure. It was love.

As the sobs began to choke her, Delaney reached up and pressed her palm to his cheek. “All I want is to be with you.”

“D.”

He swung her into his arms and laid her on the bed, following her down. The joy that flowed between their hearts, a joy mirrored in his eyes as he lowered his face and kissed her, filled her soul.

They were still kissing when a rap sounded at the door. Slowly Tighe pulled back, his eyes golden orange and shining with love. “That will be the Shaman. Anyone else, I’d let stand out there for a couple of hours while I made love to my mate.”

She threw him a saucy look. “Sure he can’t wait?”

Tighe grinned. “Hold that thought.” He vaulted
off the bed and went to open the door as Delaney sat up and rearranged her shirt.

Kara had told her that though the Shaman looked to be about fifteen, thanks to a Mage attack in his youth which ended his growth, he was in fact thousands of years old. Apparently he could see no reason to pretend to be what he wasn’t. Which probably accounted for the long hair, tight black pants, and white ruffled shirt that made her think of an eighteenth-century swordsman.

He lifted an eyebrow as he saw her adjusting her clothes, a smile hovering at his youthful-looking mouth. “Shall I come back?”

“No.” Tighe ushered him into the room.

The Shaman winked at her. “Let’s have a look at you, young lady. Lie down for me.” For minute after minute, the Shaman touched her, passed his hands over her, and pressed his fingers into her skull. Finally, he stepped back.

“Well?” Tighe asked, his voice vibrating with concern.

The Shaman clasped his hands behind his back. “Well, it’s not what I expected.” Tension filled the room, hers and Tighe’s combined. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

Tighe did, and by the time he was through, the Shaman was nodding, an odd smile playing around his mouth.

“He left no dark magic behind,” he said. “Nor any piece of his consciousness, now that I know what I’m looking for. I gravely apologize for missing that before.”

Tighe waved away the apology. “Tell us, Shaman.”

The Shaman turned to her. “You’re completely healthy, Delaney. As strong as any other immortal.”

Delaney jerked. “I’m not immortal.” She looked at Tighe and found him staring at the Shaman with an expression that was nothing short of stunned.

“What are you saying?” Tighe demanded.

The Shaman smiled fully. “Passing your soul through her did more than heal her. You’ve shared your own immortal essence with her.”

Tighe’s gaze swung to hers, filled with the same hope, the same joy swirling inside her shocked brain. “Are you sure?”

“Cut her and see for yourself.”

Tighe scowled. “I’m not cutting her.”

Delaney leaped off the bed and pulled down the closest of Tighe’s knives. “I’ll cut me.” She pricked her finger on the tip and watched, wide-eyed as the wound closed right up again.

Her gaze swung to the Shaman. “Are you sure this is permanent? It’s not going to wear off?”

The Shaman shook his head. “It’s not going to wear off. You’ve been altered, Delaney.” He lifted a brow. “I hope this is good news?”

Her heart stuttered as she turned to Tighe. “It won’t be seventy years. Are you sure you want me around forever?”

With a shout of triumph that shook every knife on the wall, Tighe lifted her into his arms and swung her around until she was dizzy with joy.

Slowly he let her feet slide to the floor as he loved her with his eyes.

“Even eternity won’t be long enough.”

As Tighe kissed her, she felt his love wrap around her and blossom inside her in a bloom of color and life, filling her heart and mending her soul.

And through the link that bound them, she heard the unmistakable sound of a tiger’s satisfied roar.

An hour later, after the Shaman left and Tighe had made thorough love to his mate, he led her down the stairs to raid the refrigerator, the two of them grinning like a pair of guilty teenagers. Until he heard the rumble of Lyon’s voice and knew from the tone, there was trouble.

He squeezed Delaney’s hand. “The food may have to wait.” As they entered the dining room, he saw that the others were already there, sitting silently, their expressions grim as they watched their leader on his cell phone.

Tighe held Delaney against his side as they all waited. Finally, Lyon hung up.

“That was Foxx. Paenther’s missing. Somewhere in the Blue Ridge.”

“Mage?” Jag asked the question all of them feared.

Lyon nodded. “That’s what it looks like. Foxx sounds…disoriented. More than a little confused. I think he may have fallen under an enchantment as well. He’s near Winchester. I told him to stay there and wait for us.”

Lyon’s hard gaze swung to Delaney. “The Shaman says you’re no longer mortal.”

Tighe pulled her tighter against him as they both watched Lyon warily.

Delaney tensed within his hold. “Apparently not.” A smile flickered over her face as she glanced behind Lyon.

Kara was grinning at her with a double thumbs-up.

Lyon stepped toward them. “You’re a trained FBI agent.”

“I am.”

“Good. I need you to work this case, if you will, without involving the human authorities in any way. You’ll be accompanying Tighe and Jag. Can I count on you?”

Tighe felt her excitement, herpleasure, flowing down the link between them and grinned.

Delaney smiled. “Absolutely.”

As Lyon turned away to issue other orders, Tighe hugged her tight with both arms.

She looked up at him, excitement shining in her eyes. “Looks like we’re going to be partners.”

“Always,” he murmured, his eyes going hot.

In those shining dark eyes of hers he saw the warrior she would always be.His warrior.

His love.

His life.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to my editor, May Chen, and all the wonderful people at Avon Books who’ve made this book possible. And to my agent, Helen Breitwieser, for too many things to name.

To Laurin Wittig and Anne Shaw Moran, wonderful writers and dear friends. I couldn’t do it without you. And to Anna Campbell for making me laugh and keeping me sane.

To the wonderful and talented men and women of the Washington Romance Writers and the Virginia Romance Writers. And to my 99er sisters for laughter and tears and an accidental friendship that bonded us for life.

To my real-life hero, Keith, for always being there, always supporting me, and always doing the grocery shopping. To Kelly, my wonderful daughter and shopping buddy, and to Kyle, my son and go-to guy for all things magical or fantasy-related. Thanks, pal.

About the Author

WhenPAMELA PALMER ’s initial career goal of captaining starships didn’t pan out, she turned to engineering, satisfying her desire for adventure with books and daydreams, until finally succumbing to the need to create worlds of her own. Pamela lives and writes in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., with her husband and two kids. Please visit her atwww.pamelapalmer.net.