Prologue
A.D. 1006
Upon the bloody battlefield she took form, a woman of mist and light. As she turned to flesh and bone, the cold wind tore at her tunic, stinging her cheeks and whipping dark tendrils loose from her braid to fly across her eyes. Beneath clouds as thick and gray as waves on an angry sea, Ariana, Queen of the Ilinas, raked back her hair and scanned the field--a battle between men and animals. Shape-shifters.
Feral Warriors.
Only twenty-six true shifters remained in the world when once there had been thousands. Twenty-six, each of a different line, a different animal. Jungle cats and bears, a horse, a wolf, a huge fox, along with others unsuited to the field of battle who fought in their human forms--an eagle and hawk among them. The Feral Warriors fought their ancient enemy, the Mage.
Melisande, her second-in-command, appeared from the mist beside her, delicate features turning hard with distaste as she surveyed the battle before them. "He wants you to watch him kill?"
"He is my mate, Melisande." The rebuke was no less harsh for its quietness.
Ariana knew the reprimand would do no good. Melisande had bitterly disapproved of her queen's taking a mate at all, let alone a shape-shifter. Indeed, all her maidens had been unhappy with her decision. A decision they would simply have to live with, for Ariana loved her Feral beyond measure.
"I do not know why Kougar called me," Ariana admitted.
Swords clanged, a Mage cried out in pain as the huge fox ripped off his arm. Even as she watched, the lion leaped, separating another Mage's head from his shoulders in a spray of blood.
Sleet began to slice from the sky in small, stinging pellets.
A large, golden cougar broke from the battle and ran toward her, his cat's body sleek and beautiful as he ran across the frozen field. He'd known the moment she appeared, just as she felt him now through the mystical link that bound them together for eternity. The mating bond.
As the cat neared, he slowed to a walk, then began to sparkle in a rainbow of colored lights. A moment later, a man walked in his place, fully clothed in his dark blue warrior's tunic, knives and a sword strapped to his belt. The Feral Warriors were, as a whole, larger, stronger, finer than any other males on Earth. Kougar--their chief and her mate--was, without doubt, the finest of them all. His hair was as dark as her own, his beard close-cropped, his eyes as pale as ice, yet lit with a fierce and tender flame.
Warmth slid through her blood.
Though his eyes remained warm as he reached her, Kougar frowned. "Two more of your maidens attacked us as we prepared to strike, my love."
Ariana's jaw dropped. "No. They know I'll not have it! Where are they?"
"Horse cut off the hand of one, Snake the arm of the other. Both turned to mist and fled."
Their limbs would regrow quickly, as all Ilina limbs did, but the process would be painful. Of far more concern was the fact that they'd attacked the Feral Warriors at all despite her direct orders against it. Dammit. Her maidens had never accepted her mating a Feral.
Melisande threw Kougar an antagonistic look. "How many Ferals have you lost this day?"
"None."
"A shame."
Ariana shot her friend a hard look. "Mel."
Kougar sketched her lieutenant a brief, mocking bow. "Your sweet nature brightens any battlefield, Melisande."
"Go to hell, Feral."
Ariana eyed her second. "Why are my maidens attacking the Ferals? I gave a direct command . . ."
Melisande lifted her hands. "I swear 'twas not my doing." Her gaze flicked to Kougar. "As much as I might approve." Melisande met Ariana's gaze again, her eyes turning worried. "There's been talk of wildness in the temple. I dismissed it, but perhaps I shouldn't have. Some may have been infected by dark spirit."
"Goddess, I hope not." There was no cure for dark spirit, no way to destroy it except through the deaths of the ones infected. "Find them."
Melisande nodded, giving Kougar one last parting shot. "Why don't you do us both a favor and go die in battle?" With a flick of her hand, Melisande faded to mist and left.
Kougar shook his head. "That one would try the goddess herself." He rubbed his chest with his fist, right over his heart, as if he had, indeed, been injured.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
His fist stilled, his eyes registering surprise as if he'd been unaware of what he'd been doing. "I'm fine." He stepped forward, his large hands gently cupping her shoulders as the battle raged far behind him. "What of your maidens? This is four in as many days who've attacked us. Dark spirit rarely claims more than one at a time."
Ariana shrugged though she was more than a little concerned herself. "I'll handle it."
Frustration flashed in her shifter's eyes, sparking along the bond that connected them. His hands contracted.
"I'm your mate, Ariana. I'm here to help you shoulder such difficulties."
Her own temper flared, and she cocked her head at him. "As you let me help you? I offered to fight beside you today, and you denied me."
"Of course I did. This is our war, not yours."
"And the Ilinas are my responsibility. Not yours."
As the cold wind kicked up, carrying with it the shouts and cries of battle, Kougar glanced behind him. "I must get back. Go. Be safe. Later, we'll discuss the role of a male in his mate's life."
"Later, we'll fall into one another's arms and forget talk altogether."
A knowing smile curved Kougar's beautiful mouth. "Of a certainty, we will." He pulled her close and pressed his open mouth upon hers, sweeping his warm tongue between her hungry lips. The kiss lasted only seconds, yet it left her feeling both weak and powerful.
As they pulled apart, a wry smile lifted her mouth. The argument always ended the same.
Once again, Kougar rubbed at his chest, his own mouth tightening.
She gave him an exasperated look, and he shrugged. "A twinge in my chest is all."
"The mating bond pinches?"
Kougar smiled. "So say my men, but no. Never." His hand slid beneath her jaw and he kissed her again, his tongue sweeping into her mouth on a promise. When he pulled back, she thought she might drown in the depth of the love in his eyes.
Ariana stroked his cheek. "Be safe, my beast."
His eyes crinkled. "Always." In a single move of power and grace, he turned and dove through a spray of sparkling lights to land on four paws. In a flash, he raced back into battle.
Her heart beating with pleasure and love, Ariana relaxed into her natural mistlike state, thought of her castle in the Crystal Realm, and moments later felt the gold-and-jeweled Grand Corridor take form around her, the ceiling high above. Kougar often told her she looked like a ghost in her mist state, her body visible but not corporeal. He preferred her flesh and blood. And when he pulled her against his hard body and kissed her with passionate tenderness, she absolutely preferred it, too.
She glanced around in surprise at the absence of her maidens. The Ilinas only numbered one hundred forty-one and not all lived in the Crystal Realm, far removed from the rest of the world. Long ago, the Ilinas had built the Crystal Realm, little more than a castle, in the energy belt that circled high above the Earth, known as the Syphian Stream. A castle in the clouds accessible only to those who could turn to mist and their guests. Or captives.
One of her maidens hurried into the Grand Corridor from a side hall. Getrill, her face a mask of concern, saw her. "You're back."
"Where is everyone?"
"The gardens."
Ariana started back, suspecting the two maidens injured on the Feral battlefield were the cause of her friend's concern. They were certainly causing her own. What in heaven's name was she going to do about them? Though it was the queen's right and responsibility to destroy a maiden turned to darkness, how could she possibly kill one of her own? One of her sisters, her friends?
She was halfway to the gardens when a scream broke the quiet of the passage.
Ariana froze, then willed herself to the site, turning to mist in order to cross the distance in an instant. She reached the inner garden to find Melisande, Brielle, and more than a dozen of her maidens circled around another. On the ground, writhing in pain, lay the sweet-natured Angelique.
For a moment, Ariana stared, confused. Angelique's limbs were intact. She wasn't one of the two who'd attacked the Ferals. Instead, Angelique's eyes glowed with a wildness Ariana had never seen. A wildness that crawled with evil.
"What happened?" Ariana's words vibrated with the fear that was beginning to invade her heart and blood.
Melisande looked up, her face alarmingly pale. "I don't know. She just returned from the temple claiming that the maidens down there are kidnapping human males and torturing them. They're plucking out their eyes as they ride them, Ariana. Laughing as the males' cries of release turn to screams of agony."
"What?"
"She was one of them, Ariana. Delightful fun, she called it. I saw the excitement in her eyes."
Angelique screamed again, her back bowing in a painful-looking, unnatural contortion. And froze, her skin turning a deathly gray.
"No!" Brielle cried.
Ariana stared with shock and understanding as deep inside, she felt the rending of the life fiber that connected them. The same kind of fiber that connected the queen to each of her maidens.
Angelique was dead.
But even as the shock of that severing tore through her heart and mind, she felt another. And another. And another. Octavia, Zerlina, Serafina. Gone, gone, gone.
Ariana swayed, her mind turning white with shock. "They're dying. They're all dying."
Around the gardens, her maidens cried out with grief, feeling their sisters' deaths. It was moments before Ariana realized the wails of grief had changed. That her maidens were beginning to dance. That their eyes had taken on the same glowing wildness she'd seen in Angelique's.
Ariana stared at them, her gaze flying from one to the next-- Getrill, Brielle, Marinn--as understanding dawned and horror crashed over her.
No, no, no.
"Ariana?" But even as Melisande asked the question, a sly smile broke across her mouth, her own eyes igniting with the glow of evil.
Ariana's blood ran cold.
Goddess help them all.
Kougar shifted back into his human form as the Wind rode to him atop Horse, his dark hair whipping in the gale. As the Wind leaped down, Horse shifted back to man in a spray of sparkling lights until the pair faced him, shoulder to shoulder, his oldest and closest friends.
Across the battlefield, the other Ferals shoved and congratulated one another on a battle well fought, a few of the cats wrestling in their animals.
"We destroyed the last of the orbs," the Wind informed him. " 'Tis done. The Mage have fled."
"Good. Let's get--"
"Kougar!" The shout came from the other side of the battlefield, a shout of warning, not jubilation.
Kougar met the questioning gazes of his friends, then shifted into his cat, running on all fours back to the site of the battle before shifting back. He found his warriors gathered warily around something . . . or someone. When they parted to let him through, he found a woman lying on the ground in obvious pain. Another of Ariana's mist warriors, though she'd turned corporeal. Only corporeal could they be injured or killed.
"Not again," Kougar muttered. His gaze pinned the polar bear shifter who'd called to him. If he'd attacked her, there would be hell to pay.
The Feral shook his head, hearing his chief's unspoken question. "She appeared before me moments ago, Kougar, her sword drawn. But she fell almost as soon as she appeared. None of us touched her."
"What's going on?" Horse asked, as he and the Wind joined them.
Kougar shook his head as the Ilina looked up at him with eyes that should have been filled with pain, but instead gleamed with an evil joy.
"Death is upon us," she cried. "The Ilina race is no more. The darkness . . . consumes us all!"
With her mouth still forming the last word, she froze, her flesh turning gray as the winter sky.
"She's dead." The disbelief in the Wind's voice pounded inside Kougar's skull, along with the mist warrior's last words.
The Ilina race is no more.
She was crazed, of course. But a shaft of unreasoning concern bolted through his chest.
He needed to see his mate.
Slamming his hand atop his Feral armband, he thought of the Crystal Realm and whispered the words of enchantment that would take him to Ariana. If she was there. Of all non-Ilinas, he alone had access to the Ilina stronghold through the magic woven into his armband, an ability to follow her to the Crystal Realm because of their mating bond.
He felt the magic sweep over him and steeled himself for the dizzying ride. A moment later, the magic disappeared as if it had never been, leaving him where he'd started, on the field of battle, surrounded by his men.
He scowled, but the beat of his heart grew to a thud as the certainty that something was wrong, very wrong, swept over him.
As he pressed his hand over the armband, whispering the chant a second time, pain hit him like a battle-axe. The force of it drove him to his knees, slicing through his chest, nearly cleaving him in two.
"Kougar!" The Wind gripped one of his arms as Horse grabbed the other.
Goddess, goddess, goddess.
His mind imploded. His heart tore beneath the assault.
The mating bond, that bright crystalline cord that had joined him to Ariana, heart to heart, soul to soul, shattered. The brilliant glow inside snuffed out as if it had never been.
"No!" He roared the word, the blast of sound echoing over and over in his head. "She's gone. Ariana is gone. Dead."