Her heart at once melted and squeezed with fear as she slipped free of his hold and sat up. With an unintelligible murmur, Kougar rolled onto his side away from her.
Raking her hair back from her face with both hands, she turned inward and examined the mating bond. Dammit, dammit. As she feared, it had begun to unkink. It still looked mangled and sunken in on itself, but the poison was beginning to trickle through steadily.
Not good, not good, not good. Yet what could she do about it? She'd known this would happen if he found out the truth--that she'd severed the mating bond to save him. Sooner or later, he'd forgive her the rest. And once he did, the poison would begin to flow freely.
Pulling her knees up, she curled her arms around them. It was too late to try to arrest the opening of the mating bond. Their only chance now, as far as she could see, was for the Ferals and their Mage allies to figure out who Hookeye was and locate him. Maybe they really could. Maybe it would work. But she'd long, long ago quit believing in miracles. And this situation would take a big one.
Despair filled the room as she dipped her head and rested her chin on her updrawn knees. She hated being forced to let others take the lead in her battles; but, unable to turn to mist, she'd long ago been relegated to the sidelines. Then again, she was the one with her finger in the dike. If she allowed the floodwaters, or in this case the poison, to flow, all would die. Not the sidelines, perhaps, but the center, with all those around trying to help her hold on, trying to find a way to destroy the poison before she could no longer hold back the killing tide.
Her life hadn't been her own to control in a very, very long time. Even now . . .
She needed to call the hospital and let them know she wouldn't be in for a few days. There was a good chance she wouldn't be back at all. If the Ferals' attempt to locate Hookeye failed, if Kougar died, there would no longer be a reason for her to remain close to Feral House. Once the mating bond was truly, permanently severed, she could go anywhere--except home to the Crystal Realm.
For centuries, her existence had been a stasis of hiding and survival, searching for an answer that never came, waiting for Melisande to find the Mage at the heart of it all. In the few short days since Kougar had charged back into her life, he'd turned every single aspect of her existence end over end until she didn't know what to think, what to feel.
She wanted to be furious with him for endangering her people all over again, but she was beginning to believe the Ferals genuinely meant to help her, even if only to save their own. For the first time in forever, a flicker of hope had sparked, a rare, precious feeling that she was almost afraid to acknowledge, knowing it could be snuffed out again between one breath and the next.
If the Ferals really did succeed in finding the Mage behind the attacks, if by some miracle, she found herself free of the poison? The thought tantalized. The first thing she'd do was return home and take up the mantle of queen-in-residence once more. It was all she'd wanted for a thousand years.
She turned to Kougar, to his strong, beloved back, rising and falling in sleep. No, being queen wasn't all she wanted. But she'd been a fool to think she could be both queen and wife. Her maidens should have been her top priority all those years ago . . . her only priority. If they had been, they'd still be alive.
That was a mistake she couldn't make a second time, no matter how much her heart ached for the man at her side.
On a sigh, she turned away from him, her gaze sliding over his room. He'd closed the drapes after she'd fallen asleep, and sunlight now fanned out from the edges of the window, thin rays escaping the darkening curtains. It was the kind of room she would expect of Kougar, she realized. Clean, neat, controlled. If she ignored the splintered chair.
The bed on which she sat was a large, mahogany four-poster, beautifully carved, probably by hand. The bedside lamp, a heavy jewel-encrusted brass. Kougar had always enjoyed fine things. Even a thousand years ago when there was so much less to choose from, he'd carried intricately carved knives and worn cloaks with silk linings.
And he'd been incredibly generous to her--plying her with gifts of beauty that he'd known would please her Ilina's heart. Jewelry from exotic traders, gowns of the finest velvet. And flowers. Where he'd found them, she'd never been certain, but he'd rarely come to her without flowers of some kind, even if all he'd been able to find was a sprig of honeysuckle.
She'd always loved flowers, especially in those days, when she'd spent so much time in the Crystal Realm, where nothing grew. And he'd known it.
On the walls of his room hung more paintings, mostly centuries-old landscapes. Though three of his walls were tan, the one before her was a vibrant blue. The color of the summer sky, neon bright. Almost the exact shade of her eyes.
Beside her, Kougar made a sound deep in his throat, a low growl as he rolled onto his back. His body had turned rigid with tension, his arm muscles flexing, his hand fisting against his hip.
He was dreaming, and it wasn't a happy dream.
She lifted her hand, intending to stroke his shoulder and soothe him, only to pull up. What demons did he wrestle in his sleep? Perhaps she should find out. A soft smile tugged at her mouth. It had been so long since she'd joined him in one of his dreams.
Ariana closed her eyes, calmed her mind, and stepped into his dream, an ability all Ilinas possessed. She expected to find herself a spectator of some Feral battle. Instead, she blinked with confusion as she realized she was standing inside her own cabin hundreds of years ago, the night three human trappers stumbled upon it . . . and her. The coarse men had thought to slake their physical urges on an unwilling woman, and she watched as her younger self fought off two of the men at once with well-aimed kicks.
She frowned at the nonsensical sight. This was supposed to be Kougar's dream. Instead, she and Kougar both stood in the middle of one of her own memories. Dressed in the dark sleep pants he wore in the bed beside her, he passed through the center of the action like a ghost trying to fight off her attackers. They, of course, didn't even know he was there.
"Kougar."
His gaze jerked to her, then to her dream self and back again, the tension leaching from his body as understanding lit his eyes.
"It's a dream," he muttered, his voice barely audible over the grunts of the men and the snap of bone as her dream self broke one of her attacker's kneecaps.
The man yelled, crashing into the sole chair in the tiny cabin, splintering it. Goddess, she'd been furious about losing that chair. It had taken her weeks to make it.
Her gaze took in the small windowless space, the rough-hewn logs infilled with mud, the down pallet that had been her bed, now destroyed, the feathers floating in the glow from the fire. The scent of smoke and sweat and unwashed bodies choked the air.
Kougar crossed to her, pulling her tight against him with a shudder of relief. "My fists kept going right through them. I was beginning to think I'd died." His gaze skimmed her nakedness. "Walking in my dreams?"
"I could tell you were having a bad one. I thought I'd take a look." Her brow furrowed. "But this isn't your dream."
"This isn't real."
"No, but it happened. It's my memory."
His frown deepened as together they watched her fight off her assailants with sweeping kicks and elbows to the throats and noses. She might have been a woman alone, but she'd been as strong as any human male, thanks to her immortal blood, with nearly seven centuries of hand-to-hand combat experience by that point.
"When did this happen?"
"Late 1600s, in the woods about forty miles west of Feral House."
"You lived nearby even then?"
She met his gaze. "I've always lived near you. I discovered early on that even though our mating bond was severed, there was still a connection. Being near you strengthened me. I've had to be careful to stay out of the paths of the Mage and Therians, but I've never been far away."
The frown didn't leave his face. "How is it possible I'm seeing your memory?"
"I don't know."
Her dream self pulled a knife out of her boot and slid it through the neck of one of her assailants. The trapper collapsed onto the floor.
"Good gir . . ."
Kougar disappeared from beside her, leaving her alone to watch and remember a night that had repeated itself too many times. She'd killed all three men, as she had numerous others over the centuries--men who'd thought any unprotected woman fair game. A few times, early on, she'd been overpowered and knocked too senseless to stop the attacks. But she'd killed her attackers afterward and learned to fight them off.
Watching her younger self, the excruciating loneliness of those days came rushing back. How many nights had she lain on that pallet wishing for Kougar's strong arms around her?
Too many to count.
She closed her eyes, clearing her mind even as the ancient battle raged around her, and followed her mate, landing in a room filled with screams and the scent of blood.
Like before, she found Kougar standing in the midst of another of her memories, watching her assist the Countess de Frottier as she attempted to birth her second son. They'd traveled back in time several hundred years, to the 1300s. The Ferals had been living in France at the time.
The countess's bedchamber within the castle was large but cold despite the fire burning brightly in the hearth. The velvet bed curtains had been flung wide as two aging handmaids tended her, one mopping her mistress's sweat- and tear-drenched face while the other held her hand, tethered by the countess's punishing grip.
Kougar saw her and came to stand beside her as another of the woman's screams rent the air, sharp and agonized. Ariana felt the poison inside her leap with pleasure at the woman's misery even as her dream self closed her eyes, feeling the same.
"You're feeding on her pain," Kougar said, his voice cool as he stared at her other self.
"I was then, and I am now. Midwifery always brings pain, but usually joy as well. This time there was little of the latter." She glanced at him, raising her voice over the woman's rising screams. "The poison possesses a dark hunger, Kougar. When it gets too hungry, it threatens to overpower me. So I serve its needs without hurting others. Midwifery has been the perfect solution--joy and pain. And the knowledge I was doing good in the world. I'm not a monster, whatever you want to believe. I've done the best I could with the hand I was dealt."
His gaze thawed, but he said nothing as he turned back to the scene on the bed.
The smell of blood grew stronger, the dark stain spreading on the sheets. "She's hemorrhaging. She won't last much longer."
"And the babe?"
"Both died. There was nothing I could do." But she felt again the helplessness she'd felt that night. Needing to shut out the sight of the countess's agony, she turned fully to Kougar. "Why are you dreaming my memories?"
He glanced at her with a shake of his head. "I don't know. Every time I've closed my eyes the past few days, I've dreamed like this, watching you. Even before I saw you again. I figured it was that damned mating bond."
"I'm sure it's tied to the mating bond, but I still don't understand why . . ."
He was gone.
With a sigh, she turned toward the young countess, who was in her last hours of life. "I'm sorry," Ariana murmured, then followed Kougar into a glade she remembered with soft joy--a sunlit glade painted with a profusion of wildflowers.
Kougar was waiting for her, his expression at once pensive and wry. "This is one weird-ass dream."
"Are you ready for it to end? I can wake you at any time."
Soft laughter, her laughter, carried from behind them, and they turned as one.
"It's us," he murmured. "A thousand years ago."
Dressed in one of the simple belted gowns of the day, she stood holding an armful of wildflowers. With a grin, the Kougar of old picked more and more, pressing them into her arms as her laughter grew. Soft love on his face, he crushed her and the flowers to him, kissing her with a fierce and tender passion.
Ariana's chest ached as she watched them as they'd once been, so in love.
She tore her gaze away to find Kougar watching her, not their younger selves. With a lift of his hand, he stroked her face, his eyes warm as the sun, yet shadowed by a deep sadness.
If only things had been different.
Kougar's fingers slid to the back of her neck, and he leaned down to place a soft kiss on her mouth, his lips warm and sweet, the kiss surprisingly tender. Slowly, he pulled back, tracing her cheek with his thumb, the longing she felt to return to those long-lost days mirrored in his eyes. Pulling her against him, he held her as together they watched their much younger selves slowly disrobe and join in a straining tumble of need and love.
Inside, she felt the mating bond creak and groan as it untwisted a little more.
"Kougar . . ." But as she started to pull back, he disappeared from her arms.
She stood alone in the sunny glade, the summer warmth beating down on her naked flesh despite the fact she wasn't really there. Her gaze slid over the pair in the grass, watching Kougar drive into her body with long, slow strokes, their gazes locked in a powerful vise of love.
If they could hear her, if she could walk over there, interrupt their lovemaking, and warn them of the future, what would she say? At that point, the damage was already done, the poison already sewn into their mating bond, waiting to attack.
What would she say? What would have happened if she'd taken another path after that attack and run straight to Kougar for help?
She'd never know.
With a shake of her head, she locked on to him and followed, materializing in a place, for once, she didn't remember.