“Oh, yeah. Let me tell you, that was a shocker. I taught preschool in Spearsville, Missouri. I guess I should have known something was up when my cuts always healed within seconds, and I never got sick. But I was so average in every other way, I never suspected I was different. Who would? There’s no such thing as immortals, right?”
“You’re a shape-shifter?”
“No.” Kara’s hand rubbed soft, comforting circles over her back. “I’m just their power plug. Their Radiant. It’s complicated. A lot more than you’re up for right now.”
“Are there many of them? The tigers, or whatever they are?”
“Only one tiger. One of each animal, nine in all. A lot more Therians, but only nine shifters.”
“Hawke, Lyon, Kougar…?” It finally dawned on her. “Their names…?”
“Are the names of their animals, yes. Or close. Tighe is obviously the tiger.” She continued to rub Delaney’s back. “Is the woman still struggling?”
“She has the window open, but the fire’s on the outside, so all the smoke’s going in.” Behind the woman, she saw a flicker of light. Had help finally arrived? The flicker rose higher. Flame.
“Why didn’t she…?”
“The fire’s inside the house, too. She’s trapped.”
“Oh, no. Poor thing.”
As Delaney watched, the woman collapsed, falling out of her sight.
The vision ended.
“It’s over,” Delaney said softly, staying where she was until the pain began to ebb away.
“They didn’t get there in time.”
“No. No one did.”
A very human growl sounded from the woman beside her. “I can’t believe we let him get away. We killed the others. You knew there were others, right?”
“No.”
“Eight in all. A clone of each of the Ferals except Vhyper. We had one heck of a battle here a week ago. We got them all but Tighe’s.”
Delaney slowly rose to a sitting position, lifting her head carefully. “Thank God there aren’t eight of those things running around.”
“I suppose. Look on the bright side, right? Things could always be worse.”
Delaney snorted softly, thinking of all the people this thing had killed so far. “I’m beginning to wonder.” Delaney turned to face her companion, a pretty blonde, in a wholesome girl-next-door kind of way. “Sorry. This hasn’t been the greatest day for me.”
“You and Tighe. Lyon said he bound you to him because it was the only way you were going to survive.”
Delaney nodded. “That pretty much sums it up. I’m alive. Beyond that, I don’t know what I am. Apparently not married.”
“Yes, I noticed that was only one way. Horrifyingly embarrassing, isn’t it? I had to have sex in front of all of them when I married Lyon a few nights ago.”
Delaney stared at her. “In front of them?”
“I made Lyon erect curtains around the altar. But they heard everything. Of course, Lyon and I had already done it in front of three of them, but that was in the heat of battle and didn’t quite feel as strange.” She shook her head. “Shape-shifters.” Kara’s expression softened. “How’s your head?”
“Better.”
“You look…a little dazed.”
Delaney sighed. “I guess I am. This is all happening a little too fast for me. I thought we were getting married. I understood that concept. Now I don’t know what Tighe has in mind for me.”
“If it helps, I don’t think he does either. But I saw him when he brought you in, Delaney. You were white as a sheet from the blood loss. But he was just as pale. He cares more than you think.” Kara patted her knee, then stood. “I suspect he cares more than he knows.”
Delaney rose and followed her out of the room and up the long stairs. Could Kara be right? Did he care about her? And would it change anything if he did?
She sighed, deeply troubled and more than a little apprehensive. Because she didn’t know what he wanted from her. Or what he meant to do with her. For heaven’s sakes, she barely even knew the man, no matter what her heart thought.
The only thing she did know, the one immutable fact, was that she did not belong in this world. In his world.
And she never would.
Chapter Twenty-one
Tighe opened his bedroom door quietly, not wanting to wake Delaney. But she sat up as he entered, a shadowed form rising in his bed.
He liked her waiting for him like that. Sweet nature, but he needed to touch her.
“I’m guessing you didn’t catch him.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his boots. “No. He was long gone by the time we got there. The woman didn’t make it. I’m sorry, D.”
She pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. She was dressed in soft blue pajamas—a loan, he assumed, from Kara. Her emotions tasted conflicted and were hard to identify. But he tasted no ripe anger, and for that he was grateful. His soul would splinter if he didn’t touch her.
“I didn’t know where to sleep,” she said softly. “Kara thought I should stay here. She figured you’d move me if you didn’t want me here.”
Tighe stretched out on the bed and pulled her into his arms. “I want you here.”
She didn’t melt against him, but neither did she pull away, and it was enough. He drank in her scent, shuddering at the rightness of her being with him. All day, the chaos had been getting worse within him, building in strength and noise, like an approaching storm. But as he held Delaney, the storm abated. Not entirely, but enough that he felt like maybe, just maybe, he had enough time left to catch that damned clone before his soul was gone.
His fingers weaved through her hair as he pressed her head against his chest, tasting a drop of her unhappiness on his tongue.
“I’m sorry, D. I should have warned you about the ceremony. About what to expect.”
“Why didn’t you?” The question was simple. Without rancor. And he didn’t have an answer.“I’m not sure. All I can tell you is I did it for you.”
“Not marrying me? You did that for me?”
He stroked her head, his gut churning. “Therian marriages aren’t like human. A Therian is…” He sighed. “I guess I should start at the beginning.”
“No need. Kara filled me in pretty thoroughly about the Therians, Daemons, Satanan—you name it. I’m not saying I’m ready for a quiz, but I think I’ve got the basics.”
“Good.” His hand stroked down her back and up again. “Anyway, the binding in an immortal marriage is real, not just talk as it is in a human marriage. There’s no divorce. Once the pair are bound to one another, they’re bound for life. That’s why very few Therians ever mate.”
Delaney pulled out of his embrace but didn’t move away. Instead, she rolled onto her stomach and propped herself up to look at him.
“So what are you saying?” she asked, her voice calm, but strained.
He lifted his hand, as he looked up at her, and ran his knuckles lightly along her cheek. “By only binding one of us, the mating isn’t permanent. If I’d bound myself to you, too, it would have been. The way it stands now, it can be broken. Once this is over, if I can take your memories, I can send you home. You’ll get your life back, Agent Randall.”
No joy leaped into her eyes. No relief. For a dozen seconds, she was silent. “So the bond was real, but not permanent. What’s going to happen to me if I try to leave you?”
Tighe sighed. “Good question. I’m hoping I can break the bond when I steal your memories. Since you’re human, I may be able to do it. Worst case, you’ll probably feel this tug, this longing, for something you don’t understand. It’s not perfect, but few lives ever are.”
“You really think I can go home?”
“I can’t promise. I’m not the only one of the Ferals with the ability to steal the memories of humans, but my gift is the strongest. If my soul goes before the clone dies, one of the others will try to free you.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“You can’t leave our world with the knowledge you currently have of us.”
“I’ll have to stay here?”
“Either here or in one of the Therian enclaves.”
“Will your friends let me live?”
“Absolutely. I’ve talked to Hawke about it. He’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”
“A prisoner.”
“You’ll have a life, D.” He cupped her jaw and ran his thumb across her soft cheek. “I’m not planning on dying. I haven’t figured out how, but I’m going to get that son of a bitch.”
Something flared in her eyes. “Good.”
Tighe slid his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her down until her mouth was firmly on his. The kiss filled him, strengthened him, and sent heat coursing through his veins. He pulled her on top of him until she covered him, then cupped her buttocks and pressed her against his growing arousal, pulling a moan of need from his throat.
Desire swam in his blood. “I want you, brown eyes.”
Delaney pulled from his embrace and sat up, straddling him as she pulled the soft tee shirt up and off her body, revealing perfect breasts in the moonlight filtering into the room.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, and reached up to cover the soft mounds with his hands.
She watched him with fathomless eyes. “Come inside me, Tighe.”
He needed no encouragement. In seconds, he finished undressing them both, rolled her beneath him, and sank deep into her heat. His soul gave a shuddering sigh. If he could stay there, right there, he would. Forever.
After he’d driven them both to completion, he held her in his arms until she fell asleep. Would the desperate need to touch her, to hold her, leave him once his soul was complete again?
He had a bad feeling the answer was no. That the only way he’d ever truly feel whole was with Delaney by his side.
Delaney woke up alone the next morning, climbed out of bed and took a quick shower, then dressed in the jeans and one of the sweaters Kara had loaned her until she could get some clothes of her own.
Her body was loose and warm. Sated. When Tighe had come in last night, she’d tried to be cool. Tried to be mad at him for not marrying her and humiliating her in front of his friends like that. But she’d found she didn’t have the anger in her. She was all too aware she wasn’t in her own world, and the rules of this one were very different. And she was very much an outsider.
Then he’d pulled her into his arms, his body shaking, and held her like she was all that kept him together. She’d melted, overwhelmed by the depth of her feeling for the man and her desperate need to keep him safe.
The last of her pique had disappeared beneath the weight of her caring and the certainty that he needed her right now. Time was running out. His soul was disintegrating.
And, heaven help her, she was absolutely in love with him.
She reached for her boots, which had miraculously survived her bloodbath. The same boots she’d worn on the job nearly every day for six years. She stilled in the act of pulling on a sock and thought of Phil and her colleagues looking for her, thinking she was probably dead. She hated that they were expending needed time and resources looking for her, yet she was beginning to understand the Ferals’ critical need for secrecy.
It didn’t seem real that she’d gotten mixed up in a battle of inhuman forces, races no one else knew existed. It didn’t seem possible she’d fallen in love with a man who wasn’t human.
As she slipped on her sock, the door opened, and Tighe walked into the room. Her heart did a slow roll in her chest, setting off a fan of sparks.
He looked so damned good, dressed in jeans and a black silk shirt that hung loose around his trim waist. His short sun-bleached hair, curling slightly at the nape of his neck, was still damp from a shower he must have taken elsewhere. Sunglasses covered his eyes.
A slow smile spread across his face, flashing his dimples. “You found clothes.”
“Kara loaned them to me.”
He nodded. “Lyon tells me you’ve made a friend.”
“I imagine anyone who enters Kara’s orbit is going to become her friend. She’s a good person.”
“I agree. Lyon’s a lucky man.” He closed the distance between them and took her face in his hands. “I’m luckier.”
His head dipped, and he kissed her, his mouth warm and inviting, with that intoxicating taste of thunderstorms and wildness. A wildness she was beginning to understand.
When her breath was ragged, and her body hot and pliant, he pulled slowly away, his hands returning to frame her face. “I’d take you to bed, brown eyes, but I’ve got a meeting in the war room in five minutes. And five minutes isn’t nearly enough time to do what I want with you.”
Damp heat flushed through her body. “I’m supposed to meet Kara in the foyer in a little while. She’s going to show me around.”
Tighe nodded, brushing his thumb across her cheek. “I’ve got a cell phone for you. It has GPS, but will only call two numbers. Hit any speed dial but two and you’ll get me. Two will get you Lyon.”
Two numbers. The word prisoner rang through her head all over again. The warmth from his touch slowly seeped out of her, and she pulled away. “Afraid I’ll call the FBI to swarm this place?”
“No. You couldn’t if you wanted to. You can’t intentionally betray me now that you’re bound to me.”