“You sick bastard.” She stomped her heel hard onto his instep.
He jerked her around and slammed her against the wall, her head crashing into a picture frame and sending it clattering to the floor as pain crackled along her skull.
Pressing his body hard against hers, pinning her to the wall, the clone grabbed her face in his hand.
“Do you know what I’m going to do to you?” His green eyes had jagged black streaks running across them like cracks in two windshields. Streaks that hadn’t been there the last time he attacked her. Would Tighe’s look the same?
Oh, Tighe. Find me.
She spit in the clone’s face. “Go to hell.”
He didn’t bother to remove the spittle. “You’re going to scream, human. By the time I’m through with you, your vocal cords will be shredded from your screams.”
His words twisted inside her, sending her pulse spinning like a tornado. He wanted her afraid. Fight it. Fight him.
The clone gripped her face, forcing her to look at him. Oddly, his expression softened, warmth flowing into his eyes. For a heartbeat, she saw Tighe in his face. Tighe as she’d never seen him, his sunglasses off, his eyes filled with soft emotion.
But this wasn’t Tighe.
Any resemblance disappeared as cold rushed back into his eyes. His hand gripped her breast and squeezed until he brought tears to her own. His face took on an expression of deep pleasure.
He was feeding off her pain.
Maybe he should feed off his own. Catching him off guard, she slammed the heel of her hand into his nose. When he didn’t so much as flinch, she raked her nails down his cheek. He didn’t bleed.
The full understanding of his inhumanity hit her even as he jerked her away from the wall and threw her to the ground. She slid across the wood floor, stopping less than a foot from the bodies, sending the flies swarming into the air.
Oh God, Oh God.
Her body aching, her mind dazed, she tried to push to her feet, but he stomped her flat with his foot. How long before another body topped that pile of corpses?
Hers.
Tighe’s chest burned as he climbed back into Jag’s Hummer with muscles so tense they were cramping Wulfe joined him through the opposite door.
Goddess, where is she? What is that piece of shit doing to her?
Is she even still alive?
“When I get my hands on him, he’s not going to die fast,” he snarled. “I’m cutting him up inch by inch until there’s nothing left of him but his head and his heart. Then I’ll shred those, strip by strip.”
But what would it matter? How sweet would revenge taste when Delaney was dead? The blades in his chest twisted, slicing him anew until he felt the blood running in rivulets down the sides of his heart.
“Where to?” Jag asked, starting the engine. No one answered. Where did they go from here?
As he opened his mouth to reply, his vision went suddenly, totally black. As it had when he’d first had the visions. Before Delaney got in the way.
His hand grabbed hold of the door as he held on, knowing he was about to watch the demon feed, and praying, praying, he wasn’t about to watch Delaney die.
Chapter Twenty-three
“She’s not a witch!” Paenther growled as Foxx pulled on his clothes after snooping on all fours around yet another mountain estate that had absolutely nothing to do with the Mage.
The clouds had rolled in, driven by a chilly wind, turning the afternoon hazy and gray.
Foxx finished tying his running shoes. “I’m just saying, you can’t always tell anymore. Zaphene hid her Mage eyes so well, none of us knew she was a witch. She had me fooled but good,” he added morosely. “I thought she was in love with me.”
“Foxx.” Paenther sighed as they started walking back to the Mustang parked alongside the road. “I can tell.” Which was an out-and-out lie. He hadn’t known Zaphene was a witch any more than anyone else had. Still…“If she were a witch, she’d have enthralled me already, right? A touch of her hand, and I’d have been hers. She’s not a witch. And it doesn’t matter anyway, because I’m not going back there. I don’t have time to get involved with a woman. Any woman. Especially one who lives hours from Feral House.”
Foxx grunted. “If you’re not interested in her, why do you keep talking about her?”
Paenther growled low in his throat, his hands fisting on his coat. “I’m not the one who just brought her up again!”
“Yeah, but you’re the one who keeps growling. You’re driving me crazy, B.P.”
“The feeling is mutual, Cub,” Paenther said, as they reached the car. “The feeling is mutual.”
“I’m doing the best I can,” Foxx snapped, guessing correctly Paenther had lost patience with the young Feral’s worthless intuition. They climbed in and Foxx started the car, gunning it onto the empty road.
“I didn’t say you’re not, Foxx, but for two and a half days you’ve been certain Vhyper is in these mountains, and for two and a half days we’ve found shit. We might as well head home.”
“No.”
Paenther looked at the younger man sharply.
Foxx met his gaze. “He’s here. I know he’s here. And I know we’re going to find him. But not yet.”
Paenther growled, his claws unsheathing for a frustrated instant. “When?”
“Later today.”
Paenther stared at his companion. “You really think that?”
Foxx’s gaze turned inward, but he nodded slowly. “Yeah. You’re going to be talking to him again soon.”
“And just how are we going to find him?”
“He’s going to find you. But later.” Foxx turned the Mustang around in the middle of the road and headed back the way they’d come.
Paenther scowled. “Now where are you going?”
“Following another one of my intuitions. We’re going back to the Market.”
“You’re going to hand me over to a witch?”
“I never said she was a witch. I was just making the point that you’re not being very cautious for a guy who’s lived long enough to know better.”
Paenther growled, but damn, the cub was right. He’d been so blown away by the woman that he’d completely forgotten Zaphene had been able to hide her Mage eyes. Then again, he’d never known a Mage to be able to do that. And, honestly, the chances of his little beauty’s being Mage were one in several million. Maybe a billion. Still, the thought probably should have crossed his mind.
But what he’d told Foxx was true. If, by some monumental coincidence, she’d been Mage and had wanted to enthrall him, she’d have done it already. She wasn’t Mage. And damn yes, he wanted her.
As they pulled into the Market’s parking lot twenty minutes later, she was standing at the corner of the building, her head tipped against the wall in a stance that was perhaps a little sad, perhaps weary, as if she’d been waiting for him for hours. Her shapeless dress was a pretty blue, the same summer sky shade as her eyes.
“Get her out of your system, B.P. I’m tired of all the growling. Besides, my gut’s sure of this one. Hell if I know why, but you need to do this. She’s going to be good for you.”
Paenther climbed out of the Mustang and hesitated, a dozen reasons not to walk toward her bounding through his mind.
But then she straightened, and even across the parking lot he could sense the loneliness and longing in her eyes. A hunger less of the flesh than of the spirit. A need of the soul that spoke to something deep inside him, and he found himself unable to turn away.
The wind whipped, coating him with dust from the parking lot and flinging sharp, tiny raindrops against his cheeks and forehead. He barely noticed.
As he started toward her, her expression didn’t change. No smile greeted him this time. But with each step, the air around him heated. As did the blue of her eyes.
His pulse began to pound in his veins, the blood rushing, thick and warm, hardening him in an instant. Her remembered taste danced on his tongue, her scent springing from his pores as if it had been moments and not more than twenty-four hours since he kissed her.
Goddess, but he needed to get her out of his system. There was only one way he was going to do it.
As he closed the distance between them, she held out her hand to him, watching him with deep, smoldering eyes. Her warm hand trembled as he curled his own around it. As the wind twirled leaves in the gravel, she turned and tugged on his hand, and he followed. She led him behind the building and up the steep, heavily wooded hill behind the store.
Surrounded by the rich loamy scents of the woods, all he could smell was violets. Her. The scent wrapped around him, sinking deep into his skin, further inflaming the heat already building.
He gripped her hand tighter, part reaction to his body’s excitement, part possessiveness as they climbed together, far away from prying eyes.
He didn’t even know her name.
He ducked under a low branch, pushing aside another for her. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was sinking inside her and ridding himself of this obsession that had hounded him for two solid days.
She continued to try to lead him, but they were out of sight of the parking lot, and he couldn’t wait any longer.
He pulled her to a stop. She turned, her expression enigmatic as she slid into his arms. He covered her mouth with his, and passion exploded inside him. Desire roared through his body, making him heavy and ready. Her taste was even sweeter than he’d remembered, her scent exhilarating.
As he pressed her back against the nearest tree, he was vaguely aware of a pair of deer wandering close, watching them curiously.
She kissed him frantically, as if she feared they didn’t have much time. He kissed her back with the same intensity, desperate to taste her, to feel her, to know her in every way.
The feel of her hand on his zipper made his blood pound. The touch of her fingers along the length of his bare flesh nearly stopped his heart.
Gentleness and care be damned, he needed her now. Shoving his hand beneath her dress, he found her as bare and ready as she’d been the day before. Hot, wet, and whimpering with desire as his finger probed her depths.
Without pretense, he yanked up her dress to her waist then lifted her, positioning her sheath to his height. As she wrapped her bare thighs around his waist, he pushed inside her, filling her in a single, perfect thrust.
Heaven. Nothing in his entire life had ever felt more right. He thrust into her, over and over, pressing her against the tree at her back until she was gasping and moaning with pleasure. Within moments, her release broke over her with a cry, her inner muscles contracting hard around him, driving him over the edge.
“Look at me,” she cried on a husky groan.
As his seed pumped into her, his body and mind open as they only were during sexual release, he stared into her passion glazed eyes.
And froze.
“I’m sorry, warrior,” she said softly, her eyes no longer the simple sky blue of a human’s.
As darkness swallowed his vision from the outside in, he stared into blue eyes now rimmed in copper and knew his luck had followed his caution into oblivion.
For the second time in his life, he’d fallen into the trap of a Mage.
Chapter Twenty-four
“She’s alive.”
Tighe felt the Hummer’s upholstery at his back, but his mind was fully with Delaney as he watched her through the clone’s eyes. But even as he rejoiced in her survival, he wondered how long it would last.
He felt Wulfe’s big hand on his shoulder. “Any identifiers?”
“None. She’s in a kitchen, I think.” She was on her stomach on a polished wood floor lined with blue paint, in a room swarming with flies, a knee—the clone’s knee—firmly planted in her back. While Tighe was forced to watch, hands that looked like his own stripped the sweater and bra from the body of the woman Tighe would right now give his life to protect.
The bastard flipped her onto her back. Delaney’s eyes glittered with hatred, lanced through with pain. And fear.
Fury roared in Tighe’s ears, melding with the sound of the chaos as his fingers began to burn.
“Stay in your skin!” Wulfe growled. “She won’t stand a chance if you lose it.”
Delaney. Goddess. Delaney.
He took deep breaths, fighting back the chaos. She needed him.
She tried to hit the clone, one feminine hand flying into his eyes only to be stopped and wrenched to the floor where a length of rope lay waiting. With Tighe’s own nimble fingers, the clone tied the rope tight around her wrist.
Delaney tugged, but her hand went nowhere. Tighe saw why. The rope had been attached to an eyebolt screwed into the floor. As if the clone had planned everything.
“Of course he planned it,” he muttered.
“Planned what?” Hawke asked.
“He’s tying her to the floor. Already had the eyebolts and rope ready.”
“Why? Why her?”
“Who knows. He must have seen us together. At the Lincoln Memorial. During that first apartment fire. He could have been anywhere. Anyone.”
The clone slammed his knee into the crevice beneath her rib cage, making her eyes bulge with pain as he yanked her other arm wide from her body and tied her second wrist.
Delaney grabbed the ropes, lifted her hips, and kicked hard at her captor’s face, but her strength and speed were no match for a Feral’s, and the clone’s were. He grabbed her heels and pulled off her boots and socks, one after another as tears glistened in furious brown eyes.
She was right there. Right there. Close enough to reach out and touch, and he couldn’t help her.
He gripped the seat, his stomach cramping.