Tighe began to chant. “Spirits rise and join. Empower the beast beneath this moon.” The others joined him, the rhythmic words weaving with his heartbeat and Delaney’s, flowing around them, through them.
Thunder rumbled, the ground trembled as the great force of Mother Nature herself rose from the depths of the Earth, through the bodies of flesh and bone and up through their arms to the blood raised to the heavens.
“Empower the spirit of the tiger!” Tighe shouted.
A flash of lightning lit the sky, burning through the flesh of Tighe’s hand, sending power twisting through his body.
His tiger told him what he had to do.
Cradling Delaney in his arms, he knelt before what was left of the clone and held his hand out to Lyon for the blade.
The clone looked up at him with cold eyes. “The Daemons will rise again,” he murmured.
Tighe lifted the knife over the clone’s heart. “You won’t be alive to know, will you?” He plunged the blade through the chest wall, cutting and hacking, then reached his hand in.
Inside, his tiger waited, their minds meeting in a way they never had before. The tiger flicked his nose up with a growl, urging him to complete the task. Tighe curved his hand around the beating heart and plucked it from the clone’s chest, crushing it in his fist as he poured his love into Delaney.
Inside him, the tiger pulled the missing half of Tighe’s soul through the woman they both loved, freeing her from the evil and, please goddess, healing her body and saving her life.
For a breathless heartbeat, Delaney’s body jerked, then filled with air and life as her wounds began to heal at the rate of miracles.
Joy filled him, twining with the amazing rush of life flowing back through his own body, and reuniting his soul.
He could hear her heartbeat, firm and steady, as he watched her blood-coated chest rise and fall beneath the healing wounds. Her hand twitched, lifting slightly, then relaxing as she stirred.
Dark lashes fluttered, slowly rising as her gaze took in the sky. He waited, breath caught, as those dark eyes turned to him.
“Brown eyes.”
She smiled at him. “Yours are green again.”
Emotion caught in his throat and he hauled her up until he could bury his face in her hair. “We did it, D. We did it.”
“Is he dead?”
“He is.” He blinked back the moisture blurring his vision and raised his head to meet her gaze as his brothers gathered around him, their hands slapping his now-healed shoulders in an outpouring of joyous relief.
Lyon stood at his elbow, his hand glued to Tighe’s shoulder, his eyes gleaming. “Damn, that was close. But you pulled it off. Brilliantly.”
Tighe just grinned.
Delaney wrapped her arm around his neck and pulled herself up in his arms, looking down at herself. “Uh, I know you can’t see a lot through the blanket of blood, but I need a shirt.”
Hawke tossed Lyon his own black silk shirt. As Lyon helped her into it, Delaney groaned.
“I can really do this myself. And I’m pretty sure I can stand. I feel fine.”
“I’m not letting you go,” Tighe growled. Ever. He met Lyon’s gaze. “I want the Shaman to look her over.”
“I was thinking the same.” Lyon turned. “Hawke, if you’ve still got a cell phone, call Wulfe and have him bring clothes, then call the Shaman and ask him to meet Tighe back at the house. We’ve got to get out of here before the humans come to investigate the gunshots.”
“What about the blood?” Delaney asked.
Lyon nodded. “I’ll call a Feral Circle. They’ll never see it. Then the rest of us are going draden hunting.” He turned to the others. “We’ve got to get that menace under control!”
As Lyon called a Feral Circle, and the others shifted back into their animals before any humans arrived, Tighe held Delaney against his heart.
He kissed her hair. “How do you feel?”
“Fine. Which makes no sense. I should be dead after what he did to me.”
Tighe smiled into her eyes, falling into the love shining in those dark depths, a love that stretched between them like an unbreakable cord. “When my soul returned to me, it passed through you, healing you.”
“That’s amazing.”
“It was the tiger’s idea. A damn fine spirit, that one.”
Delaney smiled. “I love you both.”
The tiger positively purred.
“It’s mutual, brown eyes. Both ways.” He brushed his forehead against hers.
“It’s really over?” she asked softly.
The rush of grief he felt rise in her nearly brought him to his knees.
She still meant to leave him.
He felt as if she were cutting out his heart. His excuses for keeping her here were all but gone. If the Shaman gave her a clean bill of health, he’d have no more reason not to cloud her mind, as he should easily be able to do now that the clone’s hold over her was gone. Taking her memories of this whole ordeal.
Taking her memories of him.
“D,” he said softly. He needed her. But somehow he had to convince her she needed him.
Chapter Thirty
“Tighe, I can walk.” Delaney tightened her hold on Tighe’s neck as he swung her through the front door of Feral House. “I feel fine.”
He’d been carrying her constantly since he lifted her off that pentagram, as if he were afraid to let her go.
“Not until the Shaman gives you a clean bill of health.”
“Stubborn man,” she muttered, loud enough for him to hear. But she kissed his cheek, softly, loving that he cherished her so.
Loving him.
How am I ever going to live without him?
A glad cry rang from high up the stairs, and Delaney looked up to see Kara running toward them, her face wreathed in joy. “You did it!” She wrapped them both in a big hug. “Lyon said you’d gotten him, but I had to see for myself.” Kara’s gaze swung to her. “Are you okay?” The uncomplicated friendliness in Kara’s eyes warmed her all over again.
“As I keep telling Tighe, I feel fine. But he refuses to let me down.”
Kara stepped back, a knowing smile lighting her eyes.
The sudden tightening of Tighe’s grip on her had her looking at him with question.
“What’s the matter?”
“Have you met Pink?”
“No, but Kara’s told me about her.” She knew Pink was their cook and housekeeper. And half-flamingo.
She felt the stiffness go out of his hands. “Good. Pink, come join us.”
Delaney turned to look down the hall, where the extraordinary creature walked slowly toward them. The size of a woman, she possessed a human-looking face and hands, but her legs were those of a flamingo. In place of skin, she was covered in pink feathers.
Kara had told her that Pink should have been a Feral many centuries ago, but the animal spirit had flown to her in the womb, just before the egg split, creating twins. And possibly destroying the animal spirit. Pink’s twin had been killed in an attempt to free the animal, but it hadn’t worked. So Pink kept house and cooked for the Ferals, safe from the prying eyes of humans.
“Let me down, Tighe. I want to greet her properly.”
With a grumble, he did, and Delaney turned to the unusual woman. “Hi, Pink. I’m Delaney.” She held out her hand. “Do you shake?”
The bird-woman inclined her head and held out her own.
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, Delaney. 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 an old 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 will always 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’s you 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 her self 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.