"Tighe's right. A hundred things could go wrong."
"I know. But we don't have a choice. Birik really might succeed in freeing Satanan tonight. Against that possibility, the risk to our lives means nothing."
He gathered her close to his heart and held her, burying his nose in the scent of violets. All he wanted to do was keep her safe. He didn't care about the risk to his own life.
Her hands slid over his back. "I'm stronger than I look, Paenther. No matter what happens, I'll be okay."
He couldn't deny her strength. It was he who was hesitating. Because he couldn't bear for anything to happen to her.
It dawned on him that he'd barely blinked at the prospect of intentionally letting a Mage witch enthrall and capture him. He trusted her. Completely. Implicitly.
Her safety was his only concern, and while it was huge, his little witch was right. There was no choice but to try.
And pray that fate was on their side tonight.
They were going to need all the help they could get.
Chapter Twenty-two
"This is as far as we go." Paenther stopped beside the very tree against which he'd first made love to Skye and pulled her into his arms. Night was falling fast, and the draden would be out soon. It was time to get into that cavern.
The thought of letting himself be enthralled again, of walking into the enemy's lair blind, deaf, witless, turned his blood to ice. But his men were depending on him. He was their only hope.
Skye locked her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek to his chest. He knew she was scared. Hell, he was terrified. A hundred things could go wrong. He was a man who survived on rigid control, yet he was relinquishing every ounce of it into another's hands. He was a man who trusted few and had hated the Mage for centuries.
Yet he willingly placed his life and the fate of the Feral Warriors, if not the entire world, into the hands of the Mage witch in his arms. Amazingly, he did so without a qualm. She would do everything she could to help him pull this off.
What terrified him was that it wouldn't be enough. That she wouldn't be able to free him, and he'd never get a chance to fight. Every warrior expected to die in the midst of a blazing battle. It was the only way to go. The thought of dying like a fly trapped on flypaper, unable to save his friends, let alone himself, made his muscles tense with fury. The thought of being unable to save the woman he loved from the monster who had hurt her so many times nearly claimed his soul.
But he was out of options.
He buried his face in Skye's fragrant hair and drew strength. "This is going to work," he murmured against her temple. "Whatever you have to do, Beauty, get me free."
She pulled back and looked up into his face. "I won't fail you. I promise."
Looking down into those blue-and-copper eyes, he saw his future. His world. And he knew that somehow, despite everything, he would find a way for them to stay together.
"I love you," he said softly, falling head over tail all over again.
"And I love you." Tears formed in her eyes. Doubts swam with the tears, but she didn't voice them out loud. Instead, she pulled one of his hands from her cheek and placed a kiss in his palm, the tears running free.
He knew what he had to do. There was only one way for her to enchant him and even if there wasn't, he needed to make love to her at that moment more than he needed to breathe. One hand cupping the back of her head, he kissed her, the taste of her tears on his tongue.
Skye kissed him back with a fervor and a tenderness that filled him with love and raked at his heart. He couldn't lose her. He wouldn't. He loved her. How could that single emotion make him feel so powerless, yet at the same time fill him with the strength of the gods?
The passion that erupted every time they touched one another rushed over them, turning the kiss hot and needy. Paenther slanted his mouth over hers, needing to reach farther into her mouth with his tongue, needing to be one with her in every way possible.
He unfastened her jeans and helped her out of them and her panties, then slid his hand beneath her thighs as she opened for him. Her flesh was warm and soft, the core of her damp and ready. As much as he wanted to make proper love to her, they were out of time. He freed his erection then pulled her against him, pressing his cheek to hers.
"Hold on to me, Beauty," he whispered against her ear, then lifted her. As she wrapped her bare legs around his waist, he pushed home, burying himself in her warmth, her love, in the only place he wanted to spend eternity. His gaze locked with hers. Love blazed between them.
"I love you, warrior," she said as he came. The veil of enchantment once more fell over his mind.
Skye straightened both their clothes, then led Paenther through the woods to the main entrance of the cavern. She could see no reason for subterfuge. Birik would know she was here soon enough. Her heart thudded until she thought she might be sick.
The smell of damp limestone and lightwick smoke greeted her, filling her with bitter memories as she led Paenther down the steep cavern stairs. If this failed, if after knowing freedom, she wound up trapped here again, her soul would shrivel and die. Then again, her heart would already be dead. Because the only way she'd be trapped here was if Paenther were no longer alive.
If he lived, he'd find a way to save her. She knew that.
A sentinel's shout echoed off the stone, relaying the news of her return with a prisoner. The sound would surely call Birik to her in a heartbeat. The knowledge made her hands damp with sweat.
If only she had the powers of a television witch. She'd blink Paenther and the other Ferals out of there, then send one of Birik's snakes to eat out his heart.
Her gaze caught a flash of white hair on the stairs below, and she knew he was coming for her. Her legs began to shake. She squeezed Paenther's hand tightly, gaining strength from the feel of his warm flesh against hers and his strong, masculine presence, even if there was nothing he could do to protect her.
As Birik neared, Vhyper close behind, part of her, the part of her that had fought him so stubbornly all those years ago, wanted to stare him down and refuse to quake in his presence. But her only chance of freeing these men depended on his believing nothing had changed. That she hadn't changed.
Fortunately, acting fearful around him was all too easy. Unfortunately, it was no act at all.
The two men reached her, Vhyper towering over the smaller man, his bald head gleaming beneath the floating lightwicks.
Birik stopped three steps below her and stared up at her with curiosity and suspicion. "You're back."
Vhyper smiled, a cruel, smug smile. "Paenther might have been tricked once, but he'd never make the same mistake twice. He let you enchant him this time, didn't he, little witch? He wanted back in here."
Skye looked away, her pulse racing. "Yes."
Birik lunged forward two steps and grabbed her jaw, squeezing until pain shot through her skull.
"What is his plan?"
Tears blinded her. "He wanted me to hide him until the enthrallment wore off so that he could find his friends and escape."
She looked up at Vhyper, meeting his gaze. his friends," she added softly, praying Paenther was right and that the Feral's soul still lived behind those eyes.
Vhyper snorted. "Hell of a way to hide him, parading him right through the front door."
Skye looked away before either of them saw the lie in her eyes. "I knew I couldn't hide him. I told him that, but he insisted I try anyway."
Birik scowled. "Fool. Why would he ever think he could beat me?"
Vhyper chuckled. "Ferals are a stubborn lot. I told you he'd be back, didn't I? Out of some misplaced sense of honor and justice, he thinks he owes me his life for my role in saving his years ago."
Without warning, Birik backhanded her across the mouth. "Why did you escape?"
Skye pressed the back of her hand to her throbbing, bleeding lip. "I didn't. He took me against my will." The truth.
"You released him?"
"He came out of the enthrallment before I had him locked down." A lie. He'd come out of the enthrallment buried deep inside her.
"You showed him a way out."
"He forced me. He would have killed me otherwise." Truthfully, it had been Birik, not Paenther, who'd forced her. By unleashing those Daemons on innocent people, he'd forced her to make some hard choices. Choices she would never regret.
Birik stroked her cheek. "Meek little mouse. And he forced you to come back here."
"No. I offered to help him. I had to come back." She allowed her fear to break in her voice. "I just want the punishments to stop. Please, Birik. Please. I never meant to thwart you. He forced me to leave, but I came back. And I brought him to you."
"Who removed his shackles?"
"The Shaman." It wasn't entirely true, but it was close enough. And Vhyper was likely to believe it.
"I don't really care why he's here. Now that I have you both again, that blade will almost certainly open tonight. And nothing will be as it was before."
Birik grabbed Paenther from her and motioned to two sentinels nearby. "Get rope and escort the enchantress into the forest," he told them. "I want four deer, fully grown, tied and delivered to the Hall of Feasts at midnight. Do not let her out of your reach. Where there's one Feral, there are likely to be more. Once she has the deer, lock them all in her cell until midnight with a guard at the door."
He grabbed her jaw one more time until she was seeing stars. "You'll not escape me again, Skye. If you try to thwart me in any way, I'll have you begging me to give you to the Daemons just to end your torment."
A moment later, she stared at Birik's retreating back. His orders rang in her ears. She was to be locked in her cell until midnight. With no chance of finding Paenther. No chance of freeing the Ferals from their shackles until the very last moment.
A moment that might well be too late.
"Welcome to the party. Great rescue, Geronimo."
Paenther fought his way out of the fog of enchantment, following the sound of Jag's caustic voice. Slowly the mist parted, and he found himself in a small alcove in the cavern rock. He was standing upright, at least, but chained with his hands above his head. Beside him, chained in the same manner was Jag. And beside Jag, Foxx.
Foxx frowned at him. "Did you really come back here on purpose?"
Paenther met his gaze. "What do you think?"
"Superman to the rescue," Jag drawled. "Couldn't get the rest of the war party to join you, Cochise?"
Paenther growled low in his throat. "There's only one way in, and that's enthralled. And the only way Skye can enthrall is by opening a man's mind."
Jag grunted. "Couldn't stand the thought of anyone else fucking her, could you?"
"No way in hell." He tested the chains, struggling against them as he'd done a hundred times the last time he was here, but as before, they didn't budge.
Being chained like this, with two others, brought back memories of those days in Ancreta's dungeon. Vhyper, or Vincent, as he'd known him then, and Frederick, had kept up a steady stream of patter - most of it black humor. Paenther had never joined in - his personality had always been more serious - but they'd sometimes made him smile with their antics, which in turn had made them chortle with glee.
Frederick shouldn't have died.
He looked at the two men with him now, Foxx, whom he'd known a couple of years, and Jag, whom he'd known almost the entire time he'd been a Feral. Sometimes he wondered if he knew Jag at all.
Yet they were his brothers.
His only goal was to save their lives and Vhyper's, and to get Skye to safety. To get them all out of this cavern alive. If he were able to reclaim the Daemon blade while he was at it, all the better. But the men were his reason for being here. Especially Vhyper.
"How'd the Mage get you?" he asked his companions.
Jag scowled. "The cub turned on me!"
"I did not!" Foxx shot back.
Paenther's brows lowered as he looked from one to the other. "What happened?"
Jag frowned. "We were running to the grocery for Pink when Mr. Intuition here got a feeling there were Mage in the neighborhood. Of course, he didn't tell me why we were driving down Jefferson until we were on them. Two Mage. I called it in, we shifted and took them on. As we were taking care of them, two more showed up. Then suddenly fox-face forgot who he was supposed to be fighting, upped his size until he was bigger than my jaguar, and went for my neck. The Mage slapped shackles on both of us while Foxx had me pinned, and the next thing I knew, I was here."
"I didn't attack you," Foxx said sullenly.
Jag's jaw dropped. "Are you trying to say your fangs accidentally went through my neck? Do you think I'm a fucking moron?"
Paenther's gaze went from one to the other, not liking what he was hearing. Not liking it at all. "What do you remember, Cub?"
The kid met his gaze, a mix of anger and confusion in his eyes. "I wouldn't have attacked him!"
"But you don't remember."
Foxx looked away. "No."
Paenther looked at Jag and saw the same disquiet in his eyes as he felt himself. "They enthralled you, Foxx. That's the only explanation for it."
The cub's head swung around. "In my animal form? Without ever touching me?" He scoffed. "That's impossible."
"Do you have a better explanation for what happened?"
Foxx struggled against his bonds, the chains rattling on the stone. "No! But how? The Mage can't enthrall us through our animals. Everyone knows that."