Lyon nodded, but Wulfe saw the fear in his eyes, the fear that Ariana would be too late. A fear they all shared.
The mood was somber as Wulfe and Natalie entered the dining room again. Wulfe led her back to the kitchen, where Pink and Xavier worked.
Pink looked up as they entered, her expression tight. “What happened, Wulfe? I heard Vhyper’s unhappiness.”
“He and Kougar have both lost their animals, now, too.”
Odd bird eyes filled with misery. Natalie wouldn’t have thought such eyes would be so expressive, but she had no more trouble reading them than she did anyone else’s.
Xavier frowned. “Dude, that’s not cool.”
“No, it’s not. Natalie needs some breakfast, X.”
Xavier’s expression changed lightning-fast as it so often did. “I made Mom’s banana-nut pancakes for Pink this morning, and I have some leftover batter, Nat. They used to be your favorites.”
“They still are. So you’re cooking for the chef, now?” she teased.
“Hey, someone has to. She’s so busy cooking for everyone else, she forgets to eat.” Xavier poured the batter onto the griddle. How he knew where things were when he couldn’t see them, she’d never understood. “So, what did you think of watching the Ferals shift into their animals? You should have been here when Maxim shifted into a saber-toothed cat. That was awesome. The noises he made weren’t anything like you’d expect from a cat. He’s dead now—he was a seriously evil dude—but there will be another saber-tooth. Eventually, there will be twenty-six Ferals in all.”
She watched Wulfe as Xavier talked, saw the way his mouth tightened at twenty-six and suspected she knew what he was thinking. Twenty-six new Ferals. All of them new, because the current ones might soon cease to exist.
“Give me something to do, Pink,” Wulfe growled.
Pink looked like she wanted to argue . . . until she glanced at Wulfe’s face and saw the barely controlled despair. Instead, she handed him a carving knife. “The ham in the refrigerator needs to be sliced, Wulfe. Thank you.”
As Xavier regaled Natalie with what he’d learned of the different Feral animals, Wulfe pulled the ham from the fridge, placed it on a cutting board, and began to cut the slices with quick precision. The man knew how to use a knife. But the tension in his shoulders told her he was imagining carving up something else. Or someone. Like the Mage behind all their troubles.
Xavier flipped the pancakes. “You should see Grizz. He’s a giant even in human form, but he shifts into a bad-ass grizzly bear.” A moment later, he scooped the pancakes onto a plate, added a fork and knife, and handed it to her. “The butter and syrup are right here,” he said, motioning to the counter in front of her.
As Natalie sliced herself a pat of butter, Xavier leaned closer, his expression softening. “What do you think of Pink?” he whispered. “She is so amazing, Nat. You have to get to know her.” Her brother’s face was alight with infatuation. Maybe something deeper. Without a doubt, he was falling for that girl.
“She seems very sweet. I’m glad you’re friends.”
“Me, too.” His voice rose to normal volume, and he began to regale her with stories of Feral House as she ate her pancakes and watched Wulfe butcher the ham.
The way the thick muscles of Wulfe’s arm contracted with each slice of his knife, making his wolf’s-head armband bob and gleam in the overhead light, was truly a sight to behold. As he worked, he glanced up, and their gazes met. His knife stilled and in his eyes, she saw such a mix of worry, anger, and misery that it made her chest ache. With his gaze, he clung to her, need and warmth beckoning her forward like a night ocean she could too easily drown in.
The breath trembled in her chest, and she forced herself to break the eye contact. Taking the last bite of pancake, she turned away, looking for the dishwasher and realizing that there were three of them lined up beneath the rich granite countertop.
“Do you guys have a system for which dishwasher to put the dishes in?” she asked her brother.
Xavier smiled. “Have you ever seen anything like it? Every kitchen needs multiple dishwashers.”
“It was Jag’s idea.” Pink’s soft, high-pitched voice was filled with affection. “When the Ferals undertook my kitchen renovation a few years ago, Jag demanded they fill the room with dishwashers so that I would never again have to wash anything by hand. I told them it wasn’t necessary, but Jag was adamant. In the end, they managed to fit three.”
Natalie smiled. “That’s brilliant.”
Xavier nodded. “Right? We’re loading the middle one now.”
Natalie placed her plate and utensils into the appropriate dishwasher and turned back to her brother. “The pancakes were delicious.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Better than Mom’s, though if you tell her I said that . . .” She winced. “Xave . . .”
Her brother looped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. For once, he didn’t say anything, but his sorrow was clear and open on his face. “I miss her.”
“I know. The words just came out.”
“It’s okay. It’s right to talk about Mom when we’re together. I just wish . . .”
Natalie turned toward him, hugging him. “I love you, Xavier Cash. Everything’s going to work out the way it needs to.” She met Wulfe’s gaze as she said the last. “We’ve got to believe that.”
Xavier hugged her back. “I’m really glad you’re here, Nat.”
“Me, too.” Nothing was right about her current situation, and yet, as she held her brother in her arms and met Wulfe’s gaze over his shoulder, there was no place, at this moment, that she’d rather be.
Wulfe hung the hand towel he’d used to dry his hands on a decorative hook, watching her. “Ready to make those phone calls?”
“Yes, absolutely.” Natalie gave her brother a peck on the cheek. “I’ll come see you later.” As she passed Pink, she reached out and gripped a soft, feathered forearm, giving a light squeeze and a smile of thanks, then followed Wulfe through the swinging door.
“Is Pink a Feral?” Natalie asked quietly as she and Wulfe crossed the dining room. Several people were sitting at the huge table, though none Natalie thought were Ferals. She didn’t recognize them, and Wulfe didn’t greet them. Instead, he led her into the hallway, answering her question as they walked.
“Pink was supposed to have been a Feral, yes. A few of the passive ancient animal lines survived through the centuries, though all eventually died out. The flamingo was the last, one of the oddest, I’ll admit. But that particular Feral was never a warrior. The animal spirit always marked women and gave them the ability to connect with the Earth’s energies as mystics, healers, seers, etc. The flamingo Feral was a big asset. But the animal spirit can only mark a Therian with the DNA of that animal—someone whose ancestry includes shifters of that line. And we believe the flamingo line had all but died out when Pink was marked. She was newly conceived, just an embryo. The problem was, the embryo split into twins and the animal spirit was destroyed. Both girls were born half-animal, half-human. Pink’s sister was killed in hopes of reuniting the animal spirit, but it was too late.”
“That’s terrible.”
“It is. For her and for the Ferals since with the animal spirit dead, so too was the gift. Pink possesses none of the mystical strength she should have.”
Natalie’s mouth compressed in sympathy. “She has to remain hidden from human eyes.”
“Yeah. She stays with us. Even though the animal spirit within her is dead, she needs radiance just like we do. Besides, we’re the only ones she’s safe with. She works her tail off, trust me. She earns her keep many times over.”
“Has she been with you long?”
“Centuries.”
Centuries. She looked at him. “Are you all centuries old?”
He met her gaze, a glimmer of wry humor in his eyes, and nodded.
Together, they passed through the foyer, then followed the hall to Lyon’s office. They found him seated at his desk, Paenther and Tighe seated on the chairs facing him. Curled up in the chair by the window was Kara.
“Hi, Natalie,” Kara said with a weary smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
The mood in the room was heavy and grim. And Natalie felt suddenly selfish for bothering them with something so trivial.
“Natalie’s ready to make those phone calls,” Wulfe told them.
She shook her head as she looked at him. “They can wait. You have much bigger problems.”
Lyon glanced at Tighe. “Natalie wants to make a couple of calls to let people know she’ll be out of town for a few days,” he told the tiger shifter. “If she’s careful, I suspect it’s a good idea, but I want her away from here when she makes them. Leesburg area, maybe.”
“I’m taking her, Roar,” Wulfe said.
Lyon shook his head. “I don’t want to take a chance on the Mage tracking you two again.”
“Roar . . .” Wulfe argued.
But Lyon’s expression brooked no argument.
“I’ll take you, Natalie,” Tighe said. “This place has become like a morgue. I could use a drive.”
“Me, too,” Paenther said, looking to Lyon for agreement. When Lyon nodded, he turned to Natalie. “Are you ready now?”
“I’ll need my cell phone.”
Lyon pushed back his chair, opened a drawer in his desk, and pulled out her phone. “Keep your eyes open, all of you.”
Paenther took the phone and rose. “Let’s go.”
As they started out of the office, Tighe clasped Wulfe’s shoulder. “We’ll take good care of her.”
Wulfe nodded. “I know.” But he clearly wasn’t happy.
As they reached the foyer, Jag strode in from a different hallway.
“Road trip,” Tighe told him. “We’ll be gone an hour or two, tops. Natalie wants to make a couple of phone calls and needs an escort. Want to come?”
“Hell, yes.”
Natalie felt Wulfe’s hand on her shoulder. He turned her to face him fully, his frustration clear, but mixed with such worry, such protectiveness, that she longed to step into his arms.
“I’ll be fine, Wulfe,” she said quietly. He was the one she was worried about. And his friends. If the Ferals didn’t catch a break soon, one by one, they were going to start dying. She saw that knowledge in Wulfe’s eyes, that fury, that grief. And she felt it herself.
“I’ll be waiting for you,” he said.
And she prayed that was true.
Chapter Eleven
Wulfe followed his brothers and Natalie down the front walk to Tighe’s Land Rover, then saw Natalie settled safely in the backseat. He didn’t like her leaving without him, not at all. But as he prepared to close her car door, their gazes met, and something raw and electric arced between them, a fullness, a warmth, that pressed against his chest, squeezing his heart.
Was he imagining that he saw the wonder he felt mirrored in her eyes?
“Nothing’s going to happen to her, Dog,” Jag said from the front seat. “But we can’t return her to you until you let us leave.”
Wulfe closed the door and stepped back as Tighe drove off with Wulfe’s heart tucked in the backseat of his vehicle. He stood there, the sun beating down on the back of his neck, as he watched the Land Rover traverse the circular drive, turn onto the residential road, and disappear. And he stood there for minute after minute more, half-tempted to remain where he was until she returned.
Finally, with a sigh, he started back to the house. As he stepped onto the brick stoop, familiar voices began to speak in his head.
The female leaves the fold.
Yes.
Wulfe’s heart plummeted, his pulse racing.
But not my Daemon.
It is no matter. If we take her, he will come. Then both will be yours, my lord. As you wish.
Wulfe leaped toward the door and into the house, then shifted, giving no thought to the clothes he’d never see again.
Tighe. Paenther! Dammit, they were already too far to hear him telepathically. Roar! Inir knows she left. Shifting back to human he grabbed a pair of gym shorts out of the basket in the foyer, yanked them on, then reached for the bowl of car keys, grabbing the first one his fingers came in contact with. “They’re going to try to take her!”
“Stay here,” Lyon commanded as he came tearing down the hall from his office. “I need an Ilina!”
A second later, Melisande misted into the foyer. “You called?”
“Mist Natalie back here at once.” Lyon quickly told her where she was.
No sooner had the Ilina disappeared, then Olivia’s voice echoed from the upstairs hallway. “They’ve been attacked!” she cried, running down the stairs.
Wulfe whirled toward the door.
“Wulfe, stand down,” Lyon barked.
“Roar.” Impatience tore at Wulfe’s nerves, every muscle in his body straining with the need to reach Natalie.
“The last thing we can afford is a Feral-Mage war in the middle of a heavily traveled suburban street in broad daylight. What in the hell were they thinking?”
“They weren’t thinking,” Wulfe snapped. “Or they don’t care. Satanan’s the one calling the shots now, and he doesn’t give a damn if the humans find out about us. He wants the humans terrified. His Daemons will feed all the more easily once they’re freed.”
“They’re not getting free.”
“No?” Wulfe wasn’t at all sure anymore.