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He couldn’t breathe Pain consus erupted as the need to rip soh his body on a tide of grief-driven rage

"Stay in your skin!" Horse’s voice drove a spike through his head, slashing through the wildness building inside hied "Ease down This isn’t the place to let it out Let’s get you hoan to shut down Colors faded to gray before his eyes, s bond created havoc within hi pain that consumed him, heart and mind

His body would continue to live, for he was all but immortal

But his life was over

Chapter One

Present day

Kougar prowled on four paws through the streets of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, sliding in and out of the night shadows of the nineteenth-century buildings that rose against the moonlit sky on steps as silent as the pre-Civil War human dead that filled the cemetery on the hill He’d wandered this town alone since the battle four days ago--a battle between the Ferals and Mage and three wraith Daeed to release

The Ferals had won, of course, but the victory had been devastatingly holloo Ferals, Hawke and Tighe, had disappeared into the Mages’ spinning vortex, a spirit trap that would separateboth in a matter of days Seven, now That’s all they had left unless the Ferals saved them

And there was only one way to do that

One person alone had ever been able to breach a Daemon spirit trap and come out alive A woman who could turn to rowled low in his cat’s throat, hatred burning through his mind

Only one woman could save his Feral brothers and their aniht she was dead For a thousand years, he’d grieved for her until twenty-one years ago when he’d learned the truth--that Ariana and her race had faked their extinction after being infected by dark spirit The knowledge had slain him until he’d reone, lost to the dark spirit that had consumed her soul

His beloved Ariana would never have betrayed him like that

When he’d learned she was still alive, he’d refused to seek her out The last thing he’d wished to see were soulless eyes peering out of his beloved’s face But four days ago, everything changed with Hawke and Tighe’s capture He had to find her, to force her to breach the spirit trap and free them

The problem was, he couldn’t reach her

On cat’s feet, he darted between two narrow brick buildings and ran up the night hill, frustration beating a harsh rhythm in his blood The sound of the two rivers that flanked Harpers Ferry carried on the air, broken by the ruan to escalate suddenly until even the chirping of the insects turned to screeching in his ears

Goddess, his senses were screwed up Ariana’s severing of that supposedly per him half-alive, his emotions frozen, his senses all but dead for a o when, trapped by Dae In the darkness, Melisande had appeared with her usual scowl and, for a reason he couldn’t fatho bond between him and Ariana Apparently, his wife still needed him alive

With the bond reconnected, sensation had returned in aa hundred ti like it was about to explode, before flickering back to gray Fortunately, the kaleidoscope had died down,to what had once been nor

And his eh the old Harper Cemetery and headed for the Jefferson Rock, where he always ended up at so a hole in his gut He was starting to feeltoo much The wind in his face The rocks beneath his paws And a fury hot enough to rip someoneanyonelimb from limb No, not anyone Her Ariana Or at least the soulless bitch ore Ariana’s face

Their newly reconnected led reflection of the crystalline cord that had once bound the Ariana and saving his friends As her mate, he’d only ever been able to sense her presence if she was nearbyor in the Crystal Real since their extinction Only a mate of an Ilina could travel to the Crystal Realm without an Ilina escort And then, only if his mate was already there

For four days, he’d waited for her to return home to that castle in the clouds, so he could catch her

For four days, he’d waited in vain while Hawke’s and Tighe’s lives slowly slipped away

Kougar leaped onto the Jefferson Rock--a small tourist landmark upon which the huht worthy of a trip across the Atlantic Kougar couldn’t fault the sentiment as he stretched out atop the bit of shale in his cat’s body The breeze slid through his whiskers as he perused the draence of the Shenandoah and Potoo, at the end of the battle, he’d told Lyon, his chief, that he’d return in ten days Only that Not where he was going, not whom he intended to find No one could know the Ilinas were still alive Melisande had taken it upon herself to kill anyone who threatened their secret, who knew of their existence Except, apparently, him

Not that the Ferals were likely to be bested bywith he, the theft of the Daeoal to destroy the Ferals and release the Dae the Ferals needed was a mist warriors added to that list No, he’d return to Feral House only after Ariana had freed Hawke and Tighe And she would, dammit He’d see to it

Failure was not an option

If only she’d return to the Crystal Real fluttered briefly in his chest at the site of the decrepit , then kicking up to Mach five

Got her Finally, Ariana had returned to the Crystal Realar sent his newly keen senses into the woods in every direction, then, certain he was alone, leaped off the rock and shifted into his hued shirt he still wore froar-head arers closed around the cool metal, he stilled, slammed by the realization he was about to see Ariana for the first ti a deep, unsteady breath, he closed his eyes and concentrated on thethe ancient words of connection As the words left his lips, he felt a fahtlessness, then solid flooring beneath his feet

Sround

While his vision cleared, the scent of pine hit his nose, slaooseflesh rising on his ar in the archway of the Grand Corridor of Ariana’s palace in the Crystal Realm The wide expanse of emerald floor stretched out before hi to a ceiling painted with hts, carnal and otherwise Along the walls, torches flickered, setting the crystal aflaht this hall the ht he hadn’t seen in a thousand years, and standing there had his heart thru in his chest

How ht Ariana dead had he tried to get here, to reach her while he’d prayed over and over that she was somehow, miraculously, still alive? How many times had he visited this place in his dreams, dreams in which Ariana still lived? Dreams in which he’d stood beside her, in which he’d saved her

How many times?