"I'm sorry," Brielle whispered, then misted away.

Ariana lifted her hand to Kougar's cheek, turning in his arms to look at him. Raging fury gleamed in his eyes. And a desperate determination.

"We have to make this work." His words were so low as to be almost a growl.

"It's going to work." Her hand on his cheek began to curl as the darkness inside her clamored for blood. She snatched it away before she could score his flesh.

Kougar grabbed her, sweeping her into his arms. With fast, purposeful strides, he carried her down the stairs and into the middle of the oasis that, for once, looked like a true garden. Almost roughly, he put her on her feet, hauled her into his arms, and kissed her with a passion that rode the edge of violence. And she reveled in it, the darkness egging her on.

As her tongue twisted with his, she gripped his shoulders, her fingernails digging into his flesh through his shirt. Against her will, her grip tightened until she felt the slickness of blood against her fingertips.

Kougar grabbed her wrists and jerked her hands away from him. "Don't give in to it!"

She stared at him. "I need to hurt something. Someone. If only he were here." She'd gladly rip Hookeye limb from limb if not for the certainty that doing so would destroy everything she sought to protect. But all that mattered was starving the poison so she could turn to mist.

Mage eyes rose in her mind, sending goose bumps skating over her skin. Starving the poison is a foolish idea, Queen of the Ilinas.

"Tough. Shit." She shivered with revulsion.

Kougar lifted a brow.

"Hookeye," she explained.

Kougar grasped both her wrists in one hand and grabbed her jaw with the other, hauling her close. "Focus on me! The flowers. The waterfall. Smell, Ariana. Feel."

"I am!"

"Not enough." In the blink of an eye, he released her and pulled her gown up and over her head, tossing it aside. As she reached for him, uncertain whether she meant to grab for his buckle or rake her fingernails down his face, he lifted her and tossed her onto the pillows.

When she tried to get up, he flipped her onto her stomach, pressing her down with a knee to the small of her back.

"Kougar."

"Feel."

And she did. Goddess. A moment later, a delicate flower brushed against her hip, sliding over her buttocks and down her thigh. A soft, lush sensation in direct counterpoint to the violence struggling inside her. Even as she fought to get up, she shivered from the sensual pleasure of the bloom as it traced her opposite hip.

Kougar curled his fingers around her thigh and pulled her leg away from its twin, opening her to the touch of his flower. The petals slid along her sensitive flesh, drawing a moan of pleasure and need from deep in her throat.

Inside, the darkness growled with hunger and fury.

Without pulling the flower from between her legs, Kougar moved, his hand replacing his knee in the small of her back. A moment later, she felt his mouth on her butt cheek, nipping, scratching with his teeth as if he longed to take a bite and resisted . . . barely. Excitement tumbled inside her, the flower stroking between her legs growing damp and dewy.

Her hips began to rock as he drew the flesh into his mouth, sucked, and nipped. The flower disappeared as his fingers dove inside her, hard, in and out, in and out. She bucked wildly, gasping, then screaming as a blinding orgasm broke inside her.

"More, dammit. More!"

Kougar released her. Moving with his innate agility, he slid onto his back between her thighs and lifted her hips. Wrenching her wide, he pressed her down onto his mouth, shoving his tongue inside her and flicking it over her clit until she spiraled into another screaming orgasm.

The pleasure was almost more than she could bear.

So, too, was the terrible hunger.

She tried to push up, tried to kick free, her hands fisting until she felt the slick dampness of blood in her palms from her own fingernails. "I need to hurt you! Hurt me, Kougar. Hurt me!"

He slid out from beneath her, slamming her back down on the pillows, pinning her with his knee as she heard the rustle of fabric and watched his shirt sail to the ground out of reach. The sound of a belt being unfastened met her ears followed quickly by the slide of a zipper. A moment later the pressure at her back disappeared.

But as she pushed up on all fours, strong hands gripped her hips. She screamed with acute pleasure as Kougar took her from behind, burying himself deep.

This was what she needed! "Stay inside me. Stay. Inside."

He thrust deeper, harder, over and over, then slid an arm around her, yanking her up until she was on her knees. Even as his hips pounded against her, his mouth found her shoulder. He bit her lightly then raked his tongue over the spot and bit her again.

She was out of her mind with passion, sensation, her senses exploding with the smell of flowers and sex. As she rocked back against his hard thrusts, his hand closed around her breast, pinching her nipple nearly to the point of pain. She arched into his hold, wanting . . . needing . . . more.

The battle between pleasure and pain escalated into full-out war. Barely conscious of what she was doing, she reached for his face, feeling her nails sink into his cheek before he grasped her wrist and yanked her hand away.

Kougar flipped her around and pushed her back on the pillows without gentleness or care, understanding her need for pain. Then he fell on her, taking her roughly, pounding into her harder, deeper, with every thrust.

Her fingers dove into his hair, too hard, holding him too tight. He captured her with his gaze. In those pale eyes, she saw savage excitement and fierce determination overlaid by a heartrending tenderness. In those pale eyes, she saw the man she'd fallen in love with all those years ago.

Inside her, another orgasm began to build, harder, faster, higher than any that had come before. And building, right alongside it, was the hunger, a seven-headed monster devouring her body and soul. But Kougar gripped her with his gaze, held her together as the war inside her threatened to rip her apart.

As the orgasm broke, she screamed with the glory of it. Then cried out with horror as she felt the bonds she'd locked around the poison all these centuries snap free.

As she turned to mist.

Chapter Twenty

The orgasm overtook Kougar in a blinding release, his and Ariana's combined--magnificent, brilliant perfection as he sank into her, their bodies merging in a blazing burst of pleasure he hadn't felt in . . .

Realization hit him with a stunning blow. She'd turned to mist.

"Ariana?"

For one fleeting moment, he wondered if she'd won. If the poison was gone. But Ariana's horror rushed at him through that open mating bond, and he knew.

They'd lost.

The cry that tore from her throat was part anguish, part fury, and she fled from him, a wraith he couldn't hold.

Kougar leaped to his feet as Ariana's mistlike form, rimmed in blood red, whirled on him, one of his switchblades snapping open in her hand. And he understood. Hookeye's controller spell had been set free.

"Do you belong to him now?" His voice remained calm, but he was roaring inside.

"The poison is trying to control me!"

That she knew that much meant she was still fighting, not lost. Not completely. Though she was mist, he knew she could turn to flesh in a microsecond, the blade becoming deadly just as fast.

"It wants you." Her expression was terrible, her neon blue eyes filled with dread, her mouth battle-hard. "It wants me to hurt you. The compulsion . . ." One moment she was there, the next she was gone.

A knife tore through his lower back with white-hot pain. He spun, but it was Melisande behind him, not Ariana. A second later, she, too, disappeared.

Crap. He needed his knives, even if they'd do him little good with the Ilinas turning to mist after every strike. Fighting mist warriors had always been an exercise in futility. And he didn't want to hurt them!

At the next flash of light, he dove for his pants, praying one of his knives was still there. He found it and rolled to his feet only to find the two women circling him, wraithlike, glowing with hot energy.

Neither attacking.

"What are you doing, Ariana?"

"He wants you injured, not dead. We're to take you to the temple. All of you."

All? The Ferals. "The spirit trap?"

"Yes. He wants me to open it for him. To drop you in."

Like hell. And suddenly he understood why the pain in his chest had, if anything, been getting better, not worse. Hookeye didn't want him dead. Not yet. What good was Kougar to him dead when another Feral would only be marked by the cougar? If he tossed him into the spirit trap, no cougar would ever come forth again.

Melisande flew at him, her ghostlike form pure energy as she attacked. She latched on to him, sucking him into her unnatural grip like a science-fiction tractor beam.

He shifted into his cat, the shift difficult and painful with her energy mixing with his; but he sprang away from her to turn and hiss, ears back.

Melisande flew at him again, turning to flesh just long enough to slice the blade deep through his shoulder. If she'd been a Mage, he'd have taken off her arm. He'd had the time. But Ariana . . .

His warrior queen yelled her fury and flew, not at him, but at Melisande. The two pulsing, mistlike figures collided in a spray of energy. Fighting, furious.

He could only watch, uncertain what was happening. What he needed to do was get back to Feral House and warn the others. He shifted back to a man. But as he reached for his armband to whisper the spell, the two Ilinas sprang apart, turning corporeal.

Kougar crouched, expecting another attack, but Melisande swayed on her feet, letting the knife drop from her fingers. Ariana sank to her knees, blood seeping from her pores like drops of sweat.

Goddess.

A wary eye on Melisande, Kougar reached cautiously for his mate.

"Ariana?"

She was doubled over, holding her middle, blood dripping onto the ground. "I beat back . . . Hookeye's control. And took Melisande's poison. It's changed. It's not what it was before. It's darker. Stronger." Her gaze flew to Melisande. "You're okay?"

"Yes." The petite blonde's face had drained of color. "What about the others? Are you taking their poison, too?"

"I can't . . ." Ariana's eyes filled with anguish. "I'm trying, but it won't come!"

Kougar brushed a lock of hair back from her bleeding temple. "He changed the poison so you couldn't take it this time."

"You took mine," Melisande said. "You're going to have to merge with them as you did me."

"Find Brielle. Bring her to me." As Ariana rose unsteadily to her feet, Kougar grabbed her arm, helping her. She looked up at him with fury and devastation. "Starving the poison should have worked!" Her hand went to the silver cuff, tearing it off her wrist and flinging it onto the rocks with a clatter, her face a mask of anguish. "How could I have turned to mist with the moonstones on?"

"The Mage are more powerful than they've ever been." Powerful enough to change the poison already in Ariana. Powerful enough to . . . ?

Kougar stilled. "Ariana, you've seen him in your mind. You've felt something strange going on in your head. What if it wasn't the memory downloads you were feeling, but Hookeye?"

She looked at him sharply. "What do you mean?"

"What if some of what you've remembered wasn't from the queens at all, but false memories planted by the sorcerer? At one time, you were sure the Ilinas had never been attacked by the Mage before. You blamed yourself, blamed us both for Hookeye's original attack after you took me as your mate."

Brow furrowing, she bent down and picked up her dress. "You think my new memories about other attacks, about starving the poison, were Hookeye's doing? For just this reason . . . to make me lose control?" She pulled on her dress, a new horror filling her eyes as she met his gaze. "If you're right, how do I know what's real?"

He grabbed his pants. "Can we kill him?"

"No." The word shot from her mouth without hesitation. Which told him all he needed to know.

"That's what he wants you to think. It's a lie. The only way to get him out of your head is to kill him."

"You can't know that." But as he dressed, he could see her processing his words and watched as hatred leaped past the anguish in her eyes. "We kill him."

Kougar nodded. "I've got to get back to Feral House to warn the others."

"It's too late." Melisande appeared behind him. "The maidens have left. The Crystal Realm is empty but for us."

Ariana's gaze collided with his. Feral House. She sprang at him, turning to mist and catching him in her energy in a flash of light. Moments later, he felt grass beneath his feet, his head spinning even as he started running for the patio door. He could hear shouts of battle from inside Feral House. Shouts of pain.

Ariana materialized at the door. "Do you want Melisande's help?"

He glanced back to find Ariana's second standing where they'd landed, a wary expression on her face.

"Yes!"

The three rushed through the dining room together. They found the battle in the foyer, Lyon, Jag, and Vhyper in their animal forms, leaping at the mist warriors, attempting to strike during those seconds the maidens attacked with their knives. The floor was smeared with blood. And Wulfe was missing.

"Don't kill them!" Kougar barked. "They've been enchanted. Melisande and Ariana are with me." In a spray of light, he shifted into his cat, leaping at one of the Ilinas as she tried to strike Vhyper.

Melisande flew at Brielle as the latter was about to stab Lyon.

Out of the corner of his eye, Kougar saw Ariana lift her hands above her head. "Mel, hang on!" Then she began to chant fast and furiously. Two seconds later, the Ilinas disappeared, leaving nothing behind but cries of fury.