He rolled her beneath him and covered her mouth with his kiss, needing to erase the distance between them. His body craved the feel of her, everywhere. Inside, outside. No space. In that moment, if he could have crawled inside her, he'd have done so. Or better, yet, tucked her inside him. Where he could keep her safe. His.

As he captured her mouth and stroked her tongue, he sent her crying out with a release that clutched him hard enough to send him spinning after her.

His body warm and sated, he dropped his head to her shoulder even as his mind railed at his body's betrayal. She's Mage. The enemy.

Unable to stop himself, he opened fully to her, feeling her emotions, knowing her heart.

And his mind was finally forced to accept what his heart had known all along. No matter what Kara was., she was innocent of malice and subterfuge.

She might be Mage, but she wasn't his enemy.

Unfortunately, he wasn't sure it mattered.

As Chief of the Ferals, his first duty was to his men and his race.

No matter what his heart wanted, or what his beast demanded, he would do what he must.

Even if it meant destroying the only light that had ever warmed the dark caverns of his soul.

* * *

Chapter Seventeen

Kara felt them before she saw them. That odd energy like ants crawling over her skin. Her eyes flew open at the exact moment Lyon tensed and rolled off her.

"Draden," they said together. The little demons were back, hovering barely ten feet above their heads.

Lyon lunged for his pants and his knives. "The circle's weakening."

"Can you call it again?" Kara scrambled up and grabbed her nightgown. Safety was a fleeting thing around here.

"Not until it dissolves, but by then, it may be too late." He pulled two switchblades and a cell phone from his pockets and snapped open the phone.

"Goddess rock. We've got a draden swarm. Bring the smallest ritual robe and three men to guard her."

He flipped the phone shut and dressed. "Stay radiant, Kara. If this magic fails, they'll be all over you again if you don't."

"What about you?" She pulled on the little nightie, wishing she'd worn something thicker to bed. Like a suit of armor. "Don't they bite you, too?"

"They do, but when you're around, they tend to do little more than nip before they realize I'm not the one they want. The tiny nips will usually heal on their own."

"Why am I the one they want?"

"Because your energy, now that it's been tapped, is the purest. It's the only energy the sires can feed from."

"The sires?"

Dressed and armed, he stood beside her, his gaze fixed on the enemy above. "The easiest way to understand draden is to think of a bee colony. The sires are like the queens, the only ones capable of reproducing, though they reproduce through energy. Each sire has its own swarm."

She stared at him. "I thought the term sire was male. And queen is definitely female."

His gaze dropped to her with a quick roll of his eyes. "These are mindless, soulless energy creatures, so just go with me on this one."

"The sires can only feed from me? So they can only survive by attacking me?"

"They don't have to attack, though they will it they get the chance. They can survive by simply being near you and feeding off your energy from a distance, though not too great a one. They also get energy secondhand through the swarm. Whatever energy any of the draden swarm picks up from you goes back to the sire."

She watched them above heir, the glow from her own body illuminating the hideous faces and jagged, terrifying teeth. A hard shudder tore through her. As one swooped toward her, stopping only a few feet in front of her face, she pressed back against the rock behind her.

"They're getting closer."

Lyon stepped in front of her, hacking up until he pressed her against the rock. "The circle's failing. If they break through, cover your face and stay radiant. I'll kill as many of them as I can until my men arrive."

"I thought I was safe as long as I stayed radiant."

"You are. But the moment you lose it, they'll be on you. I don't want to take any chances."

"What about you? If they can't attack me, they'll feed from you." Her fingers gripped his waist as the awful realization hit her hard. "They'll kill you."

"Just stay radiant, Kara. Stay radiant to keep the draden off you and to prove to my men when they arrive that you're more than Mage. Or you're dead either way."

Her arms slid around him. "Let me stand in front, Lyon. As long as I'm radiant, let me shield you."

She felt his hand grasp hers and squeeze gently. "No."

"Then at least give me one of your knives. I can help keep them off you as you did for me."

He didn't respond immediately, then he moved, reached for something. And a deadly blade glinted in her own glow as he handed it back to her.

"Though you might have cause, after what I did to you tonight, I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from stabbing me. At least until we get home. If you weaken me any further, this circle is going to fail entirely."

"I'm not going to stab you. On purpose, at least. I've never used a knife before on anything that moved."

"I'll consider myself warned."

"How long dp you think we have?"

"I don't know how long the circle's going to last. But my men will be here in a couple of minutes."

"Won't the draden just swarm them, too?"

"Right now, because they sense you, they're far more interested in you. By the time they pay the other Ferals much notice, they'll be inside the circle, helping me shore it up. Once the draden take off again, we'll leave."

If his men got here in time.

Kara pressed her forehead against Lyon's warm back, her heart beginning to pound in her chest as it had so many times since she'd arrived here.

But this fear felt different. It was different. Because she knew the source. It came from her mind and senses and the knowledge that if the circle failed, they would almost certainly both die.

"How did you ever survive as a child? Weren't there draden in London back then?"

"There were, from time to time, but they were rare. London wasn't the home of the Radiant at that time. Since the sires follow the Radiant and swarms follows the sires, there are few draden elsewhere, though there are always rogues."

"So most of the world's draden right now are here."

"Yes. Which works for us since, in our animal forms, we're well designed to hunt and destroy them."

"But you never get them all."

"No. We can usually keep them under control, but nine Ferals can only do so much."

"I don't understand how they're like bees if they were somehow left over from the Daemons."

"They're not like bees except for the fact that they swarm and, like bees, have only one member of a swarm who can reproduce. Otherwise, they're totally different. The Daemons may have possessed separate consciousnesses, but they were ail linked to the High Daemon, Satanan."

"Satanan? Satan?"

"Hard to say if they're one and the same, though the legends of the humans' Satan may well be based on Satanan. Goddess knows, they had reason to fear him. But he never lived in a place called Hell. Satanan was very much a creature of the Earth, as we all are.

"When Satanan was imprisoned in the blade, so too were the souls of the others. An entire race. Since Daemons are energy creatures instead of blood and water, the life forces that were left behind were only wraiths of the original. Draden. Without minds, without souls, they live by sucking energy from Therians, especially the Radiant. Like all nature's creatures, they learned to reproduce or they would have died off."

"What would happen if the Daemons were ever freed from the blade?"

"They'll flow back to the draden, reanimating them to their original form. But since the Daemons in their true form are cunning, sentient beings, they'll return to feeding the way they did millennia ago, on the pain and fear of the creatures they captured."

"Animals?"

"Humans. Most often children. By the thousands."

Kara shivered. "They won't be freed, will they?"

"No. Only through the will of all the Ferals and the blood of their Radiant will that scourge be released upon the Earth again. And none of us will ever let it happen."

The draden seemed to be pressing lower.

"Get down, Kara."

She slid down the rock, pulling her knees tight to her chest as Lyon squatted in front of her.

"What's happening?" she asked. "The circle seems to be getting smaller."

"It is. I can feel the edges of it. The dome usually covers the entire rock, but we're down to about six feet by six. I'm shoving at it as hard as I can, but my power's drained too far. Until we get you ascended…"

He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to. They both knew her Ascension was suddenly in serious doubt.

A dog barked in the distance. To Tier surprise, Lyon answered, mimicking the sound rather amazingly.

"They're coming."

"That was one of your men?"

"A dog bark is a natural sound around here and draws less attention than shouting. Especially at this hour."

"Yeah, I guess a roar would stand out."

He reached behind him, his hand gripping her knee. "Whatever happens, I want you to know I'm proud of you."

"Why?"

"Because I know how scared you are. It throbs around me like a pulse beneath my skin. Yet you're solid. Demanding a weapon. Trying to guard me."

His words warmed her.

"You'd have made us a damned fine Radiant."

Would have. If she hadn't been Mage. The warmth died in a wash of cold.

"Here come my men," Lyon said as he crowded her against the wall.

In a pounding rush, a swing of knives, and a shout of magic incantation, the Feral Circle burst wide again, and the draden were flung away. Lyon rose and pulled her to her feet beside him. In the dradens' stead, stood three Ferals, watching her. In Tighe's eyes, she saw deep disappointment, in Jag's, wary curiosity. And in Paenther's nothing less than raw hatred. Any hope she'd harbored that the men might come to her defense died with that blast of enmity.

"How's she radiant if she's Mage?" Jag wanted to know.

"Black magic," Paenther growled.

Lyon shook his head. "I think she's part Mage. And I don't think she knew it. But that discussion will keep until we get home."

"Leave her for the draden," Paenther urged. "We'll never ascend her."

Kara recoiled from the hatred in his voice.

"I said we'll discuss her fate when we get back to the house," Lyon snapped. "For now, she's your Radiant, and you will protect her with your life. Whether you like it or not."

Tension pulsed between them, but Lyon was fully in charge. His hand landed on her shoulder. "I want you to stay radiant as long as you can, but you've got to stay covered. If any humans see you, it'll cause problems."

Jag tossed a black bundle to Lyon, and he shook it out, revealing a hooded robe, like the ones in her nightmares. A shudder went through her, but she let him put it over her, hiding her light, casting them all back into the night's shadows.

The robe had obviously been made for a Feral The hem pooled on the ground at her feet, the sleeves hanging below her fingertips. Running in this thing wasn't going to be fun.

"Roar," Tighe said. "Her radiance will only draw the draden back faster."

"She will be protected. No more discussion. We're going." He pulled the hood over her head until she could barely see out.

She grabbed up the robe, holding it high enough that she wouldn't trip over it with one hand, while Lyon took hold of her free hand.

"We're going back through the woods, the same way we came when I drove you over here this afternoon. Keep your head down and run."

Paenther led the way, Jag close behind him. Tighe took up the rear as they ran up the steep, rocky path and into the woods. Lyon held her tight, pulling her nearly off her feet, but she flew beside him, knowing he was her only hope of survival, in so many ways.

As the tree limbs tore at her hood, desolation clawed at her courage. They didn't want her. They didn't trust her. Yet they couldn't get another Radiant until she died. Even Lyon, who said he believed her, couldn't promise he'd protect her. Because his goal, his own desperate need, was to get a Radiant ascended.

He didn't want to destroy her. She felt that in everything he did. But he was too determined a leader to shy away from whatever must be done.

They reached Jag's Hummer just as the first of the draden were about to descend.

"The cars are warded against draden attack," Lyon told her, as Jag put the car in gear and took off. "They can't even sense you in here, so they shouldn't follow us."

She hadn't asked, though her question had been there. Had he felt it, that question? Was he that attuned to her now?

"That's good," she murmured. "I lost the radiance."

"You've lost contact with the Earth."

She was wedged tight between Lyon and Paenther, the two huge males taking up far more than their share of the seat. But Lyon's arm was around her and stayed that way for the drive back to Feral House.

Jag drove right up to the front door, and they ran into the house without incident. As Lyon predicted, the draden hadn't followed them.