She hung from the ceiling, her arms stretched until she thought they would break, her body hot from the ritual fires that surrounded her, sweat running down her temples and forehead, dripping into her eyes.
Eight robed figures circled her, daggers tight in their hands. Through the fog of dream and fear, she saw the flash of metal, then felt a pain worse than fire. And screamed.
Lyon wasn't sure when he'd fallen asleep, but he woke suddenly to Kara's low cry of distress, her fear washing over him.
He was on his feet in an instant, through her door a heartbeat later. As he rushed to her side, he found her on her back, thrashing in the bed as small cries escaped her throat.
"Kara. Kara, wake up." Easing onto the bed beside her, he stroked her damp brow. "Kara, sweetheart, wake up. You're having a bad dream."
She jerked beneath his hand, then went still, trembling like a leaf in the rain. Slowly, she opened her eyes. But instead of being comforted by his presence, raw terror flooded her eyes, and she jerked away from his touch.
He moved back, giving her room as he attempted to gentle her with his voice. "Kara, it's me. You had a dream."
She was shaking hard enough to rock the bed. Her hands came up to clutch her skull as tears slid down her cheeks. "God, I hate this."
She didn't protest this time when he pulled her against him and onto his lap. Her arms wrapped around him, her damp face buried in his neck. Her pulse thundered so hard he could feel it pounding against his chest.
Lyon stroked her back, her hair, murmuring words of comfort. "You're safe, Kara. It was just a dream."
Slowly, Kara quieted in his arms as he pulled the fear out of her.
His palm splayed over the soft fabric of her nightgown, rubbing gentle circles on her back. "The Shaman will be here in the morning. He'll help us figure out what's going on."
Kara turned her head, pressing her ear to his shoulder.
He held her, stroking her until she fell asleep in his arms, then eased her back onto the bed. But when he straightened, intending to return to his post outside her door, his beast snapped at him. His deep, primitive instincts prowled, restless, sensing that something was wrong. Demanding he protect what was his.
She wasn't his, of course. But his beast would not be denied. He would protect her.
Lyon lifted the silk sheet and climbed in beside her, pulling her tight against his body. Kara gave a soft, satisfied sound and curled against him.
Both beast and man purred.
But less than an hour later, Lyon was the one in pain.
He didn't know what Kara was dreaming, but instead of her fear leaking into him, all he could feel was the steady rise of her arousal. Was he the one she was dreaming of? She was sure as hell dreaming about someone. A twinge of jealousy broke into the passion that was rising inside him. Goddess, but he wanted it to be dreams of him that had her hand clutching his shirt and had her making those soft, mewling noises deep in her throat.
With every one of her soft moans, his cock grew harder, more painfully engorged until it was all he could do not to flip her on her back and bury himself deep inside her.
He'd never been so acutely aware of a woman. The scent of her hair, the feel of her breath on his neck, the warmth of her body lying tight against his side.
He tried to keep his hands still, tried to keep from touching her, and failed. So he rubbed her back, his hand shaking.
Kara's low moans increased, and she lifted her leg over his, her knee just millimeters from his swollen erection. Instinctively, his hand shot out and captured that slender thigh. His fingers curled around the soft flesh, driving his need a hundred times higher. He wasn't even sure why he'd caught it. To push it down, or pull it closer? Or, perhaps, to reach for what lay beneath.
With a groan, he tipped his head back, fighting to stay in control. The only sane thing to do was to get up and leave her.
He'd left sanity behind the moment he'd pulled her into his arms.
Kara made a soft sound of need and pressed her leg tighter against his, pushing her hips into him as if seeking relief.
"Lyon." The soft, breathiness of her voice nearly undid him.
"You're awake."
"I was dreaming about you." She sounded like she was still half-dreaming, her voice sexy as hell.
His fingers spasmed, digging into her thigh.
"This was a good dream." Her hips pressed against his side. Heaven help him, she was rubbing herself against him. "An amazing dream."
"Kara." His hand slid up the long, smooth length of her thigh. Shaking. Needing. His fingers moved closer to her heat. One reached, stroking her own engorged flesh, brushing her wetness.
She sucked in a breath. "Lyon."
Beneath that scrap of nightgown, she was bare and wet, and wanting. Needing him.
And he could not take her.
But neither could he find the strength to move away.
Her fingers splayed across his chest, digging into his shirt, shaking as badly as his hands were.
"Put your fingers in me."
"I can't."
"You can. So close." The air was so heavy with her arousal it nearly sent him over the edge.
He gave in to the moment's weakness and stroked her wet folds again, drawing a gasp of such longing from her he knew he had to stop now, or he was going to finish. His entire body was shaking with the need to take her, to pin her to the mattress and drive himself into that wet heat.
"Lyon, please."
"No, Kara."
But her own control had been lost somewhere in her dreams. He felt her hips rise off the bed, felt her leg lift to straddle him. If he let her continue, let her press that wet heat against his erection, it was all over.
With Herculean effort, he forced himself to push her leg away, pressing her to the bed to keep her from trying to ride him again.
"Lyon."
"No, Kara." A funny ridge of bone deep within the fleshy part of her hip teased his fingertips. His finger moved, tracing the ridge. A perfect circle.
Shock vibrated through his body.
A circle. Embedded in her hip.
A Mage cantric.
His lungs collapsed. His heart shattered.
Kara was Mage.
Kara was Mage.
Kara was Mage.
* * *
Kara froze at the low sound of agony that tore from Lyon's throat.
She felt his body go taut, felt a deep rumble rise from his chest in a sound that held the jagged edge of rage.
"You bitch."
"Lyon?" Kara's arousal cooled, her head ringing with confusion. "What's the matter?"
He moved so quickly, it was almost unnatural. One moment he was lying beside her, the. next he was on his knees, one hand pressing against her back, holding her down, while the fingers of his other hand dug into her rear, hard, in the same place he'd traced seconds before.
"Lyon, what are you doing? That hurts."
But he didn't let up, as if he didn't care. As if he meant to hurt her.
Her heart began to race with uncertainty. With fear.
"Did you think we wouldn't know?" His words were hard as gravel. "Did you think we wouldn't figure it out?" His knee replaced his hand, digging painfully into her back. "How could you, Kara? Damn you."
"Lyon…I don't know what you're talking about. What are you doing?"
"You're Mage."
"No." She gasped. "How could you even… ?"
His hand closed around hers and he yanked it back, forcing her fingers to her own backside.
"Feel this."
He pushed her fingers hard into the flesh of her buttocks. Deep beneath the muscle she felt something hard. Bone. It was just her bone!
But as Lyon moved her finger, digging into her flesh she felt the narrow ridge and realized it was circular. No. It wasn't there before. She'd have known, wouldn't she? Would she?
"What game have you been playing?" There was so much anger in his voice. So much pain she wanted to cry.
"Lyon, no. I'm not…" But, Dear God, did she know that? Did she know she wasn't a Mage? Did she know anything about herself?
His knee pressed harder until she could barely breathe. "Lyon…" He killed Mages. He told her he'd killed them. "Lyon, I didn't… I'm not hurting your men. I'm not doing any of this. It's not me."
The sudden shock of pain made her cry out. Her eyes burned with tears as fire followed the circle he'd forced her fingers to trace moments before. A trickle of warm liquid ran down her hip. Blood.
"Lyon. Please."
His hand clamped around her wrist and he hauled her to her knees, pulling her around to face him. Anguish and fury riddled his eyes as he shoved his hand in front of her. In the curve of his palm lay a bloody mass, a woven metal circle. Copper, covered in blood and bits of flesh.
Bile rose and she swallowed it down. That thing had been inside her.
For how long? All her life? Would she have known?
A low rumble started deep in Lyon's chest rising to a full-scale roar. The dim light in the room grew as Lyon's eyes began to glow. Inhuman eyes. Lion eyes.
The glow reflected off the fangs now visible beneath his lips.
The blood rushed from her face. "Lyon," she gasped. "Don't."
She'd just begun to feel the scratch of his claws on her wrist when he threw the bloody copper ring against the wall and whirled away from her, leaping from the bed. In a haze of tears and bitter pain, she scrambled off the bed, backing toward the wall, shaking. A shadow sailed across the room ending with the sound or crunching wood and breaking glass. The scrape of wood on wood told her he was lifting the chest from the end of the bed, A moment later, the dresser disintegrated in a burst of raw destruction.
Kara pressed back against the wall, easing toward the door, the terror pounding in her chest for once all too real.
She was Mage. And Lyon was going to kill her.
The door flew open, flooding the destroyed room with light. Paenther and Tighe stood silhouetted in the entrance for an instant before Paenther lunged toward Lyon and Tighe held out his hand to her.
"Get out the room, Kara." He ushered her into the empty hallway and closed the door against the rage of the lion.
Tears blinded her as she ran down the stairs, her hip bleeding and burning, her heart shattered. On a broken sob, Kara wrenched open the front door, and fled into the night.
"Roar. Roar!"
The feral haze slowly began to clear as Lyon stared up into the bloody and fanged faces of Paenther and Tighe. He was flat on his back on the hard floor, destruction all around him. Kara's room.
Kara.
He struggled for control, feeling his claws retract. "Let me up!" The pair released him, and he leaped to his feet. "Where is she?"
"I got her out of here before you hurt her," Tighe told him.
Lyon's gaze spotted the damning piece of bloody copper lying on the floor beside the crushed bed. He scooped it up and tossed it to Paenther.
The panther snarled. "A cantric." His black gaze looked up in surprise. "Kara?"
"Yes." Lyon closed his eyes, searching for her with his senses.
"Are you going to destroy her yourself, or can I?" Violence laced the panther's words.
Lyon's claws sprang and he lunged until he was in Paenther's face. "You won't touch her. She's mine."
Suddenly, his finder's senses caught her. Outside. Away from the house. Hell.
Lyon ran for the door, heedless of the blood coating his quickly mending flesh. He leaped down the stairs in two strides and tore through the front door, taking a second to secure it behind him before he raced into the night.
She's Mage, his logical mind cried. Let the draden take her. But the draden rarely bothered with Mage. They wouldn't take her. And he needed to know how she'd fooled them into thinking she was their Radiant.
He had to know!
Deep inside, his beast growled at him. She was Kara. Kara.
But he knew better. She was Mage.
His enemy.