“Those are damned dark thoughts going through your head, Zee.”
Zeeland turned as Hawke joined him. The Feral Warrior, one of three who’d joined them tonight, was built much as Zeeland himself, tall and lean, with the sleek muscles of a swimmer or distance runner. The hawk shifter had been his tutor when Zeeland was a kid, before Hawke was marked by the goddess to become a Feral Warrior. He’d known Hawke all his life and counted him among his most trusted friends.
Zeeland fought to smooth the lines of his face. “Just thinking.”
Hawke merely lifted a single steeply arched eyebrow in the way he always had when he didn’t believe him.
“Does Julianne have a favorite among that lot?” Zeeland knew he was giving away his thoughts, but didn’t really care.
Hawke shrugged. “I’m not around here enough to know. She’s grown into a beauty, though, hasn’t she?”
Acid ate into his bones. How many men had Julianne known?
I could have been her first.
The thought of Julianne in another man’s arms, spreading her thighs to cradle another man’s body, had his teeth grinding to dust inside his mouth.
Even the other two Ferals watched her, dammit. Kougar and Jag had arrived with Hawke shortly before dinner. While Jag watched Julianne with the eyes of a hunter stalking prey, Kougar’s cold gaze followed her every move as if she were a bug under a microscope.
He knew none of the Ferals all that well except for Hawke. Most had been marked centuries before he was born. It used to irk him that he’d never been marked by the spirit of one of the animals to become a Feral Warrior himself, but the animal spirits could only mark the strongest of their own lines. And the only Feral who’d died since Zee’s birth had been the fox shifter four years ago, his animal spirit marking the kid, Foxx, in his stead. The Therians had no way of knowing their own animal heritage except for the stories told by their forebears. And occasionally the dreams.
For all he knew, he was descended from none of the nine remaining lines. So he served his race in another capacity, as a member of the Guard, protecting the enclaves that were too far away to be under the Ferals’ protection.
Julianne played for nearly an hour, her audience remaining tight around her the entire time. But as her last song came to an end, and she rose gracefully, she was immediately surrounded by men vying for her attention.
Including the Feral, Jag.
Jag stood out among the other men, a little taller, a little broader through the shoulders and chest, and carrying a hell of a lot more attitude.
He pushed the others aside and slung his arm around Julianne’s shoulders. “Nice job, sugar. How about you trail those magic fingers over me?”
“Jag…” Hawke groaned beside him.
Julianne attempted, without success, to free herself from Jag’s hold. Was the Feral the reason she was playing Beethoven? Had he hurt her?
I’ll kill the son of a bitch.
Zeeland didn’t think, only acted, pushing his way through the throng to reach Julianne’s side.
“Release her, Jag.”
The surly Feral’s lip curled, and he pulled her closer. “Finders, keepers.”
Fury surged. Zeeland balled his hand and swung, planting his fist solidly in the jaguar shifter’s jaw. Another man, he might have tackled, but not a Feral. Not if he wanted to live.
As Jag stumbled backward two steps, Zeeland grabbed Julianne’s arm, freeing her even as he kept her from falling. As he shoved her behind him, Jag righted himself, violence in his eyes.
The shifter’s fingertips erupted with claws. Inch-long fangs dropped from his upper jaw, while the incisors in his lower jaw grew and sharpened. His eyes changed, the irises expanding until no white showed, until his eyes looked like those of a jungle cat.
A very pissed-off jungle cat.
Jag hadn’t actually shifted into a jaguar, but only gone feral—that in-between place between man and beast, a place of lost tempers that could be fatal to any creature who couldn’t draw claws and fangs of his own.
Pulling one of the knives he always carried, Zeeland crouched into a fighting stance and met the angry Feral’s gaze. “You really want to do this, cat?”
Jag smiled with that mouth full of fangs, a look in his eyes as sharp as a well-honed blade. And oddly cunning. “Julianne and I are old friends, aren’t we, sugar?”
Jealousy roared in his ears, but as he tensed to spring, Hawke and Kougar pushed between them.
Kougar cuffed Jag hard. “Time to go.”
“Like hell,” the jaguar shifter growled.
Hawke’s hand landed on Zeeland’s shoulder. His gaze turned to Jag. “You’ve already been ordered to stay away from two enclaves. Do you really want to make it three?”