Hunger Untamed Read Online Free

rip out her soulless heart. And the unstable emotions careening inside him made one or the other an all-too-likely possibility.
    With a low growl in his throat, he fought for control.
    He'd come for one thing and one thing only. To save his friends. But standing within reach of the woman he'd thought dead for a millennium, he found himself wanting more. And needing answers.
    "Why, you soulless bitch? " The question came out as a snarl. "Why sever the mating bond? Why make the world think you were gone? Why make me think you were gone?"
    A shadow passed over her face, her mouth tightening as if in pain though he knew that to be a lie. The soulless felt no pain but the physical.
    She swallowed visibly, her expression hardening to granite. "I severed the bond because I could. Once I embraced the dark spirit, I had no need of you, Feral. No desire to touch you or be touched by you again. And I still don't. The Ariana you knew no longer exists. And I have no interest in you."
    Even though her words didn't surprise him, her cold dismissal turned like a blade in his gut, igniting his fury.
    His hands fisted until the blood began to throb in his palms. "Why did Melisande reconnect the mating bond?"
    She looked away. "A perverse bit of mischief. Go away, Kougar. There's nothing for you here."
    As her gaze returned to his, brown contacts blocking any glimpse into her thoughts, he struggled to hold on to his thinning control. And felt it slipping through his fingers--fingers about to erupt in claws.
    Ariana flushed hot, then cold, as she stared at Kougar, at her mate, at the man she'd loved for a thousand years.
    She'd forgotten how tall he was, how broad his shoulders, how muscular his arms, as he stood before her now in a white-collared shirt and black pants, clothes torn and bloodied as if he'd been fighting. She'd forgotten how his presence filled a room, how it filled the entire castle, until she could hardly breathe through the need to be in his arms, to feel his body sliding against hers, sliding into hers.
    He couldn't know.
    Never had she struggled so hard to control her emotions, to hide what was in her heart and head. Never had doing so caused her so much pain as it did now as Kougar stared at her with eyes as pale as ice, filled not with tenderness but with pain and a growing fury. Not with love but hatred. A hatred she must fan.
    Her stomach clenched and churned. What she was doing was cruel beyond measure. But she had no choice. Her cruelty just might keep Kougar alive.
    Soulless, soulless, soulless .
    The chant pounded in her head as she focused on keeping her expression closed and hard even as emotions clawed at her in a wild battle--longing and fear. A storm of devastating love and aching grief that had lived within her for an eternity.
    Inside, her heart trembled, on the verge of an emotional meltdown. She narrowed her eyes, dropping her lids to mere slits, trying to hide the sheen of disastrous tears even as she fought back the emotion, fought for control.
    Goddess, she loved him. She'd never stopped loving him even when she'd hated herself for it, for the destruction that love had wrought. So many dead. So much grief.
    But the danger wasn't past for the Ilinas.
    And thanks to Mel, Kougar was in danger again, too. Damn, Melisande! She never should have reconnected the mating bond without Ariana's knowledge. Without her consent!
    Mel knew Ariana wouldn't approve, which was why she'd gone behind her back. Melisande might not care if Kougar, or any Feral, lived or died. But Ariana did. Too much. And he would die if that poison started flowing again. The only thing saving him was the miserable, mangled state of their mating bond.
    And she must keep it that way.
    Kougar took a threatening step toward her. Within the flaying hatred in his eyes she saw flashes of a pain that nearly drove her to her knees.
    "Why are you here, Kougar? Why now if you've known I was alive for over twenty years?"
    "You're going to free two of my