"I miss the girls I've been trying to help, Paulina and Maria." The words started and wouldn't stop because Hawke would understand. "Maria's so young and too old for her age, but she still has this wonder inside her, this belief that life is good. Paulina knows better. She's so bitter, but she has this brilliant artistic talent, and if she ever got her hands on paints and canvas, all that angst would come pouring out and maybe, just maybe, heal her." She caught her breath, then sighed. "I wonder if they're all right."
"Maybe Catt will let you go back to visit them."
"He will." This she knew with utter assurance. "We'll go back in a couple of weeks."
"There you have it." Despite his words, Hawke watched her as if he wanted to continue arguing, as if he still weren't entirely convinced. His gaze dipped to the floor, then back up, giving her a small, sad smile. "You'll be happy here once you get used to it. Once everything settles down."
"I'm sure you're right."
He nodded again, then glanced unenthusiastically toward the door. "I guess I'd better go."
"Yes. Good night, Hawke."
He reached for the door handle, then looked back, meeting her gaze, his eyes at once gentle and sad, and a little bit fierce. "If you ever need me, I'm here for you. You know that."
"Yes, I know."
"Good night, Faith." Then he opened the door and left, closing it behind him.
As she stood there, staring at the closed door where Hawke had been moments before, she began to tremble, then shake. The tears that had threatened moments before began to flow in earnest as the nightmare's shadows flayed her mind, memories that remained just out of reach. Horrible, terrifying memories.
The tears turned to wracking sobs.
Hawke, I need you. I need you.
She slid to the floor, curling into a fetal ball on the rug.
Don't go.
"Spirits rise and join," the Ferals chanted upon the goddess rock an hour before dawn. "Empower the beasts beneath this moon. Goddess, reveal your warriors!"
Thunder rumbled in the moon-bright sky. The rocks began to tremble as the eight new Ferals disappeared in a flash of sparkling lights, animals appearing in their places.
Hawke stared at the incredible sight, goose bumps rising on his flesh. An unnaturally large fox now stood where Kieran had a moment ago, which made sense since Kieran didn't seem to be suffering the testosterone overload some of the others had. The fox spirit had never been in the spirit trap. Mountain Man, the one with anger-management issues, had turned into a grizzly. Just what they needed. Ewan was now a polar bear. On either side of him paced two other animals more suited to arctic climes than Washington, D.C. suburbs - a snow leopard and a huge white tiger. The last three were a lynx, a crocodile, and an eagle. Finally, he'd have some company in the skies. If he were ever able to fly again.
One by one, the eight shifted back into men. The snow leopard's short hair, Hawke noticed with interest, had turned snow white.
"Henceforth," Kougar intoned, "you will be known as . . ." His straight arm came down, pointing from one new Feral to the next. "Fox, Grizz, Polaris, Lepard, Whit, Eigle, Lynks, Croc."
The new Ferals leaped together, slapping forearms, congratulating one another with as much fervor as they'd done everything so far, especially fight. Except for Grizz, who stood apart, a grim, don't-mess-with-me expression on his still-angry face.
Kara started toward Lyon, but as she dodged the exuberant bunch, she stumbled, then started to go down. Lyon leaped forward, sweeping her up before she hit the rock. "Kara!"
The new Ferals didn't seem to notice, but the old surged in close.
"Kara?" Tighe asked worriedly.
"What's the matter with her?" Kieran/Fox joined them.
Wulfe growled. "If someone hit her, I'll rip his head off."
Lyon swung her into his arms as if she weighed nothing, but she roused, her arm slipping around Lyon's neck.
"I'm okay. It's just . . . the rituals. It's like they're sucking me dry."
Nine collective breaths released at once.
Lyon tipped his head against Kara's. "You scared me."
With a soft smile, she reached up and pressed her palm to his cheek. "I love you."
He kissed her tenderly. "My heart." Cradling Kara in his arms, he turned to the others. "Let's move this celebration back to Feral House. Keep your voices down, or we'll wake the humans." But the new Ferals acted as if they hadn't heard him.
Lyon muttered under his breath, "I'm going to lock them up, every one."
They started home, Hawke walking between Lyon, who insisted on carrying his mate, and Kougar.
"We're no longer the nine," Tighe said behind them, his voice deep with satisfaction. "We're well on our way to being twenty-six."
"Thank the goddess," Lyon murmured. "For once, things are going our way."
For the Feral Warriors, that was absolutely true. For Hawke personally? Not so much. Not only was his break with his animal getting worse, but he was worried about Faith. Despite her assurances that her sadness was just homesickness, he couldn't shake the feeling that it was more than that, that Maxim was to blame. Then again, that's what he wanted, wasn't it? For his rival to turn out to be a villain? Because the alternative was that Hawke had ridden in on his white steed only to discover the damsel in distress wasn't being abused. She was homesick. And her prick of a beloved had already promised to slay that beast, leaving Hawke with no role. No place in her life.
If only he could stop dreaming about holding her in his arms, kissing her, undressing her. If only he could stop thinking about her for five damn minutes.
Faith rose from the chair by the window as the door opened, and Maxim strode into the bedroom. Dusk had fallen nearly an hour ago. Soon the draden would be out and the hunters out with them. All the new Ferals would fight draden tonight. She'd heard Lyon tell them so at the celebration feast that morning.
Maxim would be going with them. She liked it when he was gone, which was probably a terrible thing to admit about one's soon-to-be mate. But she'd gotten into a routine of sleeping all day and reading or sitting by the window all night while he was out hunting. She rarely saw him, which was fine with her, and probably another terrible thing to admit, even to herself. But they loved one another. A chill slid down her spine. They belonged together.
Maxim had that look he sometimes wore, his eyebrows lowered, his mouth hard. His mean look, though he never actually became mean. "I got tied up playing war games in the basement," he said with disgust. "As if these barbarians have anything to teach me. We're leaving in a few minutes to hunt draden, but I had to see you before I left. I'm hungry."
She looked at him quizzically. "There's no food up here." And she knew he wasn't being suggestive. They didn't have that kind of relationship. He'd never even kissed her. Not except for the few nuzzles he'd given her simply to antagonize Hawke. That should probably upset her, but she knew he loved her. And she didn't want him to kiss her. She didn't want him to touch . . .
He loves me. The thought pushed away whatever she'd been thinking, leaving her pulse skittering uncomfortably. Her emotions had been a mess lately.
Maxim came to her and knelt by her chair, his face eye level to hers as he studied her. A frisson of fear crept out of the shadows where her nightmares lurked, running cool fingers over her scalp. "My dear Faith. Somewhere inside, you know what I'm hungry for. You know everything."
She looked at him in confusion, even as her heart began to pound in earnest. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Of course you don't. I make certain you never remember. But I've told you over and over again how I happened upon that street corner the night we met, how I was trolling for girls, looking for the right ones to send my men to collect."
"Collect?"
His eyes began to gleam, his mouth tilting up in what - on any other man - would be a look of high arousal. "I take them to my castle. And string them up." He licked his lips. "Then I make them bleed."
She stared at him in sick disbelief. "Why are you saying this?"
He reached for her and she flinched. "Because even though I can't enjoy your screams . . ." His thumb slid lightly across her bottom lip. " . . . I so enjoy watching the horror dawn in your eyes night after night as I reveal myself to you." His thumb stroked her cheek, a featherlight touch that might have seemed gentle if not for the cruelty in his eyes. And the terror of his words. His hand moved, his knuckles barely grazing her breast. "Then I hurt you."
"Why are you saying this?"
His hand slid between his legs. Her gaze followed, terror slicing through her as she saw the huge bulge in his pants and the way his fingers slid over it.
With his free hand, he gripped her jaw hard, lifting her gaze back to his. His eyes burned with hatred. "Women are the vilest of creatures, incapable of true emotion. They seduce those who trust, then betray them. And in the end they're only good for one thing." His fangs slid out, his eyes changing. His claws erupted, tearing open the flesh of her face where he gripped her in a river of fire. "The way they scream when you cut them."
Faith tried to cry out, but he slammed her jaw closed against the sound. Tears of pain ran down her cheeks. "You're sick," she hissed through clenched teeth.
"So they say. But no one knows that but you. And in a few moments, you won't remember. But there's more, dearest Faith. Much more. Because just today I discovered the greatest irony of all. The new Ferals . . . we aren't destined to be the saviors of the race. We're not destined to keep the Daemons from rising. We're here to free them."
She frowned, her head pounding in concert with the thudding of her heart. This wasn't happening. And yet the shadows leaped, wisps of nightmares escaping, memories of terrible pain. Of screams she couldn't voice.
Trembling, she fought to get up, but his grip held her immobilized. "I don't believe you." Her words escaped between her closed teeth. "The animals only mark the best of the race."
"Usually, yes. With the seventeen, no. These Ferals were never the ones meant to be marked. When the time is right, we'll rise up and slay the nine, then free the Daemons. But first, your Hawke will suffer."
Her Hawke.
"He'll go feral during the uprising, of course, and leap into the fight. But the moment he loses control and shifts, I'll cage him. The great hawk." He smiled with genuine pleasure. "And when he regains his human form, I'll torture him until he loses it again, over and over, until his mind is as wrecked as his body. And then he, too, will die."
No.
Maxim smiled, pure evil glittering in his eyes. "Now look at me, and I'll cloud your mind, shift into my beast, and feed off your pain. Be glad you have no memory of what destruction these saber teeth of mine can wreak on a woman's flesh, Faith. For you've felt it before, and you'll feel it again. Over and over and over."
"No!" She squeezed her eyes closed, refusing to let him steal her memories. She had to warn Hawke!
But a moment later she felt the sharp prick of one claw on her eyelid. With a strangled cry, she fought him. The picture Maxim had painted of what he'd do to Hawke burned in her mind, igniting a pounding, righteous rage that tore through her body, triggering a strange tingling in her mouth and fingertips.
She swung at his face, trying to knock away that clawed hand before it tore her eyelid, and she felt her fingernails rip deep furrows in his flesh.
Maxim reared back, releasing her. Faith wrenched open her eyes and stared in shocked horror at the bright red ribbons of flesh hanging from his cheeks. Her wide-eyed gaze dropped to her hands, to the bloody claws where her fingernails should have been.
Heaven help me.
Her head pounded. Her tongue felt at the foreign shapes touching her lips and darted back, pricked.
Fangs. Claws.
Before Maxim could react, she leaped up, darting for the door.
Maxim began to laugh. "I should have known! The connection I feel to you is much like I feel with the other new Ferals, but your being a woman got in my way."
Feral. She'd been marked to be a Feral Warrior.
One of us. Never the ones meant to be marked.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Chapter Nine
Faith darted across Maxim's bedchamber, the horror of his words pounding in her head - that he was a monster, that he'd been hurting her. That the new Ferals were the wrong ones and meant to kill the real ones, the good ones. Hawke.
And she was one of them!
As the blood congealed in her veins, her fangs disappeared as suddenly as they'd appeared, her claws slipping back into her fingertips.
Heaven help me.
Maxim lunged for her, but she was quicker, and closer to the door. She wrenched it open, terror powering her movements. As she dashed into the hall, Maxim close behind, she saw Lyon at the top of the stairs starting toward them.
"What's going on?" he demanded. "I heard a crash." His eyes narrowed on her. "You've been bleeding."
Faith didn't slow. Instead, she picked up speed, running past him as if the hounds of hell were on her heels. Or an evil saber-toothed cat.
Behind her, she heard a grunt and glanced over her shoulder to find Maxim slammed up against the wall, Lyon's hand around his throat. "If you raise a hand or claw against a woman in this house again . . ."
Faith didn't wait to hear the rest. She reached the stairs and started down, taking them as quickly as her feet would move. She found Kara standing by the new railing.
