"Do you feel any more? . . . Hawke!"
Her voice disappeared, then slid back into hearing. He felt her weight in his lap, her hands sliding down his legs, lifting his legs, her fingers burrowing under him, behind him.
"I got them all." Soft fingers stroked his face. "They're gone, Hawke. You'll get better, now. Please get better."
The feel of her hands on his face, warm and caring, would assure it. His head was still too heavy to lift, his eyelids too weighted down to open. But he managed to reach for her and pull her close. She melted against him, her arms curling around his neck, her head pressing against his shoulder.
"You should have gone with Olivia," he said softly, when he could make his mouth function. His body's natural healing abilities were beginning to kick in already. In a minute or two, he'd be himself again. "Do you know how close you came to dying?"
She pulled back, but he kept one arm close around her as he opened one eye, then the other, and glared at her. Her face was covered in small, unhealed bites, making her look like a measles victim. Draden bites always took much longer to heal.
"Helping you was more important." An impish smile lifted her mouth, a shadow of one of her grins, but it was enough to raise his spirits. She pressed her palm to his cheek. "You needed me."
As much as he hated to admit it, she was right. Without her there, he'd almost certainly have shifted. And the way things had gone tonight, he could have easily ended up as polar-bear food.
His hands slid up her back. "I did need you. I still do."
Mine. The word was a fierce growl in his head, echoing through his body, wrapping around his heart like a steel band. He curled his hand around the back of her head and pulled her close, kissing her soft parted lips, branding her, marking her his.
"If I can interrupt . . ." The caustic, feminine voice came from the backseat. "You're needed elsewhere."
Faith jerked back. Hawke swung around to find the Ilina, Melisande, sitting in the back, more ghostly mist than form. He'd met her once, the day he came back to himself after the spirit trap, but he was still astounded by the fact that the Ilina race existed at all. Dressed in the traditional dress of an Ilina mist warrior - brown tunic and tan leggings, a knife strapped at her waist - Melisande reminded him of a female Peter Pan with a long blond braid.
The tension went out of him. Faith scrambled back to her own seat, staring at the woman as if she were a ghost.
"Can you get this bus in gear, Feral?" Melisande snapped. "Kougar's injured. They're all injured, some too badly to mist out. We need corporeal transport."
Melisande's words cleared his head as nothing else could have. His brothers were injured. Badly. He shoved open the car door - the cloud of draden having dispersed the moment he closed them out - and bent to snatch the key out from under the mat, then jumped back in, started the car, and took off down the drive.
"The battle?" he asked.
"Is over. The bad guys ran."
He glanced over his shoulder. "Melisande, I need your maidens to do something for me. There's an injured lynx in the foyer of Feral House. I need him moved to the basement and locked in one of the prison cells. Pink can show you where the prisons are."
Melisande made a sound that made it clear the request put her out terribly. "Anything else? Shall I clean the house while I'm at it?" The woman made no bones about her dislike of all Therians, including Ferals. But her queen, Ariana, had pledged their full support. Melisande had little choice but to work with them. That didn't mean she had to like it, and she made certain they all knew that.
Melisande disappeared as silently as she'd appeared.
"What was she?" Faith's eyes were as big as saucers.
"The Ilinas are another immortal race, one we all believed went extinct a thousand years ago. They'd faked their extinction."
"But . . . are they ghosts?"
Hawke smiled. "No. Their natural state is mist - noncorporeal - but they can turn to flesh and blood at will. The entire race is female. Their queen, Ariana, is Kougar's mate."
As Faith settled back, taking all that in, Hawke turned his attention to his driving, to reaching his friends before it was too late. Without taking his eyes off the road, he reached for Faith's hand, twining her cold fingers with his, holding on tight. Mine.
His hawk screeched in agreement.
Neither of them was letting her go again.
Faith held tight to the door handle with one hand, clinging to Hawke with her other as he zipped through the tree-lined, hilly roads near Feral House. Her skin stung in a hundred places from the draden bites. But she was alive. They both were.
Never had she imagined so many draden in one place at one time. But as horrific as the draden attack had been, it was something else that preyed on her mind.
"Hawke?"
"Hmm?" His thumb brushed the back of her hand in a tender caress that stirred the warmth in her chest, squeezing her heart with affection.
"How do you unmark a Feral Warrior?"
He glanced at her, frowning. "You don't."
Her face went cold. "But, what if you hadn't brought them into their animal, yet?"
"It doesn't matter. Once we're marked, we're marked. If we aren't brought into our animals in a couple of years, we die."
Oh.
Hawke squeezed her hand, misunderstanding her dismay. "We'll catch them, Smiley. We'll get to the bottom of this. I feel certain the Mage are involved. They're always involved when things go wrong these days."
And things couldn't have gone much more wrong than the Ferals turning against their own. Except she hadn't turned against them. Why? Maybe she wasn't really marked. Maybe she'd just contracted some kind of strange disease. Right. What were the chances?
Minutes later, Hawke pulled the vehicle to a stop on a narrow residential road between a pair of large homes nestled among the trees, parking behind a Porsche.
"Isn't that the one Kara, Olivia, and Delaney took?"
"Yes, it's ours. If we've got badly injured Ferals, they're going to need Kara's radiance. Lyon would have called for her the moment the coast was clear. Wait here." He reached for the door handle.
"You might need me."
He gripped her hand, pinning her with his fierce gaze. "The battle's over, but the draden will still be swarming. I mean it, Faith. I'm just going to help get the injured into the car. Stay here. Promise me."
"Okay. I promise."
His fierceness dissolved, and he kissed her, a quick, tender brush of lips. Then he slipped outside, closing the door behind him. In moments, the shadows swallowed him as he ran into the woods.
Faith pressed her palm to her forehead. Part of her wanted to run after him anyway. Even without a battle to fight, he could lose control and shift. But another part of her never wanted to go outside after dark again. Especially not here, where the draden numbered in the thousands. The tens of thousands.
Lights appeared behind her, visible in the outside rearview mirror. As she watched, a vehicle pulled up directly behind Hawke's. Then another behind it. Humans? Her pulse began to race. Or Maxim and the other new Ferals?
The lights went off. She waited, tense and worried, watching out her mirror. But nothing happened. No one opened the car doors in her line of vision. She turned in her seat, looking back. The car behind her appeared empty. How . . . ? But then she remembered Melisande. Ilinas wouldn't have to open the doors and run into the woods, would they. They'd simply appear there.
As the minutes ticked by, she became more and more restless, more agitated. What if Hawke was struggling not to shift? What if he needed her help, and she was too far away?
Finally, she saw him leave the woods, helping Lyon carry some kind of animal. More than a dozen men and women ran for the cars as the draden swarmed, most carrying injured animals of one kind or another. Several climbed into the two cars behind.
Fox opened the back hatch of Hawke's vehicle while Hawke and Lyon laid what appeared to be a legless brown bear into the back. Grizz? They slammed the hatch closed, then ran to the driver's side, where Fox and Lyon attacked the draden covering Hawke. Hawke opened the door and slid inside, slamming the door closed behind him. Two draden flew at Faith and she lifted her arms to ward them off, but Hawke was quicker, stabbing the beasts before they reached her, then turning to kill those still attached to him. As he plucked them off himself, a shimmer of lights on either side of the car had her whirling in time to see Fox shift from an unnaturally huge fox back into a man. He and Lyon dove in opposite doors at the same time, and she realized they must have shifted to release the draden, then shifted back to get in the car.
As Hawke started the ignition and took off, they killed the last of the draden who'd flown in with them.
She looked at Hawke in question. "How bad?"
"Bad, but the only one who's died so far is Eigle."
So far. Eigle was one of the new Ferals though she couldn't place him.
Fox made a sound in his throat like a low growl. "Croc bit Jag through the middle. Tore him in half."
Her jaw dropped as she turned to meet the gaze of the new fox shifter. "But he's still alive?"
"Barely. The blood loss and the organ damage are . . ." His bit off as if unable to find a word that described it. "If he lives, he'll have to regenerate from the waist down."
"Kara's giving him radiance in the car," Lyon added. "She's trying to keep him alive while they race him to the best healer in the area."
Faith felt ill. Poor Olivia. It was so clear she and Jag adored one another. "The others?"
"No one else is in danger except Paenther." Lyon's jaw turned to rock. "His skull was crushed. Several of the others are missing arms or legs, but they'll grow new ones."
Hawke squeezed her hand. "Everyone's meeting at the Georgetown Therian enclave. Their healer, Esmeria, is the finest there is. We'll join them there once we drop Grizz in the prison."
Faith turned toward the front, shaken that the new Ferals had caused so much damage yet infinitely relieved that they'd failed in their quest to actually kill any of the true Ferals. So far. The group remained silent the rest of the short drive back to Feral House, but as they drove into the long circular drive, Lyon spoke.
"We need to be on guard. The new Ferals may have returned here. If so, we leave and come back when our numbers are stronger."
Faith frowned. Wasn't Fox one of the new ones, too? Not that she was about to question Lyon.
Hawke pulled up in front, threw the vehicle into park, then took her hand and pulled it to his mouth, placing a gentle kiss on her knuckles. "Stay here. We won't be long."
"The draden?"
"Probably won't find us before we're done."
"Good." She pulled her hand from his and grabbed the door handle. She was going to be a worthless Feral Warrior. But right now she served a purpose, and not even Hawke was going to take that away from her. "Then I'm coming."
"Faith . . ."
She met his gaze. "There's only one thing I'm needed for, and that's to help you. Let me do it."
He sighed, then nodded. "I'd rather keep you where I can protect you, anyway."
She grinned at him. "See? We both win."
She was rewarded with an endearing Hawke smile that lit her up inside and, for a few precious moments, banished the horror of the past hour.
Lyon raised a brow as he and Hawke lifted the injured and growling grizzly out of the back. "What's this about her helping you?"
"She calms the rage. Not completely, but enough to help me keep it under control."
Lyon nodded, giving her a speculative glance. "That's good."
Fox swung the hatch closed, then ran ahead to open the front door.
She followed the three men and their burden through the foyer and down a long, long stair into the basement.
Deep below the house, they passed into a fully equipped gym and through a door hidden in a floor-to-ceiling mirror on the far side. The door led into another long passage, this one appearing to be cut directly from the stone. As soon as they passed through the mirrored door, the cry of an animal in pain met her ears.
"Lynks," Hawke said. "Limbs are a bitch to regrow."
As the animal's cries grew louder, the passage opened into a small prison, individual cells lining two walls.
"In here." Lyon led the way into the nearest open cell. He and Hawke dropped the injured and snarling grizzly, then backed out, closing the barred door behind them.
Lyon and Hawke exchanged a glance. Hawke looked at her. "Go back to the gym, Faith. I'll meet you there in a moment." The look in his eye told her this command wasn't up for debate. Whatever they needed to discuss didn't involve her.
Her pulse began to sprint. Did they know she'd gone feral? Had Maxim told them during the battle?
She turned and started back down the stone passage, a dull ache forming beneath her breastbone. Halfway down the passage, she heard a shout and the grunting sounds of a scuffle. Faith froze, uncertain whether to go back.
The clang of another prison door clicking shut reached her ears along with Fox's voice. "You feckin' idiots! I fought on your side."
"Nothing personal," Lyon replied. "It's just a precaution until we know what we're dealing with. Shift into your animal and stay that way until we return for you. Draden don't bother animals."
"And if those feckers return?"
"Let's hope they don't. I'm doing the best with what I have, Fox. Like I said, it's nothing personal."
