No, she realized. She didn't love him. It wasn't love at first sight, not at all. Just that strange conviction that they belonged together. But she couldn't tell the women that. Not when she and Maxim might still someday be mated. It wouldn't be fair to either of them. So she hedged. "I don't know, Kara. I don't know what I feel right now."
"What about Hawke?" Skye asked quietly.
And that was the real problem, wasn't it? "I like Hawke," she hedged, wanting to say more; but admitting the way Hawke made her feel was so unfair to Maxim. Still, she felt comfortable with these women as she hadn't with anyone in a long time. When was the last time she'd had real friends besides the girls she tried to help? "There's something about him."
"He has the kindest eyes, doesn't he?" Kara asked.
Delaney nodded. "And a great smile. It doesn't break often, but when it does, it makes your whole day."
"He's incredibly protective," Olivia added. "Of all of us."
Skye smiled. "If I weren't in love with Paenther, I think I'd be in love with Hawke."
"Me, too," Delaney and Olivia chimed in unison.
Kara smiled sympathetically. "It'll all work out."
Faith sighed. "It's going to work out better without me here for a while. I think I'm going home."
Kara made a sound of dismay. "You just got here."
"I know. But it was monumentally foolish to follow a man I'd just met halfway around the world, pull or no pull."
Kara took her hand. "But if he's really meant to be your mate . . ."
"Then he'll wait for me. When I first met him, I felt this kick of recognition. But maybe that's all it was. Maybe I recognized him from somewhere and mistook it for something more. And what I feel for Hawke is just . . . well . . . he's a very attractive man. You all know how rare it is to find a true mate."
Olivia sighed. "I'm afraid you're probably right, Faith, as much as I hate to admit it. Half the women on the planet would lust for our Feral Warriors if they got anywhere near them. The other half are too young, too old, or into other women."
"Will Maxim let you go?" Delaney asked.
"No, not happily."
"We don't want you to go." A hard light entered Delaney's eyes. "But he won't keep you here against your will. We won't let him."
Faith felt tears prick her eyes as she looked at the fierce, protective faces that surrounded her. She'd been watching over others for so long, yet she could barely remember the last time anyone had watched over her.
"Thank you."
Olivia gripped her knee. "Faith, don't be too quick to move on this. Give both of them a little more time, please? They all say that newly marked Ferals can be a pain in the ass. Once Maxim shifts, he might surprise you. And you said yourself, you've only known him a day. Have you even been . . . this is none of my business . . . intimate?"
Faith's cheeks heated. "No. Not even a kiss."
"There you have it." She patted Faith's knee and straightened. "You don't know what's between you, yet. He's probably too screwed up with the raging testosterone new Ferals are known for to be thinking straight. Give him a little time." She shrugged, a small, knowing smile lifting her mouth. "Speaking as the mate of a former asshole, sometimes they're worth all the trouble."
"There's another consideration," Delaney said. "Hawke's seen something in you that he responds to. Maybe it's just sexual attraction, maybe it's more than that. But you made him smile and laugh for the first time since he got out of that trap. Tighe commented on it. Taking that away from him right now might do him more harm than good."
Faith shook her head, her heart contracting. "I can't be what Hawke wants me to be."
"You don't have to be anything to him," Delaney assured her. "But having you around has been good for him. It's gotten his juices flowing again."
Olivia snorted. "His juices?"
Skye and Kara giggled. Faith laughed.
Delaney hooted. "God, you have a gutter mind, Olivia. I didn't mean literally." Still grinning, Delaney turned back to Faith. "All I was trying to say is, don't take all this too seriously, or too personally. If there is one thing shape-shifters love to do, it's draw claws and fight. They'll take any excuse, and a woman is the most obvious of all. Males have been fighting over females since the dawn of time."
"It'll work out, Faith," Kara said earnestly. "You'll see."
"And if for some reason it doesn't," Delaney added, "you've got us. We'll help you in any way we can."
Faith's eyes burned, her chest swelling with a sharp longing to stay, to be a part of this rare friendship. "Thank you," she said softly.
"How about some wine?" Kara asked, hopping off the bed. "I've got a new red I'm dying to try. Sorry, Delaney."
"No problem. I brought fudge. Enough to share." Delaney grinned at Faith. "I'm pregnant. No one thinks a little wine can hurt a Therian baby, but I'm not taking any chances. I'd rather have the fudge anyway."
When the glasses were filled, and a plate of fudge sat on the bed in the middle of the circle, Skye lifted her glass. "To friendship.""To sisterhood," Kara added.
Delaney lifted her water bottle. "To the best friends I've ever had."
Olivia nodded. "Me, too. And to Faith. May she find happiness, as we have." Her gaze met Faith's. "Selfishly, I hope you find that happiness in Feral House. You fit in nicely." Her smile was warm and genuine and bloomed inside Faith.
As she sipped her wine, as the discussion turned to the celebration feast being planned for after Maxim's first shift, the longing to stay sharpened until it was an ache inside her. But Hawke's face rose in her mind, the way he'd looked at her in the hallway, the fierce need in his eyes. The tenderness. And she feared there was no good solution but one. She had to leave. For all three of their sakes.
Maybe after he'd settled down, Maxim would seek her out again. Maybe they'd have another chance. By then, Hawke might have found a mate of his own. The rivalry would be over. Perhaps then she could return and be part of this sisterhood once more.
And perhaps some things were simply never meant to be.
Chapter Five
An hour before sunrise, Hawke stood in the foyer among his brothers. Like the others, he'd stripped to the waist and left his boots in his room. To a man, each wore nothing but a pair of pants or jeans and the golden armband adorned with the head of his animal.
This morning, Maxim would get his own armband during the ritual - the Renascence - that would bring him into his animal. The band would appear during his first shift, allowing him to channel the Earth's energies, to become a full-fledged Feral Warrior.
Bully for Maxim, Hawke thought sourly.
The only good news was that the Ferals would once more be nine.
They milled about, waiting for Tighe.
"Tighe! Get your ass down here," Jag shouted, ever the diplomat.
Kara, the only one of the women who would accompany them, stood beside Lyon in a flowing blue ritual gown and a pink hoodie zipped against the morning chill. The other women sat on the stairs, looking sleepy. Olivia and Skye.
And Faith.
Hawke tried to ignore her, knowing any attention he paid her was a mistake. But he was helpless to keep his eyes turned away. Dressed much as she had been yesterday, in a pair of jeans white from wear, a hole in one knee the size of his fist, and a sweater with sleeves that fell past her fingertips, she looked young. There was a strength about her, a resiliency he'd sensed from the start. But also a vulnerability that tugged at him. A hint of sadness that even her quicksilver smiles couldn't entirely hide.
Olivia said something he didn't catch, and Faith grinned, igniting that warm, tight place in his chest that he hadn't known existed until she came along.
Lyon stepped into his line of sight, blocking her from him. But when Hawke would have moved, Lyon caught his gaze, his own pointed.
"Right," Hawke muttered. Quit staring.
He glanced toward the door where Maxim stood boring a hole in Hawke's chest with his glare, his mouth set in a hard, angry line. Obviously, Lyon wasn't the only one who'd noticed the direction of Hawke's gaze. Retribution gleamed in Maxim's eyes, and Hawke welcomed the battle. He only hoped he could keep from shifting long enough to beat Maxim's ass a second time.
But there would be no fight in the foyer. Paenther and Wulfe had been glued to Maxim's side since they came upstairs a few minutes ago, all three dripping with sweat from training in the basement all night. But the fight was coming, Hawke had no doubt. He wouldn't put it past Maxim to attack him in his fox even though attacking one another in their full animal forms was strictly forbidden. Hell, if any one of them tried to strike at him when he was a bird, he was a dead shifter. But Maxim had proved over and over again he couldn't be trusted, and Hawke was ready for anything. In his pockets, he carried switchblades. Strapped to his calves, he wore a pair of hunting knives. Fighting might not be his hawk's strength, but in his human body he was very, very good with his fists. And his knives.
Without warning, jagged bolts of lightning ripped apart his skull. He forced himself to breathe through the miserable pain, counting the seconds . . . three, four . . . six, seven. The pain was getting worse. Damn bird. He couldn't decide which was a bigger pain in his ass, the one in his head or the one who was about to shift into a fox.
Finally, Tighe appeared at the top of the opposite stair from where the women sat and quickly made his way down.
"Sorry. Delaney wanted to come down to see us off, but she was asleep on her feet. I put her back in bed."
Jag snorted. "And joined her?"
Tighe smiled, but there was nothing carnal about it. Nothing in his expression but deep, abiding love for his mate. "She falls asleep more easily in my arms." After the hell Tighe had suffered in the spirit trap, and the equal hell Delaney must have suffered thinking she was about to lose him, there wasn't a man among them who begrudged the pair the few extra minutes. Except, perhaps, Maxim.
Lyon clapped his hands together. "Let's go."
Olivia rose and descended the dozen steps as Jag met her at the base of the stairs and gave her a quick, thorough kiss. From her perch beside Faith, Skye blew Paenther a kiss. He returned it with a look that promised far more when he returned. Then he grabbed Maxim's shoulder and turned him to the now-open door.
Hawke glanced back at Faith and found her gaze locked on him. But no smile winged its way down to him. The look in her eyes was one of regret. Then she looked away, dismissing him. Stabbing him through the heart.
"Hawke."
At Lyon's prodding, he nodded and turned away with a sigh.
"Olivia's in charge until we return," Lyon said to no one in particular. The women, except for Kara, would remain at Feral House. They couldn't be part of the ritual, nor could they get close enough to watch since it needed to be performed beneath the curtain of a mystic circle where no human could see or hear what went on. Besides, the women were needed to guard Feral House in the Ferals' absence. Delaney might need sleep, but she was ex-FBI. If they came under attack, she'd be in the front of the fighting, he had no doubt. Olivia was a warrior by trade, a leader of the Therian guard, and even Skye had proved herself capable of pulling strong attack energies, when needed. And if it came to it, if they could communicate their need, Ariana commanded an entire army of Ilina mist warriors. Left to the women, Feral House was in excellent hands.
Lyon and Kara stepped through the open front door. Hawke followed, closing it behind him, then joined the others, who waited in the drive. An hour before sunrise, they were now safe from the nocturnal draden, who always disappeared about this time. Shoulder to shoulder the nine and Kara strode across the lawn and into the woods beyond, the breeze blowing damp fingers through Hawke's short hair. This would be only his second Renascence - third if he counted his own. The last had been for the young, now-deceased, Foxx four years ago. Once again it was a fox shifter he would watch come into his animal for the first time.
They crossed a couple of residential streets, moving silently between mansions tucked into the thick woods, finally reaching the rocks high above the Potomac River. One by one, the nine shifters climbed down to the wide, flat goddess stone, Lyon holding tight to Kara's hand.
Golden armbands gleaming in the light of a half-moon, Lyon and Kougar raised the mystic circle that would enclose them, both in sight and sound, from the outside world and any human who might wander by. Magic in place, Lyon called for the warriors to take their spots as he led Kara to the center of the stone and gave her a brief, gentle kiss on her mouth. Kougar led them as they raised their voices in chant, repeating the ancient words, bringing back memories of Hawke's own Renascence.
What a hellacious time that had been for him. He'd had to watch a Radiant who wasn't his mother call the radiance for him to be brought into his father's animal. The honor and satisfaction of becoming one of the men he'd admired from the time he was old enough to understand that all men weren't Feral Warriors had slammed up against the bitter grief of his parents' recent deaths. It was a night he'd never forget, and one he'd never want to go through again.
Kougar slashed the ritual knife across his bare chest, slapped his palm against the bleeding cut, and curled his fingers into a fist around the blood. Then he handed the knife to Lyon. One after another, each warrior followed, slashing his own chest, fisting his hand around his blood. When it was his turn, Hawke carved a thin line into his flesh, clamping his jaw against the searing pain, breathing through his nose as he slapped his free hand to the warm stickiness before the wound could heal. By the time he handed the knife to Vhyper, the pain had fled.