Her gaze slid away, her eyes closing, her head tilting back in the throes of passion.
"Look at me, Faith."
Dark lashes lifted heavily, and she met his gaze and grinned at him, a womanly smile that nearly drove him to release on the spot. Her eyes focused on him, clung to him, and he felt himself falling deep into those sparkling depths. Love flared up inside him ten times stronger than before, stealing his breath, squeezing his heart in a tender vise.
Her small cries turned frantic; and then she was coming, her expression pure bliss, her cries turning to gasps and moans, her gaze fixed on his, love blazing in her eyes.
And he came and came and came, pouring his seed and his heart and his soul into her.
His body thoroughly emptied, his heart full to overflowing, he sank down onto her, bracing the bulk of his weight on his forearms even as he dropped his for head lightly against hers, his eyes closed at last. When he could move, he lifted up to look down at her and met her exhausted smile.
"That was perfect," she murmured.
"I agree." He stroked her hair back from her face. "You're perfect." Taking her with him, he rolled onto his back, cradling her against his chest, his cock still buried deep inside her. "I never want to leave you."
Goddess. He cupped her precious head in his hand and kissed her hair. I will do anything . . . anything . . . if only you can help me repair this break with my hawk. And stay with this woman who has my heart.
But the goddess couldn't help him. This he had to do himself.
And he didn't know the way.
Faith lay with her cheek against Hawke's damp chest, listening to his heart hammering beneath her ear as quickly as her own beat in her chest. Being with him, making love with him, was every bit as thrilling as her first flight. Breathtaking, mind-shattering. Perfect.
She kissed his chest, feeling her eyes burn with unshed tears as the awful fear that she was going to lose him pressed down on her.
He kissed her one more time. "Get up, Smiley. Let's go home."
She lifted off him, letting him slide out of her, then stood while he rose and handed her the T-shirt. They dressed, then Hawke pulled out his cell phone and started pressing buttons.
"It's me. We'll meet you by the gas station." When she lifted a brow, he mouthed, "GPS." A moment later, he frowned. "What else is new?"
Shoving his phone in his pocket, he met her gaze with a sigh. "According to Lyon, there's trouble. Again."
Chapter Nineteen
"Hawke, Falkyn," Wulfe said, as Hawke handed Faith into the cab of the wolf shifter's pickup. "I'm glad to see that you both . . . made it back into your skins. I assume Falkyn's cured?"
Hawke nodded. "Right as rain. What's the trouble?"
"Lyon hasn't said. We're meeting in the war room as soon as we get back."
When they were on the road, Faith leaned forward. "Am I really going to be called Falkyn all the time, now?"
Hawke glanced back at her. "I'll call you whatever you'd like in private. You'll always be Faith to me." A smile gentled his eyes. "Or Smiley. But yes, your Feral name is Falkyn, now."
She didn't want to offend, but . . . "Why?"
"Tradition," Wulfe said.
Hawke nodded. "I was just talking to Kougar about the names a few days ago. He says it goes back to the time of the Sacrifice, when most Therians lost the power of their animals and the ability to shift. Realizing that only one of each animal would be able to shift at a time, many tried to kill the shifters, hoping to take that power for themselves. Those first Ferals banded together for their own safety. But they were each from a different clan. They didn't know one another, but battle positions needed to be assigned by animal. The wolf was the tracker, the birds acted as recon. Rather than try to remember the names of each of his men, the first chief called them by their animals for simplicity's sake, and it stuck. It was easier for all of them to remember and to assimilate one another's strengths. Later, as each new Feral was marked, giving him or her a new name - a warrior name - became a symbolic rebirth. Since some of those early newly marked Ferals had been part of the bands that had tried to hunt down the original Ferals, that rebirth was particularly important. It acted as a forgiveness by the originals for past acts against them.
"For millennia, the names have been chosen by Kougar. He says he sees the name in his mind as the Feral shifts, and he says it, and, if requested, spells it for the new Feral the way he saw it."
She liked the name Falkyn, actually. And the idea of being someone new felt right. Faith, she was beginning to realize, had never really believed in herself. Part of her had always felt that if she'd been a better daughter, her mother might have loved her, and her enclave wouldn't have left without her. But Hawke had changed all that. As had the falcon spirit when she'd informed Faith her being marked had been no accident. Falkyn was a Feral Warrior. A woman who believed herself worthy, as Faith never had.
But it was Faith with whom Hawke had fallen in love. Faith who'd fallen in love with him.
"Are you ready to be Falkyn?" Hawke asked her softly.
"Yes. Faith was my past. Falkyn is my future."
He smiled. "Faith is your heart, Smiley. Your sweetness to Falkyn's strength. Don't lose her. As you told me that I must find a way to integrate the two halves of myself, you must do the same. To me, in private, you'll always be Faith." His smile died, his eyes tightening.
Always might be a very short time.
Kougar and Jag were crossing the foyer when Wulfe, Hawke, and Faith walked through the front door a short while later.
"War room," Kougar said. "We have trouble."
Hawke nodded. "So I heard, though I'd love to go one day without hearing those words."
Faith looked at him. "I need clothes."
Hawke rather liked the look of the T-shirt . . . and nothing else . . . but he caught Jag noticing just how little she had on and nodded. "Hurry."
An impish grin bloomed on her face a second before she disappeared in a spray of sparkling lights and . . . was gone. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the movement of the speeding falcon shooting over the second-floor banister.
"What the fuck?" Jag gaped. "She disappeared!"
Hawke found himself grinning with pride at the disbelief on his brothers' faces. "No. She's just incredibly quick."
They were still standing there in stunned disbelief when the small falcon dive-bombed them twenty seconds later. As she shifted back to her human form beside him, Kougar and Jag drew claws.
Hawke shoved her behind him. "Stand down! Faith . . . Falkyn . . . take it easy in the house, at least until they get used to your newfound speed."
She peeked at them from around his shoulder. "Sorry." Hearing the laughter in her voice, he glanced at her. She was grinning like a pixie.
Jag laughed out loud. "Do you realize all the ways we can use that kind of speed? Hot damn."
Kougar just shook his head, but there was a smile tugging at his mouth.
"War room!" Lyon's roar echoed through the house.
As the five headed down the hall, Hawke glanced at Faith. The smile she offered him was so full of delight and pride and love, it was all he could do not to snatch her up and kiss her right there. He brushed his hand down her back, over the soft cotton sweater she'd donned along with a pair of jeans. He'd never known a woman to dress so fast. Then again, no other woman was his Falkyn.
As they reached the war room, Kara was just entering. She beamed and threw her arms around Faith. "You're back."
Faith laughed, then sobered. "Did bringing me into my animal exhaust you again?"
"No. Not at all. I feel great."
"I'm so glad." Faith's words rang with heartfelt relief.
They entered the room to find the others waiting. When they'd taken their seats, Lyon stopped pacing and turned to face them.
"The Shaman called. There's a witch in the Mage Resistance, as they're calling themselves now, who has the ability to sense Daemon energy in the Earth's energy layer. It's been all but nonexistent until the past months. It spiked while the wraith Daemons were on their rampage, then dipped again. For the past two weeks, there's been some sort of strange activity. Now, suddenly, it's spiked again."
"They've freed more Daemons?" Paenther asked.
"She doesn't think so, no. She says it feels more like a power source. As if someone's funneling energy into the blade that imprisons the Daemons, feeding them directly."
"Empowering Satanan," Kougar murmured.
Lyon nodded. "That power source has been pinpointed to a spot in a forest near Warsaw."
"Maxim?" Faith breathed.
"The satellite image reveals a fortress. A castle. And there's more." Lyon's gaze turned to Faith, an ache in his eyes that had Hawke immediately on edge. "I would spare you this if I could." The Chief of the Ferals shook his head and lifted a remote. "I can't."
The one flat screen that remained in the room flared to life. Lyon tapped a few buttons on the laptop open on the table in front of him, and a video image filled the screen. The missing new Ferals stood in what appeared to be some kind of ancient castle. Or dungeon. Polaris, Lepard, Croc, Whit, and Maxim. Oddly, they were all dressed in white turtlenecks and dark pants, now. Only Maxim wore a sport coat.
"Are they really in Poland?" Hawke demanded.
Lyon paused the video image. "It would seem so. Delaney used her sources to confirm that a small private jet left Dulles Airport the night they attacked us, and security surveillance reveals these five climbing on board. Maxim undoubtedly clouded human minds to get them off the ground that quickly and in the middle of the night. As for whether or not we can be certain they are in Poland." Lyon shrugged. "Decide for yourself." He pressed the remote, and once more the video rolled.
Maxim stepped forward with a tight, sadistic smile that had Hawke's hands balling into fists. "Hello, Faith. It's time for you to come to me, now. You belong to me, and we both know it." He smiled, but his smile was cold. Cruel. "You will come." He stepped back to reveal two girls, teenagers, their clothes torn, their faces badly bruised, the ropes binding their hands looped around large hooks hanging from the ceiling.
Beside him, Faith gasped. Hawke reached for her hand. "You know them."
"Yes. Paulina and Maria."
Maxim stepped back in front of the camera. "You can save them, Faith. Trade yourself for them. Have the Ilinas bring you here, to my castle." He rattled off what sounded like some kind of address in Polish. "In six hours, I'll begin cutting off their fingers and toes, one by one. If they don't bleed to death first, I'll then begin cutting off their arms a few inches at a time."
Faith had turned white as a polar bear's fur. Hawke gripped the back of her neck, ready to yank back her chair and shove her head between her knees if she started to faint. "Breathe, sweetheart. Breathe."
"Six hours," Maxim snapped. "I know you're a bird shifter now. Come to me through the southernmost chimney. It's the only part of the castle not warded against Ilinas. Or Ferals."
Lyon lifted the remote, and the screen went black. "The address he gave is near Warsaw, the exact location of the power source that's feeding the Daemons. How the Mage are using the new Ferals in that power feed, I don't know. But it seems likely they are."
"How much of that six hours has passed?" Hawke demanded.
"The e-mail arrived half an hour ago."
Tighe frowned. "He knows we have Ilina travel."
"How in the fuck does he know she's a bird shifter?" Jag demanded.
Hawke met Lyon's gaze. "That's a damned good question."
Lyon nodded. "Any guesses?"
Kougar plucked at his beard. "The new Ferals were connected to one another through the infection carried by their animal spirits. A magic that allowed the Mage to control them. It's probable that they all felt her come into her animal. And could somehow feel that animal take flight."
"A connection severed when we cured her of the infection," Lyon said.
Kougar nodded. "We believe."
Lyon eyed Kougar sharply. "You think there's a chance that connection isn't fully severed?"
"Maxim wouldn't have sent us this invitation if he didn't have some sort of trap planned. There's no way to know what form it might take."
"We're fucked," Jag muttered.
Kougar shrugged. "That's never stopped us before."
Lyon frowned, then sighed. "Paenther will lead the team to Poland accompanied by Kougar, Hawke, Wulfe, Vhyper, Fox, and Falkyn."
"No." Hawke squeezed her hand. "She's not going."
"Hawke . . ." Lyon began
Faith turned on Hawke, a warrior's fire in her eyes. "I have to go! He's going to kill them."
"Smiley . . . he's going to kill them anyway." She flinched, and he despised hurting her, but the words had to be said.
Silence descended on the war room. Faith pulled her hand from his and faced Lyon. "If Maxim is right about the warding, I'm the only one who can get into that castle. I'm the only one who stands a chance of stopping him, of stopping whatever he's doing to feed Satanan."
The thought of her going into that castle alone turned Hawke's blood to ice. "Faith, you heard the discussion. It's a trap."
She gaped at him. "So we're just going to hole up in Feral House while Maxim empowers the Daemons?" Her frustration left on a sigh, her gaze softening as she reached for him, touching his arm. "You've said all along that you thought I had it in me to be a Feral Warrior. That my marking wasn't an accident."