Ecstasy Untamed (26 page)

“I don’t.”

She cocked her head. “But you don’t fully trust him.”

“I’m a man first, not an animal. It’s the man’s brain that must make the decisions. Otherwise . . .” He shook his head. “People get hurt.”

She closed the distance between them and pressed her hands against his chest. “What people? What happened?” she asked softly, because it was clear something had. “Why is your relationship with your animal so different from mine?”

Slowly, he turned away again, standing in profile, staring down the hill as if suddenly fascinated by the rocks and dead leaves littering the sloping forest floor.

“When you first shifted, what was it like between you, Hawke?”

He shrugged. “It was always like this.”

“He didn’t show you how to fly? He didn’t take you?”

“Never.” His brows pulled together as he glanced at her. “He tried, I think. Those early days were a fog. Not good.”

He kept pulling away, but she refused to let him escape this. Or her. She stepped closer and ran her hand over his broad, tightly muscled back. “Why not?”

“I . . .” He shook his head and looked away.

She kissed his shoulder. “Tell me.”

“Faith . . . this isn’t the time.”

“It is the time. You don’t want to talk about what happened, which tells me it’s important. I’m not going to let it go. Not with so much at stake.”

The stubborn set to his jaw slowly softened, his mouth forming a rueful twist.

“Tell me what happened.”

He turned to her fully and sighed. “You’re relentless.” But his mouth tipped up in a half smile.

“Only because I love you so very much.”

His eyes softened even more as he pulled her into his arms and rested his chin lightly on her head.

“I didn’t want to be marked.” He groaned. “That’s not exactly true.” Pulling back, he grabbed her face between his hands and kissed her, a quick soft peck. “I’ll tell you, but . . . I need to pace.”

As he turned and did just that, Faith perched herself on a small rocky shelf and waited.

“My father was killed by a human mortar shell during the Civil War. I think I told you that.”

“You did.”

“I was living in Finland at the time, tutoring the only child in a small enclave. Aren. His father was Therian, but his mother was human, and Aren was mortal. I’d been with them five years when I discovered the feral marks on the back of my shoulder one morning. I immediately knew one of the nine must have died. I’d grown up in Feral House. All nine had had a hand in raising me. I was devastated at the thought of any of their deaths, but the fact that I’d been marked made me fear that the one who’d died was my father. We shared the hawk DNA, of course.

“It was a couple of weeks before Lyon’s letter reached me. I was alone in the library of the enclave’s house when I read it.” He frowned. “I wasn’t prepared. Not only had my father died, as I’d feared, but so had my mother. Three days after my father died, she was killed by draden. Accidentally, Lyon said, but I knew better.”

Bitterness twisted his mouth, a bitterness he’d lived with for over 140 years. “I loved my mother, but she never had half of Kara’s strength. She couldn’t bear the suffering from the severed mating bond, so she took her own life. Or let the draden take it.”

Faith shuddered at the thought of dying beneath those razor-sharp mouths, though she’d all but done that, hadn’t she? If Hawke hadn’t been there . . .

“I was furious. It was bad enough I’d lost one parent, but two . . . and the second intentionally . . .” He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, then dropped them, his expression bleak. “Aren ran into the room while I was reading that letter. Eight years old. I’d known him since he was a toddler and loved him like a son.”

Her breath caught.

“Newly marked Ferals tend to be short on control, and mine had been shattered. He ran right for me, as he always did. But I didn’t grab him around the waist and sweep him high like I usually did. I lashed out at him with my claws, unthinking. It was the first time I went feral.”

“Oh, God, Hawke.” Her scalp crawled with horror.

“I didn’t kill him, thank the goddess. I caught him across his face and shoulder, but he nearly bled out before we got the bleeding stopped. It was close.” He visibly shuddered. “So close. And he lived the rest of his life with the scars I gave him that day.” The bleakness in his voice raked at her heart. “As soon as I was certain Aren would live, I left for Feral House.”

“And you never forgave the animal spirit for what you did to Aren.”

He stilled, then turned to her slowly, his eyes narrowed as if he’d never considered that. “I understood just how dangerous a Feral could be. I knew what could happen if I lost control. I never lost it again. Not until recently. Not until the spirit trap.”

“You never lost control because you held it so tightly. You never trusted the animal spirit because you were afraid of that wildness inside of you. That wildness that made you harm Aren.”

He frowned. “I suppose.”

“You need that wildness.”

“No.”

“Yes. You do. That’s what makes me so fast when I’m in my falcon.” She went to him, pressing her hands against his chest, making him look at her. “Even if you embrace that wildness, you aren’t going to be a danger to anyone you don’t mean to be. Not now. You’re the kindest man I’ve ever known.”

He covered her hands with his, his expression telling her he wasn’t sure he believed what she was saying, but he was listening.

“You have an innate gentleness, a goodness, that goes all the way to your core, Hawke. I can’t imagine what it must have done to you to have accidentally harmed a child like that. A boy you loved.”

He flinched and started to look away, but she lifted her hand and stopped him, forcing him to look at her.

“What you have inside you right now is a battle between that gentleness and the wildness. It’s not you against the bird, do you realize that? It’s a battle between the two halves of yourself. You’ve kept the wildness so carefully controlled that you never even realized the war has been raging since the day you were marked. Not until the spirit trap wrenched away your ability to control it. Before that happened, the hawk spirit suffered from your denial of the wildness, but you didn’t realize it. You do now. And you’re both suffering. Only by embracing both halves of yourself will you heal.” She stroked his cheek. “You won’t lose your humanity, Hawke. What happened to Aren was a simple matter of your both being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And your being a very-newly-marked Feral.”

He was quiet for long seconds, his gaze grazing her face, his thoughts awhirl in his eyes.

Finally, he made a frustrated sound. “I understand what you’re saying in theory, Smiley, but I have no idea how to do it short of shifting. And all I know is that if I shift, I won’t come back.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. Because she didn’t have an answer. And neither, unfortunately, did the falcon. The females might understand the problem, but it was up to the males to figure out how to fix it. Either they’d find their way, or they wouldn’t. But if they didn’t . . . and soon . . . she’d lose the man she loved forever. And the thought of it was killing her.

H
awke pulled away from Faith, burning with frustration. He knew that what she said was true, that his breach with the hawk spirit had reached critical stage. But he didn’t know how to fix it! He and his bird had been one for nearly a century and a half. He thought things had been fine between them.
What did the damn bird want?
Trust, Faith said. And how was he supposed to trust a creature who would steal him away for thirty-seven hours?

What if he gave himself up to the bird, and the bird took off and never came back? He’d be useless to the other Ferals, nothing more than a wild hawk until he flew too far from the radiance for too long and died. It would be far better for all involved if the connection severed, if he cleared the way for another to be marked. A bird shifter who, like Faith, might have a way with his bird as he himself had never had.

Goddess, he’d never known it could be like that—darting and shifting with breakneck speed and perfect precision. He was good, but it had taken years of practice. And he’d never been able to do what he’d just watched Faith do. When she’d first taken off and zipped into the trees, he’d been terrified she was going to crash. He’d thought she’d kill herself. How could she possibly have darted faster than he could? Yet she had. Far faster than any normal falcon.

He heard Faith move behind him, felt her arms circle his waist, her cheek press against his back.

“I don’t want to lose you.”

Her words tore at his heart, and he turned and pulled her into his arms. All these years he’d waited for the one who would make his life complete. And now he’d found her. Too late. He rested his chin on the top of her precious head and grieved for all he would miss—Faith’s smiles, her laughter, her body swelling with his child. The fire in her eyes as she trained as a warrior and fought at his side. The glow that would shine from within her as she realized her true strength, her true worth.

“Any shifter who can fly like you can will be an asset to the Ferals.” He kissed her hair and arched back a little so that he could see her face. “You’re going to have a place with them, Smiley. They’re going to need you.”

She looked up at him, pain darkening her eyes. “You’re giving up.”

He released a frustrated sigh. “I don’t know how to do what the hawk wants me to do. You tell me to trust him, yet he digs his talons into my head trying to claw my brains out.”

“He’s trying to hold on to you, not hurt you.”

“You can’t know that.”

For a moment she was silent, her eyes unfocusing as if she listened to a noise he couldn’t hear, as if she were listening to the voice of the falcon.

“The connection has been splintering. That’s the pain you feel. He yells at you to help him, to do something, and he clings to you to keep the splintering from getting worse.”

Hawke stared at her in stunned silence. And felt the truth of her words wash through him. That initial, lightninglike pain he always felt was the connection fraying. The hawk’s cries were of anger, as he’d suspected. But maybe not for the reason he’d believed. If what Faith said was true, he was mad that Hawke did nothing to fix the damage. And he’d been trying to do it himself.

Slowly, the band that had been squeezing his chest began to loosen, that feeling of betrayal. He’d thought the hawk had turned against him. He’d thought he’d been trying to punish him. Instead, he’d been trying to save him.

“The falcon says that the only way for you to reconnect with your animal spirit is to give up control. Become one mind, one will. But you must do it soon, Hawke. Your connection to him is nearly gone. One more tug-of-war between you, and it’ll snap.” She looked up at him, her eyes dark with misery. “If that happens, why can’t he just mark you again?”

“It doesn’t work that way. There is no re-marking.”

Pain lanced her eyes. “Hawke.” She stilled again. “The falcon says she wishes she could help you, but this is something you have to do on your own.”

He lifted a brow. “She?”

“Her voice is female.”

He stared at her. “You’re really
speaking
to your animal spirit.”

“Not in words, not exactly. Certainly not in English or any human language. But she communicates with me in perfect thoughts. And she hears mine in return.”

“That’s incredible.”

An intoxicating gleam entered her eyes, the gleam of certain confidence, as a smile of self-assurance lifted her lovely mouth. “She chose me. She told me that she fought hard to claim me, that we’d be magnificent together.”

Part of him wanted to discount her claim as fiction—never had he known a Feral whose spirit animal spoke to him. But he felt the truth of her words, knew them in his heart. The tiny pinch of jealousy washed away in the gratitude that rushed through him for the falcon spirit.

“You weren’t chosen by mistake.” Though he’d told her that over and over and tried to believe it himself,
wanted
to believe it, the evidence had been overwhelming otherwise. But having watched her zip through the trees and shift as she landed, he no longer had any doubt.

Faith stood before him in the oversized blue T-shirt he’d put on her in the prisons, her legs and feet bare, her blue-tipped hair uncombed. On the surface, he’d never seen her look more like a street kid, but one look at her strong stance, at her certain face, at the confidence shining from her eyes, and he knew the waif was gone. A Feral Warrior stood in her place.

He kissed her. “You are magnificent,” he murmured against her lips as his hand slid down her back, over her buttocks, to the hem of the T-shirt. Having put it on her, he knew precisely what she wore underneath. Absolutely nothing. If his life was almost over, there was only one thing more he wanted. To make love to this woman he loved more than life.

Tears glistened in her eyes as if they’d shared the thought. “Love me,” she said softly.

“I do. I will.”

He kissed her, savoring the sweet taste of her mouth and the feel of her soft lips against his. His hand slid beneath the hem of the T-shirt, finding the bare silken flesh beneath. Fire pounded through his blood, turning him hard and ready as he caressed her, digging gently into the soft flesh. She moaned and pressed against him, rocking her hips into his, brushing his already-swelling erection. He hissed in a breath, lifting one of her sweet thighs against his hip and settling himself into the vee of her body.

“Tell me I didn’t hurt you before. Or that you don’t remember.”

“You didn’t hurt me. I remember it as a whirlwind of wild pleasure. Intense. Incredible. But . . .”

“It’ll be gentle this time.”

“Yes.”

He kissed her slowly, tenderly, taking his time, brushing her lips with his, sliding his tongue between them to stroke the crease. She opened for him, but he took his time coming inside, wanting to savor every moment, every sweet taste of her. He slid his tongue across one soft lip, then the other before melding his mouth with hers and sliding his tongue deep inside. She melted against him, a moan escaping her throat, and his heart and mind overflowed with love.