Ecstasy Untamed (Feral Warriors #6)(44)

"Faith, what happened? Are you okay?"

"Yes. No." Her hammering heart threatened to pound out of her chest. Her thoughts had scattered, none of them coming clearly. One burst through. Stay in the room. You belong to Maxim.

She started to slow and had nearly turned back when, with a blinding burst of clarity, she understood. The voice was Maxim's. The thoughts of belonging to him, of loving him, of not letting Hawke touch her. All Maxim's.

That foul-smelling piece of gutter trash! She didn't love him, she hated him. Kidnapping girls, torturing them?

She began to shake in her horror, in her fury. "Where's Hawke, Kara?"

Kara frowned. "I don't know. Probably his room." She pointed down the opposite hall. "Last door on the right."

Without a word, Faith took off at a full run. Reaching Hawke's door, she wrenched it open without knocking, then pulled up short. He stood in the middle of the room in a pair of unbuttoned jeans, a towel slung over one bare, muscular shoulder, his hair damp as if he'd just come out of a shower.

In an instant, he flung aside the towel, his body predator-tense, as he closed the distance between them. At the last moment, he pulled up, his reaching hands jerking back as if he were afraid to touch her. "He hurt you." His words were a rumbling growl in his throat.

Pushing past Maxim's voice in her head, she reached for him, pressing her hands against his bare chest. "It's worse than that . . ."

Hawke gripped her arms, his hands tender vises even as his expression turned fierce. "I'll kill him."

The list of things she needed to tell him exploded in her head. "He and the other new Ferals are going to rise up against you, all of you. They want to free the Daemons."

He stared at her as if she'd spouted a foreign language. His hands tightened on hers. "When? How? Why?"

"I don't know. He meant to cloud my mind, Hawke, so I wouldn't remember what he'd told me. He's been . . ." She shuddered. "I escaped before he could take my memories. He knows I know. He knows I'm - "

"I'll take care of it." He brushed a lock of her hair back from her face and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Stay here."

Moments later, he was gone, and she was standing in the middle of his room, shaking, her heart thundering in her ears. Yet, never had she felt . . . safer. As she touched the spot on her forehead that still tingled with his gentle kiss, adoration welled up inside her.

Hawke would stop Maxim and the new Ferals. Goddess help her. Of whom she was one.

Her stomach rolled. Why her? She wasn't a fighter. She wasn't a bad person. Why would anyone think she'd attack the good Ferals? Or have any success if she tried? It was ludicrous. Yet, apparently, she'd been marked anyway.

How had her life gotten so screwed up?

He was going to kill that saber-toothed bastard.

Hawke stormed down the hall, the red haze rising in the corners of his vision with a fury that was all his own. He fought it back, needing to tell Lyon what Faith had told him before he totally lost it and wound up shifting. Lyon needed to know they had a traitor in their midst. Maybe a bunch of them.

He found Lyon and Kara descending the stairs into the foyer.

"Where's Maxim?" he called down, not wanting out of sight of his bedroom door in case Maxim tried to find Faith. I'm going to kill him.

"He just left to go draden hunting. I warned him about hurting Faith again."

"He left?" Shit. "Where's everyone else?"

"Everyone's out but us."

Hawke started down the steps. "Maxim told Faith that the new Ferals are going to rise up against us, kill us and free the Daemons. He's been clouding her mind and intended to again, but she escaped him." Hawke had never heard of a Therian having the ability to cloud another Therian's mind before, but Ferals often acquired gifts with their animals beyond the norm.

Lyon stared at him. A man who didn't know the Chief of the Ferals well might have thought he hadn't heard, but Hawke had known him all his life. He saw the emotions another might have missed - the disbelief, the struggle for comprehension, the acceptance. The fury.

"Since he wasn't able to silence her . . ."

Hawke finished his thought. "He's going to initiate the attack while he still has the element of surprise."

Lyon yanked out his cell phone and punched a couple of numbers.

"Lyon!" Delaney's shout rang out from deep in the house. She came running into the foyer. "They're under attack, and not by draden. I can feel Tighe's pain."

Lyon and Hawke exchanged grim glances. "Guard Feral House," Lyon ordered. He was going alone. Leaving him behind.

"No." Hawke's fangs sprouted, his claws erupting as the red haze threatened to overwhelm him.

"Hawke." Lyon started toward Hawke when he needed to be helping the others.

Hawke struggled against the rising anger. "I'm okay. Go!"

Lyon hesitated, clearly torn, not wanting to leave him where he could go berserk on the women yet needing to reach the Ferals who were under attack.

"We'll calm him," Kara said.

That was the last thing she should have said to her mate. Lyon wouldn't want her anywhere near him. Goddess, he had to get this under control! He needed Faith.