Ecstasy Untamed (Feral Warriors #6)(79)

Kara and Lyon led the way, Kara in a flowing red ritual gown topped by a hooded, waterproof raincoat. Faith wore jeans, a fleece hoodie, and a black sports bra Olivia had loaned her. Apparently, the ritual to bring her into her animal required her to cut herself across the chest. Upper chest. Still, a shirt of any kind was going to be ruined. And she just wasn't willing to go topless like the men did. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Unless she really couldn't keep her clothes on when she shifted, in which case she'd get so used to being naked around them, she'd stop thinking about it. Eventually. Maybe.

Goddess, she hoped that didn't happen.

Okay, that just wasn't the main thing she needed to be worrying about.

As if hearing her thoughts, Hawke stopped her and turned her to face him. Raindrops glistened on his nose, but love flared in his eyes as he pressed his warm hand to her cheeks. "I love you," he said softly. No words of reassurance, no promises that everything would be fine. They both knew what was likely to happen.

"I love you, too."

Kougar called up the mystic circle and set the warding that would force them all to remain within the circle until it was dismantled. The men, bare-chested, their golden armbands sparkling with raindrops, began to form a wide circle around Kara. Hawke motioned Faith to join them, and she did, tossing her hoodie onto the damp rock behind her and standing between Hawke and Tighe. Kougar began chanting, leading the ritual, but the others soon joined in. All but the other new Ferals. She was glad she wasn't the only one standing uncomfortably mute.

Across the circle, Kougar pulled a knife, slashed a long line across his chest, then pressed his free hand against the bleeding wound before handing the knife to Lyon.

Faith's gut cramped. She knew she was immortal, of course she knew that. Any flesh wound would heal within a matter of seconds. Ten, twenty at most. She knew that. But it didn't mean the cut wasn't going to hurt like hell.

Warrior after warrior slashed his chest - Paenther, Jag, Wulfe, Fox - curling their fists around their own blood. Tighe cut himself, then handed the knife to her, hilt first. Faith took it, clasping shaking fingers around the wooden handle, her gaze flicking up to Tighe's. He nodded, his gaze a little sympathetic but mostly demanding. Do it, his eyes said. And she must.

"If you cut quickly, it'll be over before you feel it," Hawke whispered from her other side.

With a single, jerky nod, she took a deep breath, turned the knife toward her chest, squeezed her eyes closed, and cut fast from the edge of one shoulder blade to her sports bra on the other side.

Scorching pain tore across her chest.

"Good girl," Tighe murmured.

"A little deep," Hawke muttered, "but you'll heal."

"I haven't exactly practiced this."

"Silence," Kougar intoned, a hint of laughter in his voice. "Bloody your hand, Faith, or you'll have to cut yourself again."

"Oh." She pressed her hand against the wound, wincing more at the thought of what she was doing than the actual pain. Already, the wound was healing, the pain receding to nothing. Three cheers for immortality. Hawke curled his hand into a fist around his own now-bloody palm, and she mimicked his action.

When the knife had gone all the way around the circle, Kougar shoved his fist into the air. The others followed, Faith a beat late. She felt like a complete and total fraud.

Kara shrugged off her raincoat, raised her hands, and went radiant.

"Stay here," Hawke told her. Then he and the others gathered around Kara, each touching her bare skin. Faith stood apart for what felt like twenty minutes, but was probably less than one, the drizzle soaking her clothes and hair, making her shiver with cold as she kept her fist clenched tight around the damp blood.

Finally, Kougar released Kara and turned to Faith. One by one, the others followed, circling tight around her, towering over her, their combined body heat chasing away the chill. "Lift your fist," Kougar told her.

As she did, Lyon opened his bloody hand and grasped her fist with it. Kougar pressed his hand atop Lyon's, Hawke's atop Kougar's, each following suit until she felt as if she were holding an eleven-scoop ice-cream cone.

Kougar began to chant, switching to English as the others joined in. "Spirits rise and join. Empower the beasts beneath this moon. Goddess, reveal your warrior!"

Thunder rumbled, an unnatural sound. The sound of violent magic. Faith began to tremble. Beneath her bare feet, the rock started to quake almost as badly as her hands. She felt the anticipation of the men pressing around her, felt their anticipation feed her own. Her breath turned shallow, excitement lifting her pulse.

And suddenly energy powered through her, a blast of ecstasy that had her gasping, and then not gasping because she no longer had a mouth. Not a human mouth.

She fell to the ground. No, not fell. Her feet were on the stone, her body upright among a forest of denim and leather-clad trees, her wings tucked tight against . . . her wings. Not trees. Legs.

High above her, Kougar's voice rang out. "Henceforth, you will be known among us as Falkyn."

A falcon. Before the incredible transition sank into her woman's brain, another blast crashed through her mind, a driving, pounding need.

Escape! Escape!

The frantic drive tore through her falcon's breast. She tried to fly, tried to break free of the forest of legs, but hands snatched at her.

"Faith, easy!"