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Ariana’s fingers twisted together as she saw glimpses of the world he’d lived in, flashes of the horrors the Ilina queen had witnessed in that ti

Her chest hurt froo back there To re Part of her wanted to tell him to stop That he didn’t have to continue But a wiser part of her knew he did If he didn’t want to speak of the past, there was a reason

"Satanan’s poas growing quickly, alarether and atteht their oar against the Daeic was of less and less use It all ca the winter solstice when I was half a century old During the week before the solstice, the Daee, and at least a thousand humans We tried to find where they’d taken theht, and even the bird shifters a us couldn’t follow

"Finally, we learned what Satanan was up to--a powerful ritual to create aze spearing her, going right through her "For centuries afterward, that night was called the Night of Screa away in the next breath, he ain, and she followed

"The situation went from bad to desperate as the Daeoal wasn’t survival but doht, the Night of Screams And it took another fifty years for the iether into one cohesive unit to vanquish hie were the ones who came up with the ritual to lock Satanan and his horde in the Daey required was far y was ill suited The Therians had to come on board All of the their poas dangerous If the ritual failed, Satanan would easily destroy us all"

Leaning forward, he rested his powerful foreararden as if oblivious to the celebration taking place below He was caught in another time, and all Ariana could do was stand beside him And listen

"What no one kneas that the vast ic that went into that ritual would never return It’s said that the Therians and Mage willingly ed their power to defeat Satanan, but that’s not entirely true We gave of our power believing it would be replenished in short order It wasn’t

"The ritual worked Satanan and the souls of his horde were captured in the blade But the Mage and Therian alliance severed aluard the blade Still, celebrations broke out in every corner of the immortal world, until the sun set, andthe draden for the first time While we’d captured the souls of Satanan’s horde, s rey Hundreds of Therians died over the next weeks as we fought to find a way to protect ourselves against them For nearly a week, no Therian shifted, but we still believed our poould return The Radiants worked feverishly to pull the energy from the Earth--in those days, every clan had its own Radiant; but they, too, had lost their power and could do nothing Finally, one of the lions shifted I heard his roar that day, and it was a glorious sound It was beginning, we thought All would be back to norained the power to shift One here, another there" He looked up again, his eyes unseeing "It was days before we began to realize only one froained his or her power But in ained that power and never did It eeks before the fear set in that the healing was over That those who had not been able to shift again never would"

He shook his head, lost in the past "The anger The fury I know they were terrified, butgoddess" A pulse of pure anguish escaped thethe emotions close with an iron fist

And suddenly she understood "You were the only one able to shift aar turned to her slowly as if he’d forgotten she was there "Yes"

"And they turned on you" Ariana fisted and flexed her hands, easing the prickly discoer

Hisover as he once uars to shift had been attacked by his clan in a jealous rage and killed Three weeks later, another was h the clans that only one of each line would be marked at a time, another to take his place upon his death And suddenly ere all in danger Men I’d lived with, fought with,out froliness of the past

"Three of my clan ether, we fled to a cave the clan often used during hunting, where they proer died down" Theon a hard, terrible line "It was a setup A trap My father, the clan chief awaited us in that cave, along with the clan’s seven strongest fighters It was his right to be the clan’s shifter, he said A right I’d stolen And the punishar spoke, his hands old reshaped beneath the fury of his fingers

"I shifted and foughtwith ht; but, despite their betrayal, I couldn’t kill them They were my brothers, my family

"A horse shifter, the horse shifter, came upon me as I raced on bloody paws across the valley, badly injured, my clan mates in pursuit The horse told me to shift and hop on, and I did He, too, had been attacked While there had never been any love lost between the cougar and horse clans, we became brothers that day He was the only one in my life who didn’t have a reason to kill me Over the course of the next feeeks, ether, bound by a coth and a common enemy--the rest of our race Alht her to us Then we fled to build a stronghold from which to defend ourselves

"When it becaht could not be overcome, the Therians ceased to attack us Slowly, over the course of years, the nonshifters lost the power they’d once had, the disparity in strength becoar fell silent

Ariana wanted to move closer, but stayed where she was, his past like a wall between them

"The only ones you could trust were the Feral Warriors," she said quietly

"Yes"

And they still were He ht have loved her once, but he’d never fully trusted her because she doubted he could trust anyone but his Feral brothers any hi hiht weto ignore the increasingly unco in her palms as she wished there was a way to make up for the pain she’d caused hiht between the heard it, she realized how much further apart they were--so ht She’d wanted him to open up to her, and he had With his words, his past