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He flinched and started to look away, but she lifted her hand and stopped hiht 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 e both halves of yourself will you heal" She stroked his cheek "You won’t lose your humanity, Hawke What happened to Aren was a si ti a very-newly-razing her face, his thoughts awhirl in his eyes

Finally, hein theory, S And all I know is that if I shift, I won’t come back"

She didn’t knohat to say to that Because she didn’t have an answer And neither, unfortunately, did the falcon The feht understand the probleure out how to fix it Either they’d find their way, or they wouldn’t But if they didn’tand soonshe’d lose theher

Hawke pulled away fro 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 kno 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 hoas he supposed to trust a creature ould steal hiave himself up to the bird, and the bird took off and never ca more than a wild hawk until he flew too far fro and died It would be far better for all involved if the connection severed, if he cleared the way for another to be ht have a ith 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 hiainst 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 ould 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 wouldwith his child The fire in her eyes as she trained as a warrior and fought at his side The glow that would shine froth, 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 the to need you"

She looked up at hi up"

He released a frustrated sigh "I don’t kno to do what the haants s his talons intoto hold on to you, not hurt you"

"You can’t know that"

For aas 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 his to you to keep the splintering fro worse"

Hawke stared at her in stunned silence And felt the truth of her words wash through hilike 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 e And he’d been trying to do it hi his chest began to loosen, that feeling of betrayal He’d thought the hawk had turned against hi to punish hi to save him

"The falcon says that the only way for you to reconnect with your aniive up control Become one mind, one will But you one One -of-war between you, and it’ll snap" She looked up at him, her eyes dark with ain?"

"It doesn’t work that way There is no re-ain "The falcon says she wishes she could help you, but this is so you have to do on your own"

He lifted a brow "She?"

"Her voice is fe to your animal spirit"

"Not in words, not exactly Certainly not in English or any huhts And she hearsglealeam of certain confidence, as a smile of self-assurance lifted her lovely ht hard to claiether"

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 h he’d told her that over and over and tried to believe it himself, wanted to believe it, the evidence had been overwhelh 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 lookstance, at her certain face, at the confidence shining froone A Feral Warrior stood in her place

He kissed her "You are ainst her lips as his hand slid down her back, over her buttocks, to the he put it on her, he knew precisely what she wore underneath Absolutely nothing If his life was al more he wanted To listened in her eyes as if they’d shared the thought "Love me," she said softly