When we get to the house, we shift to human form. All it takes is a simple landing, and the will to return to my body and there I am, standing on the porch.

Mom’s twinkling Christmas lights are on and I swallow hard, feeling overwhelmed with emotion. The hawks sense it and Sawyer asks if I’m all right, noticing that my balance is off.

I’m not sure when they stopped being hawks and became my hawks, but they did, and they are. I am claiming them as mine.

Right now, they are all I have in this world.

Maybe it’s selfish to want them to take care of me right now. But I nearly fall to the ground, not used to shifting from animal to human. Vaughn catches me.

His body, which he seems to think is too big, fits me perfectly. He lifts me up into his arms and carries me inside. He sets me down on my mother’s vintage couch and tells me it’s going to be okay.

He kisses my forehead, but I need more.

I need it all.

Right now I’m lost, and these men found me, and that is everything.

“Kiss me?” I ask him.

No, it isn’t a question. It’s a demand. It’s what I need and want and have to have. I pull Vaughn down to his knees and he settles himself on Mom’s antique rug. I wrap my arms around his neck and look into his big blue eyes, drawing him nearer.

He tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “I could put on the kettle,” he says, so softly that my already broken heart breaks all over again. This rugged man would put on the kettle and make me tea.

I shake my head. Tea isn’t what I want. All I want is for this day to end, to usher it out with a kiss and a touch. With lips on my skin, with hands on my heart.

“You’re my hawks,” I tell them. They stand in the living room, watching me hold onto Vaughn as if holding on to dear life. “Don’t leave me.”

“We never do,” Arrow says softly.

“Make love to me again.”

Brecken shakes his head. “Not tonight, love.”

Love. I cling to the word, desperately.

“Starling,” Sawyer says. “You’ve had such a long day. Shouldn’t you get some rest?”

“You won’t have me?” I ask. “What, now you see me as this sad orphan–a freak of nature–and I’m no longer enough?”

North shakes his head. I look at his steel grey eyes and his crooked nose, wanting him to want me. “Lark, you’re more than enough, but what you need is–”

“You don’t know what I need,” I say, pulling my arms back from Vaughn, feeling rejected. I curl my feet under me, wrapping my arms around my knees.

“You feel alone,” Arrow says, sitting down next to me. “You feel lost. And you’re scared.”

I look at him, hating how right he is. He always seems to take everything in and find reason in the midst of a mess.

“So, what? Because I’m sad, we can’t have sex?”

“Lark,” he says. “Maybe instead of sex, what you really need is a good cry?”

My face falls. “A cry?”

Before anyone can say any more the doorbell rings.

My eyebrows furrow. “Maybe it’s one of my mom’s clients.” I press a hand to my forehead. “Can one of you tell them what happened? I can’t bear to do it.”

North nods and walks to the foyer, toward the front door.

In his absence, Arrow finds a tissue and hands it to me while Vaughn stands, saying he is going to make me some tea.

A few minutes later North returns with a frown.

“They aren’t here for your mom. They’re here for you.”

“Who are they?”

North twists his lip together, and then claps his hands loudly, as if avoiding the answer.

“What? Who is it? Mark? Someone from the show?”

He shakes his head. “The woman says she’s family.”

“I don’t have a family,” I say. But then I think about my mother’s story. I swallow, hard. “Is it my aunt?”

North shakes his head again. “No. Maybe it’s best you meet them for yourself. Want me to have them come inside?”

“Are they safe?”

“To be determined.”

I scowl, confused. “Fine, but if they turn out to be serial killers, you guys can deal with them.”

At that North smiles, and heads back to the door. I sit, curled up on the couch, shredding the tissue in my hand and waiting for whoever is here for me.

A minute later, Vaughn returns, delivering a hot cup of tea. I take it, cradling the mug in my hand. He made me my mom’s special blend of honey, lavender, and chamomile. I can’t deny the tears that spring to my eyes when I inhale the familiar scent. Maybe Arrow is right. Maybe what I need is a really good cry.

“What did I miss?” he asks.

“Her family is here,” Sawyer tells him.

“Possibly,” I say. “We have no idea who they–”

A group of four enters the living room, and I stop talking altogether.

It’s the group from the desert. The woman who put the fire out, who shifted before our eyes and sent the eagle flying toward Gaia’s burst of wind.

Seeing them here in my home is a shock. Up close I can see that the red-headed woman is pregnant; her belly is swollen and her tight black tee shirt stretches over it. The men with her are all wild, with shocks of hair and piercing eyes. Wolves. I set down my tea and stand, confused.

“Who are you?” I ask. “And why are you here?”

The woman steps toward me, in a leather jacket and torn jeans. She’s tall and looks practically feral. Unhinged. Like she lives on the road and hasn’t been inside a home in ages. Her eyes flicker around my mother’s house, taking it in the way Arrow takes in everything.

Except this is different. She has tears in her eyes and desperation written on her face.

“I’m here because I’m your sister,” she says.

“That’s impossible.” I shake my head. “I had a sister, but she’s dead.”

“Dead?” the woman asks, eyes wide, she turns to the men with her, all of them tensing at my words.

I don’t know them. They are strangers and I want them gone. I just want to be with my hawks, to curl up in a bed and – fine, we don’t have to sleep together but they can hold me until my eyes close. Until I fall asleep.

“How did she die?” the woman asks.

I pull my shoulders back, feeling so small compared to the woman before me. We look the same age, but I’m so short and slender, and she is a woman with curves and height and eyes filled with experience.

Still, I am the star of a Las Vegas show. I have a flock of men who have been sent to protect me. I am a woman who can fly.

She doesn’t scare me.

How?” she repeats, her hard edges have gone all soft, and it confuses me, the longing in her voice. “How did she die?”

I lift an eyebrow, tilt my head to the side. “I killed her.”