It was only later, after hersquo;d left her with a slow, deliberate kiss that curled her toes that Lara wondered if shersquo;d prophesied her own heartbreak. Because Walker Lauren mightrsquo;ve kissed her, mightrsquo;ve given her flowers, might even be courting her, but there remained a deep reserve to him. The distance was a solemn reminder that strong, steady Walkerrsquo;s capacity to trust had been broken into far more pieces than her crystal paperweight.
HAWKE asked Sienna to move into his quarters that night, but she needed a little more time to accustom herself to . . . everything. To what shersquo;d gained, what shersquo;d never have, what the future held. So she asked him to sleep in her bed.
Emotions chaotic, her muscles tensed as he curled himself around her. But he kissed her pulse, said, "Sleep. I just want to hold you."
It took her an hour to obey, but when she did, she fell into a deep, dreamless slumber. She woke to find him gone, but hersquo;d left a note commanding her to meet him for dinner at seven. Honestly, she thought with a smile, he couldnrsquo;t help with the orders.
It was that smile she carried into the day, rather than a heart heavy with the echo of loss. The decision had been made and accepted. To rail against it would only poison the beauty of what existed between her and her wolf. After showering, she dressed and grabbed some breakfast before going to stand her shift on the watch rotation. The pack was on high alert, and Sienna never once dropped her guard, but except for the short period when Evie came down to join her for lunch, the day passed about as fast as the average tortoise.
Returning to the den at last, she helped Toby and Marlee with their homework, then went to her room to clean up and ready herself for dinner. Wrapped in a robe, she was staring into her closet when there was a knock on her door. "Indigo," she said, letting the lieutenant inside. "Did you need me for something?"
"Evie said you had a date with Hawke." At Siennarsquo;s nod, Indigo passed her a flat box shersquo;d carried into the room. "A woman needs to pull out the big guns when dealing with a man like him."
Sienna opened the box after the other woman had left with a grin and a hug, to find a simple black dress with spaghetti straps and a hemline that would come to a couple of inches above her knees. Then she put it on. Lusciously soft and silky, the material skimmed over her body with such faithfulness, it appeared as if shersquo;d been poured into it. Not only did it shape her behind, the bodice cupped and plumped up her breasts in the most sensual of offerings. All of it done with flawless elegance.
"I love you, Indigo," Sienna said, feeling sexy and bold and confident. Pairing the dress with delicate, heeled evening sandals, she dried and left her hair unbound. Hawke liked running his hands through it, and since he let her play with the thick silver-gold that fascinated her so, it was only fair.
The knock came just as she finished running the gloss over her mouth. "Yoursquo;re ten minutes early."
The wolf on the other side of the threshold stroked his eyes oh-so-slowly down her body. "You look bitable."
Her hand clenched on the door, because she knew full well he meant it when he said things like that. "Yoursquo;re dressed up." Shersquo;d never seen him in anything but jeans.
Tonight, he wore a black-on-black suit that threw the vivid coloring of his eyes and hair into shocking relief, the shirt open at the collar. But though he looked like he couldrsquo;ve walked out of a spread in some fancy menrsquo;s magazine, there was no hiding the predatory glint in that gaze.
Leaning forward without warning, he fisted his hands in her hair to take her mouth in a kiss that made it clear he considered her his. All his. Every inch of her. Her nipples went tight, her thighs clenching in a futile attempt to ease the ache in between. From the satisfied smile on his lips when he drew back, she knew he was cognizant of her arousal. It mightrsquo;ve made her feel at a disadvantage, except that he made no move to shield his own response.
"Letrsquo;s go," he said, taking a last little nip, "or wersquo;ll never get to dinner."
"Wait," she said as he tugged her out and pulled the door shut, "I donrsquo;t have my purse."
"Wonrsquo;t need it." He began to lead her down the corridor, fingers intertwined with her own.
"Should we be going out when things are at such a critical point?" The military strategist in her was disturbed enough to fight her desire to have him all to herself. "If the Scotts manage to harm youmdash;"
A finger pressed to her lips. "Wersquo;re not going far."
Given his words, she wasnrsquo;t surprised when he led her to his quarters, but she lost every bit of air in her body when she saw the table set with an immaculate white tablecloth, gleaming silverware, and long-stemmed candles, which Hawke lit before pulling out a chair. "Come here."
It was impossible to do anything but obey, particularly when he rewarded her with a kiss that had her breasts rising and falling in shuddering invitation. Pressing another hot, wet caress to the curve of her shoulder, he moved to take a seat, not on the other side of the table, but to her right. She knew why when he uncovered the first dishmdash;a crisp green salad with curling red and orange tendrils of the bell peppers she loved so muchmdash;and lifted a fork.
Chapter 44
HAWKE LOVED HAVING her here, in his territory, all glowing skin and dark hair glimmering with hidden notes of fire. The wolf rolled in her scent, playful as a pupmdash;but Hawke was vividly conscious of the spice-scented arousal that had grown ever hotter as the minutes passed. She hadnrsquo;t rebelled against his feeding her, had in fact, insisted on returning the favor. But the desert bowl had only one spoon, and he had it.
On second thought . . .
Throwing the spoon over his shoulder, he dipped his finger in the rich butterscotch ice cream, brought it to her lips. Her mouth formed a soft, hot vice around his finger as she suckedmdash;then she brought her tongue into play.
Every part of him wanted to lunge at her, but he resisted the primitive urge. This night, it was about her. Shersquo;d given herself to him, and he wanted her to know that he understood the value of her gift, that he would never allow her to feel anything but cherished.
Removing his finger through lips that teased him with their luscious grip, he swirled it back in the ice cream and painted the curve of her mouth with the sweet treat before dipping his head and kissing it off. Her lips were cool from the icy treat, but they warmed up fast, her taste a lick of butterscotch and spice.
"I think," she said, hands clenching on the lapels of his shirt, the top curves of her breasts flushed and plump, "Irsquo;ve had enough dessert."
"Then"mdash;he nipped at her lips because he loved the way her arousal spiked each time he did it, flicked his tongue over the small hurtmdash;"I guess itrsquo;s time for mine." He felt the tremor that shook her frame as he drew her out of her seat, knew it wasnrsquo;t fear. Sliding his hands down her ribs, he rested them on the temptation of her hips. Anticipation turned her eyes to midnight as he backed her out, kiss by slow kiss, from the living area and into his bedroom.
Onto his bed.
"Mine," he said, moving around to the end of the bed after placing her on the sheets, so he could circle his hands around her ankles, tug her forward a couple of inches. "All mine."
"Hawke."
"I like the way you say my name in bed." Lifting one slender foot, he pressed a kiss to her ankle, then undid the strap that held up her pretty sandal and dropped it to the floor. Her foot curled under his touch, a delicate kittenish arch. "Maybe Irsquo;m the one whorsquo;s going to end up with a foot fetish," he murmured, lighting a kiss on her other ankle as he undid the second sandal.
A laugh that sounded startled out of her.
Pleased with himself, he took a playful bite of her little toe as he flicked aside her shoe and raised his head. "Look at you, aroused and sexy and in my bed."
No blush, no hesitation. Those passion-dark eyes followed him as he shrugged off his jacket and threw it on the back of a chair, before beginning to unbutton his shirt. His wolf preened for her.
SIENNA clutched at the sheets, her body making small restless shifts as Hawkersquo;s black shirt parted to expose a strip of masculine chest she wanted to rub up against in the most scandalous of ways. When he tugged the shirt out of his pants and finished unbuttoning it, her throat dried up.
There was something deliciously decadent about a manmdash;about himmdash;in a partial state of undress. As if shersquo;d caught a glimpse of the forbidden.
Kicking off his shoes and socks without taking his eyes off her, he prowled over to the side of the bed. "I like this dress," he said, and it was a vocal caress. "Letrsquo;s not tear it." Putting one knee on the bed, he leaned down to kiss her, pure heated demand. "Turn over," he murmured after hersquo;d melted her bones.
It probably wasnrsquo;t the best of ideas to give him everything he wanted, but she had no willpower where he was concerned. Could any woman resist him when he was like this? Sienna didnrsquo;t think somdash;of course, if any other woman did ever dare touch him, shersquo;d fry the bitch in under a second.
"What just went through your head, hmm?"
She told him the truth, saw the wolf laugh, bare its teeth. "Thatrsquo;s my girl." His hands flipped her onto her front. "You understand itrsquo;s a two-way street?" Fingers pushing aside her hair to bare her nape. "Next time that baby cat puts his hands on you, hersquo;s dead."
"Kit is my friend."
"You canrsquo;t have a baby cat alpha as a friend." A bite on her nape.
Oh, God. It was near impossible to think, but she found the will to reach back and pull on his hair. "Leave my friends alone or Irsquo;ll be forced to get mean."
Licks over the bite, laughter against her ear. "I like you," he said, and she had the deep, deep awareness that it was the wolf part of him that had spoken with such delight.
The tug came an instant later, the zipper being lowered. Then . . . a breath of hot air against her spine, open-mouthed kisses along the skin bared by the parting metallic teeth.
Shivering, she arched for him, felt his fingers slip inside her dress to the curve of her waist. The roughness of his skin was a shock that made her moan. More kisses on her back before he removed his touch to tug down the straps. Instead of turning onto her back, she rose up a fraction and pulled the straps down off her arms, pushing the dress to her waist.
A big, warm hand on her ribs, curving up to cup her breast without warning. Crying out, she fell forward. It trapped his hand between her body and the bedmdash;not that he seemed to mind. Squeezing and petting her with possessive heat, he dropped a rain of kisses over her shoulders.
"No," she protested when he removed his hand.
"I want this dress off." A couple of hard tugs and it was gone, leaving her dressed in nothing but the lace panties shersquo;d bought months ago but never before worn. Theyrsquo;d felt too hedonistic, too sensual. That was before shersquo;d started playing with an alpha wolf.
Pushing long strands of hair off her face, she turned her head to see said wolf straddling her thighs. He was still clothed, that unbuttoned shirt pure provocation, but his eyes had gone night-glow, his face taut with wild hunger. It was instinct to curve her body up toward him, to seek to entice.
His gaze flicked up to meet hers, and then he moved, gripping her jaw so he could take her mouth in a full-bodied kiss that was all tongue and heat and teeth as he slid his free hand under her body to close over the sensitive flesh of one breast, the hard push of his erection insistent against skin naked under fine black lace. It was at that moment, with his beautiful, hungry mouth on hers, his big, gorgeous body pressing down against her own, and his fingers plucking at her nipple that she realized she was in way over her head.
HAWKE knew it the instant Sienna lost her confidence, the instant she started to retreat. Rubbing his thumb over her nipple, he fought his possessive urges and gentled the voracious kiss. She was his. There would be only pleasure for her tonight.
It was difficult to break away from her mouth, to resist the temptation to squeeze and mold her neglected breast. Instead, nudging her onto her back, he nuzzled at her neck before rising to shrug off his shirt. "Touch me?"
Her hands went to his chest at once, petting him the way she knew he liked. It made him want to spread her thighs, settle in between, until he could rub his cock against the damp softness of her. Shersquo;d be so lush, so perfect. Instead, he allowed himself only a single lick to the tip of one tightly furled nipplemdash;to her quivering moanmdash;before beginning to kiss his way down her body.
Her fingers clenched in his hair.
Realizing she was attempting to keep him at her breasts, he smiled, retraced his steps. "This what you want, baby?"
She arched up off the bed when he took her nipple into his mouth, rolling the taut nub over his tongue. Sensitive, very sensitive, he thought, closing one hand over her hip, the touch of lace under his palm a sensual pleasure . . . but nowhere near as erotic as her naked skin. Releasing that nipple without bitingmdash;hersquo;d save that for next timemdash;he swirled his tongue around the other, wanting to drown her in pleasure, until shersquo;d never feel the lack of the one thing he couldnrsquo;t give her.
"Did you enjoy my mouth on your breasts?" he asked after resuming his downward journey.
"You know I did." Husky words, her hands shaping and caressing his shoulders.
Wanting those hands on every inch of his body, he pressed a kiss to her navel. "I like to hear." Her arousal was intoxicating this close to the liquid heat between her thighs, and he had to fist one hand in the sheets to rein himself back before he scared her. "Tell me if this pleases you." Skipping over the damp curls under the small triangle of black lace that teased rather than concealed, he kissed and nipped at her inner thighs.
A shuddering breath. "Yes."
Spreading her legs, he used a single claw to cut the sides of her panties. A tug later and they were gone. Every one of her muscles locked at the same moment, and when he looked up, her eyes were closed tight. His mouth watered to taste the drugging scent so rich and luscious against his tongue, but he wanted her with him.
Rising, he pressed a kiss to her stomach, to her chest, to her throat, to her lips. She opened to him without hesitation, dangerous and wild and Sienna. Only when her hips were undulating up toward him did he run his hand back down to the heat between her legs, caressing her desire-swollen folds with a single finger, his touch delicate. "You like this."
"Yes." A sigh, a roll of her hips as she searched for more.
He cupped her, stroking around the tight, wet entrance that had his cock jerking in the confines of his pants. She cried out into his mouth and gripped his biceps, but he drew away to kiss his way down her body once more. This time her eyes stayed open, and on him.
SIENNA had just barely enough presence of mind to check the cold fire. It was nowhere near critical after the most recent purge, and her reinforced shields were holding. That meant she could enjoy this night, enjoy being with Hawke.
Right now, she wasnrsquo;t sure shersquo;d survive what he intended to do, but oh, how she wanted it. Her body felt like a toy that had been wound up too tight, every part of her straining to reach for something she couldnrsquo;t quite touch. "Hawke, please."
Wolf-blue eyes held her own. "Trust me."
"Always." There was no question of trust, never had been.
A wicked, wicked smile. "I told you it was my turn for dessert."
With that sinful statement, he pulled her legs over his shoulders and gave her a kiss so intimate, her mind roiled with blackness before sparking in a fever of crimson. Shersquo;d never known, never understood. When shersquo;d read about it in the womenrsquo;s magazines, it had seemed like an act that would embarrass her. Right now, she wasnrsquo;t embarrassed. She was eager and needy and so pleasured it hurt.
If the first level of dissonance had been in effect, she wouldrsquo;ve passed out from the pain, but though the sensations were beyond anything shersquo;d ever known, there was no agonizing backlash.
Her wolf had no inhibitions, refused to permit her any either. "A little more," he said, spreading her thighs even farther to allow him better access to flesh swollen and flushed with passion. It made her hands clench on the sheets to imagine how he saw her. Slick and pink and open. Then he began to taste her in slow, wet strokes, one finger entering her in a prelude to the ultimate penetration, and her thoughts fractured into a long, shuddering submission.
She came to, to find a very satisfied wolf at her side. He was drawing patterns on the sweat-sheened skin of her navel with his finger. "How was dessert?" she asked, her throat a husky reminder that shersquo;d screamed at the end.
A flash of teeth. "I plan to go back for seconds in a bit."
She sucked in a breath. "Bad wolf."
Sliding down his hand, he tugged at her damp curls. "Hungry wolf."
Right then, Sienna knew she was sunk. Absolutely and gloriously. "I want you."
Wolf-pale eyes gleamed at her from below a thick fan of lashes. "How much?" A tease and a dare in one.
Turning to push him onto his back, she kissed her way down his throat to bite at his pulse. His hand clenched in her hair, his muscles taut. He didnrsquo;t stop her when she smoothed one hand down that beautiful chest and lower, to the top button of his pants. She had no idea when hersquo;d gotten rid of the belt but she was gratefulmdash;her fine-motor functions were somewhat impaired after the way hersquo;d eaten up his dessert.
Now, she lifted her head, bracing herself with one hand on his shoulder as she looked down to watch her other try to undo the button. He hissed as her fingertips brushed the thrust of his erection, every one of his muscles going so rigid, shersquo;d have thought him in pain except that shersquo;d felt the kiss of raw sexual pleasure, understood.
Frustrated because her fingers kept sliding off the stubborn button, she ignored it and slid her hand under his waistband. To touch hot, hard flesh sheathed in delicate velvet. Her breath rushed out of her, but her hand was being pulled away before she was anywhere close to satisfied, and suddenly, she was flat on her back with a wolf at her mouth, at her throat, at her breasts. He sucked her nipples into his mouth, hard and wet, possessive hands plumping up her breasts for his enjoyment.
She was used to the teeth by now . . . but not the way they made her feel.
Jerking, she went to wrap her leg around his waist, was halted by his hand on her thigh. "Pants," he muttered and rose off the bed in a lightning fast move. A split second later, he was back, pulling her leg over his naked hip.
Sienna tried to push at him. She wanted to see, wanted to pet and caress that hard male body. But then he ran his tongue along the lower curve of her breast, and she lost her train of thought, her hands clenching on the muscled silk of his shoulders. "Kiss me." It was a needy whisper, and it was hardly out before he was there, one hand cupping her face while he braced himself above her with the other, his mouth teasing and playing with hers until she lost her breath, had to break the delicious contact.
"More?" the wolf asked.
She tried to suck in a breath. "Yoursquo;re naked."
A slow, slow smile. "So are you." He slid his hand down her thigh, shifting to stroke through the softest, most sensitive part of her. "So slick," he said, those eyes hot and hungry as he rubbed at the entrance to her body.
Her mind fogged over, her hips rising to meet his touch. When he pressed, she gripped his biceps and pulled him down, intent on tasting his mouth, his neck, any part of him she could reach as he breached her with a finger, adding a second with a slowness that made her shudder. He scissored them just as slow, stretching her tissues and rocking jolts of pleasure through her. Readying her, she thought through the haze, he was readying her body for his possession.
She could feel him against the inside of her thigh, knew the proud thickness of his erection would be nothing easy to accept. Lights flashed behind her eyelids as he used the head of his cock to tease her clitoris. Easy was not something that mattered. She just wanted him. Now. "Inside me." Hurry.
Hawke heard her, but he continued to pump his fingers into her, continued to kiss hermdash;sucking at her lower lip, dipping his head to mark her breasts, her neck. "Not yet." He wanted her all but liquid with pleasure before he took her, because it was going to hurt. No way around it, even if the thought of hurting her in any way pissed him off. She was tight and hot, and he was a big man.
"Let me pet you some more." Sweat shimmered on her throat, and he licked it off, savoring the salt and spice of her. "I love your breasts." They were flushed pink from the brush of his jaw, the touch of his teeth. In a chair, he thought, biting at her lower lip when she ordered him to "Finish it!" He was going to take her in a chair the next time so shersquo;d be astride him and he could play with those pretty breasts as he pleased.
Feeling her muscles clench around his fingers, he kissed his way back down her body again and spread her thighs, inhaling the erotic musk of her. His mouth watered, and since she was his and she was delicious, he decided it was time for seconds. It only took one long lick for her to shatter, but he kept going, using his mouth to pleasure her with flicks and nips and hot little sucks focused on the slippery nubbin of flesh at the apex of her thighs until her body went limp, aftershocks rippling over her skin.
When he prowled up this time, she watched him from beneath heavy-lidded eyes, her chest rising and falling in a rhythm that was pure temptation. "Are you," she gasped as he slotted himself against her, began to push, "like this"mdash;a throaty feminine sound, her tissues liquid fire around himmdash;"all the time?"
He wasnrsquo;t thinking much anymore, consumed by pleasure, but he knew one thing. "For youmdash;yes." Gripping her hip, he slid in another couple of inches, felt her nails dig into his shoulders.
But instead of pushing him away, she pulled him toward her. The leash snapped, and he buried himself to the hilt in a single thrust. Her pained gasp was muffled against his shoulder as her legs quivered around him. Yet she continued to hold him tight. Finding some semblance of civilized thought, he petted her thigh, nuzzled, and kissed until she began to move her hipsmdash;or attempt to in any case. He pinned her to the bed, and he had every intention of using that leverage for her pleasure.
One hand on her hip, he slid back out torturously slowly . . . then slid in the same way. Siennarsquo;s eyes flared open, held his. "Do that again." An intimate demand.
Teeth bared in a feral smile, he did. Then again. And again. Until she fractured around him, those tiny muscles squeezing so tight around his cock he almost came. He wanted to pound into her, to flip her onto her hands and knees, and to mount her in the most primitive of ways, but that could wait. Tonight, this, it was for her. So though his jaw hurt from how hard hersquo;d clenched it, he continued to stroke into her slow and easy and again. And had the pleasure of feeling her body rise to meet his over and over.
This time, he allowed the erotic pulse of her orgasm to sweep him under, wring him dry. "Next time," he murmured in her ear as he collapsed, his heart a fucking drum against his ribs, "Irsquo;m not going to behave."
Chapter 45
TEN HOURS LATER, those rasped-out words had Sienna wondering just how very bad he could be, because if hersquo;d been good last night . . . Dear God. Her body still bore the marks of his passion. The insides of her thighs were stubble-burned, and there was more than one bite mark on her breasts. Remembering how hersquo;d taken her with such primal thoroughness made her skin flush, things clench low in her body. She wanted his teethmdash;
Thwack!
"Ouch!" She slammed up the long wooden staff too late to block Indigorsquo;s strike. "That hurt."
The lieutenant rolled her eyes. "Here I was trying for a love tap. Stop mooning about his wolfiness and start giving me some real competition."
Swiveling the stick, Sienna went for Indigorsquo;s legs. The lieutenant avoided the sweep, but the move put her slightly off balance. Then they were off. Indigo was too experienced for Sienna to take down, but she got in a few good licks, and by the time the practice session ended, her blood was pumping, her black athletic tank stuck to her skin.
"Thanks. I needed that," Indigo said, gulping down water. "What are you scheduled for now?"
"I have a free afternoon." Sienna opened her own bottle, took a long draught. "Thought Irsquo;d spend time with Toby and Marlee, do some work on a course paper at the same time."
Indigorsquo;s eyes gleamed as she put down the water and reached back to redo her long black hair into a tight ponytail. "You know anything of whatrsquo;s happening between Walker and Lara?"
Sienna began to buff her fighting staff with a towel. "What are you talking about?"
Indigo laughed at her fake innocent act. "Theyrsquo;re not getting away with it, you know. Everyonersquo;s just being real polite and pretending not to notice theyrsquo;re kissing each other in dark corners."
Siennarsquo;s lips twitched. "My uncle would never be so common as to kiss a woman in a dark corner."
"No, must be someone tall, blond, and silent who looks exactly like him."
Sienna was still laughing at that dry statement when she went to join the children after a quick shower to wash off the sweat. However, she hadnrsquo;t been at the family apartment long before she got a call from Riley.
"Sienna, I know yoursquo;re meant to have the afternoon off, but can you accompany Mariska and three of her techs up to check on the hydro station?" he said, referring to the "green" system that used the natural power of the water crashing over the mountains to supply the denrsquo;s power. "The plant is secure, and Irsquo;ve got Drew heading up with the team, but he should have backup, just in case."
"Of course, but Irsquo;m with Marlee and Toby. Can youmdash;"
"Itrsquo;s not even a question, sweetheart. Bring them overmdash;they can hang out in the senior soldiersrsquo; break room off my office."
Knowing the kids loved spending time in the hub, which saw a constant rotation of the packrsquo;s dominantsmdash;with more than one willing to pull up a chair to chat to a couple of "pups"mdash;she said, "Wersquo;ll be there in fifteen." It actually took closer to twenty to get everything sorted, but she left her brother and cousin competing with each other to tell Riley their latest news.
Drew was waiting for the team at the exitmdash;or more accurately, he was kissing Indigo and smiling all the while. Theyrsquo;d been laughing before they kissed, Sienna thought, remembering Hawke teasing her as they lay in bed. Shersquo;d felt it when he smiled as he kissed her. It had been more wonderful than she couldrsquo;ve imagined. "Ahem," she said, lips curving at the memory. "At least find a dark corner."
Indigo shot her a laughing look. "Touché." Another kiss before she headed down the corridor, a woman with long, long legs and a body that moved with lithe muscular grace. "Donrsquo;t get shot," were her parting words to her mate.
"Too scared of you to dare!" Drew called out, then grabbed some of the techsrsquo; gear. "Letrsquo;s go, boys and girls."
HAVING spent the day with Matthiasrsquo;s and Alexeirsquo;s teams to make sure they were comfortable with the terrain and aware what their duties would be in a combat situation, Hawke was more than ready to take some time for himself. Thanks to his people, he could.
Waylaying Sienna as she headed to her quarters after returning from the hydro station, he tugged her down to the garage. It was tempting to lick up the taste of her, but if he put his mouth on those lush lips, they wouldnrsquo;t make it any farther than his bedroom.
"Where are you taking me?" she asked once they were on the road, the light diffuse as the first whisper of night touched the Sierra. "Am I being Psynapped?"
His wolf laughed. "Wersquo;re going to play."
It shouldrsquo;ve sounded silly, Sienna thought, when there were so many other things to worry about, but there was no denying that the constant state of battle-readiness was an unrelenting tension at the back of her mind. Last night had been a sensual respite, one that had left her more alert and aware today. "Play isnrsquo;t a waste of time, is it?" she said out loud, having never quite understood that until this moment.
"The wolf has decided that that question doesnrsquo;t deserve an answer."
It made her laugh. "Whatrsquo;s the game?"
"Wait and see."
Half an hour later, he brought the vehicle to a stop deep in den territory, the area so dense with trees that hersquo;d had to punch up the hover drive and get creative in his driving. As he set it down, she peered out at the small cabin hidden amongst the firs. "It looks new." So new the area was still littered with wood chips.
"The lieutenants in the den banded together with the senior soldiers and started to throw it up." He shook his head. "Apparently the other soldiers got wind of it and wanted in. It took them twelve straight hours with a revolving crew and by the end . . . seems almost every able-bodied adult in the den had something to do with either building the cabin or making sure it was furnished."
She heard the stunned joy in his voice, felt her heart clench. "They love you." Just like me.
"Yeah." Shaking his head, he got out and jogged around to open her door. "Irsquo;d have torn into them for spending time on this when wersquo;re so close to war, but Drew tells me the project boosted morale back to normal levels, so . . ." He pulled her from her seat. "This is ours," he said, leaning down to rub his nose against hers. "The arearsquo;s off-limits to the pack when either of us is in the vicinity."
Sienna stood on tiptoe, her hands on his shoulders. "Just us?"
The bright slash of his smile echoed her own. "Just us."
It was an incredible gift. She loved SnowDancer with every beat of her heart, would die to protect the people whorsquo;d become her own, but being able to be truly alone with Hawke for even a few hours, a few minutesmdash;she had no words for the force of her joy. "Letrsquo;s go explore."
Laughing, he followed at her heels as she ran up the two small steps and crossed the porch to push open the door, flick the manual light switch. "Oh, itrsquo;s wonderful," she said as the cabin was bathed in a soft glow. The entire place was a single large room, except for an alcove at the back fitted with a wooden sliding door.
There was a kitchenette off to the left, with a table and two chairs tucked in neatly under the window. To the right was a fireplace set with an eco-friendly laz-fire, in front of which lay a fluffy white rug Sienna could already feel plush and decadent against her skin. The rest of the available space was dominated by a huge bed with a wrought-iron headboard. Her eyes widened.
"Hawke," she said, "why are there fur-lined handcuffs hanging from the headboard?" Stepping closer, she sawmdash;"Theyrsquo;re too big for my wrists." Oh.
Hawke made a growling sound low in his throat. "Probably Drewrsquo;s idea of a joke."
"No," Sienna murmured. "Drew told me to never, ever talk to him about sex. As far as hersquo;s concerned, Irsquo;ll be a virgin until Irsquo;m a hundred, same as Brenna."
Unhooking the cuffs, Hawke brought them to his nose. Sniffed. "Son of a bitch." His grin was half-amused, half-feral.
"Who?"
"Figure it out. Who do you think is sitting at home laughing his ass off at the dance yoursquo;ve led me?"
Sienna paused, considered all the people who cared about Hawke and whorsquo;d dare pull a prank like this. "Lucas," she said. "It was Lucas."
"Damn cat mustrsquo;ve snuck in here after the crew left." He fiddled with one cuff, smiled as it made a snick of sound. "What do you knowmdash;they tighten up fine for smaller wrists."
She didnrsquo;t trust that look. "Hawke."
"Come here." A command, for all that his voice was soft, his eyes hooded.
She swallowed, took a step back. "Um . . . perhaps . . ."
"Scared, Sienna?" Thick, silver-gold lashes lifted to reveal those impossible eyes, the eyes of a husky or a bird of prey.
"No." It wasnrsquo;t fear that caused her heart to beat a staccato drumbeat against her ribs, her blood to turn molten.
Hawke smiled . . . and she realized he was stalking her in slow, steady steps. Twisting, she saw she was about to back herself into a corner. She jerked left, expecting him to stop her. When he didnrsquo;t, suspicion licked through her veins. "Irsquo;m glad yoursquo;re going to be reasonable about this," she said, never moving her eyes off him.
"I like your hair." That wild gaze stroked over her. "Put it down for me."
"I donrsquo;t think thatrsquo;d be a good idea." It was instinct to disobey him, to challenge him.
"I disagree."
Her hair tumbled around her shoulders before she so much as sensed him shift position. He was crouched on the bed, on the other side of the room by the time she realized what hersquo;d done. A very satisfied, very male smile flirted with his lips.
Playing with her, she thought, he was playing with her.
And tonight, there was no leash on the wolf.
"You think yoursquo;re so smart," she said, inching to her left again as he reached back to pull off his T-shirt with masculine roughness. The door was only a few steps away.
T-shirt on the floor, he angled his head in a way that sent his hair sliding over one side of his face. "I think you should take off your top."
"Try it and Irsquo;llmdash;" She shot up a column of cold fire between them, making him come to a skidding halt, his nose a bare millimeter from the flame.
He bared his teeth. She grinned . . . and took off, slamming the door shut behind herself as she dropped the wall of flickering red and gold. Something crashed hard on the wood as her feet hit the earth and her instinct was to turn around, check he was okay. But that wasnrsquo;t the game. And she was nowhere near wolf-fast. He was breathing down her neck in seconds.
But she was an X. A cardinal.
She blocked his way using her abilities until he fell back. Chest heaving, she came to a halt, bracing herself with her hands on her thighs as adrenaline thumped through her. God, but he was fast. Never had she seen anything or anyone move with that kind of speed. Dangerous man. Her man.
Having caught her breath, she rose to her full height. But even with her every sense on alert, she didnrsquo;t have the slightest inkling hersquo;d circled around on her blind side until she turned to find herself staring into eyes gone night-glow. "Pretty, pretty, Sienna."
Gripping her wrists before she could summon the cold fire, he tugged her close, shattering her concentration; his chest was a gorgeous, touchable distraction. There wasnrsquo;t even a hint of sweat on him. It should have been annoying, but she was far too fascinated by the smile flirting with his lips to care. "My Sienna."
The absolute possession in his voice didnrsquo;t scare her. "Yours."
A short, sharp nip at her neck. She shivered with pleasure, before twisting away from him using a move Indigo had drilled into her until it was second nature. She wondered if the wolf lieutenant had known this day would come. Hawke smiled at her, a delighted predator. Then he lunged.
She scrambled backward, only to feel him brush past her and into the forest.
The game was on again.
Taking off in the opposite direction, her night vision ample in the early evening light, she began to laugh inside. This was fun. It was only a couple of minutes later that she felt him pacing her in the trees to her left. Heart pumping hard and fast, she raised a wall of X-fire and disappeared in another direction, muddying her scent by using every trick in the book. It wouldnrsquo;t work of course. He was an alpha, his senses acute, andmdash;
A bouquet of wildflowers in her path.
Laughter bubbling out of her, she picked them up, put a cherry red bloom behind her ear. Taking the rest in hand, she looked up. And realized hersquo;d herded her back to the cabin.
To the bed.
Butterflies in her stomach. Because she understood his words from last night now, knew that hersquo;d been on his very, very best behavior. Tonight . . . tonight shersquo;d be tangling with the dominant, wild heart of him.
Creeping up to the cabin, she tried to locate him in the dark shadow of the trees.
Silence.
Taking a long, deep breath, she made a run for it. Her feet left the ground midway through the journey, and she barely had time to utter a short scream before he dumped her on the bed, the wildflowers scattering around them as he braced himself above her, all playful smile and wolf eyes. "I win." A sharp nip to her lower lip. "Whatrsquo;s my prize?"
Chapter 46
OH DEAR GOD. She was melting into a pile of goo. He was big and beautiful and impossible . . . and hers. He was hers. Not as shersquo;d once imagined he would be, but this bond that continued to grow between them? It was as strong, as precious. "Irsquo;ll brush your hair for you."
He blinked, thought about it. "All right."
Delighted, she waited for him to get off so she could rise. He stayed in place, his gaze never moving off her lips. She parted them, felt his breathing change. "Hawke?"
"Irsquo;ll get you the brush."
She hadnrsquo;t even managed to catch her breath before he was back over her again. "Here."
Taking the brush, she reached up to push one hand through the thick silk of his hair. It was cool, soft, stunning. A wolfrsquo;s pelt given human form. "Beautiful."
"More." He dipped his head, allowing her to run the bristles through the strands. A low growling sound of pleasure accompanied her first stroke, and he lowered his body a fraction, so she could feel his weight against her legs. "Harder."
Obeying, she ran the brush through his hair over and over. "Yoursquo;re closer to your wolf than any other changeling Irsquo;ve ever met." It told her so much.
"I am as I am." A wolfrsquo;s answer. It had no time for overthinking things. "Open your mouth."
She dropped the brush. "Whmdash;" His mouth took hers.
The kiss was hot and deep and all kinds of sinful, his hand closing gently around her throat to hold her in place as his tongue played with hers and his thigh rubbed against the arousal between her legs. When he let her breathe, it was only for the barest instant before he was taking her again. Her hands clenched on his shoulders, muscle and tendon flexing so powerful and hot under her touch.
"Sienna," he murmured against her lips. "Smart." Another bite to her lower lip, this one softer. "Strong." His body settled heavily on her own, his erection a demanding hardness between her thighs. "Mine."
When she used her nails on his back, he growled and dipped his head to suck on the pulse in her neck, making her body arch. Or attempt to. He was too heavy to shift. Fisting one hand in his hair, she breathed in the scent of him and knew that tonight hersquo;d demand more than surrender, more than submission. Hersquo;d demand everything she was, then ask for more.
"Your heartrsquo;s fluttering like a birdrsquo;s." A lick over her pulse.
It took concentration to find the words, to put together a coherent sentence. "This is only my second time, you know." Then she used her mouth on the strong cords of his neck.
He liked that, his chest rumbling against her. "Irsquo;ll make it good for you. You know I will." Arrogant and sexy and tender, he braced himself on one arm, running the fingers of the other down her front, over the buttons of her shirt. "I donrsquo;t like this."
The shirt tore down the middle.
As she sucked in a startled breath, he pressed an openmouthed kiss to the bared flesh of her abdomen, his hand stroking under and around the torn shirt to spread over her lower back.
"Hawke."
Sliding his hand around to the front again, he moved it in slow circles over her navel. "Hmm?" Another kiss, this one on her breastbone. "Does something hurt, baby?"
She shook her head. "Kiss me."
A wolf-sharp smile before he gave her exactly what she wanted. A kiss that tore her wide open with its sensual tenderness and reformed her anew. She nipped at his mouth this time, and he paused, gave her a look out of eyes slitted until she could only see a strip of wolf-blue. "You bit me."
"I say itrsquo;s fair play." She tapped her own lower lip. "Yoursquo;ve done it more than once."
He growled low in his throat, splaying his hand over her ribs. "Bite me again."
Undone, she did. Then, deciding to play as wild as her lover, she dug her fingernails into his shoulders and gripped the taut tendon of his neck between her teeth. He froze above her, his entire body tense with expectation.
She bit down hard enough to leave a mark before releasing him.
He snarled at hermdash;but she wasnrsquo;t fooled. Shersquo;d seen the wolf laughing in his eyes. "I marked you," she said, smug.
His hand closed around her throat. "Maybe Irsquo;m mad at being marked up."
"Are you?"
His answer was to move his hand, place it over her breast, her bra no protection against the primal heat of him. "I know where Irsquo;m going to mark you. Again."
Feeling her flesh swell under his touch, she said, "What if I donrsquo;t like being marked up?"
"Tough." A blur of movement and her bra was in so many shreds around the bed.
Sienna rose toward him in wicked invitation. He made a deep rumbling sound in his throat that peaked her nipples to tight points, and then his lips were on her soft flesh, marking, branding, tasting, and sucking. Thought scattered, sensation crashed. Thrusting her hands into his hair, she held on for the ride of her life.
HAWKE tried to pull himself back, knowing Sienna wasnrsquo;t equipped to handle everything even after last night. He couldnrsquo;t do it. Hersquo;d waited too long for hermdash;wolf and man wanted her with feral ferocity. "If you need to stop me," he forced himself to say, lifting his head to meet her gaze, "do what you need to do."
Cardinal eyes gone black with desire locked with his own. "Are you planning to hurt me?"
He growled. That was a question that didnrsquo;t need an answer.
"Then why," she murmured, "would I want to stop you?" Her hands tugging at his hair, pulling him up so she could seduce his mouth with a hot, drugging kiss. "Give me everything." A whisper. A command.
He didnrsquo;t take orders from anyone . . . but for her, hersquo;d make an exception. Closing his hand over the erotic invitation of her breast once more, he squeezed, catching her responding cry with his mouth. Under his palm, her nipple was hard, pebbled, pure temptation.
Breaking the kiss, he made his way back down her throat, nipping at her pulse because he liked the way that made her body flush with heat, the sensual musk of her deep and earthy. It drugged his wolf, intoxicated the man. Flicking out his tongue to tease the taut bud of her nipple, he smiled as her abdomen quivered under his palm.
He bit her next.
She jumped but didnrsquo;t seem to mind his teeth there. But it was when he began to suck with hard, long pulls while plucking at her neglected nipple that she moaned, her hands clenching in his hair. Filing away that piece of knowledge for future reference, he scraped his teeth over her nipple.
Her entire body jerked.
Switching hand and mouth, he rubbed his thumb over the nipple hersquo;d left wet and throbbing, then settled down to give the other one the same treatment. A rumbling sound of sexual pleasure rolled up from his chest as her ankles locked at his back, merging with her throaty little cries.
When he lifted his head, her breath was jagged, her skin bearing the marks of his loving. But she was very much with him, his smart, sexy Psy. Raising her fingers, she played them over his lips, laughing when he tried to nip at them. Then she growled at him. Delighted, his wolf leaned down to press kisses along her jaw, down the line of her throat.
Her scent was so decadent, so rich. Autumn and spice and steel. He rolled it around himself, happy because as of last night, that scent was intertwined with his own, not to be erased as long as they remained loversmdash;which would be forever. No negotiation. No "out" clause. "Do that again," he murmured, grazing his teeth along the outer curve of one of her breasts.
A shiver across her flesh. "I need."
Nuzzling his way down to her abdomen, he pressed a kiss on her navel, his tongue tasting the perspiration-damp heat of her skin. "Let me satisfy you." He forced himself to go slow, to not rip off the rest of her clothing. Instead, he gave her time to fight, to get away if she needed to as he broke her hold on him to slip off her shoes, then moved to undo her jeans and pull them down her legs, along with her panties.
But she stayed in place, her pretty legs sleek against the skin of his jaw as he threw the clothing off the side of the bed and rubbed his face against her.
"Oh." A short, shimmering sound, her hands fisting in the tumbled sheets.
Intrigued, he rubbed his jaw against the soft skin of her inner thighs once more. Her legs clenched around him, her scent a wild perfume. Wanting to lick it up, he rose onto his knees, spreading her thighs in front of him as he did so. His stubble had marked her soft skin, and he wasnrsquo;t the least bit sorry.
Stroking his hands down her calves, he felt her socks. Chuckled. "I think wersquo;ll leave these on."
She rubbed one socked foot on his thigh. "Shouldnrsquo;t sex be more serious?"
"Baby, which pack have you been living with the past few years?" Leaning down, he kissed the side of her knee before shifting down to lie between her legs.
"Hawke?"
He stroked her legs up over his shoulders. "What do you need?"
THE husky question, asked in a tone that said hersquo;d give her everything, anything, melted Sienna from the inside out. "Yoursquo;re beautiful."
Her wolf looked up, his eyes reflecting silver in the lights that stroked them both in soft gold. "I like hearing you say that. Tell me again after."
"After what?"
"This." Sliding his hands under her buttocks, he lifted her to his mouth and then hemdash;
The scream was torn out of her. It didnrsquo;t stop him, and oh, she was grateful. As he sucked and bit and tasted, she realized hersquo;d been holding back last night in more ways than one. If that had been the dessert, this was the full-course meal.
When he stroked his tongue through her quivering flesh, she lifted herself up to his mouth for more. "Shameless," he teased, letting her feel the edge of his teeth. "Just the way I like you." She got more. A lot more.
Her brain hazed over. Legs crossing at his back as he ate her up like she was the most exotic delicacy prepared for him alone, Sienna surrendered to the rolling waves of pleasure, the breakers crashing over her in a wash of ecstasy so hot and sweet, it made flames lick up along her skin, a splinter of dissonance spear down her spine.
The pain was negligiblemdash;and it shouldnrsquo;t have been.
That worried her, but only for a second, because Hawke raised his head with a final, lingering lick, and moved one hand up to play with the flickering red and yellow of the cold fire. "It doesnrsquo;t burn."
It took massive effort to find enough brain cells to put together an explanation. All she got out was, "No."
Rubbing his jaw against her navel, Hawke moved to press kisses along the insides of her thighs. "No more," she found the will to say. "Canrsquo;t take it."
A chuckle that held total male satisfaction. "What if I want to play?"
"Irsquo;ll kill you," she threatened.
Laughing in a way that told her the primal heart of him was very much in charge, he shifted up her body even as he slid his hand down to cup her with breathtaking intimacy, using one finger to stroke the excruciatingly sensitive entrance to her body. She arched into the touch, and when he bent to take her mouth, she took his in turn. His body was warm muscle and heavy weight on top of her. And his chest . . .
She rubbed against the fine, soft hairs that covered the ridged plane, her nipples tingling with sensation. When he pushed a finger inside of her, she bit down on his shoulder. He growled, holding her head against him as he stroked that finger in and out in a maddening rhythm.
Insane, she thought, he was going to drive her insane. Releasing her grip on his shoulder, she grabbed his head between her palms. "Now."
The wolf looked out at her. "In a minute." He inserted a second finger, parted them inside, caressing her in the most intimate fashion.
"Hawke." She could feel an orgasm approaching again, knew she wasnrsquo;t going be able to fight it.
Of course he didnrsquo;t back off. He petted her even more outrageously. She fell hardmdash;and came to rest in his arms, her entire body so limp with pleasure that the idea of moving was not even to be considered. But when he kissed her, she found she had just enough energy to return the long, lazy tangling.
A stroke inside her, and her tissues quivered at the realization that his fingers were still lodged within. "Sorry," she murmured, "going to sleep now."
A sexy, sexy laugh. Raining a line of hot, wet kisses down her throat as he withdrew his fingers, he spread her legs. It came to her that he was wearing his jeans, that she had on the remains of her shirt. "Clothes."
"Hmm." A momentary coldness and then he was back, hot and hard and very, very aroused.
She sucked in a breath as he pushed in with the blunt head of his cock, her fingernails digging into the skin of his shoulders. It still wasnrsquo;t comfortable, but oh, the rough friction felt good. Pushing one hand into his hair, she undulated her pelvis toward him, welcoming his possession. He shuddered, taking a hard grip on her hip. And then he thrust.
She jerked, tried to process the sensations, realized there was no managing this.
His hand clenching and unclenching on her hip, the bare kiss of claws. It made her shiver, meet his gaze. "Yes," she said, seeing the unasked question in his eyes, this wolf whorsquo;d given her pleasure upon pleasure.
It was like snapping the leash.
Untamed and infinitely hungry, he moved over her, in her, with a hot power that had her crying out, her body going tight around the velvet steel of him. Clawing at his back, she felt his muscles bunch under her touch, his body a creation of raw beauty and wild strength.
Reaching behind himself, he pulled one of her legs off his waist, bent it to the knee, and pushed it wide, spreading her for his possession. His next thrust went so deep it reverberated through her very being. The last thing she remembered was feeling the kiss of claws along the side of her knee as he growled and sank into her in a rush of scalding heat.
Chapter 47
HEART PUMPING LIKE a rapid piston, Hawke raised his head after the orgasm that had almost ripped him in two to look down at the woman who continued to hold him inside. Possessive thing. Nuzzling at her as she tried to open heavy-lidded eyes, he stroked his hand down her thigh and said, "Again."
Her response turned the air blue.
Smiling against her skin, he took a lazy bite out of her breast, licking over the mark that was already fading. Hersquo;d just had the best orgasm of his life, and he felt like he had more energy than he knew what to do with. As for his body, it was more than ready. Remaining seated in her snug channel, he stroked and petted as he checked to make sure he hadnrsquo;t inadvertently hurt her with his claws.
There were no cuts, no injuries. The wolf relaxed, content to play now. When she bit him on the armmdash;hardmdash;the instant he flicked a finger over her clit, he lifted his head. "Still sensitive?"
"Yes, so donrsquo;t even think about it." Hazy, desire drugged words.
Moving his hand, he smoothed it down her leg instead, teasing his fingers over the soft skin at the back of her knee. "Hmm." It was a pleasure all its own to pull out of her tight sheath, especially when her lips parted in a wordless murmur of reluctance.
Pleased with every single thing about her, he flipped her onto her stomach before she could object and slid right back in to the hilt. Her moan was deep, her hands fisting on the sheets. He knew shersquo;d liked itmdash;he could feel her pleasure in every delicate tremor of her internal muscles. "At my mercy," he said, bracing himself on one arm as he ran the other along the curve of her spine.
Her hair, that silky ruby red fire, tangled with his hand, made him think of the darker curls between her legs. Body humming with remembered pleasure, he flexed his cock inside of her, felt her roll up toward him. It caused his entire body to throb. So he did it again. She responded.
It was a long, lazy loving this time, filled with hot scents and the quiet murmur of lovers lost in each other.
LARA straightened her hair in the mirror for the thousandth time and checked in with Lucy via the comm.
"Donrsquo;t worry," the young nurse told her. "Irsquo;ve got everything covered. And I know yoursquo;re only next door if we have an emergency."
"Sing-Liumdash;"
"Is fast asleep, her mate curled up around her. Take advantage of this timemdash;you wonrsquo;t have any free time soon if things go the way everyone thinks they will."
Knowing the nurse was right, she nodded and signed off. Then she slid her hands down the front of her simple black wrap-around dress, tucking her curls behind her ears, knowing theyrsquo;d pop right back out, and called her best friend, Ava. "How do I look?"
"Gorgeous, hot, and delicious."
Lararsquo;s lips twitched. "Thanks."
Avarsquo;s eyes turned solemn. "He came to you, Lara, so the manrsquo;s earned brownie points in my book, but it doesnrsquo;t alter who he is."
"Irsquo;m not so sure," Lara murmured. "I see beyond the shield now, Ava, and the man I see? Hersquo;s capable of giving me everything I need and more." She had to hope, to believe that she could get Walker to see that, too.
"In that case," her best friend said with a wide smile, "lock the door and kiss his brains out."
Lara pressed her hands to her stomach at the idea of it. "I better go. Hersquo;ll be on time."
He was.
She drank in the sight of him as she opened the door. "Hi." Dressed in jeans and a crisp white shirt with the sleeves folded back to the elbows, he looked calm and contained and distant. She wanted to muss him up so badly she had to curl her fingers into her palms to restrain the urge.
Entering when she stepped back, he closed the door behind himself. His eyes lingered on her face, on her curls, before sweeping down the front of her dress, back up. "Why are we watching a movie, Lara?"
"Imdash;itrsquo;s what people do on a date?"
"Do you want to do that?"
Unable to read anything on that calm face, in those steady eyes, she said, "Wersquo;re alone. We can do whatever we want."
"In that case, Irsquo;d like to kiss you." Reaching out, he curved his hand around the side of her neck.
"Oh, well . . ." Her lips parted of their own accord, and when he dipped his head, she could do nothing but stand on tiptoe, her hands tight on his shoulders.
He raised his head far too soon. "The sofa will work better," he murmured and lifting her into his arms, carried her to the seat.
She found herself sitting on his lap moments later, one arm around his neck, the bottom part of her dress having split to reveal a dangerous length of thigh. It mightrsquo;ve embarrassed her, except that Walkerrsquo;s eyes were trained on that bared flesh, and all she could think was that shersquo;d die if he didnrsquo;t put one of those big, capable hands on her.
"I," he said, tugging the two parts of the dress farther apart, "donrsquo;t know much about intimacy."
"No?" It came out husky. "Yoursquo;re doing just fine." So fine her heart was going to beat out of her chest at any minute.
"Do I have permission to touch you, Lara?"
Of course hersquo;d ask. He was Walker. He took nothing for granted. "Any and all skin privileges you want," she whispered, wanting no mistakes on that score.
Light green eyes met hers for a blazing instant before he closed the callused roughness of his hand over her calf, ran it up to cup the back of her knee. "So soft."
Shivering, she reached down to tug at his hand. "Itrsquo;s sensitive."
He didnrsquo;t move. "Does it hurt?"
"No. The other kind of sensitive." The kind that had her nipples peaking against the soft fabric of her dress.
"Then Irsquo;ll touch you there again later." Sliding that hand up over her thigh, he flattened his other over her spine.
When he didnrsquo;t make any other move, she looked up, met his gaze. "Walker?" He was a dominant, notwithstanding the fact that he didnrsquo;t wear a wolfrsquo;s skin. Men like that didnrsquo;t hesitate once they had permission.
"This"mdash;a squeeze of her thigh that had her stomach tensingmdash;"isnrsquo;t the only kind of intimacy, is it, Lara?"
Always, he surprised her, this man. "No," she whispered, stroking her fingers up over his nape and into his hair.
"Will you tell me about your parents?"
Her heart twisted into a thousand knots at the quiet, powerful request. This wasnrsquo;t how shersquo;d imagined the night would go. It was a thousand times better. "You know my father is Mack, the senior tech in charge of the hydro plant."
"And your mother is Aisha," he said at once, "one of the chief cooks."
"Yes. Theyrsquo;re wonderful." Smart and loving and devoted, both to each other and Lara. "Though my mother despairs of my cooking skills."
"I know. Aisharsquo;s the one who makes up the plates I bring you." A spark of unexpected humor in that stunning green. "We get along very wellmdash;possibly because wersquo;re in agreement on the fact that bullying you into taking care of yourself is not only acceptable, but necessary."
It startled a laugh out of her to think of her vibrant, chatterbox of a mother and thoughtful, intense Walker as conspirators. "I wondered how you knew all my favorite dishes!" Wolf happy at the knowledge that the people she loved liked each other, she feathered her fingers through the hair that brushed his nape. "What about you?" she asked, so content in this moment that it hurt.
"Though the births were spread out over fourteen years, Judd, Kristine, and I were full siblings," he said, running his fingers over her thigh. The caress made her suck in a breath, but she didnrsquo;t push for sexual skin privileges. Not now, when Walker was opening up to her in a way shersquo;d never expected. "It made logical sense since the combination of maternal and paternal DNA kept creating high-Gradient offspring."
"It sounds . . . but I guess thatrsquo;s the way it is in the Net."
"Yes. My daughter was conceived by the same method."
But not brought up in the cold, Lara thought. Marlee had always been a child confident in her fatherrsquo;s protection and love, even when theyrsquo;d first defected. "Yoursquo;re a good father, Walker," she said, placing her free hand on his cheek. "You understand children."
Shadows moved across those rugged features. "Thatrsquo;s why they put me in charge of the telepathic children drafted into the Arrow Squad."
Lara wasnrsquo;t shocked. Part of her had always known hersquo;d been no ordinary teacher. Linking her arms around his neck, she leaned her head against his shoulder and said, "Irsquo;m here."
As the minutes passed, Walker relaxed against the sofa, his hand smoothing up and down her back. Then he began to speak, telling her of being taken from his classroom as a twenty-two-year-old barely out of college and assigned to a school that offered intense one-on-one sessions to its students. "Ages four to ten," he said. "I didnrsquo;t know then that the children were apprentice Arrows, but I saw at once why theyrsquo;d been segregated, understood that they needed dedicated training."
Lara didnrsquo;t know much about Arrows, but she knew Judd had been one, and so she could guess. "Their strength was dangerous."
"Yes." He tugged her closer, his hand rubbing the sensitive skin of her thigh. "I had no problem with my reassignment, with helping the children harness their abilities."
She nuzzled at him, the act affectionate, nonsexual. "Something changed."
Leaning into the tiny kisses she brushed over his neck, he said, "Day by day, I began to see the light go out of my studentsrsquo; eyes in a way that was more profound than could be attributed to the Protocol." The hand on her back slid down to clench on her hip, hard enough that she knew he wasnrsquo;t aware of it. "Then I began to notice how many of them missed a day or two for medical reasons."
Lararsquo;s eyes burned, her healerrsquo;s heart able to guess what was coming.
"Arrows are taught from childhood not to feel pain," he continued. "The easiest way to do that is to put them through such excruciating pain that the mind learns to shut it out. The side effect, of course, is that it turns them into merciless killers."
Lara swallowed her tears. "Judd."
"As a Tk, he had a different teacher in a different location. His name was wiped from the family records, and according to the PsyNet he no longer existed." The people who had sired Walker, Kristine, and Judd had signed away their rights to their child when he became too difficult to handle. "I had no idea where he was until he was old enough to skirt the psychic safeguards of his trainers, locate and teleport to my apartment."
Walker thought of the first time hersquo;d seen his now teenaged brother, glimpsed that same dead expression in Juddrsquo;s eyes that he saw daily on the faces of the children he taught. The only thing that had kept him going was that Judd had come home. Even after everything theyrsquo;d done to him, he had come home.
Lararsquo;s hand curved gently around his nape. "He came to you, not your parents."
That she understood the words he didnrsquo;t say, couldnrsquo;t speak . . . "We had no connection to them beyond our biology." Fisting one hand in her springy curls, he anchored himself to the present. "Defection wasnrsquo;t something we even considered at that time. There was nowhere for us to go, the Council was so powerful." All hersquo;d been able to do was ensure that his brother knew he hadnrsquo;t been forgotten, would never be forgotten.
Then history had begun to repeat itself with Sienna, and it was the final straw. "Lara, I need you to know"mdash;because he didnrsquo;t ever want her to look at him and wondermdash;"I never hurt a child in my care." Hersquo;d risked everything to teach his students telepathic tricks they werenrsquo;t permitted to know, and then hersquo;d taught them how to hide the knowledge. It had been the only weapon he could give those small, vulnerable minds.
"Oh, Walker, I know you would never harm a child. I know."
The unswerving conviction in her voice, it destroyed something hard and dark and ugly inside of him, sanded away more and more of those jagged edges. His lips were on hers before he knew he was moving, the warm strength of her a benediction hersquo;d never expected.
SIENNA didnrsquo;t realize anything was wrong until after Hawke fell asleep, having first exhausted her into limp incoherence. When shersquo;d recovered after that second loving to complain that she hadnrsquo;t gotten a chance to explore his body yet, hersquo;d laughed and promised that she could have her turnmdash;after he got the edge off.
"Pretty long edge," shersquo;d gasped ten minutes later, hair falling around her face as he slid into her from behind for the second time.
That had earned her a kiss on the back of her neck, his fingers curving down to flick the tight bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs. "You have no idea." A knowing touch circled her clit as she quivered from the shock of his first caress. "See that chair? Having you astride me is next on my list."
The rough greed in his voice had sent heat rocking over her body, a darkly pleasurable sensation. However, this, what she felt now, was uncomfortable, as if her body was boiling from the inside out. Wiggling out from under Hawkersquo;s arm, she muttered, "Bathroom," when he wouldrsquo;ve stopped her, and made her way to the private alcove at the back of the cabin. Throwing water onto her face, she wiped it with a towel, but her skin continued to burn.
That was when she looked in the mirror.
And stopped breathing.
Her eyes were goldmdash;blazing, flickering gold. Swallowing, she tried to quiet the panic that had her pulse in her mouth. The second level of dissonance hadnrsquo;t kicked in, so whatever had caused this, it didnrsquo;t indicate a dangerous loss of control. With that reassuring thought, she went within her mind, ready to reinforce the shields that contained the buildup of X-fire. To find them burned out. Oh, God.
The lines of dissonance programming had literally been buried under an avalanche of power. That shouldrsquo;ve been impossiblemdash;the pain shouldrsquo;ve blanked her into unconsciousness long before it got to that stage . . . except she was an X. A cardinal. No one knew how her power functioned, not in truth.
Connected as the events seemed, she knew the collapse wasnrsquo;t as a result of the emotional impact of the previous two nightsmdash;her response to Hawke had been wild and dark and passionate long before theyrsquo;d shared intimate skin privileges. "Calm," she said out loud. "Calm." When she had some kind of a handle on herself, she began to rebuild that which had been burned away . . . only to watch as the cold fire began to devour it at almost the same instant.
Horror filled her veins, speared through her mind.
But at the center of it was a cold, clear understanding.
Shersquo;d thought shersquo;d beaten the X-marker, but all shersquo;d done was corral itmdash;there was no way to stop its progression. Her periodic purges had acted as a pressure regulator, but that regulator was no longer big enough. The power had grown in an exponential cascade over the hours shersquo;d slept, until it was a massive beast shoving at her shields, wanting out.
All indications are that your power develops in erratic and unpredictable surges. At some stage, the surge will overwhelm.
Shersquo;d forgotten Mingrsquo;s prediction, or perhaps she hadnrsquo;t wanted to remember it. In this, the bastard had proven right. "No panic, Sienna. Think." Pacing in the confines of the bathroom, she realized the first thing she needed to do was earth the cold fire, buy some time.
It took her five minutes to sneak outside without waking Hawke, and she was convinced he didnrsquo;t rise only because he could scent her and knew she was safe. The instant her bare feet hit the forest floor, she punched her power into it, the ground burning with phantom flames for almost a minute before the X-fire soaked into the earth.
Yet when she looked into her mind, she saw that by morning, the buildup would be close to critical once more. The cold fire was voracious, and it wanted to consume everything in its path, but that wasnrsquo;t the most terrifying truth she saw inside the conflagration of her mind. Synergy, the catastrophic crest of an Xrsquo;s power, wasnrsquo;t just possible, it was highly probable.
There was no going back once an X hit synergy.
Glancing behind her at the cabin, she rebuilt a second layer of shields before walking back inside. Her eyes had returned to normal, and so she allowed herself to stay with Hawke, to sleep in his arms this night.
One last night.
Chapter 48
MORNING CAME TOO soon, and along with it, the harsh reality of the inevitable consequences of the amplification in her power levels. She was grateful for Rileyrsquo;s early morning call seeking to talk over a security issue with Hawke. It gave her an excuse to keep the discussion on martial matters on the drive back, a topic she could handle even with her concentration fractured.
Her luck ran out when they reached the den.
"You okay?" Fingers gripping her chin, wolf-blue eyes piercing her through and through. "Did something I do last nightmdash;"
"No," she interrupted, wanting nothing to tarnish the memory of that wonderful, impossible, beautiful night. "I guess Irsquo;m just . . . processing." Not a lie.
A slow smile. "Herersquo;s something else for you to process." His kiss burned her with a far more welcome fire than the cold that licked through the psychic pathways of her mind. But she couldnrsquo;t remain in his arms forever.
"Okay," she said, pacing from wall to wall inside her quarters. "Time to think." She couldnrsquo;t do anything about the buildup of power, not here, not now, but she could get the hell away from those who had no idea how close they were to an armed and deadly weapon. Once at a sufficient distance, shersquo;d have more room to consider her options, work out solutions.
In spite of the practical, positive nature of her thoughts, her heart was a lump of stone, terror crawling a thousand spidery fingers in her mind. Though shersquo;d earthed it only hours ago, her power was already at over sixtyfive percent. There was no escaping the cold, hard truth that there would come a time when she would turn into a living torch, her body spilling over with too much X-fire to allow even the faintest illusion of control.
He isnrsquo;t my mate.
Pain roared through her chest, but for the first time, the idea of never having that bond with Hawke didnrsquo;t tear her heart in two, but saved it. If he had been her mate, the shock of her violent death mightrsquo;ve been lethal. "Thank you," she whispered to whatever unknown deity had given her that priceless gift.
The LaurenNet, her family, they would be safe. Judd and Walker were strong enough to hold Toby and Marlee in the network after Sienna was gone. If she was less selfish, shersquo;d cut her link to the LaurenNet now, allow her mind to starve to death. "No," she said, hands fisted. That cold voice was Mingrsquo;s, the voice of a man whorsquo;d only ever seen her as a thing to be used.
But she was a sister, a niece, a cousin, a friend, a packmate . . . a lover. Suicide would forever haunt those she left behindmdash;Sienna knew that better than anyone. And, even though the odds appeared impossible, shersquo;d never been the giving-up type. Shersquo;d fight to the bloody, bitter end to live.
Less than twenty minutes later, shersquo;d packed a small bag and was ready to depart, her power levels having punched up to hit seventy-nine percent. Seeing Hawke was out of the question, no matter how much it hurt her not to go to himmdash;hersquo;d know, and she couldnrsquo;t afford for him to stop her.
Her sweet, gentle baby brother, a boy whorsquo;d already lost his mother, would also know, but shersquo;d have chanced that to hug him tight if she hadnrsquo;t been so afraid her power would go unstable while she was still in the den.
Walker would protect him, she thought, fighting back tears because they had no place here, in the most crucial battle of her life. Walker would lay down his life for Toby. So would Hawke, Judd, Riley, Indigo, Drew, Brennamdash;so many people loved him. Sunny-natured Marlee would reach him even if everyone else failed. And she could rsquo;path him later when she was at a safe distance, make sure he wasnrsquo;t afraid, that he knew she loved him.
Hawke isnrsquo;t a telepath.
Her eyes glanced off the phone she was leaving behind because it contained a tracking chip. She wouldnrsquo;t be able to contact him if she failed in her last desperate attempt to contain her power, wouldnrsquo;t be able to tell him the secrets of her heart. But hersquo;d knowmdash;how could he possibly not know how much he meant to her?
The physical act of leaving was easy. No one had any reason to stop her. She didnrsquo;t make any detours until she was well past the lake. Then she began to run, raising a wave of X-fire at her back. The intensity of it would erase the scents on the ground, in the air. Hawke might still be able to track her, but she had a head start and the most painful incentive to get as far as possible from those she loved. She would not murder them, would not become the monster Ming had trained her to be.
An hour later, her power hit one hundred percent.
HAWKE was speaking to Riley about Alexeirsquo;s team of snipers when Toby ran up to them. The boy was so well behaved that the instant he grabbed Hawkersquo;s hand and tugged, he had both menrsquo;s immediate and total attention.
"Sienna." Toby sucked in a breath, his face red, his chest heaving. "Shersquo;s in trouble."
Hawkersquo;s wolf went predator-quiet. "Where is she, Toby?"
"I donrsquo;t know." Stark terror in the skin stretched tight over his skull. "Her star is like ice in our net. But therersquo;s fire inside." Trembling voice, a sheen of wet on those eyes. "You have to help her."
Hawke took Tobyrsquo;s face in between his palms, captured the boyrsquo;s distraught gaze with his own. "You did the right thing coming to me. Irsquo;ll find her." Always. She was his.
Toby gave a jerky nod. "You gotta go. I think shersquo;s running away."
No way in hell.
"Riley."
"Irsquo;ve got him." Riley put his hand on top of Tobyrsquo;s head.
"Go," both man and boy said.
He left, fury beating in every pulse of his blood. Did she really think hersquo;d let her go? That hersquo;d lie down and accept the fact that shersquo;d cut and run? If she had, she was going to get a nasty surprise when he caught up to her. Because Hawke was feeling all kinds of mean.
A single question and he knew she hadnrsquo;t checked out any of the vehicles. Which meant she was on foot. He shifted to wolf form mid-run, following her scent out of the den and to the lake. Anger had his wolf digging its claws into the earth, but worse was the jagged sense of betrayal. How dare she do this? How dare she think to isolate herself in this way? They were going to have the mother of all fights when he caught up to her.
Which he would do, very, very soon.
Sienna was smart, but she wasnrsquo;t wolf, wasnrsquo;t alpha. He lost her scent at the lake. It didnrsquo;t matter. Because he knew her. He also knew this territory like the back of his hand. Cutting across the land with the speed of a predator infuriated with the woman hersquo;d claimed as his own, he planned to head her off in under three hours.
SETTLING them in the break room off the infirmary, Lara made Toby and Marlee cups of hot chocolate, and handed out cookies. "Sienna will be fine," she said, ignoring the tear tracks Toby furtively wiped away, and hoping her words werenrsquo;t a lie. "Hawkersquo;s gone after her." Hawke always ran his prey to ground. Always.
Marlee scrunched up her nose. "I bet he was mad."
Toby nodded to his younger cousin. "Yeah, Siennarsquo;s in big trouble."
They began to discuss whether they wanted to swap their cookies.
Startled, Lara looked up to meet Rileyrsquo;s gaze. The lieutenant gave a single satisfied nod before leaving the children in Lararsquo;s caremdash;though Lara wasnrsquo;t certain they were as sanguine about the situation as they appeared, especially Toby. But, having dealt with more than her share of boys, she didnrsquo;t fuss. Instead, she moved around to fix the ribbon on Marleersquo;s braid. "Did you tell your dad what was happening?" Walker would want to know as soon as possible.
"Uh-huh." Marlee nodded. "He was helping Riaz with the older kids far away. Hersquo;s coming home though." Eyes identical to her fatherrsquo;s pinned Lara to the spot when she finished with the ribbon. "Ben says you smell like my dad."
Lara hesitated, glanced at Toby . . . to see no surprise on the boyrsquo;s face. Of course not. He was empathic, had to have picked up the undercurrents long ago. "Does that bother you?" she asked both children.
Toby just shook his head, but Marlee dunked her cookie and took a bite before saying, "No, Dad needs someone to cuddle him, too." A brilliant smile. "And me and Toby, we think yoursquo;re pretty great."
Wanting to smile at the idea of anyone cuddling Walker, Lara pressed a kiss to Marleersquo;s cheek before moving over to pour Toby some more hot chocolate. "You need anything else, sweetheart?"
Toby looked up, a quiver in his lower lip that he bit down to still. "A hug."
"Oh, Toby." Going to her knees, she embraced him tight. "We wonrsquo;t permit her to handle this alone. Wersquo;re pack."
A small hand brushed over her own as Marlee patted Tobyrsquo;s back. "Donrsquo;t be sad, Toby. Hawke wonrsquo;t bite her very hard for running away."
Tobyrsquo;s eyes went huge as he drew back from the hug . . . and then he started laughing, turning to wrap one arm around his grinning cousinrsquo;s neck to tug her to his side.
From the mouths, Lara thought, her own lips twitching, of babes.
SWEAT was trickling down Siennarsquo;s back, her face, pasting tendrils of hair to her temples when she crested the rise and found herself two meters from a very pissed off wolf. "No," she whispered. "You canrsquo;t be here." In the hours since shersquo;d left the den, shersquo;d realized that there was no way to turn back the psychic clock, no way to escape the inevitable. The only thing she could do was make sure she didnrsquo;t take anyone else with her. "Go back."
The wolf snarled, lips peeled back to display razor-sharp canines.
It was difficult to stand her ground when all she wanted to do was go to her knees, wrap her arms around him, and ask him to make it alright. But even Hawke couldnrsquo;t fix this, fix her. "Irsquo;m close to a lethal breach," she said, breath coming in ragged gasps. "You have to leave."
His response was to pace around her in a slow, predatory sweep. Dropping her pack, she swigged from the bottle of water shersquo;d refilled at a stream an hour ago. "Stop trying to intimidate me and listen, you stubborn wolf!"
Pale eyes dared her to continue.
She folded her arms. "Irsquo;m not being melodramatic or a diva or a child." The time alone in the wide-open spaces of the Sierra had given her room to breathe, quiet the nascent panic to cold reason. "My power is amplifying at an exponential rate. I could go active at any timemdash;in the bedroom, at the infirmary, in the nursery."
Hawke walked over to stand right in front of her, his ears pricked, his body motionless. She wasnrsquo;t surprised in the least when he shifted in a storm of light and color. When it passed, he towered over her, his anger as feral as it had been in wolf form. "You. Left. Me."
It was the last thing shersquo;d expected him to say. "It was for the best." He had her scrambling backward before she realized it. Her back hit a tree trunk. "Irsquo;m dangerous. Imdash;" His mouth on her own, his hand gripping her at the nape as his body pinned her against the tree.
She shouldrsquo;ve resisted, but how was she supposed to exercise restraint when he was everything she had ever wanted?
Seventy-three percent.
Time, she had time enough to love him. Rising on tiptoe, she gripped at his waist as she met him kiss for kiss, breath for breath.
When he reached down and ripped open the button-fly of her cargo pants, she kicked them off after toeing off her boots. Her panties were in shreds an instant later. She shifted her grip to his shoulders as he lifted her up, wrapping her legs around his waist. And shuddered, her every nerve sparking with near-painful need as he claimed her with a single primal thrust.
But even wild with possessive fury and animal need, he remembered to brace one arm around her lower back, the other around her shoulders, so she didnrsquo;t get pounded into the rough bark of the tree. Then he took her, kissing her with such ferocious demand that she could do nothing but give him everything he wanted.
"You left me." A husky accusation against her ear.
"Irsquo;m sorry. Irsquo;m sorry." Fisting her hand in his hair, she kissed him in ragged apologymdash;she couldnrsquo;t say she wouldnrsquo;t do it again. That choice had been taken out of her hands the instant shersquo;d been born an X. "Love me."
"Always."
THEY sat in the silver-green shade of the tree afterward, its branches shimmering in the sunlight. Sienna had managed to knot the top of her cargos across her hips, though they hung precariously low, while Hawke sat unashamedly naked, with her in his lap. His chin lay on her hair, one muscular arm around her shoulders, his free hand heavy on her thigh.
Head on his shoulder, she traced her fingers through the soft hairs on his chest. "I thought Irsquo;d beaten it. I thought Irsquo;d be the X who survived, but I was just fooling myself. I shouldrsquo;ve looked more carefully, shouldrsquo;ve realizedmdash;"
"You had no one to teach you," he said with changeling fierceness. "Yoursquo;re doing the best you can in a wilderness no one knows how to navigate."
"I never said," Sienna murmured, "but part of me always thought wersquo;d find Alice Eldridgersquo;s book on X-Psy and that it would have all the answers. Stupid, isnrsquo;t it? But I guess even an X can believe in fairy tales." Her hand fisted against him. "I canrsquo;t go back. Irsquo;m not safe." Never would be safe.
"Then we stay up here." An absolute statement.
Shersquo;d never felt so cherished, so wanted, but she allowed herself only a moment to revel in the joy of it. "No. The pack needs you."
Hawkersquo;s hand slid up to her hip. "Pack is built on the bonds of family, of mating, of love. You come first. You always will."
Tears burned at the backs of her eyes. "You are their heart, Hawke." Especially now, with Henry and his fanatics about to launch an assault.
"As yoursquo;re mine." Reaching up to stroke the tangled mess hersquo;d made of her hair, he released a breath. "When Rissa died, part of me broke. Even at ten, I knew I wasnrsquo;t just losing my best friend, I was losing part of myself."
"If I could bring her back for you, I would." In an instant, even if it meant she would have to watch him love another woman.
"Shh." A shake of his head that said she didnrsquo;t understand. "Rissarsquo;s death, her life, shaped me. Shersquo;ll always be a part of me, but I havenrsquo;t been the boy she knew for a long time. Youmdash;and only youmdash;hold the manrsquo;s heart."
Sienna froze. "You mustnrsquo;t say that." Theyrsquo;d never have the mating bond, but this, what he was giving her, it was as precious, as binding. As painfully beautiful. "You mustnrsquo;t."
"Ah baby, you know I do what I want." Rubbing his chin on her hair, he squeezed her hip. "Man and wolf, we both adore you. No way am I letting you go after the hell yoursquo;ve put me through over the years."
He was teasing, but she couldnrsquo;t find any laughter inside of her. "I donrsquo;t know how to stop this"mdash;an excruciating, angry helplessnessmdash;"how to survive it." But she would find a way to send him back. Because SnowDancer needed him now, more than ever, this man with a heart so big, hersquo;d held a broken pack together and made it strong again, a man whorsquo;d given sanctuary to the enemy . . . a man whorsquo;d loved an X.
Chapter 49
JUDD RETURNED FROM checking out a warehouse the novices had fingered in the city to find Walker waiting for him. His brother had wanted to tell him the news about Sienna in person, and now they leaned against one of the huge glacial rocks that littered this region, their backs warm, their blood chilled.
"Hawkersquo;s with her," Judd said, and it wasnrsquo;t a question.
"Has your contact found anything?" Walker asked in a tone so devoid of emotion, it wouldrsquo;ve been easy to believe he cared nothing for Sienna.
The same man, Judd thought, had taken a near-broken teenage boy into his arms and told him he would always, always be family. The fierceness of that quiet declaration had given Judd an anchor in the midst of utter darkness, given him the will to survive. "I have a meeting with him tonight."
"What are the chances?"
"I donrsquo;t know."
Three hours later, in the otherwise empty nave of an old, abandoned church he got his answer. It was a devastating one.
"There is no second manuscript," the Ghost told him.
A bleak gray invaded his mind. "Are you certain?"
"Yes. Alice Eldridge had an eidetic memory. According to the records I was able to unearth, she burned her research notes on the X designation when it became clear that Silence was inevitable. The implication is that she did so in an effort to stop the Council using her research in ways it was never meant to be used."
Judd didnrsquo;t need the other man to spell it out. "The only remaining record was in Eldridgersquo;s head."
"Yes."
It was the final staggering hit. "Wersquo;re going to lose Sienna." A cold, hard rock in his chest, the knowledge that he wouldnrsquo;t be able to keep the promise hersquo;d made to Kristine, wouldnrsquo;t be able to keep her daughter safe. "Therersquo;s no way to halt the buildup of cold fire once an X reaches this level."
The Ghost considered this, considered, too, what would happen if Sienna Lauren did survive. An X was power. A cardinal X was power without limit. She was a wildcard he couldnrsquo;t control, one that might disrupt all his meticulously laid plans.
Then he looked at Judd, at the fallen Arrow who had walked with him even knowing what and who he was, who had kept his secrets. The Ghost knew nothing of friendship, but he understood loyalty and fidelity. He also understood that sometimes, plans needed to changemdash;and that change could be used to a smart manrsquo;s advantage.
"Come," he said to Judd. "I have something to show you."
Judd followed him down into the crypt, keeping enough of a distance between them that he was never in any danger of seeing the Ghostrsquo;s face.
"Why do you do that?" the Ghost asked. "You know who I am." Perhaps the only one who did. Even Father Xavier Perez, the third part of their curious triumvirate, had never made the connection.
"If I am ever taken," Judd said, his words those of a man who knew danger could come as a silent shadow in the dark, "my mind is set with triggers thatrsquo;ll erase your name from my memory banks at a single mental command. Images are more difficult to remove."
So hersquo;d made sure he didnrsquo;t have any images to erase. "You couldrsquo;ve ruled." For all of Juddrsquo;s power, the Ghost had never before considered that possibility.
"It would have killed what remained of my soul."
The Ghost couldnrsquo;t recall ever having had a soul, didnrsquo;t know if he even understood what it was. "There," he said, pointing to a shadowy corner of the old and musty crypt.
Judd went motionless as his telepathic senses registered an unknown mind. "Who?" And what had the Ghost done?
The rebel leaned against the crumbling brick wall. "I donrsquo;t think yoursquo;ll believe me if I tell you."
Unable to detect any movement from the corner, Judd retrieved a slender penlight from his pocket and walked over to find a dust-coated glass box sitting neatly in the corner. It was about six feet long, a couple of feet deep if that, had fixtures that denoted a number of missing cables. Noticing someone had wiped away the sticky coating of dust near the top, creating a tiny window of clarity, he angled the cutting brightness of the light toward it.
A face looked out at him from within.
It was that of a small, fine-boned woman of mixed ethnicity. Her skin was a pallid brown, her eyes tilted up at the corners even in sleep, her skull smooth. Her hair had been shaved off, he realized, though there was no evidence of any electrodes ever having been attached to her skull. "Who?" he asked the Ghost once more.
"There is no second manuscript," the Ghost said, walking to stand beside him, "but you have no need of it. Irsquo;ve brought you Alice Eldridge."
HAWKE had made Sienna promise to stay in place when he left to get supplies. Shersquo;d broken that promise. But since hersquo;d found her again before he got too grumpy and hungry, he didnrsquo;t snarl as he said, "Put up the tent," and rolled the compact package to where she lay flat on her back, staring at the soft gray of the evening sky. "Itrsquo;s your punishment."
Clearly exhausted, she glared at him. "Do you never run out of energy?"
He pushed up the sleeves of his sweatshirt. "Irsquo;m alpha. Right now, Irsquo;m a hungry alpha who wants to take a bite out of you for making me run the extra miles. Put up the tent."
She sat up but didnrsquo;t touch the tent. "Go bite yourself."
So, she was feeling pissy. That was fine with him. He liked it much better than the defeated pain he sensed had come close to breaking her earlier today. "Actually, Irsquo;d prefer to use my teeth on softer flesh." He was reaching out to snag her when flames erupted along her back, in her hair. "Sienna!"
She slapped up her hands. "Irsquo;m fine, Irsquo;m fine. Donrsquo;t touch."
It was sheer hell to obey the order. He hauled her into his arms the instant the lick of red and yellow disappeared. "How bad?" he asked, seeing the pain at the corners of her eyes, knowing of the second layer of dissonance now.
"Bad. But not the dissonance. As soon as the power builds to a certain level, the dissonance either disengages or somehow short-circuits." Her throat moved as she swallowed. "And itrsquo;s building faster and fastermdash;I earthed after you left."
He felt a lingering sense of icemdash;cold enough to burnmdash;against his palm as he ran it over the silk of her hair. "Sienna, can the X-fire burn you?" His wolf wasnrsquo;t pacing anymore, its focus, the same focus that had helped a fifteen-year-old boy hold together a shattered pack, acute.
"Thatrsquo;s how Xs usually die, and if it reaches that point, then therersquo;s no predicting how far the resulting explosion will spread." Her smile was tight, painful. "Itrsquo;s why wersquo;re considered the most perfect weapon on the planet. An X can lsquo;scorch the earth,rsquo; eradicating all that came before, but the damage to the environment is minimal. Much like after a real fire, the earth bounces back stronger and healthiermdash;and the aggressors have a clean slate on which to build their own empire."
He saw through the rational speech. "What arenrsquo;t you saying?"
"Ming had a theorymdash;that if I could somehow purge my power on a level I canrsquo;t achieve with the earthing, I could initiate a restricted burst from the nascent buildup that would consume only me." Her eyes met his. "If the flames ever turn blue . . . it means he was right. Promise me that you wonrsquo;t come near me if that happens."
"Come on," he said instead of giving her a promise he knew he wouldnrsquo;t be able to keep. "Change of location."
"Nearer a lake I know of up here. If all else fails, Irsquo;m throwing you in there."
"I donrsquo;t know if thatrsquo;ll workmdash;X-fire isnrsquo;t like normal fire."
"Better than turning into a human torch, donrsquo;t you think?" Turning, he went to touch his fingers to her jaw, felt his heart stop when she met his gaze.
Her eyes, those startling cardinal eyes, were drowning in shimmering, lethal gold kissed with crimson, and in them, he saw time running out at an inexorable pace.
JUDD didnrsquo;t know who was more surprised, him or Lara, when he teleported into the infirmary with Alice Eldridgersquo;s frail body in his arms. But she threw off the shock to run to him at once, grabbing a scanner off a counter as she did so. "What do I need to know?" she asked as he placed the scientistrsquo;s naked form on the nearest bed.
"Cryonic suspension," he said, head still ringing in disbelief.
"Impossible." Lara put down the scanner, picked up a pressure injector, and pressed it to Alicersquo;s neck. "No one has ever been brought back from suspension with their mind intact. Even the Psy made it illegal over a half century ago."
"She was suspended before that, when the experimentation was at its peak." It had been a time of chaos and change when Alice Eldridge had been takenmdash;probably on the orders of a schemer in the Council superstructure whorsquo;d had some vague idea of waking her up later when things had calmed down and she could be properly debriefed.
But no one had ever come to wake her, her existence submerged by the wave of Silence that had swept across the Net. Perhaps the architect of her abduction had been killed, perhaps hersquo;d simply forgotten her, but whatever the cause, the result was that Alice had slept undisturbed for over a hundred years in a small facility deep in the Balkans. A facility that ran on solar power, but that had had no gatekeepers or personnel for decades, was listed as a storage warehouse. One so small and unimportant that it was continually pushed down the list when it came time for inspections and renovations.
Judd had asked the Ghost how hersquo;d found it.
The other man had looked at him with those eyes that held nothing of humanity. "I found it because I go where no one goes. There are places in the Net that belong only to me."
Now, Judd shook off his tiredness over the dual teleport and told Lara everything he knew. "She was found in an experimental chamber created by a scientist who was considered to be on the verge of unlocking the secret of cryonics."
"If he had, it wouldnrsquo;t be illegal now," Lara muttered as she fitted a tissue-thin computronic skullcap over Alicersquo;s head and walked around to the control pad at the end of the bed to scan the readout.
For the hundredth time, Judd tried to sense if Alicersquo;s mind was active and came up against the same unexpected shield that had obstructed his earlier attempts. "He was a telepath, had a psychotic breakdown in which he destroyed his lab and all associated records before killing himself and his family." Perhaps that was the reason her abductors had abandoned Alice Eldridgemdash;no one knew what chemicals the scientist had used to induce suspension, much less how to reverse the state.
Lara slammed a fist down on the control panel. "Shit," she muttered, staring at the woman who lay so lifeless on the bed, "just, shit."
Judd had never seen that expression on the healerrsquo;s face. "How bad?"
"Thatrsquo;s the thingmdash;I donrsquo;t know. Itrsquo;s not like they teach us this at medical school." She leaned forward, hands clamped around the edges of the panel. "I need Tammy and Ashaya."
"Who first?" He could do one more dual teleport.
A momentrsquo;s pause. "Ashaya. Shersquo;s not a medic as such, but shersquo;s a scientistmdash;and she can discuss the situation with Amara."
Ashayarsquo;s twin, Judd knew, was insane. No one trusted her, and she couldnrsquo;t be allowed in the den, but there was no discounting her brilliance. "Irsquo;ll get Ashaya," he said. "You call Tammy, have her drive up." The teleport to Dorian and Ashayarsquo;s house wasnrsquo;t difficult, since hersquo;d been to the location before. He had enough energy to bring the M-Psy back before he slid down the wall and to the floor of the infirmary.
The two women ignored him as they worked over Alice, with Tamsyn arriving seventy minutes later. Sometime in between, Brenna found him, just like hersquo;d known she would.
"Sweetheart," she said, kneeling down beside him. "Yoursquo;re about to flame out."
He gave a slight shake of his head. "Not over the threshold." But he was slurring his words, so he leaned against her when she sat down beside him . . . and then he was stretched out with his head in her lap.
The last thing he remembered saying was, "Walker, find him." His older brother had a way of seeing to the heart of things, would know whether or not they should tell Sienna what had happened when there was a good chance Alice Eldridge would never wake. Even if she did, there was no guarantee shersquo;d be able to tell them anythingmdash;the Ghost had found data that suggested she may have asked an E to wipe that part of her memory clean.
SIENNA scraped a kick by Hawkersquo;s ear as the stars turned into glittering beacons overhead. "You canrsquo;t stay up here," she said as he made a fluid move to avoid the blow. "You know that." No matter how well prepared his people, how well drilled, they were changeling, were wolfmdash;without their alpha, the pack would be lost, rootless. More, she understood his wolf needed to stand in the line of fire, to be SnowDancerrsquo;s first line of defense.
He danced out of the way of her strike. "You can do better than that, baby." Blocking her next kick with his hand, he pushed up until she had no choice but to flip and come down hard on her feet. "I wonrsquo;t leave you up here alone."
When hersquo;d suggested a bout of hand-to-hand sparring, shersquo;d figured she might as well accept since she wasnrsquo;t going to sleep. Now she knew his cunning planmdash;to exhaust the argument right out of her. But they both knew she was right. "Irsquo;ll be fine," she said after her teeth stopped vibrating. "I have supplies." Taking a moment to catch her breath, she decided it was unfair he had that lickable upper body on display. "Put your sweatshirt back on."
His eyes gleamed wolf-blue in the night. "Come closer and make me."
Her lips twitched, though shersquo;d thought the cold fire had seared the laughter right out of her heart. "Maybe I should take off my own top."
A smile full of teeth. "Maybe you should."
Laughing, she set her feet for another attempt at taking him down. "Talk me through the packrsquo;s defensive plans." If she managed to hold off synergy, then she might yet be able to assist SnowDancer.
Moving with lethal grace around her, Hawke spoke, listened when she asked questions or made suggestions. There was a perfection to the moment that made Sienna think: Yes, this is it. This is who wersquo;re meant to be together.
If she could have, she wouldrsquo;ve frozen time at that instant, but second by second, minute by minute, the stars would dim, the sky would lightenmdash;until dawn streaked a brilliant explosion of color across the Sierra. As brilliant as the cold fire inside of her, voracious and violent.
"Sienna, your eyes."
"I know." Stepping a small distance away, she let the flames pour out of her and into the earth in a storm of wildfire that was an impenetrable wall between her and her wolf.
Chapter 50
HAWKE HUNG UP the sat phone feeling as if hersquo;d been punched in the chest by a granite fist. Sienna glanced back at him from where she sat on the edge of the lake, the early morning sunshine dancing over hair as black as the heart of a ruby. "What is it?"
"A dead woman come back to life." When he told her whatmdash;whomdash;Judd had brought home, hope flared a shiny new coin in her eyes for a single bright second.
It turned dull almost as fast. "Therersquo;s no knowing if shersquo;ll ever wake," Sienna said, "much less if shersquo;ll come back whole. I have to stay up here."
Hersquo;d thought he could leave her, could sacrifice his heart for his pack, but now that the moment had come, man and wolf both rebelled. "No," he said, going to crouch by her side. "Yoursquo;re heading down with me."
"Hawke, you promised yoursquo;d listen to me about my ability." A firm reminder, but the fingers on his jaw were a caress. "I know what I am. I know the destruction Irsquo;m capable ofmdash;donrsquo;t make me kill those I love."
"Yoursquo;re able to monitor your power levels, know when yoursquo;re about to go critical." Hersquo;d watched her leach off the violence of her ability twice more during the night, the flames seeming to flicker out over the lake itself.
"We canrsquo;t gamble on that."
"You can move closer to the den." He wasnrsquo;t used to losing.
However, Siennarsquo;s iron will was one of the things that had first drawn him to her. "No." Rising to her knees, she put her hands on his shoulders, no stars in her eyes. "But I wonrsquo;t go any farther from this point."
He stared at her, the wolf attempting to dominate her into acquiescence. Even when he said, "Promise?" there was nothing of acceptance in it.
"Cross my heart."
Hauling her against him, he branded her with his mouth, his lips, his breath before leaving with a single, furious command. "Stay alive."
WALKER knocked on Lararsquo;s office door that afternoon, wasnrsquo;t surprised to find her still dressed in the clothes shersquo;d worn yesterday, black shadows under her eyes. This time, he didnrsquo;t berate her for not taking better care of herself. Instead, he drew her into his arms, held her for a long moment before allowing her to pull back. "Eldridge?"
Lararsquo;s gaze was bleak. "The scans detect brain activity, but that means nothing if we canrsquo;t figure out a way to wake her. Ashaya and Amara came up with a chemical cocktail, which we shot into her a few hours ago, but so far therersquo;s been no change."
Walker knew both Judd and Sascha had been attempting to get through the strange shield around Alicersquo;s mind in an effort to nudge her to consciousness on the psychic level. Walker, too, had tried. To no avail. And nowmdash;"I have to leave."
Lara touched him in that wolf way, stroking back his hair, sliding her hand over his pectorals as if to smooth his shirt. "Why?"
He bent toward her, making it easier for her to "pet" him as the wolves called it. "Hawke wants me with the children when they evacuate." The SnowDancer alpharsquo;s face had been drawn in harsh lines when he returned to the den this morning, but hersquo;d given the order to evacuate with a crisp, clear focus, as he had so many others.
According to Judd, whorsquo;d be back to full strength by tonight, surveillance at the South American compound was showing a rising level of activity as Pure Psyrsquo;s people began to recover from the virus. The runway would be complete by tomorrow morning, which meant the compound had to be taken out of the equation tonight at the latest, before any of the weapons heavy transports took off.
Everyone agreed the children needed to be gone prior to that. Because once SnowDancer blew the compound, the war began. There was no hope of peace. Both Nikita and Anthony had attempted to reason with Henry in a last-ditch effort to halt hostilities. The other Councilorrsquo;s response had been to try to assassinate them on the psychic plane.
"Of course," Lara said, hand settling on his waist. "Yoursquo;re the perfect choicemdash;the kids will listen to you and feel safe at the same time."
Her immediate support of him, made an unexpected warmth uncurl in his abdomen. "Drewrsquo;s promised to spy on you for me and report if yoursquo;re not eating."
"The sneak will do it, too." Her smile faded too soon. "Itrsquo;s a hard thing to ask of you right now, isnrsquo;t it? To leave her?" She wrapped her arms around him.
"Sienna would be the first to tell me to go," he whispered into the softness of her curls, numbing the pain permeating his chest at the thought of the girl hersquo;d never been able to protect. The only thing he could do for her now was to ensure those she loved were safe. "Shersquo;d do anything for Toby and Marlee."
Lara kissed him, hot and giving and possessive in a way hersquo;d never have expected from her before hersquo;d truly known her. Sliding his hand under her hair, he tilted her head, indulged in the wild sweetness of her for a moment out of time.
"Irsquo;ll contact you as soon as we know anything," she said when they parted, her lips wet, her eyes determined. "Wersquo;ll keep working with Alice."
"I know you will." A piece of him threatened to shatter, a piece that bore Siennarsquo;s name, the name of a girl who was as much his daughter as Marlee. "Take care of yourself, Lara." Because she owned a piece of him, too, a broken piece shersquo;d somehow soldered back together and that bore her mark now.
He couldnrsquo;t say the words, had spent too long in Silence, but hersquo;d learned other ways to speak. Taking the paperweight shersquo;d knocked off her desk out of his pocket, he put it in her hands. "Itrsquo;s fixed. As long as you donrsquo;t mind more than a few scars."
Tears in her eyes, she pursed her lips, shook her head . . . and held the paperweight to her heart. "I love you, Walker."
He left with those words held to the most secret part of him, but rather than joining the evacuation, he went up to where Sienna sat beside a wide, blue lake that mirrored the mountains with such perfection, it seemed there was no sky, only an endless vista of jagged peaks touched with snow. When she flew into his arms, he held her tight. And watched the cold fire of an X lick at her hair, over her spine. She wrenched away, her eyes dry of tears, her voice resolute. "I have to earth."
He wouldrsquo;ve waited, wouldrsquo;ve done anything he could for the girl he realized had become a woman of courage and strength, but he knew she didnrsquo;t want him to see her like this. So he walked forward, cupped her face, and pressed his lips to her forehead. Fight, sweetheart, fight.
As he turned away, he felt the earth shudder under a pulse of raw power and knew that if he looked over his shoulder, hersquo;d see nothing but a column of wild yellow and brilliant red, a woman consumed in flame.
HAVING confirmed that the warehouse the novices had found in the city held the weapons cache, SnowDancer blew the South American camp at midnight.
Stealth planes flew over the city at three a.m.
Pure Psy operatives began to appear along the SnowDancer-DarkRiver perimeter an hour later, pouring out from craft that landed just out of range of the anti-aircraft weapons over changeling territory, most covering the remaining distance on foot, while a front guard stood ready for teleportation.
The intruders were loaded up with so many weapons that had the changelings been relying only on their physical strength, the battle wouldrsquo;ve been over before it began. As it was, Alexeirsquo;s sharpshooters, along with those trained by Dorian and Judd, were in prime position to pick off those attackers who were teleported in. And the changelings had extraordinary night vision.
The enemy learned quickly and began to teleport in farther from the perimeter, inside DarkRiver land. But the leopards knew that land like the backs of their hands, and while their people were all in the city tonight, theyrsquo;d laid out a welcoming matmdash;a number of the aggressors fell victim to their traps. And this time, there was no question about the enemy combatantsrsquo; allegiance. They wore the emblem on their shoulders.
"A black spiderweb." Matthiasrsquo;s voice came into Hawkersquo;s earpiece. "Thatrsquo;s Henry Scottrsquo;s symbol."
Not unexpected but it was always nice to have confirmation. "If the enemy hits you with a psychic blow," he told his people as they prepared to engage, "aim at their heads. If you donrsquo;t have a shot, turn around and run like hell until you get out of range." Changeling shields were strong, but they werenrsquo;t impenetrable. "I need live soldiers, not dead heroes."
A chuckle from the line, his wolves ready for battle.
Then Henry Scott teleported in onto the perimeter, surrounded by an armed guard so thick, it was impossible for anyone to get a shot in. The Councilor held up a hand.
Knowing time and the wind would only help his people pinpoint the locations of the Pure Psy teams, Hawke gave the order to listen.
"This," Henry said, "is your last chance. Surrender and I will let you walk away."
Hawkersquo;s wolf wanted to rip out the manrsquo;s throat, but it was better to let the bastard talk, find out as much as they could. "Now why," he said from his position behind a slight rise, "would we want to do that when this is our land?" Their home.
Henry Scottrsquo;s voice was ultimately reasonable. "Yoursquo;ve been caught up in the middle of a political situation you have no hope of understanding. Itrsquo;s in your best interest to give in."
"What do you say boys and girls?" Hawke murmured into the mike worked into the collar of the thin black bulletproof vest he wore over a long-sleeved T-shirt of the same color.
The howl started at one end of the line and was carried from soldier to soldier, until it reverberated around the mountain. Hawkersquo;s wolf peeled back its lips. "Go!"
HAVING had a telepathic report from Judd as well as a call from Hawke on the sat phone hersquo;d left her, Sienna had earthed herself and double-checked her power reserves. The chance of an unpredictable spike remained, but since that wouldnrsquo;t matter if the people she loved were dying when she couldrsquo;ve saved them, she took the risk of heading down.
She reached the combat zone just as hostilities began, the hairs on the back of her neck rising at the sound of the wolf howls singing through the air. Tempting as it was to detour, to glimpse the battle, she made her way directly to the spot Hawke had pointed out on the territorial map what felt like months ago. There was a pair of night-vision lenses waiting for her, along with a tiny key on a thin silver chain.
If you want to know what this opens, stay alive.ndash;H.
"Hello, wolf." Placing the chain around her neck, she slid on the night-vision lenses and began to scan the combat zone.
It was automatic to search for that vivid mane of silver-gold, distinctive even through the color distortion caused by the lenses. But she couldnrsquo;t see it anywhere. Her heart stopped beating at the thought that hersquo;d been hit, was down, and then she realizedmdash;every single SnowDancer in human form was wearing a knit cap over his or her head.
Yes, of course. The enemy would never know which one was Hawke, giving them no specific target. "Come on," she said, whispering encouragement though she knew they couldnrsquo;t hear her, "we can do it." That was when she spotted him, though his hair remained covered, his face turned away. Still, she knew the way he movedmdash;a human wolf. Her wolf.
HAWKE saw several of his people fall, knew theyrsquo;d been hit with a psychic blast. Racing out to the one closest, he pulled the male back out of range with a grip on his bulletproof vest, then went back to retrieve another, a woman. Around him, more SnowDancer soldiers were doing the same, as others fought off the Pure Psy operatives targeting those trying to assist the injured.
There was no doubt that Scott had a massive advantage with his telepaths and telekinetics, but from the looks of things, the Tk unit was beginning to tire from the troop movementsmdash;which meant SnowDancer didnrsquo;t have to worry about missiles being lobbed at them without warning, though the techs had prepared for that eventuality by placing a number of interception units along the defensive line.
The changelings had also evened out the field with preparation, the choice of when to fight, and the knowledge of home ground. Enemy soldiers who tried to teleport in behind SnowDancerrsquo;s defensive line found themselves caught between layers of wolves arranged up and down the mountain.
Not all of those wolves were changeling.
Good, Hawke howled to the feral wolves that treated him as alpha. Watch. Hold.
The wolves howled in unison in response, and Hawke saw the enemy freeze for a fraction of an instant. Then the crashing noise and blood-soaked scent of battle started again. Contrary to Hawkersquo;s expectations, Henry Scott remained on the field. The Councilor stood in the center of that tight guard, his eyes closedmdash;Hawke realized the man was using his considerable psychic abilities against the changelings at the same time that he saw a shot coming straight at a soldier.
Drew slammed flat. His gaze was annoyed when he raised his head. "I swear to God, if I get shot again, Indigo will strangle me." Obviously irritated by that, he turned around and took out the man whorsquo;d come after him just as SnowDancerrsquo;s aerial defenses ignited an incoming vessel, causing everyone to run for cover from the falling debris.
Scrabbling up beside Hawke, Drew put his back to a tree. "That should remind them to keep the hell out of our skies," he muttered, then pressed his finger to an ear. "Irsquo;ve got info coming in from the Ratsmdash;Henryrsquo;s operatives are landing all over the place in San Francisco."
TEIJAN and his people were used to being forgotten, being shoved aside. They were Rats, accustomed to living Below, where the world couldnrsquo;t hurt them. But the DarkRiver cats had seen them, had treated them as sentient beings capable of giving something back. As for the wolvesmdash;well, the Rats remained leery of them, but there was no arguing that SnowDancer had always held up its end of the bargain. More than one Rat had been pulled out of trouble or given protection by a wolf who was otherwise a stranger.
"Itrsquo;s home," Zane had said when Teijan had told his people what might be coming and offered them the option of leaving. "We stay and we fight."
Now, they did just that.
Having worked with DarkRiver over the past couple of months to connect with the catsrsquo; network of human and non-predatory changeling shopkeepers in Chinatown, that connection spreading out through family and business contacts like an ever-growing tree, the Rats had a flow of information coming in not even the PsyNet could beat.
They knew where Henry Scottrsquo;s people were landing, their numbers, the approximate type and number of their weapons within seconds of each landing. All that data was routed at once to the DarkRiver teams in charge of holding the city as SnowDancer held the mountains.
The tactical split showed a massive amount of trust from both packsmdash;because some of that mountain land was DarkRiver territory, and if San Francisco fell, then Henry Scottrsquo;s army would have the perfect location in which to dig in and throw assault after assault at the wolves. Both parts of the defense had to hold if they were to win this battle.
"A new teamrsquo;s rappelling down near Russian Hill," Teijan reported to Clay, "and a bigger one has surrounded Nikitarsquo;s building."
Clayrsquo;s voice came through peppered with the sounds of gunfire. "She said she didnrsquo;t need backup, butmdash;"
"Wait." Teijan swore low and hard. "Nikita doesnrsquo;t like people poaching on her territory. Fifteen attackers just went down with exploding brain syndrome." There was no other way to put itmdash;on the video feed coming through a street camera, Scottrsquo;s people fell where they stood, their brains leaking out their ears.
The survivors wisely decided to get the hell out of Nikitarsquo;s zone.
Teijan smiled, switched connections. "Theyrsquo;re coming your way, Vaughn." He had, he decided, developed a sudden soft spot for Nikita Duncan, especially given that Psy loyal to her were also feeding information into the Ratsrsquo; network.
Catching a new piece of data, he switched connections again. "Lucas, Irsquo;ve got jet-choppers flying into SoMa. You need to be prepared for aerial attack." Connected as he was to the communications systems, he heard the DarkRiver alpha say, "Judd, can you deflect?" just as the assault craft began to drop small, high impact bombs.
"Got it."
On the screen, Teijan watched the bombs arrow back to the jet-choppers, turning them into spectacular fireballs.
"Holy fuck," Zane muttered from where he was holding contact with the wolves. "It kind of freaks me out that this guyrsquo;s been in the region the whole time without us knowing."
Teijan had met Judd Lauren earlier that day, had to agree with Zane. "At least hersquo;s on our side." Pulling up screen after screen of information, he patched in the telepaths and telekinetics supplied by Nikita and Anthony. "Full unit heading through Chinatown to DarkRiver HQ. Ensure the guards are shielded against mental attacks."
"Understood. Message communicated to all Tp units in range."
Zane tapped a screen. "Enemyrsquo;s ignoring the bunker," he said, referring to the third sub-basement of a building owned by DarkRiver on the outskirts of Chinatown but held under the name of an unrelated corporation. Right now, it was home to the leopard healer and her team, as well as the mate of the DarkRiver alpha, their child having been taken to safety by the evacuation team. "Would you have your mate in a war zone, Teijan?"
"Yes," he said without hesitation. "The alpha pair must always be part of a fight. Sascharsquo;s safe in the bunker. Pure Psy has no idea it exists." If there was a breach, Teijan had a team standing by to whisk them out and away through the tunnels. "Whoa!" He punched a fist into the air as Judd "Freaking Scary" Lauren reversed a missile right into a stealthcraft, turning the night sky incandescent.
But the sweet moment was cut short an instant later as Zane ripped off his earpiece, clapped his hand to his ear. "Oh fuck, something bad just happened in the mountains."
Chapter 51
AGONY HAZED THROUGH Hawkersquo;s brain. And he realized that Henry Scott might just have outthought them after all. "Brenna," he said into the mike, "can you block that?" It was almost impossible to speak.
Brennarsquo;s voice came out garbled, and he went to switch to a better channel . . . when he figured out it was his hearing that had gone, blood dripping down the sides of his face from violently ruptured eardrums. Unable to figure out what she was saying, he scanned the combat zone. A large number of his people were down, hands clasped over their ears. Others remained standing, but it was clear their balance was shot.
The only ones unaffected were the human members of the pack. In front of him, Kieran pushed aside a packmate in the line of fire and took on an attacker in hand-to-hand combat, while a reinjured Sam, his shoulder bearing a field dressing, dragged SnowDancer after fallen SnowDancer to safety. But there werenrsquo;t many human packmates. Not enough.
Henryrsquo;s men werenrsquo;t even bothering to shoot anymore. Instead they were walking up to dazed and bleeding wolves, and smashing them in the backs of their heads. Prisoners, Hawke thought as he shot down as many of the enemy as he could, Scott wanted prisoners. To torture? For experimentation? It didnrsquo;t matter. No SnowDancer would ever suffer as Hawkersquo;s father had suffered. He kept on shooting, covering those soldiers darting out to drag in unconscious or hurt packmates. But even with an alpharsquo;s strength, he was no longer as fast or as effective.
His people continued to fall under brutal crunches of bone.
They had one last weapon. His wolf had scented her on the air currents, the autumn and spice of her as vivid to him as the blood that saturated the air. The only problem was, he didnrsquo;t want to use her that way.
SIENNA dug her nails into the pine needlendash;strewn earth. They were falling onto their knees one by one, her friends, her family, Hawke.
Energy rippled through her body, a massive build-up of X-fire that would need to be earthed soonmdash;or used in combat, as it was meant to be used. "Hawke, Irsquo;m here," she whispered, not knowing whether to intervene or to wait for the signal as agreed. If she entered the conflict at the wrong moment, she could ruin everything.
Suddenly afraid that there would be no signal because Hawke was dead, she spread out her telepathic senses in a desperate search. Her mind recoiled from that of another powerful telepath, but Henry Scott had sensed her. She saw his eyes flick open as he searched for the unfamiliar mind.
"Please," she whispered as the attackers began slamming their weapons down on SnowDancer skulls. "Use me." Let me do this.
Her breath was a razor in her chest when a howlmdash;broken, the cadence all wrongmdash;lifted into the air. It didnrsquo;t sound like it should have, but she understood.
It was time.
Abandoning any attempt at secrecy, she walked out onto the night-cloaked battlefield bathed in the crimson and gold shimmer of cold fire. The enemy might have been Silent, but they went pale at the sight of her. An instant later, they began to shoot. She wouldrsquo;ve taken evasive action . . . except the flames around her repelled everything, melting the bullets down to nothing, reflecting the lasers back at the shooters.
It was then that she realized Judd couldnrsquo;t have acted as the failsafe. No bullet wouldrsquo;ve gotten through. That wasnrsquo;t the scariest partmdash;her link to the LaurenNet was shielded by cold fire even Sienna wouldnrsquo;t be able to breach, the ultimate defensive measure from a martial mind. But that was no longer an issue. She knew what to do now, and she would do it after the battle was done and her pack was safe.
Angry and sickened at the sight of the broken and hurt SnowDancers around her, Sienna spread out her arms, palms facing the sky. And the fire with the cold, cold heart touched the enemy, and they werenrsquo;t there anymore. She aimed the most powerful wave at Henry Scott, knowing hersquo;d try to get his men to teleport him out.
The bastard screamed high and shrill before he disappeared. She didnrsquo;t know if he was dead, but she did know the attacking force shouldrsquo;ve retreated at the sight of her. Yet bullets continued to fly, now aimed at the fallen changelings.
No.
Something arctic and dark and deadly rose up inside of her as the X-fire emerged in a straight line on either side of her body, cutting the enemy in the way in half and cauterizing the massive wounds with such flawlessness, it appeared the men had fallen into two neat pieces. The rest of them were trapped beyond the wall of voracious flame, but they continued to shoot. And then her mind, a huge, vast endless thing that saw and heard every sigh, every heartbeat, caught the whisper of more of them coming down through the mountains. Theyrsquo;d slipped in past the defenses when the sonic weapon took out the changelings as well as the feral wolves, and now they thought to flank them from behind.
"Traitor!" The word came from the throats of those in front of her and she knew them then. Pure Psy. Zealots. They would not back down.
The cold, dark thing inside of her shoved aside all else . . . and the flames began to feed. Screams filled the air, filled her consciousness, filled the sky. The monster inside of her, she thought with a small part of the endless vastness that was her mind, had seized control.
The problem was . . . the Psy werenrsquo;t the only targets in the vicinity.
HAWKE pulled his injured out of range of those Pure Psy operatives whorsquo;d been trapped on this side of the divide when Sienna created that bladelike wall of X-fire. It was clear the enemy would not surrender, but trapped as they were, he offered them one final chance. The response was a hail of bullets, so he gave the order. When it was done, he checked on his people. Most were staring shell-shocked at Sienna as she blazed in a storm of crimson and gold, her hair flying in a terrible breeze, her eyes caverns of pure, raw power.
At first the wall of cold fire, it had touched the enemy alone, but now it changed shape, became a wave that rippled outward in both directions, growing ever closer to the injured and bleeding SnowDancers.
Ignoring the pain of shattered eardrums barely begun to heal thanks to his strength as alpha, he screamed, "Sienna!" as he ran to her, even knowing she couldnrsquo;t hear him inside the inferno that consumed her, until it poured out of her eyes, her mouth, her every pore and every cell. The cold burn of it hit him a meter from the quickly creeping edge.
He knew shersquo;d told him not to do it, that the X-fire would kill him the same as anyone else if she wasnrsquo;t in conscious control. But he had to stop her, had to save her. If she took the life of even one SnowDancer and survived to witness what shersquo;d done, it would break her.
"Baby, you better be in there!" Running back, he got a racing start and jumped through the flames, expecting to fry. Instead, he slammed into her body, his arms going around her, but she didnrsquo;t go downmdash;as if the cold fire had rooted her to the earth.
Her eyes, those eyes filled with red and gold, so stunning, so lethal, seemed to see him for a second, and he was almost certain he heard, Forgive me, deep inside his head before a dark, endless something grabbed his mind, punching through with such savage force that it brought him to his knees.
Shoving aside the throbbing pain as the shock of the impact vibrated through his body, he raised his head and looked out through the wall of X-fire, saw the flames lick out and over his people at a speed not even a wolf could outrun.
No.
It spread, a crackling wave of wild color over the injured, over those that stood guard, over the sentries and into the forest, going endlessly in every direction until his people were consumed by it. Until they burned up in it, so fast and hard that there were no screams. Only a terrible, endless silence.
"No, Sienna, no," he said, rising to hold her to him in a futile attempt to get through to the woman behind the vast dark of ravenous power. Shersquo;d come to save them, but what was inside of her, it had broken free, and now she killed the very pack shersquo;d wanted to protect. His wolf knew what he had to do, but he couldnrsquo;t snap her neck, couldnrsquo;t erase her.
God help him, he couldnrsquo;t, not even to save SnowDancer.
A minute, an eternity later, the flames blinked out, and Sienna sagged in his arms.
"Sienna." He was shocked by how very light she was, how very fragile. "Donrsquo;t you dare leave me."
When he raised his head, he looked first toward the Pure Psy side, unable to bear what hersquo;d glimpse on the other. Everythingmdash;the enemy, the trees, the grass, the rocksmdash;was gone, smears of ash barely visible even to his night vision. Agonizing pain in his heart, he turned. And saw. "Oh, baby, I understand." So smart, his Sienna, so aware that his wolf would know each and every one of his people, feral wolves included. "Therersquo;s no need for forgiveness, you hear me?"
Her eyes flickered open for an instant, and they werenrsquo;t the night-sky of a cardinal. They were a startling, amazing gold untouched by crimson. "A hundred years," she whispered. "That wouldrsquo;ve been nice, donrsquo;t you think?"
"This isnrsquo;t over yet."
"The LaurenNet link remains protected," she said, and he had the impression she was talking to herself. "Strange. But it doesnrsquo;t matter." Gold melting to blue in her eyes, she pushed him hard without warning, ending up sprawled on the earth. "I love you." Blue flame licked up that wild tangle of ruby red, the scent of burnt hair sharp and acrid.
Man and wolf both realized what she intended to do, said, FUCK NO!
Using the doorway shersquo;d opened when she punched into his mind, the wolf shoved wild changeling energy into her, bowing her back, snapping her eyes open again, and shutting off that lethal blue flame. "What have you done?" A question filled with horror as the violent snap of the mating bond brought him to his knees beside her.
IN the middle of a San Francisco street under siege from two Pure Psy units, Judd clutched his head. "No," he whispered, and then there was no more thought.
HOURS away, in a protected safe zone in the middle of a different mountain range, Walker Laurenrsquo;s mind went blank as something crashed into him so hard, he didnrsquo;t even have a chance to alert the other guardians. The childremdash;
Meters away, Toby lay slumped on a tabletop, while Marlee crumpled off her chair and to the floor.
IN the den, the command center was thrown into chaos as Brenna fell where she stood. "Judd!" Mariska yelled, slamming to her knees beside Brennarsquo;s limp body. "Find out if anythingrsquo;s happened to Judd!"
HAWKE allowed Lara to heal him first after it was all over, because without him, she would collapse under the weight of the injured.
"Wherersquo;s Sienna?" she asked him after she finished healing the remaining damage to his eardrums.
His wolf hated the answer he had to give, the choice hersquo;d had to make. "I had Drew take her up to the lake in the mountains. Shersquo;s unconscious." He didnrsquo;t know what other mated pairs saw through the bond, but he saw rippling crimson and gold, their bond so raw and new it was a painful ache.
Right now, the X-fire was a placid pool, the battle had drained Sienna at such a deep level. But it would grow againmdash;colder, stronger, more voracious. When it did, the bond would give him enough warning that hersquo;d be able to take his mate deep into the lake, far, far below the surface. Where hersquo;d hold her as the cold fire consumed them both, its destructive fury dampened by the water. The stone walls of the den, far thicker and stronger than the rocks Sienna had neutralized, and reinforced with titanium plates in places, would protect the pack if the water and the distance werenrsquo;t enough.
"Walker and the kids?" Lararsquo;s eyes were haunted when they met his.
He touched his hand to her hair in wordless comfort. "In the same state as Brenna and Judd. Do you want everyone moved here?" Judd had been taken to the bunker in the city, while the others remained in the safe zone.
"No." She began to heal a female soldier whose brain was swelling inside her skull. "Itrsquo;s probably better if we donrsquo;t move them, since we have no idea why they collapsed."
"The cats will come up to help once they take care of their own injured." DarkRiver had taken far less damage, would hold the city and the perimeter against any opportunistic attacks until SnowDancer was functional again. "Take anything you need from me," he said, his wolf torn between his duty to the pack and his need to be with Sienna.
The only thing that soothed him, that allowed him to hold his focus on channeling pack energy into Lara, was that Sienna wasnrsquo;t alone. Everyone in the combat zone had seen what shersquo;d done. Everyone understood the price she would pay. No one would leave her alone in the dark.
It was over five hours later when Judd staggered into the infirmary, supported by Clay and Vaughn. Since Lara, exhausted, needed a break anyway, Hawke sat her down with an order not to move, before turning to Judd as the other male braced himself against a bed. "Brenna?" the lieutenant asked, his voice raw. "My family?"
"Unconscious, but otherwise fine." Hawke pushed him into a chair when the former Arrow threatened to topple over. "What the hell happened to all of you? Did Henrymdash;"
But Judd was shaking his head. "You."
Hawke frowned, looked at Vaughn. "Did he hit his head when he fell?"
"Mating bond," Judd muttered. "Shoved the balancemdash;" It was the last thing he said before he slumped.
Clay caught him before he wouldrsquo;ve fallen off the chair, and together with Vaughn got him into a bed in the same room as Brenna.
"The sonic shockwave was heard as far as the city," Vaughn told him afterward, "but it wasnrsquo;t strong enough to incapacitate."
"Do we have enough people to cover in case they come back?" He knew Riley had been liaising with the cats, but he hadnrsquo;t had a chance to talk to the lieutenant.
A nod. "WindHaven falcons are sweeping over the area nowmdash;it was a good idea to hold them in reserve. Rats have city intelligence covered."
Before Hawke could ask anything else, Vaughn clamped a hand over his shoulder. "Look after your people, Hawke. Wersquo;ll handle it."
Trust, Hawke thought, came in many forms. A baby in his arms. A surge of deadly flame licking over his people. A leopard guarding the gate. "Go."
THE first thing Judd did when he managed to pierce the veil of consciousness at dawn was to check his mate and family were fine. The second was to find Alice Eldridgersquo;s bed, which had been pushed into a quiet corner of the hectic infirmary. She lay as silent and lifeless as ever, her secrets locked inside her mind.
Judd had a conscience. He also knew he mightrsquo;ve been tempted to tear Alicersquo;s mind apart in a search for answers if it would save Sienna, but whoever had taken Alice had done something to her. Her mind was sewn up so tight it was better protected than that of most Psymdash;the problem was, Alicersquo;s shields had been locked into place. The only way to penetrate them without a very specific telepathic "key," now lost in time, would be to kill her.
Exhausted, his head in his hands as he leaned his elbows on her bed, he almost missed the beep on the monitor above the bed. Then it sounded again. Jerking upright, he searched for Lara, saw Hawke carrying the healer into the office where she had a sofa. From the protective way the alpha held her, it appeared shersquo;d lost consciousness, unsurprising given the number of injuries SnowDancer had suffered.
"Alice," he whispered, turning to clasp his hand around the womanrsquo;s thin one as he kept an eye on the electronic readout above her head.
Her eyes fluttered open. So deep and intense was the brown of her irises that it was difficult to distinguish pupil from iris even when she focused on Juddrsquo;s face. Her lips parted, as if shersquo;d speak, but her throat emitted no sound. Squeezing her hand, he reached over to snag some ice chips off a trolley to wet her throat.
"Arrow," she said in a hoarse whisper, but there was no fear in her, only defiance.
"Former." Perhaps he shouldrsquo;ve waited, but he had to get the information while she was conscious and lucid. "We need to know if you discovered anything about X-Psy that would help save one about to go critical."
Confusion. "X?"
"Cold fire," he said. "X-fire. Remember."
Not even a glimmer of recognition and he knew the Ghost had been right. Alice had asked for her own memories to be erased. It had to be the reason why shersquo;d ended up in cryonic suspension rather than assassinated, her abductors needing time to work out how to retrieve the data. However, he refused to give upmdash;shersquo;d been in stasis for so long. There was no knowing how it had affected her mind. "The burning ones," he said, using every key word he could think of. "Fire. Flame. Synergy."
An instant of piercing clarity. "Find the valve."
Chapter 52
HAWKE FELT EVERYONE in the infirmary sag with relief when the first of the healers from the other sectors arrived. Theyrsquo;d asked to come before the conflict, but SnowDancer couldnrsquo;t risk putting all its healers so close to danger. But now, they were needed, and nothing could keep them away.
It cost him, but he didnrsquo;t leave until the healers pronounced that the injured had been stabilized enough that he could take a break. He headed straight for the woman who was the beating heart of him. The tent Drew had rigged over Siennarsquo;s unconscious body was empty, their packmates having left when they sensed his approach.
It was as if shersquo;d been waiting for him.
"No." It was a whisper so quiet, even most changelings wouldnrsquo;t have heard it. But Sienna was Hawkersquo;s, had always been his, whether shersquo;d known it or not, whether hersquo;d accepted it or not.
"Yes," he murmured, dipping his finger in a bottle of water and rubbing it over her lips. "Yes."
A shake of her head, but her lips parted, searching for more. He trickled some into her mouth, making low, deep sounds of encouragement in his throat. "Come on now. Open those pretty eyes for me."
"Dark."
He didnrsquo;t know what she meant by that, but driven by his wolf, he leaned down to nip at her lower lip. "Hawke," he said. "Thatrsquo;s the word you need to be saying."
Lines formed between her eyebrows.
"Hawke," he repeated, squeezing her hip. "Hawke."
"Hawke." It was a sleepy murmur as her eyes flickered open. That cardinal gaze displayed a wild burst of unadulterated happiness for one stunning instant before it was wiped away by shocked horror as she scrambled up into a sitting position. "What did you do?" A mental door slammed shut with such force it shot pinpricks of light behind his eyelids.
Snarling, he gripped her jaw, "Donrsquo;t you dare try to block me." His wolf began to batter at the wall it couldnrsquo;t see but could feel, tied as they were by the mating bond, a bond that would never allow that kind of distance.
The barrier broke in an avalanche of emotion, tangling them up until he could sense her in every part of him. Taking in a shuddering breath, he clasped her head between his hands and said, "Try that again and Irsquo;ll paddle you."
Her eyes narrowed. "Donrsquo;t you talk to me like that."
The laugh came from somewhere deep inside him. "Good morning to you, too, sunshine." Then he kissed her. And kept on kissing her until she bit down hard on his lower lip. "What?" he growled.
"Air."
The gasp gave him the impetus to rein himself back. "Judd said your family is okay." Hawke hadnrsquo;t asked too much more, especially when the former Arrow told him what Alice Eldridge had said before lapsing back into the same comalike state shersquo;d been in since entering the den.
REMEMBERING the wrenching sensation that had torn at her before she lost consciousness, Sienna closed her eyes and stepped out into what shouldrsquo;ve been the LaurenNet.
It wasnrsquo;t.
She blinked, shook her head.
"Sienna." Lips on her jaw.
She thrust a hand into his hair. "Stop distracting me." Yet she turned her face toward his, taking just a little more in spite of the dread that knotted up her throatmdash;and giving, too. He was changeling, touch essential to his happiness. "The LaurenNet is gone."
His head snapped up. "What?"
"Shh." She touched psychic fingers to the sparkling wolf-blue and flamehued rope that connected her to Hawkemdash;oh, Godmdash;but tempting as it was to focus on the beauty and terror of it, she moved on, spreading her psychic senses.
She found Judd first, linked as he was to Hawke. Bonded to him was a mind Sienna was used to seeing in the LaurenNet, though it wasnrsquo;t Psymdash;Brenna. Judd was also connected in a wholly different way to another mind she recognized: Walker. She, too, was connected to both Judd and Walker, and all three of them had direct links to Toby and Marlee.
However, those werenrsquo;t the only minds in this web.
Nine other minds, strong and wild in a way she couldnrsquo;t explain speared out from the central core that was Hawke, spokes on a wheel. A tenth mind was held closer to his own in a more protective way. All were fortified by natural shields it would take savage force to piercemdash;a stab of pain, of memorymdash;and not a single one was Psy. A number of other minds connected outward from the spokes.
"I can see Lara, see your lieutenants," she whispered, amazed by how "messy" this network was, so many intertwined and crisscrossing connections. "Indigo . . . I know her. Shersquo;s sparks and strength and life. And Drew, bonded to her so deep and strong." Her heart smiled. "That must be Cooperrsquo;s mate." Ever here, he was protective, her mind tucked close to his.
"Riley. I know him, too." He was the calm in the midst of the storm, the rock on which every one of them depended. "Strange," she whispered, seeing how the most powerful bond Riley had disappeared into nowhere. "Mercy."
Strong, slightly rough fingers on her jaw. "Everyone is safe?"
"Yes." She touched psychic fingers to the bond that was Lararsquo;s. It wasnrsquo;t like the others, and she knew on an intuitive level that the tie between alpha and healer had its own set of rules, as would the links between the lieutenants and the healers bonded to them. So complex. So glorious.
"Sienna."
Opening her eyes, she met those of a wolf. The LaurenNet, she thought, had held Judd even after Hawke blood-bonded him, because the neo-sentience within the familial network had known they couldnrsquo;t survive without him. But what Hawke had done on the battlefield had tipped the balancemdash;and tied as the family was to one another, Judd and Sienna had wrenched everyone into the SnowDancer Web.
"Good." He kissed her hard. "Now explain to me what the hell you thought you were doing turning yourself into a human torch!"
Outraged by the accusation, she almost forgot what shersquo;d been going to say. Almost. "You idiot!" She pushed at his shoulders, didnrsquo;t manage to move him an inch. "It was safe! I was wiped out; the flames wouldrsquo;ve consumed me alone." Shersquo;d known after the X-fire slipped her graspmdash;cold, such cold inside of hermdash;that it was the only way to ensure shersquo;d never again cause that kind of carnage. "Why did you stop me?"
"I took what was mine."
"What I did"mdash;sheer, unrelenting horrormdash;"mightrsquo;ve wiped me out for a short period, but Irsquo;m not stable, Hawke."
"You wanted me to watch you burn? Fuck that!" The wolf stared out at her, arrogant and insulted and furious.
But she wasnrsquo;t about to back down. "Yes! You shouldrsquo;ve let me decommission the weapon." That was what she was, how she should be treated. "Cut it," she ordered. "Cut the mating bond." Shersquo;d already tried to do it, found she couldnrsquo;tmdash;it wasnrsquo;t a Psy construct, followed no rules of psychic power that she knew. "Cut it!"
"Irsquo;m changeling, baby." A growling statement. "I couldnrsquo;t cut it if I wanted to."
"Irsquo;ll do it," she said, shivering with panic. "There must be a way. Irsquo;ll have to go into your mind andmdash;"
His face was suddenly in hers. "Try it."
Flinching, she went to do just that, because she would not hurt him, hurt any of them . . . and found she couldnrsquo;t. He was inside her, her matemdash;that impossible, beautiful wordmdash;and the idea of violating him was anathema. "Irsquo;m sorry." Her shoulders slumped. "For what I did before."
Bloated with power, shersquo;d torn through his shields and into his mind on that field of battle in a final, failed attempt at saving her packmates even as she incinerated the enemy. Hawkersquo;s wolf knew each and every one of his people, every inch of his land, every one of the wild wolvesmdash;shersquo;d thought to keep them safe by "showing" the cold fire that they werenrsquo;t to be touched. "How manymdash;"
"You hurt no one in the pack." A ruthless tone that forced her to listen. "Not a single singed hair aside from your own, you extraordinary, crazy, beautiful woman."
Her lower lip shook, and then she found herself being wrenched forward into a crushing embrace, her face buried in his neck, her arms gripping at him. "I was so scared," she whispered, because she could admit that to him, to her wolf, who saw her through to the very soul. "Everyonersquo;s safe?"
A pause. "We have a number of injured. Lara collapsed earlier, will get up in a while, start again. The healers from the other sectors have begun to arrive."
She recalled the sickening crunch of bone as Henryrsquo;s men smashed weapons into the backs of skulls. "Will it be enough?"
"No." The harsh truth of an alpha. "But we wonrsquo;t give up as long as theyrsquo;re hanging on."
"Is theremdash;" She swallowed the huge lump in her throat. "My friends?"
His arms clenched around her. "Tairsquo;s critical. So is Maria."
No, no. "Eviersquo;s heart will break." And Lake. Strong, capable Lake. He loved Maria with a tenderness that seemed to gentle even her reckless spirit.
"No surrender." Unrelenting. Inexorable. "Never do we surrender."
"No surrender," she echoed, then took a long, shuddering breath.
"Does the word valve have any specific meaning to you on the psychic plane?" he asked, and when she shook her head, he told her what Alice Eldridge had said.
A sound of sheer rage escaped her mouth, and then she was punching her fist over and over against his chest. He let her expel the bitter anger, held her when she lay breathless against him. "I almost wish wersquo;d never found her," she said, her chest rising up and down as she tried to gasp in air. "I told myself not to hope, but I did." A tiny secret part of her had been convinced the scientist would wake with the answers just in time to save her.
Other men mightrsquo;ve given her pretty words of comfort, lies that meant nothing, but Hawke, he spoke to her martial mind, talking through the battle. "We werenrsquo;t prepared for that sonic weapon." His tone told her that wouldnrsquo;t happen again. "But because of you, we held the mountains."
"The city?" she asked, her voice hoarse.
"Leopards held it. A bit of structural damage but limited injuries thanks to the Rats, Judd, and Anthonyrsquo;s and Nikitarsquo;s people. The Pure Psy operatives who survived turned tail and ran." He stroked his hand down her hair, long and slow and again. "I can feel the cold fire along our bond."
"Yes." The battle had only wiped her out for a time. It had done nothing to change the fundamental truth of the power amplification. "Itrsquo;s at fifty percent." And it was frigid, until it froze her bones. "It feels stronger." Darker. More cruel. Fear curled around her throat, tight as a noose. "Can we get farther away from the den?"
Hawke didnrsquo;t question her, simply said, "I know a good spot."
Theyrsquo;d just stepped out of the tent when the power inside of her surged in a violent rage. Her knees locked, then gave out. She wouldrsquo;ve crumpled to the grass if Hawke hadnrsquo;t clamped his hands on her upper arms as the X-fire threatened to shove out of her very skin.
"No." Even this deep into the mountains, the den was too close. Her friends, her family, her pack was too close. "Hawke, I canrsquo;t hold it." Panic beat in her throat. "If I breach, itrsquo;ll consume everyone in the vicinity." Her power had grown even more vast, even more voracious, would move out for miles in every direction.
Stone, steel, plascrete, nothing would stop its ravenous pulse.
Then she saw the scorching yellow and blazing crimson begin to divide and separate into pristine rivers inside her mind, in preparation for a final catastrophic merge. "Irsquo;m about to hit synergy!" Turning her into a human bomb of incalculable destructive power, one that would obliterate any trace of two packs called SnowDancer and DarkRiver, of a city called San Francisco, of a mountain range called the Sierra Nevada . . . and keep going.
If you ever go supernova, Mingrsquo;s arctic voice, the continent on which you stand might cease to exist.
Ming had been wrong, she realized in that moment when her power was so pure, so clear. There was no might about it.
A warm male hand gripping her own, ripping her from the horrifying understanding of just what she was. "The lake," her wolf said.
She ran beside him. "It might blunt the impact." Part of her knew it wouldnrsquo;t be enough, that even the deepest part of the lake couldnrsquo;t contain the tidal wave of her power, but she had to believe. Then she felt an unexpected psychic burn inside of her, saw that the cold fire was eating away at her network shields, would soon pour out into the SnowDancer web in a violent storm. It had never before threatened to penetrate a psychic networkmdash;but shersquo;d never been this close to synergy.
Fear twisted knives of ice through her heart as they hit the water. "Hawke! The X-fire is spreading on the psychic plane. I canrsquo;t cut my mental bonds, but you canmdash;"
Wolf-blue slammed into her eyes. "Donrsquo;t you dare ask me to hurt you. Donrsquo;t you fucking dare."
Pain ripped her in two, the world already tinged crimson and gold, and she realized her eyes were drowning in X-fire. A single tear trailed down her cheek as the frigid water reached her thighs. "Irsquo;ll burn out your mind."
He continued to swim farther into the lake, pulling her along. "The others?"
The water hit her breasts, soaked into her chest, into her bones. "The web"mdash;she kicked her legs in an attempt to help himmdash;"will collapse without you." He was the center, the key. Had her family been part of it longer, they couldrsquo;ve built failsafe bonds, but as it was, the web was a wholly changeling construct, created by ties of blood . . . Hawkersquo;s blood. "The changeling members wonrsquo;t suffer any ill-effects.
"Walker and Judd"mdash;she gasped past the cold that consumed hermdash;"will be able to drag the children into a smaller LaurenNet." She rsquo;pathed Judd a warning. Her sweet Toby, and smart, funny Marlee remained unconscious, a small blessing.
"When you diemdash;" The words wouldnrsquo;t come, and it had nothing to do with the fact that her body was in the coldest, deepest part of the lake. "When you die," she forced herself to say, "the psychic shock will tear me from the web, regardless of the links to my family." Hersquo;d become her anchor in every way and losing him would destroy her, ending her life and the threat of synergy. "We should dive just in case, but once separated from the web, I wonrsquo;t be a danger anymore."
Her wolf cupped her face, nothing but a wild devotion in his touch, in his voice. "Then whatrsquo;s there to be scared about?"
It broke her heart, that he was hers. "I love you." Irsquo;m sorry.
A caress down the mating bond, an untamed kiss that she knew was her wolf before he said, "Forever," and dived with her in his arms, the water closing over their heads in a sheet of sparkling blue.
Cold. So, so cold.
It was the last thing she had physical awareness of before the crimson and gold collided to create an inferno that poured over and through her shields with a vicious strength she could never hope to control. Hawke! It was a telepathic cry as the flame seared down the mating bond, turning it into an incandescent ribbon.
His arms clenched around her, shocking her back to the world for a single instant before she was wrenched to the psychic plane once again. She watched in horror as the rapacious tempest of her power surged into Hawke. Instead of burning out his mind, it encased it . . . and continued to spread out on the bonds that tied him to his lieutenants, their mates, the healers.
It wanted all of them.
No! No!
Chapter 53
THE FIRE RACED along the familial bonds, too.
First it hit Judd. Then it hit Walker. And held. She knew both men had risen to consciousness, were shielding to the limit of their strength to save the children as well as Brenna, but she also knew theyrsquo;d fail. The power continued to pour out of her, surge after surge after lethal surge.
For a blazing instant, the SnowDancer Web was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, a brilliant gold and crimson network lit with pure raw energy. It spoke not of death, but of life. But of course, that was a lie. Even as the minds of Hawkersquo;s lieutenants blazed a terrible red, Walker and Judd finally broke.
WALKER knew the moment before Siennarsquo;s strength overwhelmed him that he was going to break. Reaching out with his telepathy, he knocked both drowsy children back into unconsciousness. They wouldnrsquo;t feel any pain, have any awareness of going into the final goodnight.
Lara.
A single, painful thought before there was no more time. The brutal energy of an X shoved into his mind. For an instant, it was a thing of beauty, such unadulterated power that he was staggered by it. If only there was a way to harness this.
Then it rammed into his final telepathic shields, burning them to ash as the wave crashed. He had a moment to glimpse the web and think that the power was arrowing itself to him, as if he was some kind of lodestone. The flamemdash;so cold, so violentmdash;shoved into his psychic core a second later.
Death had never felt so exhilarating.
In the physical world, he went to his knees, his vision flame yellow and bloodred, but on the psychic plane, his telepathic reach was magnified a thousand times over for a gleaming instant, and he had time to be grateful that he hadnrsquo;t been born that way, for a man was not meant to know the worldrsquo;s secrets.
He waited to die, to feel the frigid burn of an Xrsquo;s touch, but the power continued to pour through him. Gritting his teeth against the impact of it, he reached out to touch a telepathic hand to the children, found them unconscious but unharmed. That was when he focused his psychic eye beyond the avalanche of power. And saw something so incredible, it wouldrsquo;ve brought him to his knees if he hadnrsquo;t already been on them.
The strange twisting motion at the center of his mental star, it had nothing to do with children, nothing to do with telepathy. It blazed diamond bright as it spun at phenomenal speed, acting as a filter for Siennarsquo;s energy. The destructive potential was trapped, eradicated, the rest returned to the network. The interconnected threads of the web continued to burn but second by second, the vicious red was fading into a shimmering gold . . . until at last, there was no more raw power.
IT wasnrsquo;t until two days later that everyone was functional enough to have a rational discussion. They met in the main conference room, the lieutenants from around the state coming in via comm feeds. Cooperrsquo;s mate stood by his side, while the others in the SnowDancer Web, as the Laurens were calling it, took seats around the conference table. The only ones missing were the children, and the healers from the other sectorsmdash;theyrsquo;d decided to head back home, leaving Lara as their representative.
"That was some trip," Tomás said, breaking the ice. "Holy hell, I was on speed for two days. I swear I ran patrol nonstop for thirty-six hours."
"We healed everyone," Lara said, flexing her fingers, her voice too jerky, too fast. "Everyone in the infirmary, everyone in the pack that we could find with even the slightest injury. Anyone have a sore back? Scratches?"
Beside her, Walker did something Hawke wouldnrsquo;t have expected from the quiet, contained Psy. He put his hand under Lararsquo;s hair, curving it around her nape. It was a very changeling display of possessionmdash;a signal to every other male in the meeting that Lara was now off-limits.
Hawkersquo;s wolf approved.
"I had sex," Drew said with a grin. "Lots and lots and lots of sex."
Indigo threw a balled-up piece of paper at him, but she was grinning. Catching the paper, he said, "Hey, no use in good energy going to waste."
Everyone chuckled, the atmosphere nothing like it wouldrsquo;ve been a few days ago if theyrsquo;d been talking of Siennarsquo;s power. "So," Hawke said, playing his fingers through his matersquo;s hair, "it looks like we all got a boost."
"She acts like a mini-reactor," Walker said in that intense, contained way that had everyone paying attention. "Her power is infinite."
"So wersquo;re going to keep getting mega-hits like this?" Tomásrsquo;s dark brown eyes sparkled as they landed on Siennarsquo;s down-bent head. "Not that I donrsquo;t appreciate it, sugar, but it did make me lsquo;hyper,rsquo; according to my mother."
"Toby hasnrsquo;t slept for two days and counting," Lara said. "He outran his changeling friendsmdash;he thinks itrsquo;s wuuuuuunderful. His word."
Sienna spoke for the first time. "I think that was a one-off," she said, twisting her hands under the table where she thought Hawke couldnrsquo;t see it. "Walker and I have been talking, and our theory is that it was because I was trying to contain the power and it built up to a critical mass. If I release a steady stream of it, itrsquo;ll boost your energy levels without having a discernible impact like it did this time around."
Leaning over, Hawke nipped at her ear. She turned bright red. "Hawke."
"No one is angry at you, Sienna," he murmured. "Look at them."
He saw her raise her head, glance around, felt the staggering relief that poured down the mating bond. When she turned and reached up to pull his hand from her hair, bring it to her lips, he was undone, his wolf her slave.
Looking away from her only when she put his hand down on the table, her fingers tangled with his, he found the others had begun to speak amongst themselves, giving him and Sienna privacy. "Itrsquo;s clear that Walker acts as a filter . . . a valve," he said during a lull in the conversation.
Matthias looked troubled. "What if something happens to Walker?"
"Wersquo;ve been talking about that," Sienna spoke up, a confidence in her voice that had been missing earlier. "The helix appeared in Walkerrsquo;s mind around the time my mother was pregnant with me, so therersquo;s a chance one of the other Psy in the network would develop the ability."
If they were right, shersquo;d explained to Hawke, the implications were astounding. It meant the neosentience in a psychic network didnrsquo;t only organize the network, it could influence it on the individual level. Which, if the rumors about the current rot in the PsyNet were true, led to some very disturbing suppositions.
"However," Sienna continued, "wersquo;re not relying on that. Now that we know what Walkerrsquo;s mind does, Judd thinks he can train his own to mimic the effect. It wonrsquo;t work anywhere near as well, and the power surge will be a lot roughermdash;"
Matthias cut her off. "Itrsquo;ll work." A fierce smile. "Thatrsquo;s the important thing."
Kenji glanced at Walker. "Does it take anything out of you?"
"No." Walker tapped a finger on the table. "In fact, Irsquo;ve never felt more alive. For the first time in my life, Irsquo;m making complete use of my abilities. The valve runs automatically in the background, so it wonrsquo;t interfere with my normal duties."
Jem stared at the Psy male. "Wow, I never heard you say so many words in a row before."
That made Tomás and Drew burst out laughing. Alexei, Cooper, and Matthias were a tad more restrained, but even they had grins on their faces. Hawkersquo;s wolf laughed deep within. His pack, his mate. All here. Life was good . . . except for the fact the Psy Council now knew that not only Sienna, but the entire Lauren family, was alive.
WALKER kept his hand on Lararsquo;s lower back as they exited the meeting room. "Do you have patients?"
"No. I healed everyone, remember?" A sparkling look from those tawny eyes. "Everyone! Even the ones who were dying. I was super-healer. Or okay, super-healer with super-healer assistants. Did you know Tai kissed Evie right in front of Indigo? With tongue. And Maria baked everyone cupcakes."
"Yoursquo;re still power-drunk." It made sense. From what theyrsquo;d learned over the past few years, it appeared that there was always a neo-sentience in any psychic network, and even the most embryonic one wouldrsquo;ve understood that the healers needed the power more than anyone else. Except that therersquo;d been so much energy, giving Lara and the others extra really hadnrsquo;t been necessary. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
Lara giggled. Slapped a hand over her mouth. "Irsquo;m so happymdash;all those injured, healed. I actually ran out of people. Too bad Alice Eldridge isnrsquo;t a wolf or I couldrsquo;ve woken her up. Elias is kinda mad I found him and fixed him up without leaving even a teeny-tiny scar that he could brag about. When are the rest of the juveniles coming back? I bet you theyrsquo;ll give me something to heal."
Hiding his laugh at the rapid speech that reminded him of his daughtermdash;who was attempting to break the world skipping record in the White Zonemdash;he nudged her in the direction he wanted her to go. "Tomorrow."
"Oh, good."
As she slid an arm around his waist, he said, "Drew said he had lots of sex. Want to do that instead?" He needed to claim her on a fundamental level, to touch and stroke and caress and know that she had come out of the flames of war unscathed.
Lararsquo;s head snapped up. "Now?"
"Yes."
She grabbed his hand as if to drag him along behind her. "Hurry up."
"Wait," he said as they reached her quarters, "are you too power-drunk to give consent?"
Lara recited the periodic table back at him. "See, all my faculties. Now can we have sex?"
"Yes."
Her breath turned jagged when he nudged her back into her quarters and locked the door behind himself. Those big eyes didnrsquo;t get any smaller when he unbuttoned and stripped off his shirt, then kicked off his shoes and socks. As he took the belt out of his jeans, she sucked in a breath, walked forward.
And bit him.
Right on his pectorals, sinking her teeth deep enough to leave a dark red mark. It snapped what control hersquo;d maintained, and he found himself picking her up and throwing her on the bed. She got up as if to get away, but hersquo;d been in the pack long enough to know her wolf was playing with him. Pulling off her shoes, he tore off her jeans and panties with a lack of finesse that mightrsquo;ve worried him if Lara hadnrsquo;t been making low, needy sounds in the back of her throat.
"Take off your sweatshirt." It was an order.
One she obeyed with shaking hands.
"The bra."
It was gone an instant later. However, instead of lying back, she stretched out on her hands and knees in front of him, looking up with a distinctively wolfish look in her eye. "Irsquo;ll be gentle." Solemn words that made him want to smile. "I know yoursquo;re a virgin. Psy donrsquo;t have sex do they?"
"No." Intimate touch was forbidden in the PsyNet. "But I think I have the concept figured out." Surrendering to temptation, he stroked his hand down the curve of her back.
She arched into the touch, her skin shimmering with heat. "Are you teasing me?" A suspicious look, even as she rose up on her knees to tug open the top button of his jeans.
"A little." He bent down to nuzzle at her, biting her gently on the earlobe as hersquo;d done that night in her apartment when theyrsquo;d talked and done so much more.
She shivered. "You remembered."
He remembered everything about her, from the way she made those tiny sounds when he licked his tongue across hers, to the way she pushed her breast into his hand when he pinched her nipple. "On your back," he whispered, because the need in him was a demanding thing, one that wanted to brand, to claim in a way hersquo;d never before experienced or understood.
Obeying without argument, she braced herself on her elbows, looking at him with those brilliant eyes as he shucked his jeans. Her gulped in breath was a caress across his senses. Taking a grip on her ankles, he spread her thighs. "Who do you belong to, Lara?" he asked quietly.
"You." It was a whisper. "Only you."
He wasnrsquo;t surprised to feel her inside him, inside his very heart. Of course that was where shersquo;d bemdash;it was the only way to make sure he could protect her. Lara was one of the most vulnerable people he had ever met. She had the capability to face down even Hawke if she thought the alpha was causing himself harm, but by that same token, shersquo;d cut out her own heart and give it to him if it would keep him going. Walker wasnrsquo;t sure how shersquo;d survived this long without someone to watch out for her.
"Walker . . . did we just . . ." Shocked words, rapid breaths.
Chapter 54
HE MOVED UP the bed to rise over her. "Lara?"
"Yes?"
"Letrsquo;s have sex first, talk later." He mightrsquo;ve been Silent once, but that man was long gone. The one who remained was holding on to his control by the skin of his teeth.
Hands on his chest, shaping and petting. "Okay."
When he reached down to caress the slick heat between her thighs, she grabbed his wrist. "Letrsquo;s skip the foreplay this time."
"Okay." Spreading her thighs, he stroked into her, going slow because she seemed too tiny to take him. The heat of her was a sensual jolt that threatened to wrench the reins from his grasp. Hersquo;d thought about sinking into her tight grasp, thought about exploring this beautiful body with its soft curves, but never had he realized the savage impact of this act.
Mine. It was a primitive thought.
Right then, she locked her legs around him and thrust her body up at the same time.
Lara cried out as the aggressive heat of Walker slammed home inside of her, clutching at his back in a vain effort to find an anchor. Her mind was awash in shock and wonder, her body buzzed. She parted her lips to speak, found the words stolen by a demanding male mouth that set her free only long enough to ask, "Does it hurt?"
"So good." She bit at his jaw, and he reacted the way he always did when she did that.
He took over her mouth, licking and tasting and demanding . . . while moving in her, slow and deep, one callused hand on her hip to pin her in place. Having hungered for this most intimate of skin privileges for so very long, she met him kiss for kiss, touch for touch, but it was crystal clear shersquo;d never be the dominant in bed.
Her wolf had no argument with that. She was a healer. She needed a mate who was strong, able to care for her as she cared for others. Kissing at his neck as he reached down to cup her buttocks, to angle her for a deeper penetration, she felt her entire body clench. "Walker! Please."
His next strokes were hard and fast and possessive, his kisses the same. Pleasure rippled over her in waves and then crashed, breaking her into a thousand splinters. She held him to the end. Never was she letting this man and his heart go. Never.
IT was after the third round of sexmdash;yes, she was sore, and no, she didnrsquo;t give a damnmdash;that Lara worked off enough energy that her brain started to function on any level other than the sensual. Snuggling close to Walker, who lay on his side beside her, stroking her curves with those delicious hands, she kissed his chest, licking up the salt-laced taste of dark water and snow-dusted firs.
Her wolf snuggled up next to him, too, bathing itself in the radiance of the mating bond. It was strong and steady, just like the man who was her mate. "You know this is for life, right?" she asked, half afraid hersquo;d want to back off now that the buzz was gone.
"Yes." He stroked his hand over her butt. "The mating bond will make it easier to keep an eye on you."
"Walker."
He switched positions so he leaned over her. "Lara."
Oh, she knew she was going to have trouble with himmdash;but damn if she wasnrsquo;t looking forward to it. "Can you see us in the web?"
"Yes." A satisfied smile. "Itrsquo;s rearranged itself so yoursquo;re by me. Where I can shield you."
"I never knew you were this possessive."
Her answer was a slow, hot kiss that had her rubbing herself against his thigh. Before he could take over, she pushed him to his back and rose to straddle him. Those distinctive green eyes lingered on the modest swell of her breasts with such carnal intent, her toes curled. When he reached up to touch her, explore her, he did so with such intense focus she felt as if she was the most intriguing thing he had ever seen.
He pinched her nipple in precisely the way shersquo;d whispered she enjoyed that sultry night in her apartment. "Lara?"
"Yes?" It was a trembling question.
"Teach me more of the foreplay you like."
She was a changeling, sensuality in her bloodmdash;and yet his blunt request had her breathless. "I like everything you do to me."
"In that case"mdash;he flipped her onto her back again, spread her thighsmdash;"I think we should explore the concept of oral sex."
Her brain hazed over. And stayed hazed.
Because once Walker Lauren put his mind to something, it didnrsquo;t budgemdash;and the man did not leave any task unfinished. "Hmm," he said after the orgasm left her a quivering mass of female flesh. "Letrsquo;s do that again now that I know what Irsquo;m doing."
Now that hemdash; "Touch me and die." Grabbing those big shoulders, she hauled him up.
"No more oral sex?" A quiet, sexy smile she knew only she would ever see.
Her entire body melted. "Oh, no. Yes, to more oral sex." Pushing him onto his back, she slid down his body.
Her mate, she learned, knew some very interesting words.
JUDD had gone to Xavierrsquo;s to pass over a data crystal encoded with information relating to a woman his friend had been searching for, for years, but as he waited for Xavier to finish speaking to someone in his office and come on out, he found a black-garbed male taking a seat on the moonlit back steps next to him.
He wasnrsquo;t surprisedmdash;hersquo;d expected this from the instant his familyrsquo;s cover had been blown. "Hello, Aden."
Aden looked out at the kitchen garden behind the church. "I did not expect to find you so near a place of worship."
"Have you come to kill me?"
"Those are my orders."
"Since I can teleport, that means Vasic is nearby."
Aden looked at him for the first time; that face with its high cheekbones, olive skin, and uptilted eyes was that of the quintessential Arrow. Cold. Without any indication of a man behind the mask "Vasic was taken off Jax when you were," he said without warning, referring to the drug that turned Arrows into killers.
"Did it help him?"
"He says there was nothing left in him to save."
Juddrsquo;s eyes went to the emblem on the shoulder of Adenrsquo;s uniform, a single star. "Kaleb didnrsquo;t give the order."
"Ming." Aden turned back to look at the garden. "He doesnrsquo;t understand us, never has, though he once wore the badge of an Arrow."
Judd leaned forward to brace his arms on his knees. "I broke the code. I left the squad."
"To save an X." Aden echoed his move, unusual from a Silent Arrow.
"Silence was meant to save the Xs, save all of us who donrsquo;t fit into the normal world."
"Itrsquo;s failed, Aden."
"Yes. For some at least." A long pause. "The Council no longer exists, though the populace doesnrsquo;t yet realize it. The factions are already forming behind the scenes."
"Yoursquo;re talking about a civil war." One that would devastate the Net.
"Perhaps itrsquo;s been inevitable since the instant our race chose Silence."
Yes. "How long?"
"Therersquo;ll be a small lull as each faction gathers support . . . months, Judd, not years."
Bells rang somewhere in the distance, and they both went quiet.
"Has Walker ever told you he had me as a student?" Aden asked after the echoes faded.
Judd shook his head. "He doesnrsquo;t speak about his time in the squadrsquo;s schoolroom."
"What he taught me . . . tell him it has saved the life and sanity of more than one Arrow."
Judd thought of his brotherrsquo;s brilliance at telepathic deceptions, without which they wouldrsquo;ve never have escaped the Net, and wondered just how Aden had utilized those skills. "If you need me, Irsquo;ll stand beside you."
"You exist. Sienna exists. Itrsquo;s enough. You not only survived, yoursquo;ve found happiness. I donrsquo;t understand the emotion, but I know itrsquo;s better than the dark. So do the others."
Hope, Judd thought. That was the word Aden couldnrsquo;t find. "What will you do?"
"Silence is falling." No change in the tone of his voice, nothing to betray the scale of what he was talking about. "We will watch, wait, and fight the war when it comes."
Judd didnrsquo;t ask on which side Aden and the Arrows would stand. He knew.
DIZZIED by the turn of events that had left her with decades, maybe a century left to live, Sienna was more than grateful when Hawke took her to the privacy of their cabin. She found herself being kissed an instant later. She wanted to nip at those firm lips, even knowing it would be a very bad idea. Might just get her devoured. "Wait, Imdash;"
"No talking," he said, a bare millimeter between them. "Skin privileges first."
"Talk first." She dug her nails into his chest.
Picking her up, he pinned her to the wall, her legs around his waist. "Okay." Clever hands opening the buttons of her shirt, a sexy mouth on the skin of her throat and the upper curves of her breasts.
"Hawke." It was a moan, her fingers in his hair.
"You donrsquo;t need these, do you?" Her jeans and panties were torn into fragments moments later, his hand cupping her with heated possessiveness as he kissed the life out of her.
"Off." She pulled at the sides of his shirt, heard a button ping to the floor.
He refused to help her, more interested in playing with her slick flesh, in teasing and tormenting the breasts hersquo;d bared by cutting her bra with a claw. But Sienna had claws of her own. Putting her lips to his ear, she said, "I want to rub my breasts against your chest."
She was on her back on the bed with breathtaking speed, a naked Hawke above her moments later. He snapped his teeth at her. Laughing, she did the same. And then she pulled him down and did exactly as shersquo;d demanded.
Her wolf let her play, played with her, and it wasnrsquo;t until they were lying on the rug in front of the fireplacemdash;Hawke dressed in a pair of jeans barely buttoned, her in his shirtmdash;nibbling at a tray of food that Sienna plucked out the key she wore around her neck. "What does this open?"
Rolling to his feet, he went out to the vehicle to return with a small metal box that he placed beside her before resuming his previous position. Knowing the wolf wouldnrsquo;t give her a clue, she slid in the key and unlocked the box. Lined with blue velvet, it was empty.
Strange how she understood. "For the memories wersquo;ll make." Her throat grew thick, and though she knew there was a chance his answer would break her heart, she had to ask the question she hadnrsquo;t dared to until this moment. "How did we mate?" Had the events on the battlefield pushed him into it? Did he regret it? She couldnrsquo;t speak those fears aloud, but they lived in her heart, bleak and painful.
HAWKE glanced up at Sienna and knew that he held the balance of power, that what he said next would affect the remainder of their life together in the most profound of ways. He could answer her question without giving anything away, without tilting that balance. Or he could make another choice, one that took them beyond lovers, beyond mates, and to a true alpha pair.
"You were right," he said and saw a storm of emotion in those extraordinary cardinal eyes.
It wouldrsquo;ve been easy for her to smile, to accept the admission at face value, but that wasnrsquo;t who Sienna was. "About what?" she asked, watching him with an expression that had turned a little guarded.
His wolf wasnrsquo;t surprised. Sienna had her own scars, and it would take time for those to fade. Hawke was okay with thatmdash;because he was planning to be there for the long haul, ready to battle any nightmare that dared touch her. "About the mating bond." Rising up into a sitting position, he braced one elbow over a drawn up knee. "It wasnrsquo;t the wolf holding me back.
"When Rissa died," he said, giving Sienna this last secret corner of his heart, "it was like having a part of me ripped out. I didnrsquo;t speak for a month, didnrsquo;t do anything but sit by her grave." Boy and wolf, theyrsquo;d both kept hoping that if he wished hard enough, Rissa would come back. "It took me a long time to accept that she was gone, that the only thing I had of her was the hole shersquo;d left inside me."
Sienna moved close enough to curve her hand around the calf of the leg hersquo;d raised, her eyes inky black. But she didnrsquo;t interrupt, this woman who understood him in ways he wasnrsquo;t sure he understood himself, whorsquo;d forced him to face the cold, hard truth of the lies hersquo;d told himself over the years. That didnrsquo;t make it any simpler to rip the scab off this woundmdash;hell, he was alpha for a reason. Vulnerability wasnrsquo;t a sensation he enjoyed.
It made his next words rough, almost harsh. "It was easier to believe that my shot at mating died with Rissa than to risk that kind of pain again." Thrusting his hand into her hair, he shook his head. "Except I never had a prayer when it came to you. Yoursquo;re in my every breath and every thought, intertwined so deep inside me that loversquo;s not a strong enough wordmdash;you have my devotion, your name branded on my soul, my wolf yours to command. A hundred years? Itrsquo;ll never be enough. I want eternity."
Tears, slow and quiet, ran down Siennarsquo;s cheeks.
He wasnrsquo;t finished. "You have the power to tear me to pieces, to wound me so deep and true that Irsquo;ll never recover. What Rissarsquo;s death did to the boy I was? You have the ability to do a thousand times worse to the man Irsquo;ve become. Some part of me knew that was a possibility from the instant you walked into my lifemdash;so I tried to keep you at armrsquo;s length even as I demanded everything you had. I was a coward."
"Hawke, no." On her knees in front of him, she shook her head in open distress, wiping away her tears with the backs of her hands. "I shouldrsquo;ve never said that."
"You called me on my bullshit," he said, raising his other knee and bringing her in between. "Made me mad as fucking hell, and itrsquo;ll probably do the same in the future when you do it again. Fair warning."
Her lips lifting up at the corners in a shaky smile, she twined her arms around his neck. "You mean yoursquo;re not going to become tame and well-behaved now that wersquo;re mated?" Tiny kisses on the corners of his lips, on his cheeks, on his jaw. "Damn."
Leaning into the affection, he allowed her to soothe the sharp edges within. "I can pretend if you want." He petted the sweet curve of her behind, naked beneath the tails of the shirt shersquo;d commandeered.
A husky laugh. "I wouldnrsquo;t know you." Her next words were solemn, her expression intent. "I know we had an agreement about no alpha stuff between us while we were courting. But thatrsquo;s going to change. I accept my rank, and Irsquo;ll continue to take orders from those who are more senior. But never you."
She continued to speak before he could interrupt, her hands moving to cup his face. "Irsquo;m yours. No limits. Irsquo;ll give you everything you ask, anything you want, except this one thingmdash;obedience because of rank. You will never be my alpha. Not in public, not in private. Yoursquo;re Hawke to me. Just Hawke. Do you understand?"
His wolf shuddered, relaxed as he bent to touch his forehead to hers. "Understood and accepted." Mine, he thought, mine. For the first time in his adult life, he had someone who was hismdash;and with whom he could engage in a way he couldnrsquo;t with any other member of his beloved pack.
They sat like that for a long time, his wolf peaceful on a level it hadnrsquo;t been since hersquo;d picked up the mantle of leadership at fifteen. And that wolf, it wanted her touch, too. He shifted without telling her, heard her gasp. But when the wolf laid its head in her lap and closed its eyes, her fingers clenched, soft and possessive in his fur. Content, he slept.
SIENNA sat stroking the silver-gold pelt of the huge wolf who slept with his head in her lap, her heart filled with a depth of wonder and joy she couldnrsquo;t comprehend. The words hersquo;d given her, the power hersquo;d given her . . . she hadnrsquo;t expected either.
I love you beyond life. It was a thought sent down the mating bond, and when the wolf seemed to sigh, it was clear some part of him heard her. That bond was so deep, so visceral, she knew there would never be another for either of them if one died. The changelings were rightmdash;mating was only once and forever.
A silent tear touched her cheek . . . a tear for Rissa. If Hawke ever wanted to visit the girl who had held his heart as a boy, Sienna wouldnrsquo;t stop him. Rissarsquo;s ghost had been laid to restmdash;what remained were memories that should be cherished and held close. In a way, she thought, Rissa belonged to both of them now, as did her mother, Kristine. Pieces of the past that had shaped them, made them, brought them to this moment.
A moment in which she caressed a wolf whorsquo;d held together a broken pack through sheer grit and determination. It wouldnrsquo;t be a simple or easy life, she thought, her lips beginning to curve. Hersquo;d try to dominate her, of that she had not a single doubt. But he would also love her with every powerful beat of that wild changeling heart.
. . . you have my devotion, your name branded on my soul, my wolf yours to command. A hundred years? Itrsquo;ll never be enough. I want eternity.
No, not simple or easy.
Vivid and dangerous and extraordinary, thatrsquo;s the life shersquo;d have with her wolf.
When that wolf raised his head, she smiled. "Hello."
He shifted, and suddenly, she was being kissed by a naked man who scrambled her brains. Gasping in a breath as he scooped her up in his arms to throw her playfully onto the bed, she laughed. "Is the edge off yet?"
"Ask me again in a month or so." Then he pounced.
It was a long time later, her skin shimmering with aftershocks of pleasure, that she frowned and said, "Whatrsquo;s your full name?"
Hawkersquo;s wolf flashed in his eyes, the ice blue glittering with the same amusement that had his cheeks creasing. "What brought that on?"
"I refuse to be your mate and be in the dark." She stroked her palms up over the temptation of his chest, her breasts tingling at the memory of how hard and beautiful he felt pressed up against her. In spite of his earlier words, hersquo;d let her play with his body, stroke the rigid heat of his cock, learn him with her mouth.
Of course, that hadnrsquo;t lasted long. When shersquo;d complained, hersquo;d promised to let her use the handcuffs on him next time. Sienna couldnrsquo;t wait to hold him to that promise, to taste every muscled inch of him, but first things first. "Tell."
Leaning down, he nipped at her jaw, a quick, affectionate bite that had her jerking. "No distracting me," she complained, rubbing her foot over the back of his calf, the hairs on his legs crisp and rough, a sexy caress against her skin. "I want to know."
His chuckle vibrated through the palms she had on that resilient flesh. "If yoursquo;re sure." Another small bite before he whispered it in her ear.
She blinked. "No."
He growled, but it was playful. "Donrsquo;t you like it?"
"Itrsquo;s beautiful, you know it is." Perfect for him. "But then I have to ask about your first name. It doesnrsquo;t seem very wolfishmdash;especially considering the age and significance of your last. Was it a family name?"
He shook his head. "My mother had decided on a name if she ever had a boy, long before she met my father, regardless of the fact that Hawke wasnrsquo;t any kind of a name for a wolf." He settled over her, a heavy male blanket. "When they mated, she decided to take her matersquo;s surname, which was one of the oldest, if not the oldest, in the pack, but she refused to change her mind about her sonrsquo;s name."
Sienna heard the echo of deepest love in that statement. "Your father accepted it."
"He adored her." A simple answer. "Plus he figured any son of his would soon handle anyone who hassled him over his namemdash;he was right." The arrogance was pure male wolf.
Charmed, she kissed a line up his neck. "In your motherrsquo;s defense," she said, unable to stop petting him, "itrsquo;s a gorgeous, unique name."
"Just not meant for a wolf." He bent into her caresses. "Honestly? I like that they both gave me a name."
She did, too. "What about me?" she asked. "Do I take your last name since wersquo;re mated?"
"Do you want to?" A tilt of his head, the wolf watchful but not demanding.
She considered the question with care, thinking of who shersquo;d been, who she was now. "Yes," she said at last, "but Irsquo;d like to keep mine, too." As with Hawke, the past was gone, but it had left an indelible mark, could not be forgotten. "Itrsquo;s a part of me."
Lips against her own, a wolfrsquo;s kiss. "That works fine for me . . . Sienna Lauren Snow."
