Hawke took Toby’s face in between his palms, captured the boy’s distraught gaze with his own. “You did the right thing coming to me. I’ll find her.” Always. She was his.
Toby gave a jerky nod. “You gotta go. I think she’s running away.”
No way in hell
.
“Riley.”
“I’ve got him.” Riley put his hand on top of Toby’s head.
“Go,” both man and boy said.
He left, fury beating in every pulse of his blood. Did she really think he’d let her go? That he’d lie down and accept the fact that she’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 hadn’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 wasn’t wolf, wasn’t alpha. He lost her scent at the lake. It didn’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 he’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 weren’t a lie. “Hawke’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, Sienna’s in big trouble.”
They began to discuss whether they wanted to swap their cookies.
Startled, Lara looked up to meet Riley’s gaze. The lieutenant gave a single satisfied nod before leaving the children in Lara’s care—though Lara wasn’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 didn’t fuss. Instead, she moved around to fix the ribbon on Marlee’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. He’s coming home though.” Eyes identical to her father’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 boy’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 you’re pretty great.”
Wanting to smile at the idea of anyone cuddling Walker, Lara pressed a kiss to Marlee’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 won’t permit her to handle this alone. We’re pack.”
A small hand brushed over her own as Marlee patted Toby’s back. “Don’t be sad, Toby. Hawke won’t bite her
very
hard for running away.”
Toby’s eyes went huge as he drew back from the hug . . . and then he started laughing, turning to wrap one arm around his grinning cousin’s neck to tug her to his side.
From the mouths
, Lara thought, her own lips twitching,
of babes
.
SWEAT
was trickling down Sienna’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 can’t be here.” In the hours since she’d left the den, she’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 didn’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 couldn’t fix this, fix
her
. “I’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 she’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. “I’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 time—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 wasn’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 she’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. “I’m dangerous. I—” His mouth on her own, his hand gripping her at the nape as his body pinned her against the tree.
She should’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 didn’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.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Fisting her hand in his hair, she kissed him in ragged apology—she couldn’t say she wouldn’t do it again. That choice had been taken out of her hands the instant she’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 I’d beaten it. I thought I’d be the X who survived, but I was just fooling myself. I should’ve looked more carefully, should’ve realized—”
“You had no one to teach you,” he said with changeling fierceness. “You’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 we’d find Alice Eldridge’s book on X-Psy and that it would have all the answers. Stupid, isn’t it? But I guess even an X can believe in fairy tales.” Her hand fisted against him. “I can’t go back. I’m not safe.” Never would be safe.
“Then we stay up here.” An absolute statement.
She’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.”
Hawke’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 you’re mine.” Reaching up to stroke the tangled mess he’d made of her hair, he released a breath. “When Rissa died, part of me broke. Even at ten, I knew I wasn’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 didn’t understand. “Rissa’s death, her life, shaped me. She’ll always be a part of me, but I haven’t been the boy she knew for a long time.
You
—and only you—hold the man’s heart.”
Sienna froze. “You mustn’t say that.” They’d never have the mating bond, but this, what he was giving her, it was as precious, as binding. As painfully beautiful. “You mustn’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 you’ve put me through over the years.”
He was teasing, but she couldn’t find any laughter inside of her. “I don’t know how to stop this”—an excruciating, angry helplessness—“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, he’d held a broken pack together and made it strong again, a man who’d given sanctuary to the enemy . . . a man who’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.
“Hawke’s with her,” Judd said, and it wasn’t a question.
“Has your contact found anything?” Walker asked in a tone so devoid of emotion, it would’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 don’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 didn’t need the other man to spell it out. “The only remaining record was in Eldridge’s head.”
“Yes.”
It was the final staggering hit. “We’re going to lose Sienna.” A cold, hard rock in his chest, the knowledge that he wouldn’t be able to keep the promise he’d made to Kristine, wouldn’t be able to keep her daughter safe. “There’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 couldn’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 change—and that change could be used to a smart man’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 Ghost’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 that’ll erase your name from my memory banks at a single mental command. Images are more difficult to remove.”
So he’d made sure he didn’t have any images to erase. “You could’ve ruled.” For all of Judd’s power, the Ghost had never before considered that possibility.
“It would have killed what remained of my soul.”
The Ghost couldn’t recall ever having had a soul, didn’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 don’t think you’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.