by Nalini Singh
The memory shimmered as Riordan’s chest rose in a deep breath, fell in a long exhale. “You remember that time Hawke busted up our group at Wild?” he asked, referring to the bar/club not far from SnowDancer territory frequented by younger members of the pack—though as far as Lara knew, no one had been there since the battle.
Right now, it was about being with Pack.
“That incident is legend.” The news that Hawke had carried Sienna out over his shoulder had spread through the pack with the rampant fury of a wildfire. “Never to be forgotten so long as we all should live.”
Riordan’s lips kicked up in a wicked smile. “That was some night.” His smile faded as quickly as it had appeared, an unexpected maturity taking its place.
And she thought—this is the man he’s going to be. Quick to laugh, big of heart, but with a depth that would surprise people who saw only the surface.
“I met someone,” he told her. “From DarkRiver.”
“Ah.” She started checking each fine blood vessel, noting with a corner of her mind that she wasn’t feeling as depleted as she normally would after a complex operation of this kind. “Is your girl leading you a dance?”
“No, I mean, that’s not it. I don’t mind playing with her.” Another grin, that of the wolf he was. “I think this has the potential to be serious.”
“Okay. So what’s the problem?” Catching his look, she said, “I know she’s a leopard, but a leopard/wolf relationship is hardly taboo these days. Not after the success of Mercy and Riley’s mating.”
“Yes, but they’re sentinel and lieutenant,” Riordan pointed out. “Hawke’s talked to us about the subtle differences between the two packs, and how we should be careful to make sure both parties are on the same page during any kind of a courtship.”
“But?”
“But I don’t know if we’re supposed to inform our alphas when a relationship turns serious, whether there are rules we’re meant to follow to make sure we don’t inadvertently hurt the alliance if something goes wrong. Riley and Mercy had direct access to that information—and the standing to fix any problems before word ever reached Hawke or Lucas.”
Lara saw his point. Though the DarkRiver-SnowDancer alliance was rock solid, the two packs were still learning how to navigate these particular waters. “If I know Hawke, he’s already aware of the issue.” The alpha was nothing if not plugged in to the beat of the pack. “But I’ll drop a word in his ear anyway—not about you and your girl specifically, but about the whole inter-pack dating situation.”
Riordan reached up with his good hand to touch hers. “Thanks, Lara. I’d do it myself,” he said, and she knew it for the truth, “but I don’t want him or Lucas paying too much attention to us yet. It’s…new.”
“I understand.” She’d appreciated the fact that her courtship with Walker had been a private matter for the most part, and could understand the need Riordan had for the same. “But will you tell me about her?”
His lush brown eyes warmed from the inside out. “Her name’s Noelle.”
“Zach’s sister?” The other male was a DarkRiver soldier.
“Yeah. He’s real protective of her and Lissa,” Riordan muttered in the way of young males trying to court other men’s baby sisters the world over. “Lissa is Noelle’s twin.”
“That’s right.” Lara’s mind filled with the image of two identical girls, both with long black hair, vivid aqua-colored eyes, and skin the shade of sun-kissed copper. “They’re lovely.” Had grown into their coltish bodies over the past two years. “How old are they now? Eighteen?”
Riordan nodded. “Only a year younger than me.” A pause. “Lissa’s this wild, chatty tornado”—an affectionate grin—“while Noelle’s gentle, quiet. It’s like she’s a peaceful spot in the world, but she holds her own.” His wolf prowled to the surface of his eyes. “First time you meet the two, you might think Lissa runs the show, but I’ve seen how Lissa always asks Noelle for advice anytime it’s anything important.”
He was, Lara thought, falling very much in love with Noelle. “Does Zach know you two are dating?”
“No, but Lissa does—I don’t think Noelle’s ever kept a secret from her.”
“Does that bother you?”
He took a moment to think about his answer, which made her believe him when he said, “No. I knew how close they were from the start.” He held out his arm for the scanner, waited while Lara did a double-check to confirm all was as it should be.
“I hate sneaking around,” he bit out after she put down the device, “and that’s part of why we need clear guidance on the situation from Hawke and Lucas. As things stand, Noelle doesn’t want to cause Zach any extra stress.”
Lara frowned. “Why? Zach’s as tough as any soldier.”
“Yeah, but he’s a bit crazy right now, with Annie being pregnant and everything.”
“What? As of when?” While Lara didn’t know Zach particularly well, she did know his mate. The other woman was a teacher at a school that drew from changeling territory, and ever since the DarkRiver-SnowDancer alliance, enough wolves had moved into the area that there were more than a few pups who attended the school.
Lara had met Annie at a parent-teacher conference she’d gone to on behalf of a couple who’d been out of town at the time, and stayed in touch with her ever since.
“They just found out a week ago,” Riordan said with a grin.
“Well, I’m delighted for them both.”
She was still smiling over the news an hour later when she met Walker for lunch, the two of them choosing a spot on the slope overlooking the lake.
The sun was out and so was the first-grade class of the internal SnowDancer elementary school, the pups having the time of their lives on the pebbled shore of the lake while their teachers stood indulgent watch. Deeply content, she opened the container that held the lunch Walker had brought for her and laughed. “You’ve been in cahoots with my mother again.”
• • •
WALKER shook his head when Lara offered him a forkful of her mushroom and herb risotto, which he’d picked up for her from the kitchens—Aisha and he were in perfect agreement when it came to looking after Lara, though his mate didn’t always appreciate their partnership. “I prefer my boring chicken and bacon sandwich.”
She snuggled closer to him, her hip pressing against his, the warm feminine scent of her in his every breath. “Are you ever going to let me forget I said that?”
He finished half a sandwich, picked up the second half after taking a swig of the coffee Lara had taken responsibility for bringing. “No.” It felt strange and yet perfect to tease her, to know that he had the ability to play in this way.
Wrinkling her nose at him, she ate another forkful before saying, “Can you look into the web for me?”
“Anything you ask.”
Pausing in her meal, she pinned him with eyes gone wolf. “I adore you.”
Her love stunned him, as it always did…but he thought he might be becoming used to it deep within. Never would he take it for granted, but he might just come to expect it, and that was an agonizingly beautiful gift she’d given him, that expectation of love, of tenderness. “What do you want to know?”
“I did a fairly complex healing earlier,” she said, sipping from the coffee when he lifted the cup to her lips, “but I don’t feel drained at all.”
Interest spiked. “You think the neosentience in the web is feeding you Sienna’s excess power.” Every psychic network had a “mind.” The one in the SnowDancer Web, which now included his entire family, was but a speck, nothing like the vast NetMind that was the guardian and librarian of the PsyNet. But it did exist, and as they’d seen in the aftermath of the battle, it could influence the web.
Lara chewed and swallowed before answering. “It crossed my mind.”
Opening his psychic eye, Walker looked at the energy currents that rippled along the familial and blood bonds, saw the rerouting that must’ve taken place this morning.
“You have priority,” he murmured, closing one of his hands over her raised knee. “When you need the energy, it goes directly and only to you.”
“That’s good to know. If I’m ever in a triage situation, I’ll be better able to judge what I can or can’t do.” Having finished her risotto, Lara put the container neatly in the thermal carry case.
“Here,” she said, handing him his second sandwich. “I hope you brought more food for yourself. You’re way too tall and muscular to survive on two sandwiches, non-boring or not.”
Her frown as she dug into the carry case made parts of him he’d believed long buried stretch to enthusiastic life. No one had ever worried over him, not the way Lara did. If he’d considered the idea of it before they’d become a couple, he would’ve probably predicted an annoyed reaction to any such care—but he wasn’t the least annoyed by his mate’s desire to look after him.
Not when he felt the same piercing need to care for her.
“Here we go.” Having discovered a closed container, she opened it to reveal two more thick sandwiches. “Seriously?” A laughing look. “Oh wait, this one’s ham with cheese and tomato. You wild man, you.”
Tugging her to him with his hand on the back of her nape, he kissed her laughter into his mouth. “Eat your fruit,” he murmured afterward, nipping at her lower lip…and suckling at it when that wasn’t enough.
He wasn’t sure how the food got pushed aside, Lara stretched out on the grass beneath him, but they were tangled in a hot, wet kiss, his hand splayed on the silken skin of her abdomen when someone sprayed water all over his back and nape.
Jerking up, he found himself looking into the innocent eyes of a wolf pup who’d just shaken himself dry after jumping into the lake and racing up the slope to them. Recognizing the scamp, Walker gripped him by the scruff of his neck and brought that furry little face close to his own. “You are in big trouble.”
Ben growled at him, batting at his chin with tiny claws that did no damage.
Husky laughter intertwined with the baby growls.
Turning, he found Lara sitting back up, having fixed the pretty spring green cardigan she wore as a top. “Give him to me.” She shook her head at the teacher who’d started to clamber up the slope after the runaway.
Grinning his thanks, the older male went back down to the shore. “You,” Lara continued, “finish your lunch before time runs out.”
Realizing they only had about twenty more minutes, he obeyed the order as Lara gave Ben a smacking kiss before putting the pup down in the sunshine. “Dry off first, then I’ll cuddle you.”
Ben gave a huge sigh, but sat down on his haunches, muzzle turned toward Walker and ears pricked so hard they might as well have been frozen. Wanting to laugh, Walker broke off half his sandwich and held it out for the pup to grip in his teeth.
Lara leaned into him as Ben put the sandwich on the grass and sprawled down to nibble at it with surprising neatness. “They are so adorable at this age.” Affection in every syllable.
“Want one of your own?”
Her fingers, having curved around his biceps, squeezed. “Walker…are you serious?” Huge eyes. “I wasn’t sure— After—I took care that I wouldn’t accidentally fall pregnant.”
Cupping her cheek, he shook his head, humbled once again by the depth and generosity of her love. “There is no comparison.” His painful experience at Yelene’s hand, when he’d lost his unborn child to her mercenary desire to protect her own “uncontaminated genetic line,” didn’t blind him to the truth that Lara would fight to the death to protect their children. “I want to have more children, and I want to have them with you.”
Her eyes shone wet, her voice shaky when she spoke. “Changelings are less fertile than Psy or humans, so it might take time, but I hope not.” Throwing her arms around his neck, she rained kisses on his face, her happiness a luminous warmth. “Marlee and Toby will be such good older siblings. I don’t want too big an age gap.”
Throat thick, he held her tight. No one would’ve blamed her for forgetting Toby and Marlee at this moment, but she hadn’t, her heart huge.
A cold nose poked between them, followed by a wiggling body, Ben excited to join in their fun, though his curious eyes said he didn’t understand what had just occurred. Chuckling, Walker brought the pup into their embrace.
“Yes,” Lara said, laving more affection on the boy, “I want one just like him…with his daddy’s green eyes.”
Chapter 7
LARA ENSURED SHE was fertile again the second she returned to the infirmary, every cell in her body humming with anticipation at the thought of nurturing a life in her womb, a life created out of the shattering beauty of the love she felt for her mate. Healers didn’t have an advantage over the rest of the population when it came to conception, but she hoped with all her might that it wouldn’t be too long.
Even if it did take time, the delay mattered less than the fact the terrible wound in Walker’s heart was, if not healed, then at least no longer debilitating. Slowly but surely, her fascinating, complex, wonderful mate was throwing off the lingering shackles of Silence and showing her the parts of himself he’d had to bury to survive.
She thought of his chuckle over Ben, his slow kiss good-bye, and felt her lips curve in a silly smile.
“My God,” Ava groaned, sinking into the chair on the other side of her desk, “you’re smitten. It’s so sweet I think I just got a cavity.”
Lara threw a soft toy a patient had gifted her at her best friend’s head. “I am newly mated,” she pointed out. “Entitled to be smitten, thank you very much.”
Sighing, Ava pushed her hand through the silky dark of her shoulder-length hair. “True, you’re not a cynical old broad like me.”
“Please. I saw you coming out of your office looking distinctly disheveled yesterday afternoon, accompanied by a certain Mr. Stone—who had a suspicious bruise on his neck and a shirt that was buttoned up crooked.”
Ava grinned, unabashed. “Hey, we have a baby and a five-and-a-half-year-old with the world’s worst case of curiosity. We have to get creative.”
Having fallen foul of Ben’s curious streak less than an hour ago, Lara grinned. “Lucky you mated a creative type.”
Spencer “Spence” Stone was the pack’s official photographer—not simply of joy, but of pain and war and loss. He’d been out on the battlefield, had captured the only known terrestrial images of Sienna’s X-fire, taking photograph after photograph and transmitting them simultaneously to the den until the flames licked over his body. Even then, once he realized he wasn’t burning, he’d somehow managed to get his arm up over the fire, capture a single shot of the column of flame that had encased Hawke and Sienna.
“Yes.” Ava sighed, expression dreamy. “The man is supremely blessed in the creativity department.”
Lara didn’t think her best friend was talking about Spence’s prowess with a camera. “He ever take photographs when you, you know?”
Ava waggled her eyebrows, eyes the same dark brown as her son’s filled with unrepentant wickedness. “Not telling. But wait till you have a newborn and a teenager to deal with—I figure sweet as he is, Toby’s gonna go crazy on you any day now. Then I will laugh.”
The idea of a baby with Walker made butterflies break out in a manic jig in her abdomen. “I am so smitten.”
“Told ya,” Ava said, checking an incoming message on her phone. Her expression was suddenly one of pure delight. “Sorry, I’m going to ditch you. Mr. Stone is back in the den, the baby’s with her aunt, Ben’s in school, and I’ve completed my work for the day. Adios.”
Lara was still grinning over the speed of Ava’s disappearance ten minutes later when Riley caught her coming out of the storeroom after a quick chat with Lucy.
The senior lieutenant held up a small datapad. “You and Walker settle on a date for your mating ceremony yet? It’d be nice to give the pack the heads-up—there are a lot of folks who want to make certain they’re in the den for the celebr
ation.”
His words made her wolf want to throw back its head, sing in joy. “We had a chat about it last night,” she said, inputting a date into the calendar on the datapad. “How’s that work?”
“It’ll be just over two weeks after Hawke and Sienna’s ceremony,” Riley said. “Fine with you?”
“Sounds perfect.” Walker needed to see Sienna embraced into her new position in SnowDancer and would enjoy his and Lara’s own night far more once he had. And as healer, Lara knew Hawke’s mating and the attendant celebration was critical for the health of the pack. Everyone needed a chance to dance, to forget the blood and pain of battle, and to howl their joy at the mating of an alpha who’d bled for the pack since he was little more than a boy.
“Any plans in terms of the celebration itself?” Riley’s eyes, steady and calm, met her own. “I’ve already got a laundry list of volunteers who want to help.”
Warmth spread through every inch of her body at his words. “I’ll have a preliminary sketch for you in a week or so.” In this, Walker was being the typical male—he accepted everything she suggested. Frustrated, she’d slipped oiled male dancers into the plan, complete with whipped cream and a strategically placed tassel or two. That had received a response—a very firm “No.”
Sliding the datapad into his pants pocket, Riley nodded. “Sounds good.” His expression softened. “I’m very happy for you, Lara. He’s a good man.”
“I know,” she said with a smile she knew shouted her delight in her mate, and returned Riley’s affectionate hug, his body solid as a wall. “Where are you heading now?”
“Down to do some digging in the section being replanted.”
Lara scowled, jealous. “Enjoy. I’m off to slave away at more patient reports.”
The paperwork kept her busy till ten after five, interrupted only by a fifteen-minute break when Toby and Marlee returned home to change and eat a snack before leaving for their afterschool activities. Though Toby was old enough to supervise his cousin, Lara enjoyed spending that time with them.