by Nalini Singh
Judd said nothing to strike at Sienna’s confidence, aware she’d need every ounce of it if she was going to survive the coming darkness—because he knew something she didn’t. It was a truth he’d carried in his heart for years, a truth he would never, ever share with her. To do so might well turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
He’d hacked into secret Council archives when Sienna had been ten, helped by fellow Arrows who’d understood that his niece might one day end up in the squad. Only he had read the files that went back 150 years, and so only he knew the brutal facts: The longest any X-Psy had ever survived, even under Silence, was to age twenty-five.
That twenty-five-year-old X had registered as 3.4 on the Gradient.
Sienna was off the charts.
HAWKE had spent his first week in the mountains avoiding contact with even the sentries. He’d known he wasn’t fit company for anyone. The feral wolves, too, had given him a wide berth after he snarled at them . . . though they still came to huddle around him at night, all of them sleeping in a big pile of fur. It was difficult to maintain a bad temper in the face of such fierce affection, but Hawke’s wolf was riding him hard.
The dreams sure as hell didn’t help.
Ruby red fire and smooth sun gold skin; autumn and that rare, wild spice. The echoes of her haunted him until he couldn’t close his eyes without it whispering over his senses, a fleeting silken touch.
So vivid were the dreams that he woke hard as stone and furious with himself for his lack of control. As a result, he was leaner and feeling a hell of a lot meaner when he returned to the den. He’d run himself to exhaustion, and though his wolf was behaving, he knew it would take only the slightest provocation, the slightest touch, to send him over the edge. And still, he had to fight the compulsion to track her down, make sure she knew he was back. “Fuck.”
Throwing his gear on the floor of his bedroom, he’d pulled off his T-shirt in preparation for a shower when he scented a familiar female. Snarling, he stalked to the door and wrenched it open. “Not a word,” he snapped at Indigo.
Freshly showered and dressed in jeans teamed with a plain white T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, Indigo favored him with a slow smile before running her eyes down his body, up again. “I guess that whole not sleeping thing has its advantages.”
Hawke bared his teeth. “Go gawk at your mate.”
A snort. “If Drew was here, do you think you’d rate a glance?”
“Go away.”
“I will—after I get what I want.”
“What?”
“Hold on.” Indigo shifted to glance down the corridor. “Here she is.”
“Sorry,” Yuki said, neat and pressed in a suit that told him she was heading to work. “Thought we were meeting in your office.” Reaching into her satchel, she withdrew a printed form attached to a clipboard.
Indigo took it, shoved it at him. “I decided to beard the rabid wolf in his den.”
Growling, Hawke grabbed the pen. “What is it?” he asked, signing without reading. That was a trust reserved for the lieutenants. If it got to a point where he didn’t have total faith in them, then the pack was in serious trouble. That had happened only once in their history, and Hawke was determined to never let those painful events taint the relationship he had with his men and women. “Don’t usually need a lawyer to witness things.”
“Do for this,” Indigo said, scrawling her name beside his, then handing Yuki the pen so she could follow suit. “It gives Riley power of attorney over your worldly goods in exigent circumstances.”
He looked up. “Indigo.”
“I’m serious. It also gives him the right to make life-or-death decisions on your behalf should events warrant it.”
“Since when is that necessary in a pack?” Pack was one. Pack was family.
“Since Judd pointed out that if you get incapacitated,” Yuki said with a frown, “it’d make things a lot less complicated if we had the legal papers. Otherwise, anyone who wanted to undermine the pack could use the opportunity to throw roadblocks in our path. I’m annoyed I didn’t think of it myself.”
Hawke had to agree it made sense. Especially since . . . Oh. “It’s because I have no next of kin.” No parents. No siblings. No mate.
Yuki shot him a sharp glance, an abrupt reminder that Elias’s loyal mate and Sakura’s loving mother was also a pit-bull for her biggest and most demanding client—the SnowDancer pack. “I’d rather we never had to use these papers, so don’t get hurt.” Putting the clipboard and its contents back into her bag, she looked at her watch, her glossy black hair swinging to brush her jaw. “Have to run, got a meeting in Sacramento.” The last words were called out over her shoulder as she left.
“I second everything Yuki said.” Indigo leaned forward as if to embrace him. When he stepped back without meaning to, she narrowed her eyes. “You’re in a shitload of trouble if you don’t trust yourself to touch a packmate in whom you have no sexual interest whatsoever.”
“I told you I’d take care of it.”
Realization had her lips flattening into a thin line. “Damn it, Hawke.” Arms folded, she shook her head. “I know what you’re planning, that you think you’re protecting her—but you do this and Sienna will never forgive you. You sure you want to end any chance the two of you might have?”
He caught her gaze, allowing the wolf’s dominance out to play. She held it longer than anyone else aside from Riley could have.
“Damn it.” Blinking as she looked away, she sighed. “You’re a stubborn bastard, you know that?”
“I am who I am.” And what he was, was a man who needed to satiate his sexual hunger before his wolf took the decision out of his hands. Because that wolf would track only one scent.
RECOVERED FROM COMPUTER 2(A) TAGS: PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE, FATHER, ACTION NOT REQUIRED
FROM: Alice
TO: Dad
DATE: March 16th, 1971 at 10:13pm
SUBJECT: re: Your Mother
Dear Dad,
Tell Mom the reason I never e-mail her is because she gets the phone calls. I must be fair or one of you will accuse me of favoritism.
Before I forget—thank you both for the gift. The sculpture is extraordinary and will look perfect in my study. You and Mom know me too well.
You were asking about my new project. I’ve barely begun and while my Psy colleagues have agreed to publicize my call for information on the PsyNet, I’ve already hit the first hurdle—the sheer rarity of X-Psy. I only have two signed up to participate so far, but I’m not giving up. That isn’t the Eldridge way.
Say hello to the pharaohs for me.
Love,
Alice
Chapter 7
“I KNOW HE’D chew me up and spit me out, but God, it’s all I can do not to strip myself naked and beg for him to bite me any way and anywhere he wants.”
Overhearing that heartfelt feminine sentiment, Sienna dropped her fourth dish of the day. The chief cook, Aisha, raised a hand and pointed, banishing her to the sinks. She went without argument—scrubbing the hated pots was all she’d been good for since the moment she’d learned of Hawke’s return, her brain scrambled like the eggs Marlee and Toby loved to eat on Sunday mornings.
As if she’d conjured him up by thinking of him, her brother appeared at her elbow. “Wow, that’s a big pot, Sienna.”
Deep warmth spread through her veins. For Toby, she’d do anything. Born with a slight empathic gift, he was goodness, was heart. He made her want to be good, too—even though she knew that to be an impossible goal. X-Psy were born for, and useful for, only one thing.
Destruction.
A hand on her forearm. “Sienna.”
Dropping the pot, she bent to wrap her soapy arms around that gangly preteen body that was no longer that of the child she’d tickled into bed just last year. “How do you always know?” she whispered into his hair.
His arms locked around her neck. “I can
see you in our net,” he said, speaking of the psychic network that tied all the members of the family to each other. It provided the biofeedback needed by their Psy minds, was what had kept them alive when they’d defected from the sprawling vastness of the PsyNet. “Your mind goes all icy.”
She heard the fear in his tone. Any time she got “icy,” as he put it, Toby got afraid. Because he understood what she was on an instinctive level that meant she’d never been able to protect him from the harsh truth—Toby saw the monster within and still he loved her, still he needed her.
“Don’t go back to the Net, Sienna.” A plea. “Please.”
“I won’t, Toby. I won’t.” Her earlier intent solidified into stone. If, in spite of everything, she failed to contain her ability, then she would, as Councilor Ming LeBon had once put it, take herself “out of the equation.” Her death would hurt Toby, but it wouldn’t savage him—not like if he had to watch her turn cold, a Silent stranger who rejected his love as if it was a worthless token. I love you, Toby. A telepathic communication between siblings, as easy as a breath.
I’m so glad you’re my sister, Sienna.
They held the embrace a long time. Though Aisha ran a tight ship, she didn’t tell Sienna to get a move on. Aisha’s eyes smiled when she glimpsed them—the wolves understood touch, understood affection. They couldn’t know how much it meant to Sienna that she could openly hold the boy who was a living, breathing piece of her heart.
Since the moment of his birth, she’d had to hide, had to bury everything she felt when it came to Toby. If Ming had discovered the searing depth of a love that had defied Silence itself, the bastard wouldn’t have done anything to her. She’d been too important. But he might well have ended Toby’s life to “safeguard” Sienna’s Silence.
She would’ve killed him for it, of course.
Hiding that dark thought in a secret corner of her mind where Toby would never sense it, she drew back and brushed his hair out of his eyes as she had a habit of doing. “Why aren’t you in school?” Toby attended the small internal school for ages five to thirteen—the older teenagers generally went to a high school outside den territory, except for a few who’d chosen distance learning.
“We got the afternoon off today’cause the teachers got a meeting.”
“Toby, your grammar is atrocious.” His enunciation and grammar had been PsyNet perfect when they defected—she much preferred him this way.
“Aw, Sienna.” Two kisses, one on each cheek. “Can you help me with my homework after you get out of the kitchen?”
“Sure.” She rose back up to her full height. “What subject?”
“Science. I have to build a volcano.” Cardinal eyes gleamed. “It’s going to explode and everything.”
Her hand clenched on the scourer she’d just picked up. “Wow.” Forcing her fingers to relax, she nodded to the fruit bowl. “Eat an apple. It’s good for you.”
Toby made a face but obeyed. “Can’t I have a cookie instead?”
“No.”
“Abuse.” But he was smiling as he bit into the shiny red fruit, the smile turning into a grin when Aisha slipped him a palm-sized oatmeal raisin cookie.
“Finish the apple first,” the cook ordered, tousling his hair.
“Thanks, Aisha,” Toby said before looking back at Sienna, his eyes sparkling in a way that would’ve startled her if she hadn’t seen Sascha Duncan’s eyes do the same thing. Because the stars were no longer white. Not quite. It was as if Toby’s eyes shimmered with color . . . with life.
Sometimes, Sienna thought Toby had been sent into the world to balance the scales, an antidote to the sister who loved him to the depths of her soul, but who could create only pain, only suffering, only horror.
HAWKE blocked Elias’s kick and put the senior soldier on his back. “Damn it, Eli. You’re leaving yourself wide open.”
Elias lay on the ground, chest heaving. “No, I’m not. You’re just not pulling any punches.” He winced. “I’m going to set Yuki on you—she doesn’t like it when you beat me up.”
Unamused, Hawke waited as the other man rolled to his feet. “You said you wanted to spar so you could figure out what you needed to work on.”
“I take it back.” Elias braced himself with his hands on his knees. “The single person who can spar with you in this kind of a mood is Riley.” Rising fully, he shoved a hand through dark brown hair damp with sweat. “I need to give you my report anyway.”
Hawke’s wolf was tensed and ready for action, but he drew in a long, deep breath, brought the animal under control. “Problems in the city?” DarkRiver and SnowDancer had both kept a constant and visible presence in San Francisco ever since the attempted bombings the previous year.
“I dunno.” Elias rubbed his jaw. “The leopards always get the best intel, so you should liaise with them, but my instincts are itching. I can’t quite put a finger on it—the thing is, you know we’ve got more than the usual number of Psy coming into the area.”
“Yeah. Side effect of Nikita deciding she no longer supports Silence.” Not out of the goodness of her heart, but simply because it made the most political sense. Sascha’s mother was one cold bitch. “They causing trouble?”
“No, quiet as church mice.” Elias fell into step beside him as Hawke began to make his way to the training run. The obstacle course would give him a much-needed physical outlet before he headed inside to talk to Tomás about a couple of people Hawke wanted to send to the lieutenant for training.
“But with so many of them coming in,” Elias continued, “it’s hard to pinpoint the friendlies from the others.”
Hawke had raised the same concern with Lucas not long ago. “The Rats,” he said, referring to the small changeling group that ran a very effective spy network, “know to keep an eye out for any unusual Psy activity, but I’ll have Luc talk to them, have them amp up their efforts.” He trusted Elias’s instincts. The soldier was one of his most capable men, not dominant enough to be a lieutenant, but smart and experienced—and more important, he had a head as stable as Riley’s.
“Thanks.” Elias looked at the training run, blew out a breath. “Jesus, Riaz is a sadist. What the hell are those spike things? They weren’t there last time.”
“Time me.” Hawke’s wolf bared its teeth in anticipation. Riaz had outdone himself this time. As Hawke ran up the first incline, he hoped like hell that Elias’s gut was wrong for once, but given the events of the past few months—and the fact that every F-Psy on the planet was apparently forecasting war—he knew that to be a bleak hope.
WALKER went to retie the ribbon around his daughter’s ponytail, playing a game with her on the LaurenNet as he did so. She was fascinated by the unusual twisting motion at the center of the mental star that was his mind, and kept getting distracted.
He’d been something of a puzzle to the staff at the Psy-Med hospital, too. No one had ever been able to explain the reason for the odd moving helix that had become apparent long after he was past childhood. There had been discussions about studying it further, but when it became clear the twist neither detracted from, nor added any strength to his already strong telepathic range, the issue was put aside.
It had, however, proven an excellent gauge of a child’s psychic development—to the extent that Walker had come to believe that to be the reason for it. Since his telepathic touch worked particularly well with the young and the helix had developed soon after he began teaching, it made sense. As it was, while Toby had matured to the point where he could ignore the distraction of the motion, Marlee hadn’t.
Almost, he encouraged on the psychic plane as the ribbon slipped out of his grasp on the physical. Picking it up, he said, “You know I’m not good at this.” His hands were too big, too clumsy for such a delicate task. “Why didn’t you ask Sienna?”
Waiting until he finished and moved around to crouch in front of her, she wrapped an arm around his neck. “I like it when you do it.” A wide smile.
In the three ye
ars since their family had defected from the PsyNet, Walker had learned many things—how to live in a world without Silence, how to manage the dominance challenges within a wolf pack, how to look after Marlee and Toby in a way for which he had no template. But the one thing he still hadn’t learned was how to handle the overload of emotion caused by his daughter’s smile.
When she threw both arms around his neck in a spontaneous embrace, it only caused the tightness in his chest to grow—until it filled every part of him. Wrapping his own arms around her, he rose to his feet. She made a startled sound. “I’m too big!”
“You’ll always be my child.” He wished he could say the soft, sweet words he heard changeling parents say constantly to their children, but he’d been an inmate of Silence for four long decades. The words were hard to form, to get out. But it was incredibly easy to lift his hand, to stroke away the baby-fine strands of hair that had escaped Marlee’s ponytail, to press a kiss to her temple.
When she said, “Can we go see if Toby’s volcano is ready?” he could no more deny her than he could stop breathing.
It was another punch to the heart to walk into the large rec room near the family quarters to see Toby and Sienna with their heads bent together over a lopsided volcano. This, he thought as Marlee wiggled out of his arms to join her cousins, all of them frowning over the lack of symmetry, this was why he’d survived defection from the PsyNet.
To watch over his daughter and the son of a sister he’d never been allowed to love. And Sienna, too, for all that she’d been forced to be an adult before she’d ever been a child. They were his reason for being, for existing. As for the kiss that had threatened to make him forget the rest of the world for one blinding, pleasure-drunk moment . . . he’d made the right decision.
Even if the sensations from that single searing contact continued to haunt him two long months later.