by Nalini Singh
He glanced at the phone again.
If he called her, she would come. He hadn’t been an Arrow like Judd, but he’d had his own reasons for learning to read people—he knew that in spite of the fact that their friendship appeared irreparably damaged, Lara had the softest of hearts. The second he mentioned his concern about Sienna, he’d have her immediate attention. And the instant she was in his quarters . . . images of kiss-wet lips, of a warm feminine form under his hands.
His body grew hard.
It was an unwelcome reminder of how she impacted him, how she skewed the rules on which he’d rebuilt his life. He took his finger off the Call button . . . and got up. There was a chance he could catch her at the infirmary.
BY midnight, fighting the constant compulsion to track down Sienna had gnawed Hawke’s temper to a fine edge. It wasn’t the best of times for him to receive a call from the manager of Wild, the changeling-owned bar and dance club that sat in a small but popular nightlife area just beyond the edge of den territory.
“Hawke, I need you to come pick up your pups.”
Hawke rubbed his forehead. The only time José ever called him was when things had progressed to breaking point. “How much?”
“No bill for damages,” José said to his surprise. “But if you don’t get here soon, you’ll probably be bailing a few of them out of jail.” The deer changeling—a dominant bull who could bash heads with the best of them, for all that he was non-predatory—hung up.
“Shit.” Already dressed in jeans and a T-shirt since he’d been wide awake, he pulled on well-worn work boots, then buzzed Riley.
His lieutenant was not impressed. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Yeah, yeah. How many of them went down to Wild tonight?” Riley would know. Riley knew everything.
“Seven, but Ebony and Amos were in San Francisco for a security run”—a small pause—“and the system’s not showing them logging back into the den, so they probably took a detour.”
“Thanks.”
“You’ll need a second driver.”
“Stay snuggled up to Mercy,” Hawke said, already halfway to the garage. “I’ll get one of the night-shift people.”
“Don’t be too hard on them.”
Hawke paused. “What?”
“You’re in a mean mood, Hawke. Don’t take it out on them.”
Growling, Hawke snapped the phone shut. He was alpha for a reason—and part of it was that he knew how to handle his people. Of course, Riley was also his most senior lieutenant for a reason. “Shit.” Jogging the rest of the way to the garage, he volunteered Elias as the second driver. “Were they driving when they went down?”
Elias checked the computronic log. “Yep. Two vehicles. GPS says they’re both parked a five-minute walk from the club.”
“Good. We’ll drive one down—you can bring up the second. One of the soldiers on city security tomorrow can swing by and pick up the other.”
The drive took more than an hour, and Hawke hoped like hell the young group hadn’t gotten into worse trouble in the meantime. Since José’s radar was finely tuned, chances were good he’d alerted Hawke in plenty of time.
Parking the vehicle a block away, he and Elias made it to Wild around one thirty in the morning. The bouncer, one of José’s big, strapping cousins, raised his hand in a wave when he saw them. “That pretty little one with the cherry-tinted hair”—he whistled—“where you been hiding her?”
Hawke went motionless.
Chapter 9
“WHAT’S THE TROUBLE?” he asked, the wolf in his voice.
The other male avoided his eyes, as if aware Hawke was too much on edge to accept even the slightest challenge. “Go in and see.”
Entering the bar, he stayed to the shadows as he took in the lay of the land. The place was full of humans and changelings—leopard, wolf, deer, swan, even a Rat. Their scents were clear threads to him, even entangled as they were in the confined space. Most of the non-predatories stuck together, while the predatories did the same. But wolf and leopard were mingling. Plenty.
Ebony was currently happily pasted up against a cat, while Riordan was all but devouring a leopard girl with his eyes as the two of them stood talking a small distance from the dance floor. Evie—oh, dear God, but Indigo was going to blow a gasket—was dressed in a tiny strapless dress made from some sparkly fabric that only just covered everything that should be covered. She was also giggling and drunk, a frothy pink cocktail in hand. Tai sat holding her against his chest, looking sober. Maybe there was hope for them yet.
Maria, Cadie, and the rest were out front, cheering.
At Sienna.
Who was dancing on the bar.
In fuck-you boots and a shirt that barely contained her breasts.
Eyes going wolf, Hawke began to stride through the crowd. A few aggressive young males turned to give him a talking-to . . . and froze, their gazes jerking away when they met the dominance in his own. Even the humans understood, going pale as they moved out of his path as fast as possible.
He realized part of the reason for José’s call when he saw the human men lined up along the bar, all of them with a look in their eye that said they’d spill blood to possess the woman who danced with such wild, sensual grace. The SnowDancer males would, of course, have defended her with fists and claws the instant anyone tried to touch her.
And José’s bar would’ve been trashed in minutes.
Then there were the leopard and wolf males giving each other dirty looks as interpack flirting took place. Riordan was being watched by at least three cats with violence on their minds, while Lake and Amos were currently glaring with intent at Ebony’s dance partner.
The entire thing had the makings of a clusterfuck.
Shoving away the humans at the bar with rough hands, he reached out and gripped one leather-covered ankle.
Sienna stopped moving.
“Down,” he growled, meeting brown eyes so much less extraordinary than the truth of her cardinal gaze. “Now.”
Music still pumped but the bar had gone silent.
Sienna didn’t immediately obey, and that just infuriated the wolf. “Last warning, baby.”
Holding his gaze, Sienna said, “I’m not breaking any of the Pack rules.”
Every single person in the bar sucked in a breath.
Hawke didn’t pay them any attention. He’d had enough. A single, precisely timed tug and he tilted her off balance. As she fell, he caught her, throwing her over his shoulder. “Out!” he ordered the other wolves as he left.
Sienna, having apparently recovered from the loss of breath caused by his sudden move, began to wiggle and twist. “Let me go!”
He tapped her behind, a short, sharp shock that had her freezing. “Don’t make me any more pissed than I am right now.”
“Bully.” It was muttered under her breath, but he heard it. “You’ve got no right to punish me. None.”
He tightened his hold on her as they hit the cold night air. “You want to talk punishment, fine. What the fuck did you think you were doing on that bar? Were you trying to cause a riot?”
“I was having fun.” Heaving breaths. “Put me down. I can’t breathe with your shoulder in my stomach.”
“Tough.” He didn’t take his hands off her until he dumped her in the front passenger seat of the vehicle he’d driven down. “In,” he ordered her friends, all of whom had obeyed his order to leave.
Tai raised his hand, one arm around a suddenly sober-appearing Evie’s waist as he tucked her into the heat of his body. “I haven’t had a single drink. I can drive the other truck.”
Hawke’s nose told him the young soldier was telling the truth. “Fine.” He looked over the others. “You’re lucky José called me before a punch was thrown.”
Guilt on several male faces, while the women frowned. The men knew damn well what had been building in that bar.
“Next time I get a call like this, I’m instituting a curfew. Understood?”
As everyone dispersed, splitting themselves between Elias’s truck and the one Tai was going to be driving, Hawke realized he was about to spend over an hour alone in a confined space with a female he’d made every effort to avoid ever since she hit eighteen. A female who was almost spilling out of her shirt, allowing him glimpses of red satin against creamy gold skin.
Great, just fucking great.
SIENNA glared out the window as her friends scattered. “Traitor,” she mouthed to Evie when the other woman glanced back.
Evie winked at her. “Give him hell . . . baby,” Evie mouthed back.
Sienna’s cheeks flamed as she remembered Hawke using the endearment in that taut, angry tone, which had raised every hair on her body. It probably meant nothing, except that he saw her as exactly that. A child. It didn’t matter what she did, how mature she acted, he only seemed to pay attention to her at her worst moments.
Like tonight.
No, she thought, furious with him—and with herself for continuing to let him affect her this way, that hadn’t been a bad moment. She’d been having fun. Enjoying herself as she had every right to do. He was probably fuming because he’d been pulled out of Rosalie’s bed. Her nails dug into her palms. If she’d had claws, they’d have been out right then, slicing savagely though the seats.
“Not a word,” he snapped as he got into the driver’s seat. “Did you know what you were doing up on that bar?” Not giving her a chance to answer, he continued, “Most of those men were ready to grab you and strip you naked right there.”
Her simmering temper ignited. “I know how to defend myself, thanks to Indigo. And dancing wasn’t a crime last time I checked.”
“I said, not a damn word.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he drove them out of the popular nightlife area.
She snorted, too mad to be thinking about the sanity of challenging a predatory changeling male in the grip of pure raging fury. “How about instead of orders, Mr. Alpha Wolf, you actually stop hiding and talk to me?”
“Don’t push me, little girl.” Quiet, quiet words.
The tone made every muscle in her body go tense, but she’d been trained by a cold-blooded Councilor. Fear was something with which she had intimate familiarity—and it wasn’t hot, not like the emotion that burned through her veins at this moment. “You think I should just keep doing as I’m told?” she asked. “Is that what gets you off?”
“One,” he said with such calm, she knew she was in the vehicle with a predator barely on the leash. “I’ll give you one free pass because you’re drunk—”
“I didn’t have a single alcoholic beverage.” Alcohol had unpredictable effects on Psy abilities, and she couldn’t afford to lose even an ounce of mental control. “I’m angry at you because you get to win all the arguments by using your alpha status to shut me down.”
A dangerous pause. So dangerous that Sienna snapped her mouth closed, swallowing the words that wanted to escape.
Until he brought the truck to a halt deep in an unfamiliar part of den territory. The night was pitch-black, starless, and moonless, the trees murky shadows that seemed to form an impenetrable wall around them. “Why are we stopping?”
“You wanted to talk. We’ll talk.”
Her palms went damp at that smooth, silky tone.
“I’m putting aside my ‘alpha status.’ ”
Oh, he was furious.
“So let’s see if you can win this argument.” Turning in his seat, he leaned his arm along the back of hers. “Now explain to me how you would’ve stopped a massive fistfight in the bar tonight.”
“That’s not on me,” she said, trying to breathe past the sheer power of him. “The women were an excuse—the males were itching to go at each other since the minute we walked in. They’re always playing dominance games.”
“So you knew that, and still you amped up the sexual energy in the room?”
The truck was suddenly too small, too confined, Hawke’s hotly masculine scent seeping into her very pores, touching parts of her no man had ever stroked. “It wasn’t my responsibility.”
“Oh?”
“No.” A sudden crash of anger. “I’m not accountable for everyone! Maybe I wanted to have fun for a change. Maybe I wanted to not be in control for a few short minutes! Maybe I just wanted to dance.”
Hawke’s lashes came down. When they lifted back up, his gaze was night-glow, a brilliant ice blue shot with light. She sucked in a breath, realizing she was talking to the wolf now.
“You want to dance?” Husky words that stroked along her skin like the softest fur.
She nodded.
“Then we dance.” Reaching out, he switched on the vehicle’s sound system and input a selection before stepping out.
Her door opened as a slow, smoky ballad began to play. “Come.” An invitation—but mostly a demand.
“My shoes,” she blurted out, anger buried under a wave of nervous anticipation.
“The ground’s dry. They won’t sink in.”
Not sure this wasn’t all a dream, she placed her hand in his and, fighting the wild rush of sensation engendered by his touch and his scent, allowed him to tug her around to the front of the vehicle. Breaking the hold, he put his hands on her hips and pulled her forward, his breath a heated caress across her cheek as he bent to speak against her ear. “Arms around my neck.”
The command released her voice. “I thought you weren’t being alpha here.”
“I’m not.”
Oh.
As she raised her arms, she realized her boots gave her enough height to cup his nape with one hand, while she placed the other on the muscled warmth of his shoulder. When he shifted position so that his jaw rubbed against her temple, her heart began to thud fast as a jackhammer.
This close, he was all hot, hard heat. Pure muscle and strength . . . and temptation. Always, he’d been her temptation. He was the reason her Silence had shattered into innumerable shards the instant she’d walked into SnowDancer territory. She should’ve kept her distance, but she couldn’t. Just once—just for a little while—she wanted him to be hers.
Teeth nipped at her ear.
She jumped.
“Pay attention.” A rumbling growl.
Her nipples tightened to stiff points she hoped he couldn’t feel. It was beyond tempting to spread the hand on his nape upward, into the thick, silver-gold silk of his hair, but she didn’t dare break the moment. He had such beautiful hair, the same color as his pelt in wolf form. That told her more about how close his wolf was to the surface than anything else.
“Sienna.” A deep murmur against her skin, his lips brushing her temple. “This can’t be. You know that.”
Her blood was thunder in her ears, her skin stretching taut over a body hypersensitized by a raw, near-painful craving. “Is it because I’m Psy?” she forced herself to ask. Hawke hated the Psy—that much she knew, though she didn’t know the reason behind the depth of his animosity. The fact that he’d accepted the Lauren family as deeply into the pack as he had was nothing short of miraculous.
A low growl that had her going motionless. “It’s because you’re barely grown.” He stroked his hand down her back, as if in reassurance.
But she wasn’t ready to be soothed. “I haven’t been a child since the day they came for me when I was five.” A cardinal X could not be allowed to live outside of Council control. “Ming LeBon sure didn’t sing me any lullabies.”
Hawke’s hand pressed against her lower back, big and warm and shockingly intimate through the thin fabric of her shirt. “Five?” The wolf was so apparent in his voice, she had to focus to understand him. “You were a baby.”
She laughed and knew it held no humor. “Cardinals are trained from before we gain the ability to speak.” The years she’d spent with her mother, the commands had been gentle, given by a woman who had wanted her child to learn to protect herself on the psychic plane. Aware she’d have drowned under the del
uge of voices otherwise, Sienna had never resented the instruction; she missed her mother’s touch to this day. “The first conscious thought I remember having was about the need to shield.”
But when they’d discovered she was an X, the shields they’d put around her had been brutal prison walls, unlike anything she’d known. She’d been so small, so scared. Even her brave, strong mother, with her gentle telepathic touch, was gone, unable to reach Sienna through the hard carapace of Ming’s creation. It had probably been for the best—Kristine had stood no chance against a daughter who’d put her in intensive care with a simple childish display of temper.
“Did you ever play?” Hawke’s voice so rough, his body so muscular and overwhelming.
She had never felt more feminine, never felt more like a sexual creature. “No.”
A pause. “Sienna—”
“No,” she said. “No more questions. Not tonight.” She wanted to dance with him, be a woman in the arms of a man who made every part of her awaken in a hunger she’d never expected to feel and who, for this magical moment, was hers.
His jaw, heavy with stubble, rubbed against her temple again as he shifted his hold to press her closer. Then, as the music played, as the night grew softer and quieter, they danced.
RECOVERED FROM COMPUTER 2(A) TAGS: PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE, FATHER, ACTION NOT REQUIRED
FROM: Alice
TO: Dad
DATE: November 5th, 1971 at 11:14pm
SUBJECT: re: re: JA Article
I protest! I did very much enjoy your paper in the Journal of Archaeology, and it has nothing to do with being your daughter—I totally agree with you about your interpretation of the newly discovered glyphs. Cho is wrong. I know it and you know it.