by Nalini Singh
“I think you’re too smart to mark your assault craft with your emblem,” she said. “I also think you’re smart enough to do precisely that to throw us off the trail.”
He smiled. It meant nothing, she knew, was a physical action he’d learned to mimic to manipulate the human and changeling masses. “True,” he said. “All true.” Returning the piece of hull to her desk, he looked out at the city through the plate-glass window at her back. “However, while the squad is mine, I do not yet own them.”
“You don’t need the Arrows.” Notwithstanding his telekinetic abilities, Kaleb had independent command over hundreds of men.
“Still, it makes no rational sense to strike now when I could go in later with a force almost guaranteed to take control with very little destruction.” Rising, he did up a button on his jacket, the material a deep navy featuring razor-thin pinstripes, the cut perfect. “The fact is, I don’t want this city. That has never been my goal.”
That, Nikita thought, was the most honest thing he could’ve said. Kaleb had far grander ambitions—he wanted to control the Net itself. Not taking her eyes off him as he gave a clipped nod before teleporting away, she reached for the phone. “It’s not Kaleb,” she told Max Shannon, aware the changelings felt more at ease dealing with her security chief.
But when she hung up, she didn’t return to her work. Instead, she reached out with her psychic senses along an old and familiar telepathic pathway. Your child. She is healthy.
Yes, Sascha answered, though it hadn’t been a question. She is extraordinary.
Half-Psy, half-changeling—that in itself made Sascha’s words true, but Nikita knew that wasn’t what her daughter meant. You’re not safe in the city. Not with war lingering on the horizon.
It’s home, Mother. A long pause. Do you plan to leave this region?
No.
A push along the telepathic pathway, and she realized Sascha was trying to send her something bigger than a direct thought. Aware her daughter’s Tp was weak, she reached out with her own, “caught” the sending in a psychic grasp . . . and saw an image of an infant with cat-green eyes and skin of a smooth golden-brown a shade paler than her mother’s.
Sascha’s child. Nikita’s grandchild.
Chapter 39
HAWKE SPOTTED THE ambush from a ridge high above the isolated road that lay along one of the routes they would’ve used to evacuate their vulnerable. His wolf’s anger turned cold, primal. There were some things you did not do even in war. “Will they be able to sense non-Psy minds getting closer?” he asked the male lying on his stomach beside him.
Judd gave a single nod. “You might be able to distract them by sending in a decoy—fill up a transport with soldiers.”
“They can’t tell the difference between immature and mature minds?”
“Not if they’re running a general telepathic sweep.” He lifted the binoculars to his eyes again. “I can make out the weapons. They’re high-velocity—” A dangerous pause before Judd passed the binoculars to him. “Twenty degrees to the left of the man in the center.”
Hawke scanned twenty degrees, stopped. The cold-blooded bastards had a grenade launcher. “No mercy. They die. All of them.” This war was not going to be fought with the lives of their young and their old. “Scotts, Ming, whoever the fuck is behind this needs to know we mean business.”
“We eliminate the ambush, we give away the fact that we’re not only aware of their strategy, but capable of predicting it.”
Hawke’s wolf was howling for blood, but both man and wolf had learned to think past the red haze of rage long ago. “It’ll also get rid of ten of their men at this location, however many the others have found.”
“Indigo’s team has another group in their sights,” Judd reported on the heels of his statement, “as does Drew’s. Riley’s sector looks clean.”
It was, Hawke had to admit, damn convenient to have telepaths in the packs. Sienna was paired with Indigo, Walker with Drew, Riley with Faith NightStar of all people. While the DarkRiver F-Psy was a noncombatant, she had the necessary telepathic range. Her mate was acting as her shield.
Because of that telepathic network, it took only minutes to organize the decoys, another hour to get the transports in position. None of the vehicles could be allowed within range of the grenade launchers—their purpose was simply to distract. In the interim, the changeling teams made their way down to just beyond the scope of the enemy’s telepathic sweeps.
“Stay out of sight,” Hawke told Judd. “They can’t know we have a Tk on our side, not until it’s unavoidable.” Getting the lieutenant’s nod, he said, “Everyone ready?”
“Yes.”
“Time.”
“Fifty seconds till the vehicles come into view, fifty-two till mobilization.”
It was a hard, fast battle. That was the only way to win with the Psy, given their ability to obliterate minds with their psychic strikes. There were also no teleport-capable telekinetics in this group, which signed their death warrants.
Afterward, Hawke stood looking down at the bodies and felt nothing but savage satisfaction. He wasn’t a man who liked to kill, but these people had planned to savage SnowDancer’s young. For that crime, death was the only penalty.
SIENNA had never seen the wolves move with such cold, sleek violence. The Psy units stood no chance. Part of her was shocked at the bloody reprisal, but it was nothing to the protective rage that had filled her when she’d seen the grenade launcher, understood the true malevolence of their intentions. For an instant, the X-fire had threatened to slip her grasp, but paradoxically, it was her protective drive toward the pups that had helped her get it back under control.
It was over in a matter of minutes, and as day turned to night, she found herself walking through the den with a man who had the eyes of a hunting wolf and hair of silver-gold. Today, he’d not only spoken to her about pack issues, he’d treated her as an integral element of SnowDancer’s defenses. Part of her was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, but at that instant, for the first time, she felt like a partner in some sense, not simply a young girl who wore her heart on her sleeve.
“The cats are holding off on any evacuations, same as us,” he told her as they walked. “Right now, everyone is safer within our protections.”
“It’ll be quiet,” she said. “When the children are eventually moved.”
Hawke’s wolf hated the idea of a silent den. “It won’t be forever.”
Sienna began to turn left as they reached a fork in the corridor.
“No.” He gripped her hand. “This way.”
She didn’t say a word, and neither did anyone else who saw them along the way. A few days ago, they’d have been teased, whistled at, and otherwise hassled in the most playful of ways. Today, the mood was somber, everyone aware what was coming. The corridors were emptier than usual, many pack members having gathered in the common areas to talk, take strength from one another. There was no one at all in the corridor paved with river stones and painted with images of wolves at play, in sleep, during a hunt.
Hawke knew why Sienna avoided this particular exit from the den. She’d damaged the mural once by accident, her X-fire acting as a laser to fracture a small area of the wall, destroy the paint. “I was never angry with you for that,” he said as they entered the painted wonderland.
“This place . . . it’s important to you.” Her hand curled around his.
Tugging her to a particular section, he said, “Look.”
Sienna leaned forward. “It’s a sleeping pup—Oh!” He watched as she traced the second pup hiding behind the broad green leaves, waiting to pounce. “I never noticed him.”
“She hid a lot of things in the mural,” he said, the ache inside him an old grief. “It was meant to be an artwork that made the pack laugh, linger, want to play.”
“Speaking to the heart of the wolf.” Dropping her hand from the wall, Sienna raised her head. “It was your mother, wasn’t it?”
�
��Yes.” His gifted, laughing mother. “She was a submissive wolf.”
Sienna’s eyes widened. “I just assumed . . .”
“I think it surprised my father, too.” Inside, his wolf howled at the bittersweet memories. “He first saw her here. She’d flown in from a different sector, started the mural only hours earlier.” Hawke could almost see her, her white-blonde hair tied back with one of those colorful scarves she’d favored, a streak of paint on her nose or across her cheek. “He came running through from the outside in wolf form with an urgent message for Garrick. And he just stopped.”
“He knew straight away?” Wonder in Sienna’s voice.
It made Hawke tighten his fingers on her own. “He said it was like being hit by a two-by-four.” His father had always shaken his head at the memory, laughter creasing his face, lighting up eyes two shades darker than his son’s. “He was covered in mud and he had somewhere to go, but all he could do was stare at her.”
“What did your mother do?”
Hawke laughed, recalling the way his mother would always pretend to bare her teeth at his father when she told her side of the story. “She dropped half a tub of green paint on herself when he came racing in and had turned around to give him a piece of her mind when the air just went out of her. She was submissive, should’ve dropped her gaze, but she couldn’t do it, couldn’t break that connection.
“Garrick found them an hour later, her splattered with paint, him with dried mud turning his coat stiff. They were just sitting there, looking into each other’s eyes. Their mating was complete, and it was one that held firm until the last.” Until his father’s death and his mother’s heartbreak.
Unable to continue speaking of it, he tugged her out of the den and to the pool below the waterfall, its surface a frothy white from the crash of the water. Shadowed by the jut of the cliff above, the sandy area was a haven of privacy.
“This is a makeout spot,” Sienna said as she finished clambering down. “Evie told me. I think Tai sneaks her here.”
His lips tugged upward. “Why do you think I moved that rock at the top? It’s a time-honored signal that the pool is occupied.” The stresses of the day falling away under the caress of her responding smile, he took a seat on the ground. “Did you manage to see your family today?” He tugged her close when she settled next to him.
“Yes, I spent time with Marlee and Toby after we returned, but Walker was busy.”
“Speaking of Walker,” he murmured in her ear, “I saw him glaring at Lara a few minutes ago.” Hawke had slipped away before either of them had seen him, certain the Psy male would take care of the healer. They’d had a few injuries today, and she was already worn thin after the events of the previous night.
“Walker doesn’t glare,” Sienna said, shifting so that she faced him on her knees. “He just looks at you until you obey.”
Laughing, Hawke moved to bracket her between his thighs and touched his forehead to hers, oddly content. They talked of other matters, of Toby and Marlee, of Cooper and his new mate, until Hawke ended up lying next to her seated form, his arms crossed under his head. “It’s good to have four lieutenants mated now,” he said, his eyes on the rocky ledge above, but his attention on the compelling, textured scent of the woman by his side. “We’ll need that stability in the leadership structure even more after this is over.”
“May I ask about her?” A quiet, unexpected question.
The wolf was very much in Hawke’s eyes when he glanced at Sienna. “Her name was Theresa, but I called her Rissa.”
Rissa. It was strange to finally know the name of the ghost who owned Hawke’s soul. “What was she like?”
“Sweet—in nature and in spirit.” Hawke’s hair slid over his forehead as he pushed himself back up into a sitting position, arms hooked around his knees. “Even as a toddler, she’d give her toys to other kids if they cried. I never saw her throw a tantrum, never saw her without a smile.”
Sienna clenched her hands in the sand. It was becoming plain that Hawke’s Rissa had been nothing like her. “It’s why you’re drawn to Sascha,” she said, hiding her pain, hiding everything. “She must remind you of Theresa in some way.”
“I guess.” He frowned, shoved back his hair. “The thing is, I don’t know what Rissa would’ve grown up to be—she never had the chance to spread her wings.”
“Yet you’re certain she would’ve been your mate?” It just slipped out, that plea disguised as a question.
A pause. “That can’t be altered, Sienna.” Gentle words. Implacable words. “It’s a knowing nothing can erase.”
She fisted her hand against her abdomen in a vain attempt to hold the pain inside. “I can’t argue with that,” she said. “But the fact is, you never mated with her.” They’d been too young to love that way.
“The wolf chooses only once.” Curving his hand over her nape, he pulled her close, until his lips almost brushed her own as he spoke. “I can’t change that, baby.”
Gut-deep need drove her response. “That’s a pretty excuse, don’t you think?”
Eyes gone night-glow, dangerous and merciless. “Enough, Sienna.” Squeezing her nape, he released her.
She wondered if he thought that was the end of it. “It tore your heart out when you lost her,” she said, insistent because she had to be, because this was important enough to forever break her. “It devastated you when you were a child—is it any wonder that you refuse to allow yourself to be that vulnerable again?”
Rising to his feet, he strode to the edge of the pool, glanced back. “You can’t talk the truth away, no matter how many words you use.”
She got up, too, bracing herself against the dominant force of his personality. “I’ve seen the effects of the mating bond,” she said, looking into that face shaped by adversity and determination, until he was a man few dared challenge. “I can understand why a changeling who’d been mated once would never ever seek the same with anyone else.”
“Then why the hell are we having this conversation?”
“Because you weren’t mated! ” Her voice rose in spite of her vow to keep this discussion tempered, rational. “Have you ever considered that it isn’t the wolf stopping you from mating, but the human half?” The part that understood that to open himself up to the chance of a mate would mean opening himself up to the chance of the same soul-shattering pain.
“It’s not a choice.” He looked like he wanted to shake her.
Sienna wanted to pound at him with her fists, force him to listen, to see. “Bullshit! Drew made Indigo see him, Brenna fought for Judd, Mercy and Riley’s relationship took years to grow, so don’t you dare take the easy way out by saying it’s all predestined! Don’t be a coward!”
Chapter 40
SOMEONE HAD OUTTHOUGHT him, Ming realized, switching off the comm after a clipped discussion with Henry Scott. There weren’t many people on the planet capable of doing that, especially when it involved military strategy.
Sienna Lauren was on the shortlist.
He’d suspected she was alive ever since he’d seen the report filed by one of Henry’s men, flagging a curious psychic energy pulse inside SnowDancer territory. The description of that pulse hadn’t sounded odd to Ming—it described the power of an X. While his team had failed to get the SnowDancers to admit to offering sanctuary to Psy defectors, today’s events further strengthened his suspicions.
If Sienna had lasted this long, the girl had either figured out a way to circumvent the inevitable consequences of the X-marker, or she was about to go completely active. Since the former had never before been done, Ming was betting on the latter. Which meant everyone in the world would soon know if Sienna Lauren was alive. And Henry would get what he wanted after all—carnage on a scale that would dwarf anything the Council had ever done.
Chapter 41
GOD, SHE MADE him angry. Two hours after the confrontation by the pool, Hawke remained pissed at Sienna. Maybe he should’ve felt some softer emotion—perhaps even pity
—because she was asking for something he couldn’t give, would never be able to give. But the fact of the matter was, she’d made him steaming mad, and that was how he stayed. The only good thing was that driven by angry energy, he’d canvassed almost everyone involved in making sure the pack was ready for any further assaults.
Riley had a few things he wanted to double-check, but he’d already adapted the rotation schedule to take the injured into account—and Matthias was on his way to the den with a unit of skilled fighters, as well as a sniper team trained by Alexei. The group was flying in under the radar by hopping onto a private plane owned by Nikita Duncan. Even if the enemy realized Nikita was assisting the changelings, the plane’s true ownership was hidden behind so many sub-corporations that no one would give it more than a cursory glance. Territorially speaking, the other lieutenants would cover Matthias’s sector.
Indigo’s novices were drilled and well able to provide the necessary support if needed, while Riaz had inventoried their weapons and pronounced that everything was in pristine shape. In the best news of the day, the techs had found enough in the wreckage of the Psy stealthcraft that they’d complete the modifications to the pack’s air-detection systems tonight, plugging that security hole.
DarkRiver, too, had locked its defenses. Mercy’s and Riley’s work together meant that instead of doubling up, the packs would function as a single cohesive unit in any attack. According to Lucas, Nikita and Anthony had provided lists of their people who might prove helpful in any skirmish. The two Councilors would also utilize their own psychic abilities to assist.
“If it looks like the Scotts are going to hit San Francisco,” Hawke said on the phone to the leopard alpha, “we position the Psy there.” There was no way to evacuate the entire population of the city, which meant they’d have a higher risk of sustaining casualties.
“Are you sure?” Lucas didn’t sound convinced. “Henry’s going to throw his strongest at SnowDancer.”