by Nalini Singh
“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 celebration.”
His words made her wolf want to throw back its head, sing in joy. “We had a chat about it last night,” she said, inpu
tting 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.
And, she thought with a smile, recalling the kisses on the cheek as they’d left in the same rush they’d arrived, the children had started to expect to see her—to the point that if she was busy in the infirmary, they came searching. It was nice in the best sense of the word. However, she’d been hard at work since sending them off, and now decided she’d done enough to assuage her guilt.
“Lucy, go home!” she called out to her nurse, closing the file she’d been working on at the same time.
The younger woman appeared out of the storage room a minute later, tugging off her hairtie to redo her sadly drooping ponytail. “Time flies when I’m cataloguing supplies,” she said, tone dry as dust. “I’m a third of the way through. Want me to do the reorders as I go or at the end?”
“As you go. Better if we’re out of some things than if we’re low on everything.”
“I’ll break out my secret-recipe chocolate brownies and bribe someone from operations to process the orders, speed things up.”
“I already asked.” She’d figured Lucy would appreciate the help. “No luck—operations has its hands full to overflowing.” SnowDancer had won the battle, but the violence had left the pack with broken or destroyed equipment, part of a forest to replant, packmates in the city who’d suffered damage to their homes, disrupted comm lines, debris from the enemy’s ships to clear…the list went on.
“Damn. We really need that dedicated admin person.” Putting her hands on her lower back, Lucy bent over backward to stretch her muscles.
Lara nodded. “I had a chat with Ava about it.” With a degree in managing Living Resources, Ava was the one who oversaw the arm of operations that had to do with finding the right people for internal Pack jobs. “She’s making up a shortlist for us to go over, but I think we’d better wait till things settle down a little more before doing interviews.”
“I hope Ava’s list includes lots of smokin’ hot males from other sectors.”
Lara laughed at the plaintive wish. “Dry spell?”
“You have no idea—everyone likes me, but I want to be ravished! Nice Lucy wants a gorgeous hunk of man to see and devour Sexy Lucy.” Shaking her head, she left the infirmary with Lara, her own quarters just across the hallway. “I had a couple of soldiers drop in today. They helped me with the supplies. We talked.”
That was why Lucy was such an exceptional nurse—she understood that not all healing happened in the infirmary and that Lara needed to be kept updated with the health of the pack.
“Younger males,” the other woman added as Lara indicated for her to come into the family apartment.
It was empty, the children’s activities scheduled to run late today, but it held the imprint of the family. Scattered school backpacks, textbook and game datapads on the coffee table, Walker’s jacket hanging next to her own on the coat hook to the left of the doorway, the quiet, deep scent of dark water and snow-dusted firs underlying the brighter, brasher scents of the children.
Wolf and woman, every part of her felt a simple, deep happiness at being home.
“Grab a seat,” she told Lucy. “I’ll put on some herbal tea—we’ve both overdosed on coffee today.”
“Do you have that peppermint and chocolate one we had last time?” The blonde woman beamed when Lara held up the tin, before pulling out a seat at the kitchen table and continuing with their earlier subject. “I think the guys felt more comfortable with me, since we’re friends, grew up together.”
“And because you’re very good at what you do.” Lucy had an inherent kindness of heart that could put anyone at ease, young or old. “How are they doing?”
“Fine, generally speaking, but they’re having the issues we discussed—both were taken out by the sonic weapon, made helpless against the Psy. The experience haunts them.”
Changelings termed the Psy arrogant, but Lara was well aware her race had its own arrogance, especially when it came to physical strength. It had been a hard lesson to realize that one of those strengths—acute hearing—could be turned into an agonizing weakness. “How did you handle it?”
“I listened. Like we talked about, most people just need to get it out.” She accepted the tea Lara held out, breathed deep of the decadent aroma. “And, I pointed out that now they’re aware of the weakness, they can guard against it, take countermeasures.”
Lara slid into a seat across from the nurse, luxuriating in the scent of her own cup of tea. “Good. That returns control into their hands.” Critical when it came to dominant wolves.
“I think it worked, but I made sure they know I’m there anytime they want to talk.”
“Thank God you decided to work for the pack.” Lara adored the young nurse. “As for the dating situation—have you tried the cats? I don’t want you being ravished by someone out of the territory and stolen away.”
The front door opened before Lucy could reply, the whirlwind that was Marlee running in to throw her arms around Lara in wild affection. “I’m starving! Can I have cake?”
Laughing, Lara hugged her tight. “Fruit bowl will tide you over till dinner.”
Not the least abashed, Marlee grabbed an apple on her way to hug Lucy. “Hi, Lucy! Are you staying for dinner? Want to see my art project?”
“Yes, stay, Lucy,” Lara said. “I’m in the mood to cook—you can be my sous-chef.”
It ended up being a dinner party of seven. One of Toby’s friends had permission to eat with them, and Walker brought home a twelve-year-old female pup whose parents were running late getting back from their work outside den territory.
As they sat down to eat, her mate reached over and ran his knuckles down her cheek, the affectionate gesture making her wolf rub against her skin. “Hey, you,” she whispered.
He tipped up her chin, kissed her to the delight of the children and Lucy, before turning back to the table. It wasn’t until after everyone had filled their plates that she saw him watching Toby and Marlee. Marlee was currently giggling with the pup who’d come home with Walker, while the boys chatted to Lucy about the effectiveness of a twist in a recent movie. All the child
ren were clearly in good spirits, but there was something in Walker’s eyes, the same shadow of pain she’d seen the day of their mating, as Toby spun Marlee. She knew in that moment that there were gaps in her knowledge of what had taken place in his life immediately before his defection.
“Walker?” She touched her fingers to his thigh. “Sweetheart, what is it?”
He closed his hand over hers. “Sometimes, I see Marlee laugh,” he said in a rough tone so low, it reached her ears alone, “and I remember a time when my daughter didn’t understand what it was to be happy. Only what it was to be hurt.” His gaze shifted to a grinning Toby, the memories a quiet ache in his voice as he spoke. “And Toby, he was in so much pain after Kristine’s suicide, I was terrified we’d lose him, too, my sister’s cherished baby boy.”
The poignant sadness of his words wrenched at her. Tangling their fingers together, she “spoke” to him through the visceral connection of the mating bond, showering him in her love, in the joy she felt at being his mate, in the cheerful contentment her wolf sensed in the children. His gaze sharpened, the shadows fading to be replaced by a deep happiness that made her entire body sing.
And she knew she wouldn’t ask him about the shadows, not tonight. No, she would love him, counteract any lingering whispers of sadness with affection, pleasure, and touch. He would tell her when he was ready—she had faith in the trust that linked them to one another, was no longer afraid she’d never know the heart of this incredible man who was her own.
Perhaps it would take a little more time, a little more patience…but they had a lifetime.
• • •
WALKER woke around midnight, Lara curled up against him, and he realized he couldn’t imagine ever again spending the night without her at his side. Even the idea of it caused an agony of pain inside his chest. It was a startling sensation for a man who had always come to a cold bed, believed himself wholly self-sufficient, but one he had no will to fight. He wanted a forever tinged with the warmth of her against his skin, her hand on his heart, her curls tickling the bottom of his jaw.