Kiss of Snow

Chapter 48

MORNING CAME TOO soon, and along with it, the harsh reality of the inevitable consequences of the amplification in her power levels. She was grateful for Riley’s early morning call seeking to talk over a security issue with Hawke. It gave her an excuse to keep the discussion on martial matters on the drive back, a topic she could handle even with her concentration fractured.

Her luck ran out when they reached the den.

“You okay?” Fingers gripping her chin, wolf-blue eyes piercing her through and through. “Did something I do last night—”

“No,” she interrupted, wanting nothing to tarnish the memory of that wonderful, impossible, beautiful night. “I guess I’m just . . . processing.” Not a lie.

A slow smile. “Here’s something else for you to process.” His kiss burned her with a far more welcome fire than the cold that licked through the psychic pathways of her mind. But she couldn’t remain in his arms forever.

“Okay,” she said, pacing from wall to wall inside her quarters. “Time to think.” She couldn’t do anything about the buildup of power, not here, not now, but she could get the hell away from those who had no idea how close they were to an armed and deadly weapon. Once at a sufficient distance, she’d have more room to consider her options, work out solutions.

In spite of the practical, positive nature of her thoughts, her heart was a lump of stone, terror crawling a thousand spidery fingers in her mind. Though she’d earthed it only hours ago, her power was already at over sixtyfive percent. There was no escaping the cold, hard truth that there would come a time when she would turn into a living torch, her body spilling over with too much X-fire to allow even the faintest illusion of control.

He isn’t my mate.

Pain roared through her chest, but for the first time, the idea of never having that bond with Hawke didn’t tear her heart in two, but saved it. If he had been her mate, the shock of her violent death might’ve been lethal. “Thank you,” she whispered to whatever unknown deity had given her that priceless gift.

The LaurenNet, her family, they would be safe. Judd and Walker were strong enough to hold Toby and Marlee in the network after Sienna was gone. If she was less selfish, she’d cut her link to the LaurenNet now, allow her mind to starve to death. “No,” she said, hands fisted. That cold voice was Ming’s, the voice of a man who’d only ever seen her as a thing to be used.

But she was a sister, a niece, a cousin, a friend, a packmate . . . a lover. Suicide would forever haunt those she left behind—Sienna knew that better than anyone. And, even though the odds appeared impossible, she’d never been the giving-up type. She’d fight to the bloody, bitter end to live.

Less than twenty minutes later, she’d packed a small bag and was ready to depart, her power levels having punched up to hit seventy-nine percent. Seeing Hawke was out of the question, no matter how much it hurt her not to go to him—he’d know, and she couldn’t afford for him to stop her.

Toby. Marlee.

Her sweet, gentle baby brother, a boy who’d already lost his mother, would also know, but she’d have chanced that to hug him tight if she hadn’t been so afraid her power would go unstable while she was still in the den.

Walker would protect him, she thought, fighting back tears because they had no place here, in the most crucial battle of her life. Walker would lay down his life for Toby. So would Hawke, Judd, Riley, Indigo, Drew, Brenna—so many people loved him. Sunny-natured Marlee would reach him even if everyone else failed. And she could ’path him later when she was at a safe distance, make sure he wasn’t afraid, that he knew she loved him.

Hawke isn’t a telepath.

Her eyes glanced off the phone she was leaving behind because it contained a tracking chip. She wouldn’t be able to contact him if she failed in her last desperate attempt to contain her power, wouldn’t be able to tell him the secrets of her heart. But he’d know—how could he possibly not know how much he meant to her?

The physical act of leaving was easy. No one had any reason to stop her. She didn’t make any detours until she was well past the lake. Then she began to run, raising a wave of X-fire at her back. The intensity of it would erase the scents on the ground, in the air. Hawke might still be able to track her, but she had a head start and the most painful incentive to get as far as possible from those she loved. She would not murder them, would not become the monster Ming had trained her to be.

An hour later, her power hit one hundred percent.

HAWKE was speaking to Riley about Alexei’s team of snipers when Toby ran up to them. The boy was so well behaved that the instant he grabbed Hawke’s hand and tugged, he had both men’s immediate and total attention.

“Sienna.” Toby sucked in a breath, his face red, his chest heaving. “She’s in trouble.”

Hawke’s wolf went predator-quiet. “Where is she, Toby?”

“I don’t know.” Stark terror in the skin stretched tight over his skull. “Her star is like ice in our net. But there’s fire inside.” Trembling voice, a sheen of wet on those eyes. “You have to help her.”

Hawke took Toby’s face in between his palms, captured the boy’s distraught gaze with his own. “You did the right thing coming to me. I’ll find her.” Always. She was his.

Toby gave a jerky nod. “You gotta go. I think she’s running away.”

No way in hell.

“Riley.”

“I’ve got him.” Riley put his hand on top of Toby’s head.

“Go,” both man and boy said.

He left, fury beating in every pulse of his blood. Did she really think he’d let her go? That he’d lie down and accept the fact that she’d cut and run? If she had, she was going to get a nasty surprise when he caught up to her. Because Hawke was feeling all kinds of mean.

A single question and he knew she hadn’t checked out any of the vehicles. Which meant she was on foot. He shifted to wolf form mid-run, following her scent out of the den and to the lake. Anger had his wolf digging its claws into the earth, but worse was the jagged sense of betrayal. How dare she do this? How dare she think to isolate herself in this way? They were going to have the mother of all fights when he caught up to her.

Which he would do, very, very soon.

Sienna was smart, but she wasn’t wolf, wasn’t alpha. He lost her scent at the lake. It didn’t matter. Because he knew her. He also knew this territory like the back of his hand. Cutting across the land with the speed of a predator infuriated with the woman he’d claimed as his own, he planned to head her off in under three hours.

SETTLING them in the break room off the infirmary, Lara made Toby and Marlee cups of hot chocolate, and handed out cookies. “Sienna will be fine,” she said, ignoring the tear tracks Toby furtively wiped away, and hoping her words weren’t a lie. “Hawke’s gone after her.” Hawke always ran his prey to ground. Always.

Marlee scrunched up her nose. “I bet he was mad.”

Toby nodded to his younger cousin. “Yeah, Sienna’s in big trouble.”

They began to discuss whether they wanted to swap their cookies.

Startled, Lara looked up to meet Riley’s gaze. The lieutenant gave a single satisfied nod before leaving the children in Lara’s care—though Lara wasn’t certain they were as sanguine about the situation as they appeared, especially Toby. But, having dealt with more than her share of boys, she didn’t fuss. Instead, she moved around to fix the ribbon on Marlee’s braid. “Did you tell your dad what was happening?” Walker would want to know as soon as possible.

“Uh-huh.” Marlee nodded. “He was helping Riaz with the older kids far away. He’s coming home though.” Eyes identical to her father’s pinned Lara to the spot when she finished with the ribbon. “Ben says you smell like my dad.”

Lara hesitated, glanced at Toby . . . to see no surprise on the boy’s face. Of course not. He was empathic, had to have picked up the undercurrents long ago. “Does that bother you?” she asked both children.

Toby just shook his head, but Marlee dunked her cookie and took a bite before saying, “No, Dad needs someone to cuddle him, too.” A brilliant smile. “And me and Toby, we think you’re pretty great.”

Wanting to smile at the idea of anyone cuddling Walker, Lara pressed a kiss to Marlee’s cheek before moving over to pour Toby some more hot chocolate. “You need anything else, sweetheart?”

Toby looked up, a quiver in his lower lip that he bit down to still. “A hug.”

“Oh, Toby.” Going to her knees, she embraced him tight. “We won’t permit her to handle this alone. We’re pack.”

A small hand brushed over her own as Marlee patted Toby’s back. “Don’t be sad, Toby. Hawke won’t bite her very hard for running away.”

Toby’s eyes went huge as he drew back from the hug . . . and then he started laughing, turning to wrap one arm around his grinning cousin’s neck to tug her to his side.

From the mouths, Lara thought, her own lips twitching, of babes.

SWEAT was trickling down Sienna’s back, her face, pasting tendrils of hair to her temples when she crested the rise and found herself two meters from a very pissed off wolf. “No,” she whispered. “You can’t be here.” In the hours since she’d left the den, she’d realized that there was no way to turn back the psychic clock, no way to escape the inevitable. The only thing she could do was make sure she didn’t take anyone else with her. “Go back.”

The wolf snarled, lips peeled back to display razor-sharp canines.

It was difficult to stand her ground when all she wanted to do was go to her knees, wrap her arms around him, and ask him to make it alright. But even Hawke couldn’t fix this, fix her. “I’m close to a lethal breach,” she said, breath coming in ragged gasps. “You have to leave.”

His response was to pace around her in a slow, predatory sweep. Dropping her pack, she swigged from the bottle of water she’d refilled at a stream an hour ago. “Stop trying to intimidate me and listen, you stubborn wolf!”

Pale eyes dared her to continue.

She folded her arms. “I’m not being melodramatic or a diva or a child.” The time alone in the wide-open spaces of the Sierra had given her room to breathe, quiet the nascent panic to cold reason. “My power is amplifying at an exponential rate. I could go active at any time—in the bedroom, at the infirmary, in the nursery.”

Hawke walked over to stand right in front of her, his ears pricked, his body motionless. She wasn’t surprised in the least when he shifted in a storm of light and color. When it passed, he towered over her, his anger as feral as it had been in wolf form. “You. Left. Me.”

It was the last thing she’d expected him to say. “It was for the best.” He had her scrambling backward before she realized it. Her back hit a tree trunk. “I’m dangerous. I—” His mouth on her own, his hand gripping her at the nape as his body pinned her against the tree.

She should’ve resisted, but how was she supposed to exercise restraint when he was everything she had ever wanted?

Seventy-three percent.

Time, she had time enough to love him. Rising on tiptoe, she gripped at his waist as she met him kiss for kiss, breath for breath.

When he reached down and ripped open the button-fly of her cargo pants, she kicked them off after toeing off her boots. Her panties were in shreds an instant later. She shifted her grip to his shoulders as he lifted her up, wrapping her legs around his waist. And shuddered, her every nerve sparking with near-painful need as he claimed her with a single primal thrust.

But even wild with possessive fury and animal need, he remembered to brace one arm around her lower back, the other around her shoulders, so she didn’t get pounded into the rough bark of the tree. Then he took her, kissing her with such ferocious demand that she could do nothing but give him everything he wanted.

“You left me.” A husky accusation against her ear.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Fisting her hand in his hair, she kissed him in ragged apology—she couldn’t say she wouldn’t do it again. That choice had been taken out of her hands the instant she’d been born an X. “Love me.”

“Always.”

THEY sat in the silver-green shade of the tree afterward, its branches shimmering in the sunlight. Sienna had managed to knot the top of her cargos across her hips, though they hung precariously low, while Hawke sat unashamedly naked, with her in his lap. His chin lay on her hair, one muscular arm around her shoulders, his free hand heavy on her thigh.

Head on his shoulder, she traced her fingers through the soft hairs on his chest. “I thought I’d beaten it. I thought I’d be the X who survived, but I was just fooling myself. I should’ve looked more carefully, should’ve realized—”

“You had no one to teach you,” he said with changeling fierceness. “You’re doing the best you can in a wilderness no one knows how to navigate.”

“I never said,” Sienna murmured, “but part of me always thought we’d find Alice Eldridge’s book on X-Psy and that it would have all the answers. Stupid, isn’t it? But I guess even an X can believe in fairy tales.” Her hand fisted against him. “I can’t go back. I’m not safe.” Never would be safe.

“Then we stay up here.” An absolute statement.

She’d never felt so cherished, so wanted, but she allowed herself only a moment to revel in the joy of it. “No. The pack needs you.”

Hawke’s hand slid up to her hip. “Pack is built on the bonds of family, of mating, of love. You come first. You always will.”

Tears burned at the backs of her eyes. “You are their heart, Hawke.” Especially now, with Henry and his fanatics about to launch an assault.

“As you’re mine.” Reaching up to stroke the tangled mess he’d made of her hair, he released a breath. “When Rissa died, part of me broke. Even at ten, I knew I wasn’t just losing my best friend, I was losing part of myself.”

“If I could bring her back for you, I would.” In an instant, even if it meant she would have to watch him love another woman.

“Shh.” A shake of his head that said she didn’t understand. “Rissa’s death, her life, shaped me. She’ll always be a part of me, but I haven’t been the boy she knew for a long time. You—and only you—hold the man’s heart.”

Sienna froze. “You mustn’t say that.” They’d never have the mating bond, but this, what he was giving her, it was as precious, as binding. As painfully beautiful. “You mustn’t.”

“Ah baby, you know I do what I want.” Rubbing his chin on her hair, he squeezed her hip. “Man and wolf, we both adore you. No way am I letting you go after the hell you’ve put me through over the years.”

He was teasing, but she couldn’t find any laughter inside of her. “I don’t know how to stop this”—an excruciating, angry helplessness—“how to survive it.” But she would find a way to send him back. Because SnowDancer needed him now, more than ever, this man with a heart so big, he’d held a broken pack together and made it strong again, a man who’d given sanctuary to the enemy . . . a man who’d loved an X.