Kiss of Snow

Chapter 51

AGONY HAZED THROUGH Hawke’s brain. And he realized that Henry Scott might just have outthought them after all. “Brenna,” he said into the mike, “can you block that?” It was almost impossible to speak.

Brenna’s voice came out garbled, and he went to switch to a better channel . . . when he figured out it was his hearing that had gone, blood dripping down the sides of his face from violently ruptured eardrums. Unable to figure out what she was saying, he scanned the combat zone. A large number of his people were down, hands clasped over their ears. Others remained standing, but it was clear their balance was shot.

The only ones unaffected were the human members of the pack. In front of him, Kieran pushed aside a packmate in the line of fire and took on an attacker in hand-to-hand combat, while a reinjured Sam, his shoulder bearing a field dressing, dragged SnowDancer after fallen SnowDancer to safety. But there weren’t many human packmates. Not enough.

Henry’s men weren’t even bothering to shoot anymore. Instead they were walking up to dazed and bleeding wolves, and smashing them in the backs of their heads. Prisoners, Hawke thought as he shot down as many of the enemy as he could, Scott wanted prisoners. To torture? For experimentation? It didn’t matter. No SnowDancer would ever suffer as Hawke’s father had suffered. He kept on shooting, covering those soldiers darting out to drag in unconscious or hurt packmates. But even with an alpha’s strength, he was no longer as fast or as effective.

His people continued to fall under brutal crunches of bone.

They had one last weapon. His wolf had scented her on the air currents, the autumn and spice of her as vivid to him as the blood that saturated the air. The only problem was, he didn’t want to use her that way.

SIENNA dug her nails into the pine needle–strewn earth. They were falling onto their knees one by one, her friends, her family, Hawke.

Energy rippled through her body, a massive build-up of X-fire that would need to be earthed soon—or used in combat, as it was meant to be used. “Hawke, I’m here,” she whispered, not knowing whether to intervene or to wait for the signal as agreed. If she entered the conflict at the wrong moment, she could ruin everything.

Suddenly afraid that there would be no signal because Hawke was dead, she spread out her telepathic senses in a desperate search. Her mind recoiled from that of another powerful telepath, but Henry Scott had sensed her. She saw his eyes flick open as he searched for the unfamiliar mind.

“Please,” she whispered as the attackers began slamming their weapons down on SnowDancer skulls. “Use me.” Let me do this.

Her breath was a razor in her chest when a howl—broken, the cadence all wrong—lifted into the air. It didn’t sound like it should have, but she understood.

It was time.

Abandoning any attempt at secrecy, she walked out onto the night-cloaked battlefield bathed in the crimson and gold shimmer of cold fire. The enemy might have been Silent, but they went pale at the sight of her. An instant later, they began to shoot. She would’ve taken evasive action . . . except the flames around her repelled everything, melting the bullets down to nothing, reflecting the lasers back at the shooters.

It was then that she realized Judd couldn’t have acted as the failsafe. No bullet would’ve gotten through. That wasn’t the scariest part—her link to the LaurenNet was shielded by cold fire even Sienna wouldn’t be able to breach, the ultimate defensive measure from a martial mind. But that was no longer an issue. She knew what to do now, and she would do it after the battle was done and her pack was safe.

Angry and sickened at the sight of the broken and hurt SnowDancers around her, Sienna spread out her arms, palms facing the sky. And the fire with the cold, cold heart touched the enemy, and they weren’t there anymore. She aimed the most powerful wave at Henry Scott, knowing he’d try to get his men to teleport him out.

The bastard screamed high and shrill before he disappeared. She didn’t know if he was dead, but she did know the attacking force should’ve retreated at the sight of her. Yet bullets continued to fly, now aimed at the fallen changelings.

No.

Something arctic and dark and deadly rose up inside of her as the X-fire emerged in a straight line on either side of her body, cutting the enemy in the way in half and cauterizing the massive wounds with such flawlessness, it appeared the men had fallen into two neat pieces. The rest of them were trapped beyond the wall of voracious flame, but they continued to shoot. And then her mind, a huge, vast endless thing that saw and heard every sigh, every heartbeat, caught the whisper of more of them coming down through the mountains. They’d slipped in past the defenses when the sonic weapon took out the changelings as well as the feral wolves, and now they thought to flank them from behind.

“Traitor!” The word came from the throats of those in front of her and she knew them then. Pure Psy. Zealots. They would not back down.

Very well.

The cold, dark thing inside of her shoved aside all else . . . and the flames began to feed. Screams filled the air, filled her consciousness, filled the sky. The monster inside of her, she thought with a small part of the endless vastness that was her mind, had seized control.

The problem was . . . the Psy weren’t the only targets in the vicinity.

HAWKE pulled his injured out of range of those Pure Psy operatives who’d been trapped on this side of the divide when Sienna created that bladelike wall of X-fire. It was clear the enemy would not surrender, but trapped as they were, he offered them one final chance. The response was a hail of bullets, so he gave the order. When it was done, he checked on his people. Most were staring shell-shocked at Sienna as she blazed in a storm of crimson and gold, her hair flying in a terrible breeze, her eyes caverns of pure, raw power.

At first the wall of cold fire, it had touched the enemy alone, but now it changed shape, became a wave that rippled outward in both directions, growing ever closer to the injured and bleeding SnowDancers.

Ignoring the pain of shattered eardrums barely begun to heal thanks to his strength as alpha, he screamed, “Sienna!” as he ran to her, even knowing she couldn’t hear him inside the inferno that consumed her, until it poured out of her eyes, her mouth, her every pore and every cell. The cold burn of it hit him a meter from the quickly creeping edge.

He knew she’d told him not to do it, that the X-fire would kill him the same as anyone else if she wasn’t in conscious control. But he had to stop her, had to save her. If she took the life of even one SnowDancer and survived to witness what she’d done, it would break her.

“Baby, you better be in there!” Running back, he got a racing start and jumped through the flames, expecting to fry. Instead, he slammed into her body, his arms going around her, but she didn’t go down—as if the cold fire had rooted her to the earth.

Her eyes, those eyes filled with red and gold, so stunning, so lethal, seemed to see him for a second, and he was almost certain he heard, Forgive me, deep inside his head before a dark, endless something grabbed his mind, punching through with such savage force that it brought him to his knees.

Shoving aside the throbbing pain as the shock of the impact vibrated through his body, he raised his head and looked out through the wall of X-fire, saw the flames lick out and over his people at a speed not even a wolf could outrun.

No.

It spread, a crackling wave of wild color over the injured, over those that stood guard, over the sentries and into the forest, going endlessly in every direction until his people were consumed by it. Until they burned up in it, so fast and hard that there were no screams. Only a terrible, endless silence.

“No, Sienna, no,” he said, rising to hold her to him in a futile attempt to get through to the woman behind the vast dark of ravenous power. She’d come to save them, but what was inside of her, it had broken free, and now she killed the very pack she’d wanted to protect. His wolf knew what he had to do, but he couldn’t snap her neck, couldn’t erase her.

God help him, he couldn’t, not even to save SnowDancer.

A minute, an eternity later, the flames blinked out, and Sienna sagged in his arms.

“Sienna.” He was shocked by how very light she was, how very fragile. “Don’t you dare leave me.”

When he raised his head, he looked first toward the Pure Psy side, unable to bear what he’d glimpse on the other. Everything—the enemy, the trees, the grass, the rocks—was gone, smears of ash barely visible even to his night vision. Agonizing pain in his heart, he turned. And saw. “Oh, baby, I understand.” So smart, his Sienna, so aware that his wolf would know each and every one of his people, feral wolves included. “There’s no need for forgiveness, you hear me?”

Her eyes flickered open for an instant, and they weren’t the night-sky of a cardinal. They were a startling, amazing gold untouched by crimson. “A hundred years,” she whispered. “That would’ve been nice, don’t you think?”

“This isn’t over yet.”

“The LaurenNet link remains protected,” she said, and he had the impression she was talking to herself. “Strange. But it doesn’t matter.” Gold melting to blue in her eyes, she pushed him hard without warning, ending up sprawled on the earth. “I love you.” Blue flame licked up that wild tangle of ruby red, the scent of burnt hair sharp and acrid.

Man and wolf both realized what she intended to do, said, FUCK NO!

Using the doorway she’d opened when she punched into his mind, the wolf shoved wild changeling energy into her, bowing her back, snapping her eyes open again, and shutting off that lethal blue flame. “What have you done?” A question filled with horror as the violent snap of the mating bond brought him to his knees beside her.

IN the middle of a San Francisco street under siege from two Pure Psy units, Judd clutched his head. “No,” he whispered, and then there was no more thought.

HOURS away, in a protected safe zone in the middle of a different mountain range, Walker Lauren’s mind went blank as something crashed into him so hard, he didn’t even have a chance to alert the other guardians. The childre—

Meters away, Toby lay slumped on a tabletop, while Marlee crumpled off her chair and to the floor.

IN the den, the command center was thrown into chaos as Brenna fell where she stood. “Judd!” Mariska yelled, slamming to her knees beside Brenna’s limp body. “Find out if anything’s happened to Judd!”

HAWKE allowed Lara to heal him first after it was all over, because without him, she would collapse under the weight of the injured.

“Where’s Sienna?” she asked him after she finished healing the remaining damage to his eardrums.

His wolf hated the answer he had to give, the choice he’d had to make. “I had Drew take her up to the lake in the mountains. She’s unconscious.” He didn’t know what other mated pairs saw through the bond, but he saw rippling crimson and gold, their bond so raw and new it was a painful ache.

Right now, the X-fire was a placid pool, the battle had drained Sienna at such a deep level. But it would grow again—colder, stronger, more voracious. When it did, the bond would give him enough warning that he’d be able to take his mate deep into the lake, far, far below the surface. Where he’d hold her as the cold fire consumed them both, its destructive fury dampened by the water. The stone walls of the den, far thicker and stronger than the rocks Sienna had neutralized, and reinforced with titanium plates in places, would protect the pack if the water and the distance weren’t enough.

“Walker and the kids?” Lara’s eyes were haunted when they met his.

He touched his hand to her hair in wordless comfort. “In the same state as Brenna and Judd. Do you want everyone moved here?” Judd had been taken to the bunker in the city, while the others remained in the safe zone.

“No.” She began to heal a female soldier whose brain was swelling inside her skull. “It’s probably better if we don’t move them, since we have no idea why they collapsed.”

“The cats will come up to help once they take care of their own injured.” DarkRiver had taken far less damage, would hold the city and the perimeter against any opportunistic attacks until SnowDancer was functional again. “Take anything you need from me,” he said, his wolf torn between his duty to the pack and his need to be with Sienna.

The only thing that soothed him, that allowed him to hold his focus on channeling pack energy into Lara, was that Sienna wasn’t alone. Everyone in the combat zone had seen what she’d done. Everyone understood the price she would pay. No one would leave her alone in the dark.

It was over five hours later when Judd staggered into the infirmary, supported by Clay and Vaughn. Since Lara, exhausted, needed a break anyway, Hawke sat her down with an order not to move, before turning to Judd as the other male braced himself against a bed. “Brenna?” the lieutenant asked, his voice raw. “My family?”

“Unconscious, but otherwise fine.” Hawke pushed him into a chair when the former Arrow threatened to topple over. “What the hell happened to all of you? Did Henry—”

But Judd was shaking his head. “You.”

Hawke frowned, looked at Vaughn. “Did he hit his head when he fell?”

“Mating bond,” Judd muttered. “Shoved the balance—” It was the last thing he said before he slumped.

Clay caught him before he would’ve fallen off the chair, and together with Vaughn got him into a bed in the same room as Brenna.

“The sonic shockwave was heard as far as the city,” Vaughn told him afterward, “but it wasn’t strong enough to incapacitate.”

“Do we have enough people to cover in case they come back?” He knew Riley had been liaising with the cats, but he hadn’t had a chance to talk to the lieutenant.

A nod. “WindHaven falcons are sweeping over the area now—it was a good idea to hold them in reserve. Rats have city intelligence covered.”

Before Hawke could ask anything else, Vaughn clamped a hand over his shoulder. “Look after your people, Hawke. We’ll handle it.”

Trust, Hawke thought, came in many forms. A baby in his arms. A surge of deadly flame licking over his people. A leopard guarding the gate. “Go.”

THE first thing Judd did when he managed to pierce the veil of consciousness at dawn was to check his mate and family were fine. The second was to find Alice Eldridge’s bed, which had been pushed into a quiet corner of the hectic infirmary. She lay as silent and lifeless as ever, her secrets locked inside her mind.

Judd had a conscience. He also knew he might’ve been tempted to tear Alice’s mind apart in a search for answers if it would save Sienna, but whoever had taken Alice had done something to her. Her mind was sewn up so tight it was better protected than that of most Psy—the problem was, Alice’s shields had been locked into place. The only way to penetrate them without a very specific telepathic “key,” now lost in time, would be to kill her.

Exhausted, his head in his hands as he leaned his elbows on her bed, he almost missed the beep on the monitor above the bed. Then it sounded again. Jerking upright, he searched for Lara, saw Hawke carrying the healer into the office where she had a sofa. From the protective way the alpha held her, it appeared she’d lost consciousness, unsurprising given the number of injuries SnowDancer had suffered.

“Alice,” he whispered, turning to clasp his hand around the woman’s thin one as he kept an eye on the electronic readout above her head.

Her eyes fluttered open. So deep and intense was the brown of her irises that it was difficult to distinguish pupil from iris even when she focused on Judd’s face. Her lips parted, as if she’d speak, but her throat emitted no sound. Squeezing her hand, he reached over to snag some ice chips off a trolley to wet her throat.

“Arrow,” she said in a hoarse whisper, but there was no fear in her, only defiance.

“Former.” Perhaps he should’ve waited, but he had to get the information while she was conscious and lucid. “We need to know if you discovered anything about X-Psy that would help save one about to go critical.”

Confusion. “X?”

“Cold fire,” he said. “X-fire. Remember.”

Not even a glimmer of recognition and he knew the Ghost had been right. Alice had asked for her own memories to be erased. It had to be the reason why she’d ended up in cryonic suspension rather than assassinated, her abductors needing time to work out how to retrieve the data. However, he refused to give up—she’d been in stasis for so long. There was no knowing how it had affected her mind. “The burning ones,” he said, using every key word he could think of. “Fire. Flame. Synergy.”

An instant of piercing clarity. “Find the valve.”