Shield of Winter

Chapter 17

HER VERY SMALL dog was sitting at quivering attention in front of a huge wolf with a coat of silver-gold. A beautiful, scary wolf who could eat Rabbit in one bite, and who appeared to be listening to an unfamiliar male clad in jeans and a black sweater with the sleeves shoved up to his elbows. Not an Arrow, given his clothing, but there was something about him that said he wasn’t much different.

From him, she sensed very little, but from the wolf came a whiplash of primal wildness and dangerous focus.

“Rabbit,” she called, patting her thigh.

Instead of running straight to her, he glanced over his shoulder then looked back at the wolf, only racing over when the wolf inclined its head. Heart in her throat, she knelt down to pet him as Vasic strode over to speak to the visitors. A few minutes later, both the wolf—the changeling—and the unknown male headed into the trees.

Who was that? she asked Vasic, scowling at Rabbit when he tried to race off after the departing pair.

The SnowDancer alpha and one of his lieutenants.

Kissing Rabbit’s sulky face, she continued to keep hold of him lest he be overcome by the urge to join a wolf pack. The dark-haired man, he looked like an Arrow.

Vasic gave her a considering look. Judd defected from the PsyNet three and a half years ago, but yes, he is an Arrow.

The pieces clicked. Is he the one the reporters said was deflecting missiles using telekinesis? Astonishing and riveting, the reports had come in during Pure Psy’s attempted invasion of this region the previous year. A member of the missing Lauren family?

Yes. He turned toward Abbot when the other Arrow walked over from Jaya’s cabin. You need to eat breakfast.

Chancing relaxing her grip on Rabbit, she tried not to read too much into the fact that Vasic had made it a point to remind her to replenish her strength, and headed to her cabin. Rabbit, apparently over his starstruck reaction to the wolf alpha, kept her company—at least until he’d finished his own breakfast. Then he took off to explore, and she crossed her fingers the changelings would nudge him back if he attempted to follow the wolf’s trail. Not that she could blame her pet for his dangerous fascination.

Look at her.

Can you do that? she asked Vasic, unable to control the urge to connect with him even when she knew he was busy with the shift change. Throw missiles around?

VASIC had never had a voice like Ivy’s in his head. There was no restraint to it, the tone an iridescent kaleidoscope that hinted a thousand other things lay beneath. Yes, he said in reply to her query, considering what she’d do if he told her he could also initiate missile strikes through his gauntlet.

There goes that verbosity.

Filtering her comment through what he’d observed of human interaction, he confirmed his earlier suspicions that she was teasing him. No one had ever teased him. He didn’t know the correct response.

I know you haven’t had breakfast, she said while he was still working on the question of whether teasing required a response. Come eat with me.

He should’ve taken the chance to catch a couple of hours’ rest, but he’d spent days awake at a time. One night was nothing. Not compared to a woman who teased him. That was unusual enough to require further exploration.

She smiled when he stepped up to her doorway, her curls tousled around her face and her blue cable-knit sweater too big for her frame. “Thanks for leaving me my porch.”

“It wasn’t in any of Lianne’s photographs.”

A delighted laugh that felt like a tactile stroke over his cheek. “Right.” She mixed up a nutrient drink with hot water rather than the cold he always used, then took several meal bars out of the cupboard. “Here. You must’ve burned a lot of energy last night and this morning.”

First she teased him, then she fed him. Neither action was one he could’ve predicted. Taking the food, he stepped back outside.

Ivy’s face fell. “Are you going already?”

It was almost as if she was disappointed to lose his company. “No,” he said, adding another inexplicable act to his private Ivy file. “Your table is small.”

“Oh, you’re right. You’d probably have to fold yourself in half.” Eyes lit from within, she pulled on her boots and picking up her cereal, followed him out to take a seat on the edge of the porch.

He came down beside her, the distance between them approximately eight inches.

And though she’d warned him she liked to talk, they sat in silence for long minutes, the compound quiet now that the shift change was complete, the morning sunlight pale. Despite the silence, the experience wasn’t like eating with another Arrow; there was a subtext to it he struggled to unravel.

The last time he’d eaten with anyone unconnected to the squad was the day he’d been permanently excised from the family unit. He could still remember that final meal with his biological father, though he’d lost the emotions of the child. What he remembered boiled down to the Silent space between him and the man who’d given him half his genetic material.

“Hey.” A smile so open, he knew the world would savage her if she wasn’t protected. “You’re thinking too hard. Eat.” Having finished her own meal, she put aside her bowl and peeled open the wrapper of one of the nutrition bars he’d set between them.

When she held it out, he realized it was for him. “Thank you.”

“I think I’d better talk to Sascha,” she said, taking the wrappers of the two bars he’d already eaten to drop them into her empty bowl.

“I put in the request earlier.”

“Was that what you were discussing with Judd Lauren and the wolf alpha?”

Vasic nodded, eating the nutrition bar in methodical bites.

“Stop that.” A narrow-eyed look as she held up the drink he hadn’t touched. “I didn’t make this hot so you could let it go cold.”

Unpredictable, she was more unpredictable than a rogue missile. “Temperature doesn’t alter the nutritional value of it,” he said, drinking half a glass.

“I know that. It’s to warm you up.”

He thought about pointing out that his combat uniform insulated him against the temperature, but decided to keep his mouth shut for reasons he couldn’t articulate. Perhaps it was because of the way she looked at him . . . as if concerned.

“I wonder what it’s like for Judd”—her gaze shifted to the trees through which the other male had walked away—“living in a changeling pack.”

“I can’t hope to understand,” he said, when he realized Ivy was waiting for an answer, though she hadn’t asked a question.

“Of course you do. You’re part of one yourself.”

“The squad functions differently from a pack.”

“No, it doesn’t.” She broke off a bit of his last bar to nibble on before giving him the rest. “They’re as tasteless as I remember.” Swallowing the bite with a shudder, she turned to face him, one foot on the ground, the other leg folded up on the porch, her hands on her calf.

“I admit I don’t know too much about changeling packs,” she said, the sun at her back, “but from what I understand, loyalty is the glue that holds a pack together. Isn’t it the same with the squad?”

“Yes.” It was often the only loyalty an Arrow had or would ever know. “Changelings, however, live in close proximity, bonded on a physical as well as emotional level.” Two packmates near one another would touch sooner or later—a handshake, a hug, a kiss, it depended on the relationships involved—but touch was a constant in every changeling interaction Vasic had ever witnessed.

Which was why he had trouble comprehending Judd’s life. Because unlike those in a pack—“Arrows are designed to function alone.”

Ivy’s sweater slipped off her left shoulder when she leaned forward, baring skin of golden cream to the morning sunlight. “Okay, I get that.” She didn’t notice when he nudged the sweater back in place with Tk, the temperature too cold for her to be so exposed. “But while you may be designed to function alone, that doesn’t mean you’re not as tight a family.” Passionate words, with no echo of a Silence that had always been an ill-fitting coat. “Like Aden and you, you said you’re brothers.”

Vasic didn’t talk about his childhood, but then he didn’t normally say this many words in a day or eat breakfast with a woman who kept reaching out as if to touch him before she caught herself, her fingers curling into her palm.

Today was not a normal day.

“We grew up together,” he said at last. “While I wasn’t placed into full Arrow training till I was four, I had military-level instructors almost from the cradle.” He sometimes considered how his unprotected mind might have been molded. What saved his sanity was the memory of his later childhood, when he’d been no model pupil. “Designation Tk-V is rare enough that the Council was notified at once of my birth.”

Ivy leaned farther toward him, one hand pressed to the wood of the porch and her eyes dark with an emotion he couldn’t identify. “How did they know your subdesignation so fast?” Her sweater slipped again and he nudged it back. “It usually takes time to be certain, even with genetic markers.”

“I teleported out of the womb.”

Ivy’s mouth dropped open. “No, really?”

“That’s what I was told when I was old enough to understand. The records I accessed as an adult bear out the story. According to the notes of the attending M-Psy, she almost dropped me.”

Ivy shifted close enough that her knee brushed his thigh, the soft scent of her whispering across his senses. “How did you know where to ’port?”

“It was put down to the telepathic connection I had with the woman who gave birth to me.” After which she’d severed all ties as per her conception and fertilization agreement with his biological father. “That’s probably the correct answer.”

Ivy looked at him for long minutes, and he had the sense he’d said something that distressed her, but he couldn’t identify what when he backtracked through his words.

“You were telling me about Aden,” she said at last, so close that he could’ve easily reached out and gripped the vulnerable arch of her neck.

Looking away, he stared at the hands that had ended more than one life. “He was assigned as my telepathic sparring partner.” He and Aden had bonded as only scared children could do, long before their capacity to bond had been tortured out of them. “We’ve known one another for most of our lifetimes.”

Ivy’s fingers brushed his arm before she jerked her hand guiltily back. “See? You’re family,” she said, her pulse a rapid flutter in her throat. “And what’s a pack but a great big family?”

Vasic glanced at her shoulder, nudged the sweater back up. This time, she noticed, color on her cheeks as her hand went up to the spot. “How many times?”

“Five.” He got to his feet before he could make it six. “I need to rest.”

Frown dark, she rose, too. “I’ve been keeping you. You should’ve said.” Folding her arms, she angled her head toward her cabin. “You can use my bed. It’s much more comfortable than one of those cots.”

That bed would smell of green apples, taking the scent from her hair and skin courtesy of the changeling-stocked bath items in the cabins meant for the empaths. And . . . it would smell of Ivy. “No.”

Her eyebrows drew together over her eyes. “We’ll argue about that later,” she told him. “After you’ve rested.”

Walking to the Arrow cabin where two others lay sleeping, he’d opened up a cot and was removing his thin but effective chest armor when Ivy’s iridescent secret of a voice kissed his mind. Don’t forget to take off your boots.

All at once, he realized he didn’t have to process her words. He understood that mental tone now, knew she was teasing him again. This time, he had an answer for her. Arrows sleep in full uniform, he said, setting the armor aside.

A pause. Are you teasing me?

Tugging off his boots, he put them under the cot. They were designed to allow him to slam his feet into them in two seconds flat in an emergency. Where would an Arrow learn to tease? he responded as he removed his belt and placed it with the armor.

From me, came the suspicious response. You’re very smart. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.

Having decided to strip off his long-sleeved black uniform top since it wouldn’t protect his upper half from attack anyway, and needed to be washed, he rolled it up to use as a pillow as he lay down dressed only in his uniform pants. He should’ve showered, but giving his body time to restore itself was a higher priority. I’m going to sleep now, Ivy.

Have a good rest.

Her voice was the last thing he heard before he shut himself down like the lethal living machine that he was.