Tangle of Need

Chapter 34

FEELING MORE HIMSELF than he had in months, Riaz was out looking for a wind-fallen tree he could mine for a hunk of wood when something caught the sunlight—and his eye. He bent down, picked up a twisted piece of metal. Seeing the scorched and broken tree trunks around him, he realized he was at the spot where one of Henry Scott’s stealth craft had crashed prior to the final confrontation. It wasn’t surprising the small piece had been missed, the debris had been spread over such a large area.

Placing it into one of the pockets in his cargo pants, he decided to do a quick grid search to see if there were any other fragments. It didn’t take long under the bright Sierra sunshine. The techs and novices had done an excellent job—but for the damage to the environment, the area was pristine. That damage, too, would heal. SnowDancer would make sure of it.

Satisfied, he took a quick glance at his watch, saw it was four. Since he’d already found a small chunk of the type of wood he needed, he was about to head back to the den to complete his review of SnowDancer’s international business plan, when he caught a vague hint of a scent that shouldn’t have been there.

Metallic. Cold. A Psy drenched in Silence.

It could be nothing, a remnant attached to another piece of debris, though the probability was low taking into account the time that had passed. And all the penny-ante annoyance hits to date had taken place on the edges of den territory. Why would any Psy want to seriously antagonize SnowDancer now, after the pack’s decisive defeat of Henry’s army?

Tracking the scent on silent feet, he came to the top of a small rise. Here, the lingering scent was as thick as soup to his changeling senses. He frowned. The position offered the watcher no strategic viewpoint in terms of figuring out SnowDancer’s weaknesses. All he or she would see was a small, naturally open field surrounded by scrubby bush that merged into a stand of lodgepole pines.

A curvy young female with lush black curls—Maria—jogged across the clearing at that very second, accompanied by a dark gray wolf who spotted Riaz a second before Maria did. The soldier waved, while the wolf howled a greeting before they both disappeared into the pines.

Hmm…

Psy had been known to use SnowDancer land for meetings, which wasn’t as stupid a move as it sounded, not given the spread of den territory, and how simple it was to teleport into isolated sections. This spot might qualify, except as Maria and Lake had just proven, anyone on this hill would be silhouetted against the sky, openly visible to a passing sentry.

Gut-certain he was missing something, he kicked off his boots and stripped. His sense of smell was acute even as a human, but nothing beat the wolf’s nose. Circling the area after shifting, he checked twice to make sure he had it right, then changed back into human form and quickly got dressed.

Racing to the den, he pushed into Hawke’s office without waiting for an invitation. “We need to talk.”

The alpha turned from the comm screen where he was talking to a man who wore a neat three-piece suit, his graying hair combed sternly back to reveal a defined widow’s peak. “We’ll have to continue this another time, Mr. Woo.”

Pursing his lips in disapproval, the man on the other side nonetheless made no demur as Hawke signed off. “What is it?” His eyes flicked over Riaz’s shoulder, sharpened.

Riaz had already turned to greet Riley, pushing the door closed behind the senior lieutenant. “Do you have what I asked for?” He’d called Riley during his run to the den.

Nodding, the other man input a data crystal into the comm panel. “These are the watch routes I’ve assigned the soldiers and novices over the past two weeks.” A longer period than warranted by the intensity of the scent, but Riaz hadn’t wanted to risk missing a pattern because of too tight a date range.

“I’ve color-coded the individual soldiers,” Riley continued, “so you can see who was where when at a glance.”

Riaz pinpointed the rise where he’d caught the scent, inserted an asterisk to mark the spot on the map, then checked which packmates had passed within sight of it. Fury ignited in his blood. “The shape of the scent on the earth,” he said, after filling Hawke and Riley in on his discovery, “says the intruder was lying down.” It was the only way he or she could have escaped detection.

“Sniper?” Riley asked in a grim tone.

“Or surveillance.” Ice in Hawke’s voice, the wolf stalking behind pale eyes fixed on the assignment map. “No reason for the Psy to watch Maria, Tai, Riordan, or Ebony.”

That left one name.

“We knew this would happen,” Riaz said, tracking the deep aqua color Riley had allocated Sienna, his anger transforming into a cold determination to keep safe the young woman who’d walked into battle willing to die for SnowDancer. “Everyone in the Net now knows what she can do.”

“I hoped they’d leave her alone a few fucking months at least.” The words were gritted out between the alpha’s clenched teeth.

“How’d they know she’d pass through that field?” Riaz thrust a hand through his hair. “Riley mixes up assignments.” SnowDancer had had one traitor in their midst—another one would kill them; but the question had to be asked. “You think they have an informant?”

“No.” Hawke’s response held utmost confidence. “I’m betting they’ve been using spy satellites to scan our territory—the canopy makes it difficult in most cases, but there are open areas.”

Riaz gave a slow nod. “All they’d have needed was a single glimpse of Sienna”—her hair that distinctive ruby red—“and then they just had to be patient.” He considered the other implications if Hawke was right. “No normal person would have access to that kind of satellite data. Or to a teleporter.” Flying or driving any unauthorized vehicle into the territory without being caught was so difficult as to be impossible.

“Pure Psy,” Riley said, his eyes on the map, “lost the majority of their Tks in the fight. If Judd’s right about the rumblings in the Net, the group’s probably got other priorities at this point.”

“Ming is the most obvious suspect.” Riaz was aware the man had been the military mastermind of the Council. “But we don’t have enough information to rule anyone out. Kaleb Krychek for one.” The lethal telekinetic could see Sienna as a threat to his own power.

“Shoshanna’s gone suspiciously quiet, but she was the force behind Henry for most of their sham of a marriage,” Hawke said, and Riaz knew the alpha’s brain was working with cold efficiency in spite of his rage. “And Tatiana’s always been very good at hiding her involvement in any number of ops.”

“I’ll talk to Judd.” Shutting down the map, Riley retrieved the data crystal. “He might be able to get us more concrete data.”

“I’ll tap my contacts in Europe,” Riaz added, knowing Ming used an estate in the Champagne region of France as his home base. “See what I can dig up.” Glimpsing the look in his alpha’s eyes, he said, “No one will get near her, Hawke. We won’t let them.”

Hawke knew his people would bleed to protect his mate, but he didn’t want Sienna to need that protection, to be forced to live in another cage. “We make sure she’s safe on our land,” he said, his anger an icy blade. “This needs to be her home, where she can walk without fear.”

Riaz’s phone beeped a sharp alarm into the silence. “Damn,” the lieutenant said, glancing at the screen after switching it off. “I have the comm-conference with Kenji and the BlackSea rep.”

“Go,” Hawke said, thinking past the fury that clawed through his veins. “That’s your priority.” BlackSea brought far too much to the table to disregard. “I need to talk to Sienna anyway.” Any defensive response SnowDancer formulated would need her input—she knew the strengths and weaknesses of her enemies better than anyone.

Riley shot him an openly concerned look after Riaz left. “It might go better coming from me.”

Hawke didn’t take it wrong—Riley wasn’t only his senior lieutenant, he was also Hawke’s friend, knew exactly how this might make him behave. “No, I’ve got it.”

HAVING tracked Sienna to the nursery where she was doing a volunteer shift, Hawke watched his mate talking with a two-year-old. Thank God she was inside today—he didn’t know if he’d have been able to handle his primal response if she’d been out in the thick green of the forests.

He knew she’d sensed his presence, but she didn’t break off what appeared to be a serious discussion. Nodding solemnly at something the little boy said, she helped him finish building his wooden-block masterpiece before rising to her feet and walking over to Tarah.

A short conversation later, she headed toward him. “I asked to leave early,” she said, and he knew he’d failed in his attempt to shield the raw emotions that had his wolf pacing, claws out.

“Walk with me.”

Not asking questions, she accompanied him down the corridors and to an exit from the den that led into a less utilized section of the White Zone. Where he leaned against the moss-covered wall of the den and gathered her into his arms, just held her for a long, long time.

Sienna was intensity and fire and energy, but today, she stood quiet, letting him take what he needed, his mate who knew him better than he knew himself.

When he drew back at last and told her what Riaz had discovered, the cardinal starlight of her gaze turned to endless midnight. “It was predictable,” she said, no shock in her, just an anger as deep as his own. “No one likes a rogue X.”

A growl rumbled up from his chest. “I will not allow anyone to hunt you.” It was a vow from the heart of the wolf. “Brenna and Mariska are already working on further fine-tuning our surveillance systems, so we have a better chance of detecting these incursions.” The fact that it was near impossible to stop teleport-capable Tks from going anywhere they wanted meant nothing—no one in SnowDancer was planning to make it easy for those stalking Sienna.

His mate placed her right hand against his chest. “I’ll speak with them,” she said, “let them know a few elements they can factor into their calculations. Judd will probably be able to provide more guidance.”

At times, he forgot how Sienna had been brought up, the inhumanity of her childhood. Then she showed this depth of strength, keeping a steely calm through an ugliness that would’ve shoved many back into the darkness, and he remembered that his young mate had lived a lifetime in nineteen years. “Good,” he said, his pride in her a blinding fire. “You also need to talk to Riley about your watch rotations.”

A guarded alertness. “Why?”

“So he can make sure your shifts never fall into any kind of a pattern, timing or location wise. We don’t want those watching being able to guess with any hope of accuracy where you’ll be.”

Her shoulders lost the fine tension that had flowed into her with his earlier words. “Yes, that’s an excellent precaution.”

Cradling her face with one hand, he said, “I won’t ever clip your wings, baby.” Regardless of how much he hated the fact that she was in danger—because to do so would be to put her back in that cage, and his mate had spent more than enough time locked in the dark.

“I know you want to protect me,” she whispered, long, slender fingers spreading over his heart. “I can feel your need in every pulse of your blood.”

“I can’t promise that I won’t check up on you every so often during your shifts,” Hawke admitted, because it would’ve been a lie of monumental proportions to do otherwise, “but every part of me understands who you are.” Not simply his mate, but a dangerous, beautiful woman with her own dreams and desires.

It would’ve been easier if she’d been someone else, a woman who followed his every dictate and who never put herself in harm’s way. But he didn’t want easier, didn’t want anyone else. He wanted Sienna. Only Sienna.

She turned her face into his hand. “All right.” A simple acceptance that said she knew, understood … followed by an unexpected smile full of mischief. “Scuttlebutt is, Riley’s been running into Mercy ‘accidentally’ during her shifts since they found out about the pregnancy.”

Hawke’s wolf was startled out of its anger into a chuckle. “I hope Mercy lives up to her name.”

Sienna laughed, no fear in her, only a strength that made his wolf want to throw back its head and sing in joy that she was his.