Wild Invitation

Surcease

THE PURE PSY army, formed of militant Psy who believe the Silence Protocol is the salvation of their race, that emotion is the enemy, and that the changelings, with their wild hearts, represent all that is wrong in the world, has been defeated. Broken on the wings of an alliance that stretches across the three races that form the triumvirate that is the world.

Human.

Psy.

Changeling.

The lines have shifted forever.

Will shift further…but not just yet.

Now, this, is a moment free of violence, a timeless pause in which a Psy formed in Silence, and a SnowDancer wolf born to heal, discover the searing pleasures and startling textures of an intimacy luminous with hope.

Chapter 1

LARA WOKE SKIN-TO-SKIN with a long, hard male body, her head tucked under his chin, her hands against his chest, her legs intertwined with his. Lean muscle and a rough masculine heat, he surrounded her, possessed her.

As she did him.

Eyes still closed, she luxuriated in the scent of dark water and snow-dusted firs…and the exquisite tug of a bond that tied her inexorably to the quiet, powerful telepath who was the only man she had ever wanted to call her own.

Mine.

Opening her eyes on that primal thought, she flexed her hand on the tensile strength of Walker’s chest, the firm surface covered with a sprinkling of dark blond that was an invitation to her senses. Her wolf rubbed up against the inside of her skin, unable to contain its delight, wanting only to touch, to pet.

“Unconditional skin privileges.”

That’s what her mate had given her. And she had every intention of taking advantage, her thirst for him endless. How could it be otherwise when he was such an intelligent, dangerous, beautiful man? The ease of sleep did nothing to hide the fact that he was built lean and strong. Wide shoulders, ridged abdomen, taut muscle, and a will akin to steel, this was a man who would stand unflinching against any wind. And he was hers, touched her with a devotion that was breathtaking in its passion, piercing in its honesty.

Shivering at the painful beauty of the bond that connected them, she shifted to look down into a face that was all clean angles and sun-golden skin, which betrayed how much time he spent out of doors. His lashes threw crescent shadows on his cheeks, his dark blond hair threaded with the finest sprinkling of silver.

Butterflies in her stomach.

He was, she thought, one of those men who would only become better looking with age, the determined force of his personality reflected on his face. Given that he was already the sexiest man she knew, she was going to be in serious trouble as the years passed—a single look, and she had the feeling she’d fold like cooked spaghetti.

The thought of growing old with him made her blood turn effervescent, the natural dark tan of her skin turn radiant with warmth. Unable to hold in the happiness, she pushed back her unruly curls and leaned down to brush her mouth over his, felt his lips curve the slightest fraction. “I knew you were awake.” The wolf that was her other half scampered playfully inside her mind.

He ran his hand up and down her back. “Is it time to get up?”

Lara wouldn’t have bothered checking the time if not for Marlee and Toby, pups who were under Walker’s protection…and now her own. Her family. One was his daughter, the other his nephew, but he was father to them both, this man who had been willing to give up his life on the slim chance that the children would find sanctuary in SnowDancer.

“No,” she said after a quick glance at the small comm unit on the bedside table. “It’s been less than an hour.” An hour of peace, the battle won, the enemy routed so decisively they’d prove only a lack of intelligence should they decide to return.

Lashes rising, irises of a striking light green meeting her own. Not soft. Walker would never be that. But his gaze was…open in a way it had never before been. Until she felt invited into him.

Body aligned with the dark heat of his, she ran her finger through his hair and asked, “Are the kids okay?”

He continued to stroke her back, the calluses on his palm creating sensual friction against her greedy skin.

So long she’d waited for Walker’s touch.

It had torn her to pieces, made her bleed when he’d told her this could never be, his soul too scarred by the emotionless chill that was Silence. Now she knew that though the power-hungry Council had attempted to condition emotion out of him, they had never succeeded, his heart so powerful he’d managed to love even in the pitiless cage of the PsyNet.

His daughter.

His niece and nephew.

His lost sister.

His brother.

They had been, and were, a family because of Walker, because he’d refused to allow them to fragment, refused to give up on any one of them, whether cold-eyed assassin or heartbroken child.

“Yes, they’re fine,” he said in response to her question, no change in his expression to betray the fact he was in telepathic communication with the kids. “Toby and his friends are shooting hoops with Drew, and Marlee’s with Ava.”

“Ava’s a good friend.” Given the speed and accuracy of the pack grapevine, the other woman had likely heard that Walker Lauren was inside Lara’s bedroom about two minutes after the event. Lara knew her best friend would ambush her later for a debriefing, but until then, Ava was doing her best to ensure they had some more private time.

“Marlee just told me Ben’s snoring in wolf form, she made him so tired.”

Laughter bubbled up in her throat, an image of an utterly exhausted wolf pup curled up nose to tail forming in her mind. “Poor Ben.”

Ava’s son adored Marlee, the unexpected friendship between the two innocent and joyful. Ben was five and a half, Marlee four years older, but in spite of the age gap, they made each other laugh until they ended up rolling around on the floor, holding onto their stomachs. Lara wasn’t the only one in the pack who wondered if the friendship was an indicator of a far different relationship in the future, but they were babies yet.

Before she could give voice to her thoughts, Walker’s eyes caught hers, held them. “I’m not likely to be an easy mate.”

The stark statement was unexpected, but she knew her answer, “I think you’re wonderful. My perfect mate.”

“Remember that,” he said, continuing to hold her gaze, the intensity of him a near physical touch. “When you ask yourself what you’re doing with me.”

A sudden fear gripped her, an amorphous, cold thing born of his certainty that their mating would be no simple dance. Shoving it away before it could take her hostage, her wolf’s teeth bared in a snarl, she held on to the glory of a bond that came from a place beyond fear or doubt, a place untainted by the shadows of the past.

All she said, however, was, “All right,” because she knew Walker. He’d been marked deep within by the life he’d lived, the choices he’d had to make. It would take him time to trust in happiness, in a forever where he no longer walked alone. “But make me a promise?”

Watchful attention, his hand stilling its caressing strokes.

“That you’ll talk to me if there’s a problem. Don’t close up on me.” It was what she feared most. She knew that while in the PsyNet, Walker had managed to maintain the fiction of total Silence, of unrelenting emotionlessness, icy and without heart, even as he fought to save his family. His fidelity to them had been unwavering, his dedication absolute. And throughout it all, no one had suspected that Walker Lauren was anything but loyal to the ruling order.

That kind of a will could turn into a stone wall.

Walker’s answer was no simple agreement. “I’ll try, Lara.” His hand pressed her closer. “But the quiet, if not the Silence, is a part of me.”

“I like your quiet.” He was so centered, so solid that he’d become her anchor. “The only thing that’ll hurt me is if you use that quiet as a weapon.”

“That won’t happen.” A vow, simple and binding.

She smiled and knew it held everything of what she felt for him, her soul stripped bare. Some would say she was at a huge disadvantage in this relationship, her emotions naked while his were shielded behind a thousand layers of control, but she knew differently. Never would she forget the day he handed her his heart.

“It’s fixed. As long as you don’t mind more than a few scars.”

Scarred and battered it might be, but Walker’s heart was a gift beyond price.

“Marlee,” she said, throat thick with emotion, “must have come as quite a surprise.” Walker’s daughter was a talker, cheerful and with an infectious laugh. Her delight with the world was so open, so innocent that she appeared younger than her years, but Lara had seen Marlee’s schoolwork—the girl was blazingly intelligent. She simply loved life.

“I don’t know where she gets it from.” The faint smile on his lips faded even as he spoke. “The Marlee you know, she wasn’t that girl in the Net.”

Lara thought back to the day the Lauren family had walked into the den, more than three years ago. Unconscious at the time, Marlee had been in Sienna’s arms, Toby in Walker’s, the boy much shorter and lighter than he was these days. Both children had been hit hard by the backlash of separation from the PsyNet, the psychic network that provided the Psy race with the biofeedback necessary for life. It also kept them leashed, at the mercy of the Council and of a protocol that forbade joy, affection, and love. The only reason the Laurens had survived was that they’d reconnected their minds in a tiny familial network.

Judd was the first one she’d seen, his assassin’s gaze never moving off the grim-eyed SnowDancer soldiers who’d escorted the family into the infirmary. She’d known at once that he’d kill to protect the others. Then her eyes had connected with those of lightest green; she’d seen the way the stranger held the child in his arms, and she’d understood that this man might well be the more dangerous one in spite of his outward calm.

Marlee, when she’d woken at last, had been a shell-shocked waif, all huge eyes the same shade as her father’s in a bone-white face. It had taken months for her cheeky, vivacious personality to emerge. Walker, Lara realized, had had to watch for years as his daughter was taught to be a well-mannered cog in the PsyNet machine, her spirit crushed at every turn.

Cupping his face, she said, “You got her out, made sure she’ll never have to Silence her personality again.”

An unexpected glint of humor. “I dare anyone to attempt to Silence Marlee now.”

Lara laughed, then gasped as his hand moved over her lower curves. “I see you’re fully awake.”

“Hmm.” It was a low, deep sound she’d become used to in the hours since their mating, the sound her mate made when he was far more interested in something else.

Initiating a kiss as he brought her over his body, her nipples rubbing against the crisp abrasion of his chest and one of his hands fisted in her hair, Lara was thinking this was a fine, fine way to wake up from a nap when the comm beeped.

She groaned, her body crying foul. “I have to get that.” As SnowDancer’s healer, she never ignored a comm alert.

Walker was already reaching out to press the audio-only answer key on the touchscreen. “It’s not an emergency code.”

“Doesn’t mean anything. Some of the juveniles break a leg, then don’t use the emergency code because they ‘can take the pain.’” Shifting to lie flat on her back, she wrenched her frustrated body under some sort of control, as Walker said, “Yes?” into the comm.

A startled silence, followed by a hesitant young voice. “Um…can I talk to Lara?”

Recognizing it, Lara sat up. “Silvia?” The girl was one of the most stable teens in the pack, and she wouldn’t be calling Lara now if it wasn’t important. “What’s happened?”

“I just got back on one of the evac transports.”

Inside her, Lara’s wolf raised its head in a howl, happy that more and more of the pack’s young had begun to return to the den from the safe areas where they’d weathered the storm of battle. “Go on,” she encouraged the girl when Silvia hesitated.

“I know you must be exhausted”—apology in every syllable—“but the pup I was buddied up with won’t stop crying because his mom and dad aren’t here. I would contact the nursery, but I know how much Mason likes you…”

“I’ll be right there.” Already up, she began to pull on her jeans, aware of Walker doing the same. “In the meantime, tell Mason his parents are fine. Your group came in a couple of hours early—his mom and dad are still out on the perimeter.”

When she finished dressing and turned, it was to find Walker with a cell phone in hand. “I’ll get in touch with them.”

Promising herself she’d pet her way across that finely honed chest tonight, she blew him a kiss and jogged to the area just outside the den that was the drop-off zone.

“Lara!” Mason whimpered and clung to her like a little monkey the instant he saw her.

“Hush now, baby.” Cuddling him, Lara pulled back enough that she was looking into his eyes. Unlike Silvia, she was an adult, the hierarchy crystal clear—Mason’s wolf snapped to attention, even as his rich brown eyes swam huge and wet. “Your mom and dad are on their way,” she said, certain Walker would’ve ensured that outcome. “They aren’t hurt.”

His lower lip quivered. “Coming?”

“Yes. They’re so excited to see you again.” Kissing his wet cheek, she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Now your bus has arrived super early and surprised them. Did it have wings?”

The boy shook his head. “No…I didn’t see.”

“Shall we go have a look?”

The three of them were walking around the armored evac vehicle, Mason engrossed with checking every nook and cranny for wings, when two out-of-breath adults burst into the clearing. “Mason!”

“Mommy! Daddy!”

Grinning as the pup, who’d spontaneously transformed into his furry brown wolf shape, was swallowed up in a four-armed embrace, Lara hugged Silvia to her side. “You did well, sweetheart.” She’d used her head, hadn’t lost her courage even when the comm had been answered by an unexpected male voice.

A relieved smile brought a glow to the rich brown of her skin. “Sorry for interrupting you and Walker.”

“How do you know it was Walker?”

Smile turning into a grin, Silvia tapped her nose. “I’m a wolf.” A short pause. “And I saw you two sneaking a kiss a while back.”

Then the teenager was gone in a shimmer of delighted laughter, and Lara’s wolf was turning at the scent of dark water that held a thousand secrets.

“I’m not likely to be an easy mate.”

And though she knew their love was steel strong, would never bend or break, her heart ached as she wondered if he would one day tell her those secrets…or if part of him would remain forever closed, forever a mystery.

Chapter 2

DUCKING INTO HER quarters on their return, Lara glanced at Walker, a lingering trace of anxiety in her gut at the idea of never quite knowing this man who touched her deeper than anyone else ever had, or would again. “I could shower here,” she said, feeling unsure for the first time that day, “and meet you afterward to go find the children.”

He closed the distance between them, cupped her jaw, his gaze direct. “Do you want to?”

“No.” It came out husky, neither part of her wanting to be separated from him. Not yet. Not when the bond was so new, so raw, shocking her senses each time she became consciously aware of it.

A quiet smile that shattered the anxiety, made her stomach clench, her toes curl. “I’ve never shared a shower before,” he murmured.

She wasn’t certain how she made it to his apartment after grabbing a change of clothing from hers. Because she knew that look in her mate’s eyes. It was the same one she’d seen before he decided to “explore the concept of oral sex.” Walker’s version of “explore” had left her an incoherent, trembling, pleasured pile of Lara-shaped jelly.

The man had concentration down to an art.

As he proved once again in the shower, when he ran soap-slick hands over her body and murmured he wanted to “explore” the idea of having sex standing up. Not that Lara minded being pinned to the wet tile by her mate’s hard body, her legs locked around his lean hips and hot water cascading over them both while they “explored” the hell out of the concept.

Unsurprisingly, it took her extra time to get dressed after they exited the shower, her body boneless. “For some reason,” she said, pressing a kiss to the center of his naked back before he pulled on a fresh shirt, “I never expected you to be so physical.” So very demanding in that quiet, determined Walker way that made every feminine cell in her body sing.

He ran a finger under her bra strap when she circled around to his front, an easy, affectionate caress. “I have a lifetime of sensation to catch up on.” Tugging her closer with a pull on the strap, he ran his hand down her back. “With you.”

Oh, man. She really stood no chance. “Stop that.” It came out sounding less than firm. “Children, remember?”

Walker angled his head the slightest fraction, as if listening. “Yes, I think we’d better go collect them.” He circled his palm over her back, warm and a little rough, and answered the question she’d been about to ask. “Neither is in distress, but they need to be back with family.”

Lara’s wolf was in full agreement, and it only took her a couple more minutes to pull on fresh jeans paired with a thin sweater in her favorite shade of green. “Let’s go,” she said after slipping on her sneakers.

Toby, who appeared to have grown an inch since the last time she’d seen him—there was no longer any question that he’d end up as tall as his uncles—hugged her with thin but strong arms when she found him kicking a ball around outside, his joy in their mating unhidden. “I’m really happy you’re our family now,” he said. “Even that first day in the infirmary, when I was so scared of everything, I was never scared of you.” Words poignant with memory. “Your hands were gentle. Like my mom’s.”

Tears burned the backs of her eyes. “She loved you very much.” Toby’s mother had fought for him until the violent power of her telepathic gift had sucked her under. A gift her child had inherited, his eyes the night sky of a cardinal, white stars on velvet black. But Toby would never have to deal with his ability in isolation—physical or mental, his support structure a sprawling network of family, other Psy, wolves, and leopards. “I hope you’ll let me love you, too.”

Toby’s smile was sweet…with a fine, fine hint of mischief that told her he might just turn into a hellion juvenile one of these days. “You already do—you love all the pups in the pack. I can sense it.” He hugged her again, whispering, “But if you want to love me and Marlee especially, I won’t tell.”

“Deal.” Laughing, she went to brush his hair out of his eyes when Marlee appeared around the corner with Walker and ran full-tilt to throw her arms around Lara.

“Dad says you’re ours now!” Green-eyed and with a clean line to her features, she was her father’s daughter, but her nature was her own. Uniquely Marlee. “Is it true?” Strawberry-blonde strands kissed her face, having escaped the elastic band at her nape. “Are you?”

Any worry Lara had entertained about Marlee resenting her fell away under the force of the enthusiastic questions. “Yes,” she said, bending down to embrace Marlee’s small body, the girl’s arms wrapping around her in turn. “All yours.”

“Yay!” Dancing away with that sound of uninhibited glee, Marlee caught Toby’s hands, made her cousin spin her around in dizzying circles. “Faster, Toby!” She squealed as her hair went flying, her feet up off the ground. “Don’t drop me!”

Toby laughed at her scream, but it was the good-natured laugh of an elder brother—and that’s what he was, regardless of their actual relationship—his hands gripping hers tight. “Want me to stop?”

“No! Faster!”

Lara looked up with a laugh of her own, caught Walker watching the children, his expression shadowed. Walking to him, she slipped her hand into his, touching the fingers of her free hand to the smoothness of his shaven jaw until he met her eyes. “The Council will never again steal their right to be happy.”

He said nothing, her mate. But she loved him, knew him…and sensed the violent depth of his emotions in the tightness of the arms he closed around her.

His mood seemed much lighter the next day, and when he left to do a rotation on the border that night, he said, “You’re spoiling them.” The brush of his knuckles against her cheek, his lips at her ear.

“I know,” Lara admitted as she put together a tray of chocolate cookies and milk for the children—both currently sprawled on the floor in front of the large comm screen in the living room, hypnotized by a quiz show.

Fiddling with the buttons of his shirt, his chest wide and strong, she said, “It’s okay, isn’t it? For just a few days?” Though she’d taken care of plenty of pups, it had always been short-term, where it didn’t matter if she was indulgent. “I thought after everything, they deserved a little extra pampering.”

Walker wanted only to kiss that rueful smile off of her lips…then realized on a surge of bone-deep pleasure that he could. Anytime he pleased. She’d given him that right. “I can see I’ll have to be the tough one here,” he murmured after both their hearts had turned to thunder.

She scowled even as she smoothed her hands over his chest, affectionate and possessive both. “I can be tough. Just ask the juveniles.”

Yes, she had an unflinching courage, his mate. His pride in her strength of heart and determination was absolute. But he also knew that she was inherently kind, that she forgave far easier and quicker than anyone else he’d ever met, and that she’d cut off her own arm if it would heal another’s hurt. No doubt, she’d spoil the children more than a little…but that was what mothers did. What they should do. He would never stop her.

Because even Marlee, in spite of her chirpy, chatty personality, had an inward maturity he wished she didn’t. His daughter had learned the harsh realities of the world at an age when her spirit should’ve been innocent, without a single bruise. Instead, she’d been kicked in the heart by the very person who should’ve protected her beyond all others.

Never would he forgive Yelene the broken look in his baby’s eyes that ugly day months after their defection when Marlee had turned to him and said, “Daddy, did my mother not want to come with us?”

For the first time in his life, he’d lied to his child, telling her that Yelene hadn’t been able to get out in time. He hadn’t wanted to wound her by sharing the brutal truth—that Yelene had written her child out of her life the instant she became a hazardous inconvenience. But Marlee, his little girl with her wise soul, had shaken her head and hugged him. “It’s okay, Daddy. I know she didn’t love us.”

“Walker?”

He swallowed the memory of the cold rage that had gripped him in its teeth that day as he held his daughter, not wanting the past to taint the wonder that was his family, his mate. “I better go or I’ll be late.”

“Take care of yourself,” Lara said, her eyes seeming to see right through him, to places only she had ever reached.

That tawny gaze ignited a sense of acute and gnawing vulnerability within Walker, but regardless of his discomfort, he fought the urge to close himself off, to attempt to block the mating bond using his psychic abilities. That would hurt Lara on the innermost level, and the one thing Walker would never consciously do was hurt his mate.

“Be good for Lara,” he said to the children as she walked him to the door.

Cookie crumbs wreathing their mouths, they nodded and waved.

“Bedtime in an hour.”

“Dad!”

“Uncle Walker!”

“Forty-five minutes.”

There were no more arguments. Turning to see Lara biting back a smile, he pointed a finger at her. “Early bedtime for you, too”—he dropped his voice—“so I don’t feel guilty waking you when I return.” He hadn’t been a physical man before her, having learned to live with his touch-hunger until it was simply a part of him, but now he wanted to explore each and every sensation with her, then he wanted to do it all over again.

“That’s one thing,” she whispered, rising to press her mouth to his, “you never have to feel guilty about. I’ll wait for my wake-up.”

The taste of her—lush, addictive, exquisitely familiar—lingered on his lips as he went to take his position on the perimeter. While he didn’t often do a security rotation, his assignment being to oversee the education and general development of the ten-to-thirteen-year-olds in the pack, he was on the backup roster. And with a significant percentage of his charges still in the safe zones where they’d been evacuated, it had made sense for him to step up.

However, Walker had also made certain to stay in touch with his group throughout, addressing their worries and questions. They were good kids, belonged to him as much as they did their parents. That was a truth it had taken him a long time to understand—that everyone parented the children in SnowDancer.

An integral aspect of Walker’s job was to make certain no child—dominant or submissive, shy or aggressive—slipped through the cracks. He often had pups seated along the bench in his workshop, doing their homework and eating afternoon snacks. And he’d tucked a few into bed, too, when needed. Perhaps he wasn’t as affectionate as a changeling parent, but the children seemed to feel safe with him, and that was what mattered.

“Part dean, part teacher, part trainer, part mother, part father.”

That was how Hawke had explained the position to Walker when the alpha had first extended the offer.

“You’ll be responsible for making sure each pup navigates this time of growth in a way that leaves him or her with the skills needed for the next stage of their development. If you’re good at what you do, the pups will come to see you as another parent.”

“Don’t you occupy that role as alpha?”

“Yes, but there’s only one of me. That’s why we have people in charge of all the separate age groups—so a child or juvenile never feels lost or isolated, even if their parents have to be away from the den.

“You’ll work closely with the maternals and the teachers, and while they’re responsible for different aspects of the children’s health and education, you’re the one who coordinates everything and makes certain every child in your group gets what he or she needs to feel safe, happy, and challenged.”

Drawing in the crisp night air as he considered possible issues that might arise on the children’s return, he caught an acrid scent, identified it as ash. He was, he realized, about to pass the area that Sienna’s power had denuded, the earth barren…though he saw that someone had been out here since the last time he’d checked, marked out what appeared to be a planting grid.

Good.

The sooner this land began to heal, the sooner Sienna would be able to come to terms with what she’d done. Because while his niece put on a good face, he knew it haunted her, the lives she’d taken. That they had been of the enemy made no difference—and that was why Sienna would retain her soul in the face of a power that could well have corrupted her from the inside out, turning her into a presence as malignant as that of the Councilor who’d taken her as a child and attempted to form her into a weapon.

When, ten minutes later, he saw a tall, dark-haired man standing on the small rise that provided the best vantage point over Walker’s section of the outer border, he thought again of power and corruption and of the strength it took to fight the insidious rot. Arrow training was cold and inhuman, designed to create killers.

It had succeeded in Judd.

“The blood on my hands will always be there.”

A brutal acceptance, made without excuse, though his younger brother had been a defenseless boy when their parents had given him up to the horrors of the squad’s training rooms. Never once had Walker heard Judd attempt to justify his lethal actions as an Arrow. No, his brother took responsibility, carried the weight, and in so doing, found his redemption.

“Did Riley make an error,” he asked, halting beside Judd, “and assign us both to the same section?” It would be unlike the organized senior lieutenant, but as Hawke’s right hand, Riley had a lot on his plate at present.

“No—I’m actually the one handling security assignments right now. Frees Riley up for other duties.” Judd glanced at him, the gold flecks in his dark brown eyes shimmering under the moonlight. “I wanted to speak to you.” Dressed in a plain white T-shirt and jeans, his hair tumbled by the night winds, he looked young, as carefree as the novice soldiers in the pack.

It was an illusion, of course, but still…“Something’s made you happy.” Even now, it felt strange to say that, to acknowledge his brother had broken the icy Silence forged in him by the merciless application of pain and torture; that he was free to feel, free to love.

Walker’s own Silence had never been as pristine, though he’d concealed the flaws using telepathic abilities so subtle, no one had considered him a threat. It was his very need to hide the fact that he would die for his brother and sister…and later, for his daughter, his niece, his nephew, that had led him to develop and hone his skills at the most delicate, most complex of telepathic deceptions.

Flawed conditioning or not, those years of unrelenting control had left their mark. In many ways, Judd had managed to come further than he had.

His brother chuckled, proving Walker’s line of thought. “Brenna,” he said, “made me sit through a show about finding the perfect wedding dress. Not only that, she insisted I have opinions about the gowns.”

The image was an incongruous one, but then, this Judd was not the same Judd who had worked with cold-blooded calculation beside Walker to ensure their defection did not fail, ready to stop hearts, slit throats, seize hostages, whatever it took. His own life had been a negligible consideration to Judd, his eyes dead, devoid of hope.

Why would such a show interest Brenna? Walker asked, and it was a surreal conversation to be having with his assassin of a brother…and yet it felt strangely good. As if they were normal men with normal lives and loves. Changelings don’t tend to choose traditional wedding gowns for their mating or bonding ceremonies. Brenna’s, he recalled, had been an ice-blue silk sheath shot with silver that fascinated Marlee.

Judd’s response was a shrug. Brenna said I should just accept it and consider myself duty bound by our mating to keep her company. A quick grin. Every week.

A slow curl of anticipation in his gut, Walker wondered what Lara would demand from him. He wanted to create such memories with her, add them one after the other until the darkness of the past was buried under the brilliance of the present. And did you?

What?

Have opinions?

Yes. Apparently I have no taste.

As Judd grinned again, Walker felt something deep inside him close its watchful eyes at last. Judd might be a deadly blade, but he’d been Walker’s younger brother first, his to protect. Except Walker hadn’t been strong enough, old enough to keep Judd from being taken away, from being hurt until he was almost broken, the innocent boy Walker had once known buried under the angry loneliness of believing he’d been forsaken by his entire family.

Seeing his brother happy, centered, was a gift. “What did you want to discuss?”

“I’ve told you of my contacts with other Arrows,” Judd said into the night-dark silence, “but do you personally remember Aden?”

Chapter 3

WALKER’S MIND RACED back over two decades to present him with an image of a small boy with slanted eyes of liquid brown and hair of silky black cut close to his skull in an effort to keep it tamed.

He’d appeared fragile, his bones sticking out against his skin, but that boy, he’d had a will akin to a Lauren and a mind that echoed Walker’s own—a telepath dismissed as a power because his ability was so subtle, so very fine-tuned. Like Walker, Aden had been miscategorized, his power level far, far more dangerous than indicated by his official classification.

Eyes widening a fraction as Aden realized Walker knew the truth. “Will you tell?” A child’s voice, but an ancient’s gaze.

“No.” Never would he betray one of his children. “I’ll teach you to hide the truth better, until no one will ever again find you out.”

“Why?” A flat question.

“Because you deserve to live without fear or pain. I can’t give you that—but I can give you a weapon, show you how to use it so that you can fight when the time comes.”

“Yes, I remember Aden.” As he remembered every single child he’d taught in the Arrow school; every single bruise and broken bone he’d witnessed; every complaint he’d made as a wet-behind-the-ears teacher to the “protective” branch of the training squad, to his superiors, even to the Council itself, before coming to understand that no one was listening.

It could’ve broken him, but Walker had refused to buckle…because he did have the ability to give his charges psychic weapons, and sometimes, he’d even been able to protect them, if only for a short while. He’d kept more than one student after school, ostensibly for detention or extra tutoring—only to tell that child to sleep, to rest, to heal as much as he or she could, safe in the knowledge that no one would drag them out of sleep to face some dark horror meant to turn a child into a perfect killing machine.

So many of the youngest, their emotions not yet crushed under the weight of Silence, had ended up sobbing in his arms at the small kindness. He could still feel the weight of their tiny bodies against him, their tears drenching his shirt, their nascent conditioning fracturing inside the telepathic wall of protection formed by his mind…freedom for a fleeting instant.

Aden, he remembered, had never cried, never broken…and never lost his soul. “He used to shake his head at me when I attempted to keep him back after school”—because the boy had bruises no child should have, his arm showing signs of having been broken and reset over and over—“and tell me to keep one of the younger children.”

“I’m stronger. I’ll survive. They need the rest more than I do.”

Judd turned to face him, his expression intent. Walker rarely spoke of his time in the squad’s schoolroom, and his brother had never pushed. He didn’t tonight, either.

“Aden’s doing the same still,” he said instead. “Leading the squad, protecting the ones who are broken, watching over the children.”

Walker felt a quiet burn of pride for the boy he’d known.

“He asked me to thank you,” Judd continued, “and to tell you that what you taught him has helped save the life, and the mind, of more than one Arrow.”

The words meant everything. “I’d like to speak to Aden when it’s safe for him.” See the man the child had become.

“I’ll tell him.” Reaching into a pocket, Judd pulled out a black data crystal, handed it to Walker. “The names and addresses of the children in the squad’s training program. Should anything go wrong with the Arrows’ plans for the future, we have to get them out.”

Walker accepted the crystal and the weight of the trust Aden had placed in him, old anger twining with new hope. Looking out over the star-studded landscape in the quiet that followed, he spotted several wolves loping out to roughhouse in the clearing below. “Lake, Maria, Ebony, and Cadence,” he said, identifying them by the subtle differences in their size, markings, and coloring.

Lake was the one who lifted his head, gave the two of them a nod.

Walker acknowledged the greeting with a raised hand as Judd said, “It’s good to be home, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” The powers in the PsyNet no doubt considered his family even more of a threat after the revelation of Sienna’s power, might yet attempt to harm them, but that was a fight that would wait. At this moment, everyone he loved was safe, and he was tied to the woman who was his heartbeat by a bond as strong and as tender as Lara herself.

He only hoped that as the days passed, Lara wouldn’t begin to regret the choice she’d made to bond with a man who still carried the shadow of Silence in his every breath.

• • •

LARA woke to a kiss on her neck, slightly rough night-cool hands on her sleep-warmed skin. “You’re home.” Turning into Walker’s embrace, she nuzzled at his throat, drawing in the intoxicating scent of dark water hiding a thousand mysteries. “…time is it?”

“Just after six.” A kiss, hot and wet and carnal, his body shifting to cover her own, his hands pushing up her silky thigh-length nightgown, the color a shade of plum so dark it was almost black. “I like this.”

“I know.” Feeling lazy and sleepy and sexy, she lay boneless as he peeled off her panties and returned to his position above her, his body pressed intimately between her thighs. It made her moan, rise sinuously against him. “Come inside me.”

He didn’t argue, simply stroked her with his fingers to check her readiness before pushing into her slow and easy. Her gasp was swallowed up in a kiss, her nipples rubbing against the crisp hairs on his chest as he lifted himself up enough to tug off the nightgown before returning until they were skin to skin.

It was something she’d realized about her mate. Now that she’d broken through the barriers that kept him so remote, he loved skin contact, whether or not it was sexual. He’d never be comfortable with skin privileges when it came to the majority of people—but with her, he was both demanding and so giving it made her heart ache.

Playing her fingers through the hairs that brushed his nape, she locked her ankles at his back and moaned softly at the exquisite feel of him stretching her, filling her. When he dipped his head to lick at her nipples with languorous ease, her nails dug into his back. “More, darling.”

The sense of a masculine murmur, though she heard nothing with her ears, and then he gave her what she wanted. She arched under the sensations, her fingers fisting in his hair. Tugging him up when the pleasure became too much, she kissed her way up his throat and along his jaw to that spot under his ear that always made him shudder. A wet flick of her tongue, a husky request, and slow and lazy turned slow and relentless.

Pleasure rippled over her—not in a crash, but in a languid wave, her orgasm endless. She felt him stiffen, shifted her mouth to his throat, kissing and petting him through his own orgasm until he collapsed on her, a delicious weight.

“That was some wake-up call,” she murmured much later, when he roused enough to shift to his back, with her sprawled half on and half off his body.

He drew circles on her back with his fingers. “I’m glad you approve. As you know, I was a virgin not long ago.”

She laughed at the teasing reminder of how she’d offered to be gentle with him. “You’re a fast learner, Mr. Lauren.” Yawning, she dragged up the sheet to cover them. “How was the watch?”

“Trouble free,” was the concise answer, but then he said, “Judd was there for a while.”

Sensing he meant more than he was saying, she spread her fingers over the taut heat of his chest. “Did he want to catch up?”

Walker was quiet for a long time. “We talked about a boy I once knew. A trainee Arrow.”

And then, as the final vestiges of the night faded from the sky, her mate spoke to her about the schoolroom that had been his for so many years, told her things she understood without asking that he’d shared with no one else, not even his brother. Tears clogged her throat at all that he had witnessed, the pain of the children…and the realization that her mate was inviting her into a part of his life she’d only glimpsed till now, sharing one of his secrets with her.

• • •

THAT morning marked the day the pack shifted into high gear, all of the remaining evacuees scheduled to return within the next forty-eight hours. While not needed to heal injuries, Lara was needed nonetheless, as was Walker. The week passed in a rush of helping the pups resettle into the den, soothing their worries, and—for Lara—talking privately with packmates who’d been so badly injured that in any other situation, they’d be dead.

Tai had been dodging her in true wolf style, but near the end of the week she finally cornered him by the waterfall closest the den. Crushed skull, catastrophic damage to internal organs, as well as a laser burn on half of his body, Tai had been so critical, she’d shut herself in her office and burst into tears for a single stolen minute during the aftermath of the battle, her heart breaking at the sense that he was slipping through her fingers.

Taking a seat beside him on the stony outcropping that overlooked the crashing thunder of water, their feet hanging over the edge, she drew in a deep breath of the crisp air. The sky was a stunning mountain blue, the fine spray from the waterfall cool against her skin, but her wolf was focused only on the young male beside her. “How are you, Tai?”

“Fine.” Pure exasperation. “Seriously, Lara, do I look like I need counseling?”

No, he didn’t. Vivid blue-green eyes uptilted at the edges and skin of golden brown, his shoulders broad, he looked strong and young and gloriously alive. But he was a dominant, and admitting weakness was a thing he’d fight with gritted teeth and clenched fists. So she kept her tone undemanding as she said, “Most changelings don’t have to confront their mortality until they’re good and ready.” Male and female alike, they thought they were invulnerable at this age, and that was how it should be. “You were forced into it.”

Tai stared at the waterfall, eyes unblinking. And she thought he’d simply refuse to speak. If he did, there was little she could do about it—yes, she outranked him, but an order would gain her nothing, not with a wolf as strong and as determined as Tai. He had to trust her.

“You know what bugged me the most when I took that blow to the head?” he said almost ten minutes later. “When I realized I probably wouldn’t come out of it alive?”

Breathing out a silent sigh of relief, Lara shook her head. “What?”

“That I’d never have a stupid fight with Evie ever again.” He gave her a lopsided smile, that handsome face suddenly beautiful. “Dumb, huh?”

It eased her worry to hear no bitterness in his tone. “Do you enjoy the fighting or what comes after?”

His grin grew deeper. “A gentleman never tells.” His smile faded into an intensity of purpose that brought a memory into sharp focus; something Hawke had said to her over two years ago—that Tai held the potential to one day be a SnowDancer lieutenant. Now, the young male looked back out over the foaming crash of the water. “There are so many things I want to do with my life, but Evie? She’s at the top of every list I’ve made since the first day I realized neither of us was a pup anymore.”

Evie, too, Lara thought, looked at Tai with the same devotion. “You took your time making a move,” she said, thinking of the man who loved her in the same unwavering way, steady and sure…but with a raw depth of passion that grew ever stronger.

“I had to grow balls big enough to stand up to Indigo,” Tai muttered. “First time I even looked at Evie, I got the ice stare and everything shriveled up.”

Laughing at his reference to the lieutenant who was Evie’s older—and very protective—sister, she nudged his shoulder with her own. “Liar. I bet you were sneaking off with Evie before anyone knew you two were an item.”

A very satisfied grin was her answer.

“I really am okay, Lara,” he said when he spoke again. “I know most guys my age don’t think about death and stuff, but my generation didn’t have a choice. We were born either directly before or after the violence in the den.”

That violence, incited by an ugly Psy “experiment,” had devastated the pack. So many of their own had died, leaving behind pups who were suddenly motherless or fatherless, or in the worst cases, orphans. Tai hadn’t lost his parents, but he’d been surrounded by loss all the same—his uncle, his best friend’s father, his novice-soldier cousin, the list went on. Of course he understood death.

“Has it…your life…”

Wrapping an arm around her in a dominant’s instinctive effort to comfort, Tai tucked her against the wild heat of his bigger body. “You know the shit me and the others pulled when we were younger.” His grin coaxed one out of her. “We weren’t traumatized or stunted. Hell, we grew up proud, and we grew up bold—we saw SnowDancer not only survive, but spit in the faces of our enemies by becoming so strong that they came to fear us.”

Lara thought back to a teenage Tai, to the hair pulling he’d incited in the maternal females and felt the knot in her abdomen unravel. “Have you spoken to Evie about what happened?” Even accepting that he’d thought about death in the abstract, facing his own would have been a harsh slap, and he needed to acknowledge that to someone.

Tai snorted. “You think she gave me a choice? Submissive, my ass.”

Lara’s lips twitched at the affection-laced growl, the last of her concern subsiding. She knew Evie would ensure Tai was healthy both in body and mind. “She’s only like that with you, you know.” Evie was a true submissive, happy to allow Tai’s wolf to take the lead. That didn’t mean she didn’t love him as fiercely as he loved her.

“I know—and I wouldn’t have her any other way.” Arm still slung around her shoulder, Tai nuzzled a kiss into her hair. “So, can I stop hiding from you now?”

Laughing, she cupped his face and kissed him on the mouth with the easy affection of a packmate who’d played with him when he was a babe and bound up his injuries during his terrible teens. “Smart aleck. You can walk me back to—” Breaking off, she smiled at the man who’d appeared out of the trees. “On second thought, shoo.”

“I feel so unwanted.” Waving a quick hello at Walker with that laughing statement, he rose and jogged off toward the den.

“This is a nice surprise,” Lara said as her mate took Tai’s place beside her, his denim-covered thigh pressing against her own.

Quivering with happiness, her wolf tried to nuzzle at Walker, its fur rubbing against the inside of her skin.

“I only have five minutes.” Closing his hand over hers, he brought her knuckles up to his mouth, the unexpected caress making her breath catch. “I saw you kiss Tai.”

She angled her head at the edgy comment. “You’ve been in the pack for years. You know how affectionate we are.”

“You didn’t belong to me before.”

Lara’s first instinct was to laugh, tease him about his unwarranted jealousy, but something in his expression made her pause, think. Touch was a precious thing to Walker, not something he shared lightly. And a kiss on the mouth…it was an act he only ever did with her. “I didn’t know it would hurt you,” she said, kissing his knuckles in turn, “and I’m so sorry it did.”

He curved his hand around her thigh when she released it, squeezed. “I’m reacting badly,” he admitted. “You’re the healer, and the pack has certain rights to you.”

Wrapping her arm around his, she leaned into his body. “I could never withhold my affection,” she said, hoping he would understand. “It would go against my every instinct to do so.”

“I wouldn’t ever ask that of you.” It was a quiet promise, his hair lifting in the breeze as he looked down at her with those eyes the stunning shade of new leaves under sunlight. “I know who you are, Lara. It makes me proud to be your mate.”

Tears threatened. “Ditto,” she said a little shakily.

Reaching out with his free hand, he brushed his thumb over her cheek. “But…not on the mouth, if it’s an adult male. I can’t deal with that.”

The naked honesty of his request hit her right in the heart. “Only you,” she promised, and it was no sacrifice. Affection was affection. She’d find some other way to show it to adult males if needed. “Only ever you.”

Cupping her cheek, he bent his head until their foreheads touched. “I’m sorry—I know I’m being difficult,” he said, and it was a comment heavy with things unspoken.

She rubbed her nose playfully against his, refusing to allow the past to suck him under. “More than one changeling male has been known to go all growly over his mate touching another man—you’re pretty reasonable in contrast.”

A single raised eyebrow that told her he didn’t particularly like that description. Proven a second later by the kiss he laid on her. “I plan to be very ‘reasonable’ tonight,” he threatened when he broke the kiss so she could gasp in a breath.

The smoldering tone made every cell in her body sit up in attention. And as he took her mouth again, she realized her complex, fascinating, addicting mate had taken down another shield, opened another door…invited her deeper into him.

Chapter 4

FOUR DAYS LATER, Walker put down his end of the sofa in the family’s new quarters and nodded at Judd to do the same. In spite of his brother’s telekinetic power, he and the others helping with the move had done the heavy lifting manually so as to conserve Judd’s psychic strength in case of an emergency.

Standing up to his full height, his brother looked around the room. “Nice. Roomier than your old quarters.”

It was, to a significant extent. Had Lara been any other woman in the pack, they could’ve remained in the family quarters he’d previously shared with the children, but she needed to be close to the infirmary. It was as a result of that necessity that their new quarters had been organized with such speed—a construction team had torn down the walls between Lara’s original spacious apartment and two other units, converting it into a place suitable for a family. A big one.

Lara had told him the entire section had been designed to be transformed in that way when the time came. “Healers always have children around them,” she’d said when he commented on the increase in square footage. “Our own, adopted, packmates…it’s a good thing you’re used to that already.” She gave him a smile that came from the heart of her. “We’ll probably also have the odd packmate sleeping over. You won’t mind, will you?”

“No.” He knew she healed as much with her gentleness and affection as she did her abilities. It would be no hardship to have his home be a place where the pack felt welcome and loved. “Family is important to me, too.” And pack was family.

Right now, the youngest member of their immediate family was happily setting up her dollhouse in her room, while Toby was hanging some posters in his, both children being “supervised” by their new great-grandparents. Lara’s mother, Aisha, had also been popping in and out as her duties permitted, always with a snack for them in hand.

Walker had never truly had a maternal figure in his life, had been the patriarch of his family since he was a young man; so at times, he found himself startled by the way Aisha related to him, treating him as he imagined she might a son. It was a strange sensation but not unwelcome, especially since Aisha never forgot he was an adult male.

Funnily enough, it was his assassin of a brother whom she treated as much younger.

“You’ll make us fat,” Judd commented when she appeared at the door, even as he took two peanut butter cookies from the plate she held.

Snorting, Aisha pinched at the hard muscle of Judd’s biceps. “Then I’ll put you on a diet. For now…” She gave him two more cookies before handing a couple to Walker and heading off toward the kitchen section of the open-plan living/dining area. “Toby! Marlee! Cookies on the counter.”

Judd grinned as the kids called out their delighted thanks. “Can I adopt you as my grandmother, too?”

That got him a slap on the back of the head as Aisha walked out of the apartment. “Call me old and live to regret it, boyo.”

Laughing, his brother rubbed at his head. Walker felt his cheeks crease.

Lara and Brenna entered the apartment seconds after Aisha’s departure, both carrying boxes filled with the last of the clothing from the old apartment. Walker’s heart ached at the sight of Lara’s smile, her curls—tied with a fine silk scarf in emerald green—shining under the simulated sunlight of the den. His mate. Who seemed not to care that he wasn’t like the changeling males she’d grown up with, would never be like them, no matter how long he lived out of the PsyNet.

Yet…part of him remained wary, watchful for any sign that she was unhappy in this relationship. He knew that part had been born in the decades in which joy had been a mirage, survival his only focus, but he couldn’t erase it, couldn’t reform himself into some other, better man.

Lara’s eyes met his at that instant, a frown between her brows. Crossing the room, she rose up on tiptoe to brush her lips against his, saying, “I adore who you are, Walker Lauren,” as if she’d heard his thoughts.

Cupping the side of her neck, he slanted his lips over her own, drenched himself in the taste of her, this woman who saw pieces of him he’d long forgotten existed.

“Hold that thought.” A husky command from his mate before she disappeared into the master bedroom with Brenna.

Turning, Walker found himself being watched by eyes of gold-flecked brown. “Mating’s good for you,” Judd said, his expression shifting to betray a deep vein of emotion. I’m alive to love Brenna because of you. And it always seemed grossly unfair that you didn’t have the same kind of love in your life.

Walker had never known his brother felt that way. Until Lara, I didn’t comprehend the lack. The safety of his family had been his sole concern.

Judd’s clear telepathic voice appeared once again in his mind. Aden says knowing we made it, have lives, gives him hope, though he doesn’t use that word. I don’t know if he even understands it. Judd went silent until they’d finished repositioning the dining table. It may sound cruel, but I’m glad he doesn’t understand what it’s like to have what I have with Brenna, you with Lara.

Walker thought of the life Aden lived, a life that had once been Judd’s. You think the knowledge would drive him mad?

Wouldn’t it have done that to us? To know exactly how much we could never touch?

Walker shook his head. The point is moot. To experience it is the only way to know. The glory, the raw punch of emotion, no words could ever do it justice.

“Put it down on the left,” he said aloud, seeing Drew and Hawke arrive with the second sofa, followed by Indigo—six cushions in her arms, her head peeking around the side.

The lieutenant’s dramatic eyes, the reason for her name, locked with his. “Gotta say, Walker,” she drawled with a grin, “I never took you for a throw-pillow kind of a guy.”

“I bought them,” Sienna said from behind Indigo, a duffel bag in hand. “Marlee and I chose the design.” Her gaze shifted to Walker, and in her eyes was the memory of the piercing happiness she’d felt at being in charge of her own environment for the first time in her life. He recalled how she and Marlee had pored over the catalogue, how excited they’d been to get the cushions, put them in place precisely how they wanted.

A tiny thing, but it had mattered.

“All done?” he asked, running his hand over the distinctive dark ruby of her hair when she came to stand beside him. Kristine’s hair.

She leaned into his body, cardinal eyes brilliant with stars as she spoke. “I gave the place a final sweep, picked up any odds and ends. It’s clean, but Evie, the kids, and I will give it another polish tomorrow to make certain it’s ready for the next occupants.”

“Thanks, sweetheart,” Lara said, coming out of the bedroom sans box. “But for now…” Walking to the cooler, she pulled out a bottle of champagne and one of sparkling grape juice. “A thank you from us.”

That simple drink turned into an impromptu dinner, complete with takeout brought up by Riley and Mercy when they finished a security run in San Francisco, and special desserts prepared by Lara’s mom. Having returned from the tutorial he’d been running for his junior engineers up at the hydro station, Lara’s father, Mack, was also able to join them.

As Walker sat and listened to the ebb and flow of the voices—the laughter—around the table, an unexpected vocal music, he realized his family had grown by a factor of multiples in a few short years. Each Lauren mate had brought a cascade of family and friends into the mix, adding to the bonds he, Judd, Sienna, and the children had formed, and those connections would only continue to grow, lives entangling and intertwining.

It was an extraordinary network, beautiful and steel strong. Never again would any member of his family have to fight alone, hurt alone.

His eyes lingered on the wild curls of the woman who had banished the agonizing, endless loneliness that had lived in him for so long, he’d believed it part of his psyche. Even now, though she was laughing at something Indigo had said, her hand was a gentle heat on his thigh, the intimacy already familiar. He’d placed his own arm along the back of her chair, his fingers brushing her hair.

Regardless of what the future held, one thing he knew: He could never go back to the way he’d been, his body nothing but a tool he maintained because it was useful. It had become so much more, a source of pleasure for him and for his mate.

Fox-brown eyes meeting his own. “Happy?”

He twined a curl around his finger, his answer instinctive. “Yes.”

Lara’s smile was slow, deep, for him…as it was that night when she pressed him to his back and tasted him with unhidden passion and a sweet feminine possessiveness, until his nerves overloaded with sensation, his spine locking in a pleasure so intense, it was thunder through his blood.

• • •

A couple of nights after the move, Lara growled as she tore the shirt she was taking off, her claws having escaped to prick the fine cotton.

Walker dropped his hands from the buttons of his own shirt, looking at her in that way he had of doing—as if he could see through her very skin. “Do you need to hunt?”

“Healers have trouble hunting,” she muttered, suddenly angry at him for seeing her so clearly when so much of him remained a mystery to her. “It goes against our instinct to heal. But”—she took a deep breath in an effort to clear the fog in her head—“I could do with a long run.”

Her wolf clawed at the insides of her skin, ready to race through the forest, the wind in its fur, the scents of the night sharp and bright in its nose. She could almost taste the cold slice of the air cutting through her nostrils, almost feel the crackle of leaves beneath the pads of her paws, her skin shimmering with the need to shift.

Walker redid the buttons he’d opened, eliminating a view she’d been enjoying in spite of her temper. “I’ll ask Judd to keep an eye on the kids.”

“No, you stay here,” she said, kicking off her shoes and wiggling out of her skirt. “I’ll be back in an hour.” After she’d run off the frustration that gnawed at her, vicious and relentless.

A dangerous pause, before her mate spoke again, his voice flat, calm…lethal. “You really think I’m going to let you out alone at night when the enemy was on the pack’s doorstep less than two weeks ago?”

Lara wasn’t about to be intimidated. “And you think I’ll let you insult my intelligence?” It came out a snarl, her body and mind both ready for a fight. “I’m not a child. I know enough to stay in the safe zones.”

Walker didn’t yell, didn’t get angry, which only increased her aggravation. Instead, he crossed over and tugged her stiff body into his arms, her near-naked skin flush against his fully clothed body. The rasp of the fabric was too much for her oversensitized flesh, and she pushed at him. “I can’t handle that right now.”

He released her, but the set of his jaw made it crystal clear she would not be going out on her own. Fine, she thought, and not bothering to remove her underwear, shifted, her body turning into a million particles of light before coalescing into the wolf who was her other half.

Hackles raised, she padded out of the apartment and the den. Then she ran, daring her mate to keep up with her. He wasn’t as fast as she was, but he was clever. He kept tracking her down, even when she raced away. The wolf liked his cleverness, liked his determination even more. It stopped trying to evade this strong, dangerous male who was its own, and they ran side by side under the diamond-studded Sierra sky, the night alive with the rustling of nocturnal creatures that froze when the wolf and her mate passed by, before going about their business again.

• • •

EVERY hair on Walker’s body stood up at the haunting sound of the howl that rose on the night currents as he and Lara halted at the top of a hill, hearts thudding from the run, a silvery vista of towering pines and waving grasses in front of them.

Lara, her wolf stunning in silhouette against a heavy moon, went motionless for an instant before throwing back her head and joining in. The wild music was the most beautiful harmony he’d ever heard, so alive it made him want to add his own voice, so untamed it stripped away the civilized veneer to leave only the primal heart behind.

Only when the song had ended, the night quiet but with a complex depth to it that told him he didn’t hear everything she did, did he run his hand down the proud line of her back, her fur thick and soft under his palm beneath the protective guard hairs. “Something is wrong, and you need to tell me.”

A cock of her head that he didn’t need to be a wolf to read.

“Yes, it’s an order.” He hated seeing her unhappy. “You asked me not to close up on you. Don’t do it to me.” She could hurt him in ways no one else could on this earth, savage him from the inside out, but the one thing that would hurt worse than any other was being shut out from the loving warmth that had become integral to his existence.

The wolf looked away…and suddenly, the air fractured under his palm, her body dissolving into a million particles of light. He froze, his heart a drum. Her trust in him cut him off at the knees, told him all over again what he was to her. I will never, ever let you down. It was a renewal of the vow he’d made the instant he claimed her.

A heartbeat…an eon later, he was touching night-cooled skin, a woman with eyes of fox brown kneeling in front of him, her hands cupping his face. “It’s not you, not us. You’re my everything.”

He felt something in him break at the fierce honesty of her, didn’t quite understand what it was, his emotions stuck in his throat. “Come here,” he said, his voice a rasp.

Once she was in his lap, he petted her without further demands until she curled into him, her hand on his heart. He knew she had a high tolerance for cold, but he took off the shirt he wore and made her shrug into it.

She did so without argument, then put her head back against his shoulder, her legs silky under his touch. “No one”—a long, appreciative sigh—“will ever convince me that there is a more beautiful place on this earth.”

Walker couldn’t deny her words, the Sierra night a thing of near-painful beauty, but his attention was on his mate, on what might have caused her to snap at him in such an uncharacteristic way. There was only one possible answer.

Chapter 5

“ALICE?” THE HUMAN scientist had been put into cryonic suspension by unnamed parties over a hundred years ago, and now lay in a coma in SnowDancer’s infirmary. Inside her mind were secrets that might further help Sienna understand her abilities, but whether that mind would ever wake, ever function as it should, was an unanswered question.

Lara fisted her hand on his chest, shuddered. “I can’t reach her, no matter what I try.” Not only frustration, but pain. “She doesn’t deserve to die without ever living. I found out today that she was my age when they took her—she never had a chance to complete her work, fall in love, have children. The bastards stole that from her.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I want to give her life back to her, but I can’t!”

He gathered her closer to his warmth. “You know what was done to Alice was a high-risk, experimental process—the fact you’ve managed to keep her alive is an indication of your skill.”

“Logic won’t help, not when my wolf just wants to heal her.”

Helpless, he realized, that’s how she felt. And for a woman as strong and as dedicated to healing as Lara, that would be a terrible blow. Alice was likely never far from her thoughts, and source of intense stress though it was for her, that was nothing he could or would change about Lara—because her ability to care was at the very core of who she was as a person.

“Tell me,” he said, and then he simply held her and listened.

Much later, after they’d made their way back to the den and to bed, she nuzzled a kiss into his throat. “Thank you for listening.” Another soft kiss, her fingers petting his chest, her legs intertwined with his. “I’m here anytime you need the same.”

He’d never shared his day-to-day worries with anyone—he was the head of the family, used to being looked to for advice, and it wasn’t a role he resented. No, it fit him. But that wasn’t the role he occupied in Lara’s life, wasn’t the role he wanted to occupy.

“I’m meeting with Sienna tomorrow,” he said, and it felt as if he’d taken an irrevocable step on this new road he walked with a woman who had never accepted that he was forever broken. She’d taken him scars and all, and in so doing, taught him he could be far more than he’d ever believed. “I worry about her.”

• • •

HIS conversation with Lara was still vivid in his mind early afternoon the next day, when he took a seat across from Sienna in a small, isolated clearing. The two of them had discovered this spot—complete with the stumps they used as seats—six months after they first joined SnowDancer. Over the years, it had become an unofficial meeting place for family discussions.

A polite mental knock broke into his thoughts.

Answering it, he heard Judd’s voice in his mind. Running late. Be there in fifteen.

“I’m surprised Hawke isn’t with you,” he said after answering his brother. “Especially considering the subject matter.” So soon after Sienna’s brush with death, the wolf alpha was violently protective of her.

Eyes pensive, Sienna fixed the tie at the end of her braid. “He can’t disappear from the den right now, with how unsettled everyone’s still feeling.”

Hawke’s presence, Walker realized, was helping to soothe their packmates on the most primal level. “You two won’t have had much time alone together.” It concerned him—the alpha and Sienna both needed an opportunity to decompress, take a breath.

Sienna’s gaze met his, and he knew she recognized his worry, even before she said, “It’s okay. Hawke is certain it’ll only be another week or so before things return to normal.”

Conscious of Hawke’s instinctive ability to read the pulse of the pack, he nodded. “How are you?”

“Stable.” Teeth biting down on her lower lip. “As far as I can tell.”

Walker knew why she couldn’t give him an absolute answer. Sienna had lived her whole life fearing the rage of power that lived inside her—the fact it was no longer wholly uncontrollable would take time to sink in. Looking into the mental network that connected them, he focused on Sienna’s mind. It glowed crimson gold with a beautiful, deadly power that then shot down the familial bond to Walker, feeding into the twisting vortex at the center of his own mind.

Until the battle, none of them had understood the reason for the formation of the vortex. Now it was clear it acted as a filter for Sienna’s power, stripping her energy of its destructive potential. “There are no signs of a hazardous buildup.” Of the deadly synergy that could turn her into a bomb of catastrophic potential.

“I initiated a massive discharge of power not long ago,” Sienna said in so quiet a tone that he had to concentrate to hear her, her eyes midnight with tautly held emotion. “According to my estimates, we can’t do a proper analysis until at least the six-week mark post-release.”

“Agreed.”

“And I’ll have to continue to monitor the cold fire long-term.”

“Of course.” He captured her startled gaze when she jerked up her head, this girl who was as much daughter to him as Marlee. “Any Psy with a high-Gradient ability has to do the same—you know Judd is always aware of the exact level of his telekinetic strength.” The act was no longer a conscious one for his brother, but a near-autonomic response. “It negates the risk that he’ll cause an inadvertent injury.

“A Ps-Psy,” he continued, seeing he had her attention, “has to learn to block his psychometry on a day-to-day basis to ensure he doesn’t drown under the influx of other people’s memories and emotions.” Ps-Psy had diverse specialties within their designation, but the foundation of their power was the ability to pick up “memory echoes” left on physical objects, from a doorknob to a button.

He switched from verbal to mental speech for his next example. A telepath maintains a shield against extraneous “noise” every instant of his or her existence—you learned to do it as a child.

Sienna blew out a breath, her eyes no longer solid black. “That makes it sound so…normal.” When her X ability had never been in any way normal. “I’ll have to maintain a conscious watch until my mind learns to do so automatically.”

“It already is automatic.” The cold fire had branded her from the day the X marker first went active, becoming the central fact of her existence. “What you need to learn is how to push that awareness into the background, so it doesn’t dominate your thoughts except when necessary.” She deserved a life free of fear, and he would do everything in his power to make certain she reached for it.

Never again did he want to see the girl he’d seen after her mother, Kristine’s death. Sienna had been taken for “training” by Councilor Ming LeBon at age five and allowed no familial contact except for limited time with her mother. After his sister’s suicide, the only way Walker had been able to get in to see Sienna had been by using the most cold-blooded and mercenary of rationales—that the young girl was genetically a Lauren and her abilities belonged to the family unit. As the executor of Kristine’s estate, which included her genetic legacy, Walker had rights of access.

For Ming to deny his claim would’ve breached laws that lay at the bedrock of Psy society. And at that point, the Councilor had still worn his mask of civility; Walker had been granted permission to meet with Sienna, albeit under tightly controlled circumstances, but the girl who attended their first meeting was a twisted shadow of the vibrant, mischievous infant he remembered.

Her gaze had been cold, flat, her voice toneless…without hope.

If it hadn’t been for Judd’s ability to teleport in for far more clandestine visits, paired with Walker’s skill at creating telepathic vaults that allowed Sienna’s mind privacy from Ming’s constant surveillance—a skill Judd had learned, then passed on to Sienna—they might never have reached beyond the dull shell she showed the world.

“The cold fire,” he said now, wrenching his mind back from the past and the icy rage it continued to incite in him, “is a part of you but no longer the most important facet of your existence.”

“No,” she whispered, a dawning wonder in her expression, “it isn’t, is it?” Her mouth curved, a burst of delighted laughter escaping her throat…and his mind filled once more with images of the infant she’d been, a sparkle to her eye that had captured him from the instant he first met her, mere days after her birth.

“If anything happens to me”—Kristine’s fingers so gentle as she tucked the blanket around the tiny body in Walker’s arms, a silent indication of her imperfect Silence—“you will watch over her?”

“To my last breath.”

When Sienna, her smile lingering in her gaze, stood and took a step toward him, he rose, opened his arms, and held her close as he once had the babe his sister had borne. You’ll fly, Sienna, he said, his heart aching that Kristine wasn’t here to see the incredible woman her daughter was becoming. Higher and stronger than those who would’ve caged you could ever imagine.

• • •

LARA’s wolf was padding happily around her skin after a quiet pulse along the mating bond that was Walker’s touch, when her eye fell on the glass spiral of blue and green he’d repaired for her after it shattered.

“It’s fixed. As long as you don’t mind more than a few scars.”

Her chest grew tight as it always did at the memory. That was the thing with Walker—he didn’t say a lot, didn’t make big gestures, but when he did speak…“I am so in love with you,” she whispered, thinking of the way he’d held her, listened to her, spoken to her in the intimate dark of their bed.

Her quiet, strong, intensely private mate was coming to her, one step at a time.

If only patience would reap the same rewards with Alice. The human scientist lay unresponsive under Lara’s hands as she checked the woman’s vitals, her flesh pallid, her bones far too close to her skin. Lara continued to seek answers for the other woman, but having been able to unload her frustration had helped put her back on an even keel, and she was able to nudge Alice from her consciousness once she left the patient room.

She and her nurse, Lucy, had decided to use the respite provided by the current healthy state of the pack to tackle a number of practical tasks, with Lucy volunteering to set the storeroom to rights. The chaos of battle had left little time for niceties like neatness and logging supplies, and the pre-battle inventory was woefully out of date.

Lara, by contrast, was in the process of updating patient records. The fact was, she didn’t have to record anything. She had the encyclopedic memory of most healers, could recite every injury or illness that had ever befallen one of her patients. But, she had to think of the future, of the person who would take her place were she incapacitated or otherwise out of the picture.

Two hours into it, eyes dry and fighting a jaw-cracking yawn, she looked up to find Riordan hovering in the doorway of her office. The young male was cradling his arm in a very familiar way. Boredom vanished under concern. “Broken?” she asked, already around the desk.

Deep red under his skin. “Not really.”

“Not really?” Having reached him, she could see significant swelling and bruising. “So your arm is just kind of broken?”

He ducked his head.

Surprised—Riordan had the usual youthful cockiness—she shepherded him into the infirmary proper and had him take a seat on a treatment bed. “You want to tell me about it?” she asked, ignoring the technical equipment to run her hands over his injury. As a novice soldier, Riordan needed to be fully functional as soon as possible.

“No.”

Her abilities told her it was a bad break. Frowning at the jagged edges she could sense, she bade him to lie down flat on his back. He resisted until she raised an eyebrow in a silent threat. They both knew she outranked him.

“I’m going to have to straighten this,” Lara said once he was in the position she’d requested, then punched in a strong painkiller through his skin before he could argue against it. The dominants—young or old—were always the worst. The last time Indigo had been injured, Lara had had to threaten to bring the lieutenant’s mother into it before the long-legged woman would cooperate.

Riordan winced at even the slight pressure of the dermal injection, which told her exactly how badly he was hurting. Conscious of his pride, she used her abilities to further dampen the lingering pain. Only when the tension leached out of his body did she run her hands over the arm again, confirming the position and seriousness of the break.

“Is it like seeing a scan inside your mind?” Riordan asked, sounding more like his normal self.

“Hmm?” This was an unusual injury—almost as if the bone had been crushed. Had Riordan not been changeling, with their race’s greater bone density, she’d likely have been dealing with a mass of splinters instead of pieces of solid bone.

“I always wondered, when you do your healer thing, what do you see?”

“It’s not like a scan,” she murmured, fixing the damage points in her mind, “not that visual.” M-Psy, by contrast, did see things in that fashion—Lara knew because she’d had the chance to have long discussions with a number of them in med school.

It was largely as a result of those interactions that she’d had a more nuanced view of the Psy even before the Lauren family defected to SnowDancer. The Psy students she’d known might have used strictly technical language rather than emotive terms, but they’d all had a dedication to helping the sick and the hurt, a dedication that meant the M designation was the most well-known and accepted of all designations among non-Psy.

“It’s more a ‘sense,’ I suppose,” she continued. “Hard to describe, but it’s almost as if I become part of your body for an instant, able to pinpoint every fragment of hurt.”

Riordan looked down as she straightened his arm. “Whoa, that is so weird,” he said, happily buzzed from the meds, “how it doesn’t hurt, even though I know that’s my arm.”

She kept a constant eye on his veins and fine blood vessels as she performed the maneuver, not wanting to nick or otherwise cause further damage. “This is a very severe break, Rory.”

He made a face. “Shh.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “My friends have forgotten that baby name. Mostly.”

Lips twitching, she said, “I won’t remind them if you tell me how on Earth you managed this.” Riordan wasn’t one of the more accident-prone people in the den.

Color kissed his cheekbones, his gaze darting to the doorway. Lara went over and shut it before returning to work on him. As she did so, she counteracted the more heady effects of the medication, so he could think clearly but without pain.

It took him almost five minutes to speak.

“It was a dumb mistake,” he muttered. “Nothing spectacular. I was in the smaller gym, doing some weights. Strength training.”

She kept her tone easy, nonjudgmental. “Okay.” Larger bone pieces in alignment, she worked at repairing the worst of the damage, which included removing any bone chips so that the shards wouldn’t turn into shrapnel in his bloodstream. Her ability allowed her to coax those chips to the surface, but she had to use fine surgical tweezers to pluck them out.

Riordan groaned.

“Don’t look.”

“I can’t help it.” It sounded like he was gritting his teeth. “So will I be missing pieces of bone now?”

“No, I’ll stimulate your body into fixing itself.” Not quite correct, as she was the primary source of energy, but close enough. “It’s why you’ll be hungry after. Make sure you eat a high-calorie meal.”

“Okay.”

Satisfied every tiny, dangerous fragment was out, she moved on to the task of healing the most severe breaks. “You were telling me how you did this.”

Another heavy silence before he finally said, “I decided to up the weights a level, except I must’ve pressed the wrong button and suddenly the thing weighed a ton. It tilted sideways at a really bad angle—I had the choice of letting it crush my chest or my arm.”

Lara frowned as she realized he was talking about the bench press. “Why were you working out alone?” Spotters were mandatory on the bench press, and Riordan had more sense than to flout that rule.

“I needed to think.” Tight words.

Chapter 6

FOCUSED ON KNITTING the bone back together, Lara held her response. When she looked up after what the digital clock at the head of the bed told her was over forty minutes of concentration, it was to see Riordan lying there with his lashes closed, a half smile on his face. “Rory?” she whispered.

“I’m awake.” Lashes lifting, the smile warm in those gorgeous brown eyes that had made him a heartbreaker as a little boy. “When you heal…it feels like sunshine. It’s nice.”

The words made her own lips curve. She kissed his cheek, ran a hand over his chocolate-dark curls, as she rose back to her full height. Rubbing away the ache in her back, she said, “What’s got you so stressed out, hmm?” She’d babysat him when she’d been a teenager, been charmed by his sweetness and sense of mischief—he’d grown up, become a responsible member of the pack, but he’d always maintained his joie de vivre. Never had she seen him so tense.

“It’s nothing.”

“You know what you say to me in private will stay between us.” Human physicians took an oath of confidentiality. Things worked slightly differently in a pack, as there were situations where the hierarchy meant Lara was permitted and expected to share information, but regardless of that, she never divulged information a packmate had asked her to keep confidential.

A long, steady look. “Even now that you’re mated?”

“Walker understands who I am,” she said, turning her attention to the muscle, ligaments, and blood vessels he’d bruised or torn. “He doesn’t expect me to betray confidences.”

It was a subject important enough to Lara that she’d brought it up during their courtship. “I will keep some secrets from you,” she’d said, aware how crucial honesty was to Walker after his experience with Yelene. “But those secrets are given to me in trust, not to be shared. You do understand?”

Walker had brushed her hair off her face in that way he had, held her gaze. “The secrets you hold are a tribute to your packmates’ faith in you. They’re not for me to know.”

The memory shimmered as Riordan’s chest rose in a deep breath, fell in a long exhale. “You remember that time Hawke busted up our group at Wild?” he asked, referring to the bar/club not far from SnowDancer territory frequented by younger members of the pack—though as far as Lara knew, no one had been there since the battle.

Right now, it was about being with Pack.

“That incident is legend.” The news that Hawke had carried Sienna out over his shoulder had spread through the pack with the rampant fury of a wildfire. “Never to be forgotten so long as we all should live.”

Riordan’s lips kicked up in a wicked smile. “That was some night.” His smile faded as quickly as it had appeared, an unexpected maturity taking its place.

And she thought—this is the man he’s going to be. Quick to laugh, big of heart, but with a depth that would surprise people who saw only the surface.

“I met someone,” he told her. “From DarkRiver.”

“Ah.” She started checking each fine blood vessel, noting with a corner of her mind that she wasn’t feeling as depleted as she normally would after a complex operation of this kind. “Is your girl leading you a dance?”

“No, I mean, that’s not it. I don’t mind playing with her.” Another grin, that of the wolf he was. “I think this has the potential to be serious.”

“Okay. So what’s the problem?” Catching his look, she said, “I know she’s a leopard, but a leopard/wolf relationship is hardly taboo these days. Not after the success of Mercy and Riley’s mating.”

“Yes, but they’re sentinel and lieutenant,” Riordan pointed out. “Hawke’s talked to us about the subtle differences between the two packs, and how we should be careful to make sure both parties are on the same page during any kind of a courtship.”

“But?”

“But I don’t know if we’re supposed to inform our alphas when a relationship turns serious, whether there are rules we’re meant to follow to make sure we don’t inadvertently hurt the alliance if something goes wrong. Riley and Mercy had direct access to that information—and the standing to fix any problems before word ever reached Hawke or Lucas.”

Lara saw his point. Though the DarkRiver-SnowDancer alliance was rock solid, the two packs were still learning how to navigate these particular waters. “If I know Hawke, he’s already aware of the issue.” The alpha was nothing if not plugged in to the beat of the pack. “But I’ll drop a word in his ear anyway—not about you and your girl specifically, but about the whole inter-pack dating situation.”

Riordan reached up with his good hand to touch hers. “Thanks, Lara. I’d do it myself,” he said, and she knew it for the truth, “but I don’t want him or Lucas paying too much attention to us yet. It’s…new.”

“I understand.” She’d appreciated the fact that her courtship with Walker had been a private matter for the most part, and could understand the need Riordan had for the same. “But will you tell me about her?”

His lush brown eyes warmed from the inside out. “Her name’s Noelle.”

“Zach’s sister?” The other male was a DarkRiver soldier.

“Yeah. He’s real protective of her and Lissa,” Riordan muttered in the way of young males trying to court other men’s baby sisters the world over. “Lissa is Noelle’s twin.”

“That’s right.” Lara’s mind filled with the image of two identical girls, both with long black hair, vivid aqua-colored eyes, and skin the shade of sun-kissed copper. “They’re lovely.” Had grown into their coltish bodies over the past two years. “How old are they now? Eighteen?”

Riordan nodded. “Only a year younger than me.” A pause. “Lissa’s this wild, chatty tornado”—an affectionate grin—“while Noelle’s gentle, quiet. It’s like she’s a peaceful spot in the world, but she holds her own.” His wolf prowled to the surface of his eyes. “First time you meet the two, you might think Lissa runs the show, but I’ve seen how Lissa always asks Noelle for advice anytime it’s anything important.”

He was, Lara thought, falling very much in love with Noelle. “Does Zach know you two are dating?”

“No, but Lissa does—I don’t think Noelle’s ever kept a secret from her.”

“Does that bother you?”

He took a moment to think about his answer, which made her believe him when he said, “No. I knew how close they were from the start.” He held out his arm for the scanner, waited while Lara did a double-check to confirm all was as it should be.

“I hate sneaking around,” he bit out after she put down the device, “and that’s part of why we need clear guidance on the situation from Hawke and Lucas. As things stand, Noelle doesn’t want to cause Zach any extra stress.”

Lara frowned. “Why? Zach’s as tough as any soldier.”

“Yeah, but he’s a bit crazy right now, with Annie being pregnant and everything.”

“What? As of when?” While Lara didn’t know Zach particularly well, she did know his mate. The other woman was a teacher at a school that drew from changeling territory, and ever since the DarkRiver-SnowDancer alliance, enough wolves had moved into the area that there were more than a few pups who attended the school.

Lara had met Annie at a parent-teacher conference she’d gone to on behalf of a couple who’d been out of town at the time, and stayed in touch with her ever since.

“They just found out a week ago,” Riordan said with a grin.

“Well, I’m delighted for them both.”

She was still smiling over the news an hour later when she met Walker for lunch, the two of them choosing a spot on the slope overlooking the lake.

The sun was out and so was the first-grade class of the internal SnowDancer elementary school, the pups having the time of their lives on the pebbled shore of the lake while their teachers stood indulgent watch. Deeply content, she opened the container that held the lunch Walker had brought for her and laughed. “You’ve been in cahoots with my mother again.”

• • •

WALKER shook his head when Lara offered him a forkful of her mushroom and herb risotto, which he’d picked up for her from the kitchens—Aisha and he were in perfect agreement when it came to looking after Lara, though his mate didn’t always appreciate their partnership. “I prefer my boring chicken and bacon sandwich.”

She snuggled closer to him, her hip pressing against his, the warm feminine scent of her in his every breath. “Are you ever going to let me forget I said that?”

He finished half a sandwich, picked up the second half after taking a swig of the coffee Lara had taken responsibility for bringing. “No.” It felt strange and yet perfect to tease her, to know that he had the ability to play in this way.

Wrinkling her nose at him, she ate another forkful before saying, “Can you look into the web for me?”

“Anything you ask.”

Pausing in her meal, she pinned him with eyes gone wolf. “I adore you.”

Her love stunned him, as it always did…but he thought he might be becoming used to it deep within. Never would he take it for granted, but he might just come to expect it, and that was an agonizingly beautiful gift she’d given him, that expectation of love, of tenderness. “What do you want to know?”

“I did a fairly complex healing earlier,” she said, sipping from the coffee when he lifted the cup to her lips, “but I don’t feel drained at all.”

Interest spiked. “You think the neosentience in the web is feeding you Sienna’s excess power.” Every psychic network had a “mind.” The one in the SnowDancer Web, which now included his entire family, was but a speck, nothing like the vast NetMind that was the guardian and librarian of the PsyNet. But it did exist, and as they’d seen in the aftermath of the battle, it could influence the web.

Lara chewed and swallowed before answering. “It crossed my mind.”

Opening his psychic eye, Walker looked at the energy currents that rippled along the familial and blood bonds, saw the rerouting that must’ve taken place this morning. “You have priority,” he murmured, closing one of his hands over her raised knee. “When you need the energy, it goes directly and only to you.”

“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, inputting 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 children 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.

Shifting with care so he could look down at her sleeping face, he ran his finger along the delicate shell of her ear. His mate was so lovely, and so gentle. So very good. That was what made her a healer. She might be a SnowDancer, but should he bring her the broken body of a Psy Councilor, she’d do her best to heal the enemy, regardless of the fact that enemy might one day strike her dead.

That was who she was.

It was also why she needed him. Because Walker wasn’t that good. He’d do whatever it took to protect her from harm, spill blood without blinking. He knew Lara saw that ability to kill in him, understood his moral compass wasn’t like her own, but she loved him just the same.

He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve her, deserve this life where he was so passionately loved that it was an incandescent glow against his heart, but he knew he’d fight to the death to hold on to her. Lara was his.

Chapter 8

QUIETLY MOVING ASIDE a curl that was tickling her in her sleep, he felt his lips curve when she wrinkled up her nose before falling asleep again. It was something she did every time he cleared away a curl—and he loved that he knew that. As he knew that if he ran a finger down her throat, she’d sigh and turn into the touch, her hand flexing on his skin. It made his entire body tighten, his flesh hungry for her though he’d shared skin privileges passionate and exquisite with her a mere two hours ago.

Shifting his focus, he played with the thin strap on her left shoulder, his callused fingertip scraping against her skin. He didn’t pull back—Lara had made it clear she loved his hands. Instead, he smoothed the strap down her arm and leaned over to press his lips to the silky hot skin he’d bared, the taste of her an addiction he intended to indulge in for the rest of his life.

Making a sleepy sound, she tunneled one hand into his hair, holding him to her as he slid his own hand up over her thigh and to her hip, pushing up the satiny fabric of her short nightgown at the same time. He’d experienced sensation, so many layers of it since leaving the Net, but each time he touched Lara, he found there was more to feel, to explore.

Kisses along her throat, her pulse thudding against his tongue, her breast taut and perfect in his palm.

“Oh.” A hitch in her breath, followed by a husky, “Don’t stop.”

He ran his thumb over her nipple. “Before,” he murmured against her mouth, “I comprehended the mechanics of this act, but I never understood.” That it could be lighthearted or intense, smoldering or wild…any of a thousand different moods, playing off his own and hers to create a new alchemy of pleasure every single time.

Today, it was slow, lazy, a touch playful.

Fisting her hand in his hair, she brushed her lips, soft and lush, across his cheekbone. “You know what I find sexy? These pajama bottoms you wear to bed.” She ran her foot over the fine blue cotton striped with black.

He knew when he was being teased, nipped at her lower lip in sensual punishment. “Those,” he said, her unrepentant laugh tangling him up, “are so as not to shock our youngest child if she walks in after a bad dream.” Unlike after they first defected, Marlee rarely had nightmares these days, but she wasn’t totally free of the scars the PsyNet had left on her psyche. When the dreams did hit, she still ran immediately for Walker. Which was why their bedroom door stayed unlocked at night—except if he flipped the remote switch as he’d done a few minutes ago.

Lara suckled kisses along his neck, spreading her thighs to better cradle his body. “She’s growing up in a changeling pack.” A graze of teeth. “I bet you it wouldn’t faze her.”

He had the feeling she was right. Changelings were very respectful of one another’s personal space, never assuming even casual skin privileges with people they didn’t know, but nakedness was accepted as a natural state of being, a logical outcome of the fact that every changeling young and old, came out of the shift naked.

“Well,” he muttered, “it’d faze me.”

Lara laughed, breath hot against his skin. “So shy, my poor darling.”

Tugging her up from his throat to claim her mouth, drink of her laughter, he moved his hand down past her navel to cup her over the lace of her panties, kissing her slow and deep until she grew damp against his palm, the scent of her an invitation. In no hurry, he continued the lazy seduction until she began to move restlessly against him, her delicate flesh plump against the lace.

His mate was more than happy to cooperate when he tugged off the silky shred of cloth, sighed as she realized he’d stripped off his pajama bottoms before returning to her. Rubbing her partially bared breasts against his chest when he bent to her mouth once again, kissing her one of his favorite pleasures, she wrapped her legs around his hips, her nightgown bunched up at her waist.

Silky and feminine and soft, she surrounded him, claimed him.

Moving one hand between their bodies to grip his erection, position himself at the tight heat of her entrance, he said, “Yes?”

“Please.” A sultry invitation, her body rising to welcome his.

He shuddered as he pushed home. Bracing himself on one arm and controlling the urge to thrust, he used the fingers of his free hand to tug the straps of her nightgown all the way off and brush his fingertips over the bare mounds of her breasts. She moaned, drawing her nails up along his back in a light caress as her internal muscles fluttered around him, her flesh molten honey with welcome. “You feel so good inside me.”

Her words were a caress as intoxicating as the possessive clasp of her body.

Lowering his mouth to her throat, he kissed his way down to her breasts, teased her with his teeth, his lips…while rocking into her, slow and easy. They had only been mated a short period, but he knew how to listen to his mate’s body, never forgot a single detail of what pleasured her.

“You’re thinking,” she accused.

He tugged a sensitive nipple between his teeth, released it to her gasp. “For the moment.” He knew from experience he’d soon succumb to an overload of pure sensation.

“You know this”—a soft moan as he drew back at leisure, pushed in as deliberately—“drives me crazy.”

“Hmm.” Reaching down, he insinuated his hand between their bodies once more to touch her exactly where and how she loved it the most; knowledge he possessed because she’d whispered it to him when he’d asked her to teach him her pleasure points, his wild sensual mate who denied him nothing. “Is this better?”

Her body tightened then broke in a shocked ripple of ecstasy, her muscles clamping down on him. He gritted his teeth to hold back the urge to rush—he wasn’t in a rushing kind of a mood tonight—and then, when she softened beneath him, he kissed her with languorous sensuality, petting her down from the peak.

Heavy lids lifted to reveal eyes gone nightglow. “I guess,” she murmured, kissing his throat, “this patience is a side effect of the control you had to maintain in the PsyNet.”

He held her to his throat, sucking in a breath as she licked out at a particularly sensitive spot. “Possibly.”

A smile against his skin. “Lucky me.”

Looking down into her pleasure-drenched expression, he whispered, “No. I’m the lucky one.”

He held her gaze for every long, deep stroke, luxuriated in the touch of her hands down his back as she tried to bring him impossibly closer, gloried in the secondary wave of pleasure that turned those wolf-bright eyes hazy…and took him under in a passionate storm that short-circuited his every nerve.

• • •

HE came to, collapsed beside his mate’s body, his thigh pinning both of hers and his arm over her breasts, his face turned toward her own on a single shared pillow. Breathing was an effort, but since Lara seemed to be having the same problem, he was content to lie there, hot and sweaty and happy.

Happy.

It was the wrong word to think tonight, the wrong key to turn after the flash of memory at the dinner table.

Fingers against his nape, rubbing at the sudden rigid tension. “Walker?”

The past shoved at his defenses, and it took all of his strength to fight the urge to let it spill out. “I don’t want to taint us with what was.”

Lara nudged at him until he shifted his body enough to allow her to turn to face him. “We’re stronger than memories, stronger than hurt.” A luminous smile. “We’re a mated pair, a family.”

So simple, so powerful, her words smashed the dam inside him. But it took him time to speak, time to think past the violent crimson haze incited by this particular fragment of the past. Lara didn’t shove, didn’t attempt to force. No, his mate simply nuzzled close and held him, as if she knew he needed her touch at this instant more than ever before.

“The day the rehabilitation order was authorized,” he began at last, his voice a harsh rasp, “when I came home to find Yelene packing because she didn’t intend to let her genes die out with mine”—the reason she’d aborted their unborn child with cold-blooded callousness—“I discovered she’d put in a call to pull Marlee and Toby out of school.” Jagged, brutal, the words cut at his throat, made him bleed.

“It’s okay,” Lara said, her distress open. “You don’t have to tell me if it hurts.”

He fisted his hand in her hair, anchoring himself in the warmth and heart and wildness of her. “No, I need to tell you.” Needed her to accept him in spite of the terrible mistakes he’d made and the pain those mistakes had caused. “Yelene had every intention of telling both children to pack up their belongings for donation to charity, because they’d be vegetables after the brainwipe of rehabilitation, with no use for any of it.”

Horror colored Lara’s eyes. “That’s not Silence, Walker, that’s cruelty.”

Walker stroked his hand down her side, felt the rage that vibrated through her. “It was as if she had never been their guardian,” he said, the insight making no more sense now than it had then, “never vowed to care for the children.”

A growl came out of Lara’s throat. “Healers might have trouble with killing, but if that woman ever ends up in front of me, I will carve out her heart without anesthetic.”

Shifting his position so that he was braced over her, he rubbed his cheek against her own and spoke the worst truth of all. “I was the one who chose Yelene to be my co-parent.” He’d been so careful, had read through multiple PsyMed reports on each candidate, done a deep background and personality check before he settled on Yelene.

And still he’d failed to protect the vulnerable lives under his care.

“I will never forgive myself for that.” Regret spun razor-sharp blades in his gut. “The way Marlee looked when she realized her mother had abandoned her—so small and broken; the way Toby went rigid and silent when he understood he’d lost another maternal figure, it’s on me and it always will be.”

“Don’t you let her evil eat away at you,” his mate said, her hands cupping his cheeks, forcing him to hold eyes of wolf amber grim with purpose. “You aren’t superhuman—and you aren’t a foreseer, that you could predict the future. You made the best choice in the situation you were in.”

Claws pricked his face as her wolf rose closer to the surface. “Yelene’s cowardice belongs to her alone. When she was asked to take a stand, she broke, while you put your life on the line and did everything in your power to protect your family. Remember that, not a woman who saved her skin and lost everything else.”

When he would’ve spoken, Lara shook her head, voice steely as she continued. “You will forgive yourself.” It was a command. “Because if you don’t, your unnecessary guilt will taint your happiness—and Walker? The children take their cues from you. If you don’t step fully into the light, neither will they.”

Trembling because he knew she was right, he pressed his forehead to hers. “I want them to misbehave,” he whispered. “I want them to talk back to us and throw tantrums.” The children were both so good that he worried some part of them feared another terrible rejection. “When they do, I might just start to believe they’ll be okay.”

Lara’s lips curved, the emotion in her smile a punch to the gut. “It’ll happen. Have faith in their strength and our love.” Claws retreating, she patted his cheek. “They do have Sienna as an example, after all.”

And his niece had been a “devil child,” according to Aisha (who had a soft spot for said devil child after all the dishwashing Sienna had done in the kitchens in recompense for her misdeeds). “They’ll have to work hard to beat her record of punishments.” He’d never admit it to Sienna, but some of her now infamous stunts had made him want to grin with pride.

“I put my money on Marlee,” Lara said. “There’s a bit of ‘devil child’ in her, too, according to my mother, bubbling under the surface.”

Walker rubbed his jaw. “I’ve heard it’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for.” Lara had murmured that to him in a voice hoarse from screaming her pleasure not long ago. “I’m backing Toby.”

“You’re on, Mr. Lauren.” Claws running lightly over his back, her smile softening and gentling. “It’s all right, Walker. Let go of the past. It has no claim on you anymore.”

He knew he was too heavy for her, but he shuddered and covered her body with his own, her arms and legs coming around him, one of her hands stroking through his hair. “It’s all right, darling,” she said again. “It’s all right.”

Embraced by her on every level, the warmth of her within his very heart, Walker did what his mate had ordered and broke the final rusty chain that tied him to the life he’d lived before defection…taking the first steps on the road to forgiveness.

Chapter 9

BUOYED BY A bone-deep feeling of rightness, Walker finished a phone conversation with the mate of the leopard healer the following day, then went to supervise an outdoor exercise. It was a half hour into it that Hawke appeared beside him. The alpha’s eyebrow rose when he spotted the three pups, two male and one female, sitting cross-legged on the grass, faces set and arms folded. “Why aren’t those three participating?”

“It’s a punishment.” Walker had learned very quickly that changeling kids hated missing out on a physical activity. “I’ve had some problems since the evacuees returned to the den.” It had disturbed the children to be shuttled off, to worry in safety while their families and packmates fought, were hurt. “A few of the pups think they should’ve stayed behind and helped.”

Shoving a hand through hair the same unique silver-gold as his fur in wolf form, Hawke blew out a breath. “Future dominants, I’m guessing. Hard for them to accept being protected in a situation where they know their packmates are standing in the line of fire.”

Walker understood in a way the pups couldn’t comprehend. It had been brutal for him to leave the den when Lara, Sienna, and Judd remained behind. But it had been necessary, his strength needed to provide a shield for their most vulnerable. “Do you want to speak to them?”

“You’re their handler; your call.”

“Leave it to me.” He planned to have a quiet talk with each child.

Hawke nodded, the pale strands of his hair vivid in the sunlight. “You’re not the only one who’s had issues. The worst have been with the older teens, the ones on the cusp of adulthood.”

“Did you knock sense into their heads?”

“No.” A slashing smile. “Left that to Sienna and the other novices. Nothing bites worse than being chewed out by those immediately above you in the hierarchy, the people you want to emulate.”

Walker called over and gave some instructions to two of the boys, before returning to his conversation with Hawke. “I don’t think this”—a subtle nod to the three pups—“is serious. They just need the stability and discipline of pack to settle.”

“What about Marlee and Toby? Any problems?”

Walker couldn’t have pinpointed why, but right then, he had the distinct sense of talking to an alpha inquiring about his pack rather than Hawke the man. That alpha had looked out for the Lauren children from the instant he’d accepted them into SnowDancer, regardless of his suspicions of the adults, and Walker respected him for it.

“Marlee’s young enough to have taken it in her stride”—though his daughter felt far deeper and with more subtlety than most people understood—“but Toby’s having difficulty.” It was Lara who’d noticed his nephew seemed oddly subdued at times. “I’ve spoken to him about it, and I think he’ll be fine.”

“There’s so much heightened emotion everywhere,” the boy had said, “happiness and relief and worry for what’s coming. It’s hard for me to block it all out, but I’m getting better at shielding.”

“Sienna,” Walker said, shifting focus. “She’s happy.” A statement, not a question, because he’d seen her this morning, felt her increasing steadiness.

And that quickly, he was talking to Hawke the man again, rather than the alpha. “I’m her mate, Walker.” It was a growl. “I’d never consciously do anything to make her unhappy, you know that.”

Yes, he knew. But— “You realize I’m not going to be rational about this.” She was under his protection, and that protection didn’t end simply because she’d mated. It was forever.

“Yeah, yeah,” the other man muttered. “I won’t take it as an insult since I know logic has nothing to do with the instinct to protect.”

No, it didn’t. It never had.

“There are more like me.” A truth he’d understood the first time he’d seen a parent brush the tears off a child’s face. “In the PsyNet. People whose Silence is outwardly perfect, but who’ll fight to the death to protect their young.” Not because those children were a genetic legacy but because of instinct ruled by a far more visceral need.

“I know.” Hawke, this alpha who’d seen the worst of the Psy race as a child, folded his arms, wolf-blue eyes looking into a future that was spiraling closer with each moment that passed. “Their dawn is coming. Can’t you feel it?”

“Yes.” In the trickle of fractured Psy heading into San Francisco, in the words of Arrows unbroken, in the increasing desperation of the corrupt to hold onto their power.

Change was a force that had the world in its ruthless grip.

For some, the consequences would be devastating. For others, it would be a welcome freedom. Some would fight it, some would embrace it, but no one would escape it. Walker hadn’t expected the painful joy the crashing wave of change had brought into his life, but he intended to hold on to it with an iron grip.

• • •

AS the days turned into weeks, Lara’s contentment only grew deeper. Walker’s smile was no longer such a rare occurrence, the bond between them a thing of complex and ever-growing beauty, her mate’s voice one she was used to hearing in the warm quiet of the apartment as they talked after the children were in bed.

She’d convinced herself her earlier fears had been for naught when it happened.

Two days before Hawke and Sienna’s mating ceremony, she was in the midst of a detailed workup on Alice when she felt a…stutter in the mating bond.

An instant later, the bond was so calm, it was frigid.

Shocked into a pained gasp by the sudden absence of emotion, she ran to the small comm unit on her desk and put through a call to Walker’s sat phone. It rang, then went to a message prompt without being picked up, which did nothing to negate her worry. She thought of what he’d told her of his schedule for this afternoon—a simple walk with a small group of children under his authority, the aim to work out the parameters of a new project in a stress-free environment.

He’d never risk the children by taking them into a section that hadn’t been cleared by SnowDancer security, and she’d heard no alarms that indicated an attack of some kind. Yet Walker had all but disappeared under the brutal force of an iron control that made her feel like the mating bond was being strangled to death.

Forcing herself to breathe, to think, she decided to walk outside and follow the tug of the bond until she found him. It might end up being nothing but—“No, don’t go there.” With that shaky admonition, she managed to tell Lucy she was heading out, and left.

She’d barely reached the middle of the White Zone, the safe play area for the youngest SnowDancers, when Walker exploded out of the trees, a child’s limp body held in his arms. Healer instinct slammed into force, and she was running full-tilt toward him before she’d consciously decided to act.

“What happened?” It was Tyler in his arms, the boy’s dark brown skin sheened with a thin layer of perspiration that smelled “wrong” to her senses.

“Far as I can figure,” Walker said, chest heaving from the speed of his own run, “he’s had an allergic reaction. An insect bite, maybe a plant. He collapsed after complaining of shortness of breath and dizziness—it was a rapid reaction, less than thirty seconds from complaint to collapse.”

An allergic reaction triggered by a pack’s long-term natural environment was so rare in the changeling population as to be negligible, but there was nothing to say this pup might not be one of the outliers. “Place him flat on the grass.” Ignoring everything else, she put her hands around the boy’s throat, worked to open air passages that had all but closed up. If Walker hadn’t reacted as he had by bringing the pup to her, instead of calling for assistance, they could’ve lost Tyler.

“I’ve managed to open his airway for the time being.” Having bought a temporary reprieve, she checked the boy’s body for any clue as to what had provoked the near-lethal reaction. The presence of a toxin or venom would require a different treatment from a response incited by a plant.

“There.” It was on his ankle, just above his sock. “A sting of some kind.”

Working on him again to ensure his airway remained open and his heart continued to beat, she asked Walker to carry him into the infirmary. “Where’s Judd?” She knew that if at all possible, Walker would’ve alerted his telekinetic brother at the first sign that Tyler was in danger and requested an emergency teleport.

“Other side of the country till eight tonight. With the psychic energy he’s already used over the past couple of days, teleporting back to the den would’ve wiped him out, left him with nothing to help Tyler.”

“I don’t think even a Tk could’ve gotten Tyler to me as quickly as you did.” Lara grabbed a scanner as Walker placed Tyler on a bed inside the infirmary.

Turning to face her, he said, “I have to go. I left the other pups alone and they’re in shock.”

Lara nodded, her concentration on what was happening inside her patient’s body. “Go. I’ll tell you the instant he’s out of the woods.”

Lucy was there to assist after Walker left—with a brush of his hand over Tyler’s tight black curls and a touch of his knuckles to Lara’s cheek. When the boy’s parents arrived, Lucy made sure the distraught couple didn’t disrupt Lara.

Much as Lara understood their worry and fear, she needed to focus. The scanners confirmed what she’d suspected: The venom had provoked an overwhelming negative reaction in the pup’s body, the worst she’d ever seen. The average changeling, child or adult, would’ve perhaps felt a tingling, maybe had to deal with an itchy red bump for an hour or so, but that was it.

Tyler’s entire body was threatening to shut down.

“I’ve got you now. You’ll be okay,” she murmured, injecting him with a drug designed to counteract the worst of the effects, before using her abilities to stabilize the systems of his body. She not only soothed the ragged edges, she worked to make sure he’d never again respond in the same dangerous way to the same type of sting.

If an M-Psy or a human physician had asked her how she did what she did, she couldn’t have explained it except to say that she could sense an imbalance, one at the source of the reaction. All she had to do was nudge Tyler’s body back into the correct equilibrium.

The task took over three hours.

“I’ve eliminated the risk of another extreme reaction,” she said to his parents afterward, rubbing the cramp from the back of her neck. “It should protect him against other allergens as well, but I’m going to keep him in the infirmary, run a battery of tests to make certain.”

“As long as you want.” Hugging Lara, the couple left to sit with their sleeping son.

“Did you call Walker?” Lara asked Lucy once they were alone, having given the instruction the instant she knew Tyler would pull through.

“Yes,” the nurse replied. “He’s still with the other kids, wanted to make sure they were okay.”

Lara had expected nothing less from her mate. “Hawke?”

“He’s not in the den, but I contacted him with an update.” Lucy blocked her when Lara would’ve headed for her office. “You need to sit down, rest. There’s fresh coffee and sandwiches in the break room. I’ll handle anything Tyler and his parents need.”

Exhausted, Lara didn’t argue…but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t relax. Not when the bond remained so icily calm on Walker’s end. The remoteness of it made her want to scream, her wolf clawing at the insides of her skin. She’d looked into his eyes, glimpsed the intense, protective worry ripping him apart, and yet if she were to judge from the bond, she’d say he was unmoved by the near tragedy.

A sob burst out of her throat.

God, she was so angry with him.

• • •

WALKER had just escorted the last of his charges home and was about to head into the infirmary to look in on Tyler when he glimpsed Marlee and Toby in the White Zone. They were both involved in their own activities and didn’t see him, for which he was thankful. Leaning against the outer wall of the den, the stone covered with a fine fern that meant it was invisible to aerial surveillance, he drew in a long, deep breath and fought the urge to wrench both children into his arms.

So quickly, he could’ve lost Tyler today.

Releasing the breath he’d taken, he turned to look at the woman who walked toward him, frowning when he realized he hadn’t sensed her until she was almost to him.

“Tyler’s awake.” She joined him against the stone of the den. “He doesn’t remember what happened, which is a blessing, I think.”

Reaching down, he closed his fingers over hers, found them chilled. “How are you?” Her face was drawn, lines of strain around her mouth. “Sienna’s power didn’t replenish you?”

“I didn’t need it. This was more about unmitigated concentration.” She broke their handclasp to wave at Marlee when their daughter looked over.

“And you?” Lara asked softly once Marlee had returned to her conversation with her friends. “It must’ve been terrifying to see Tyler collapse, begin to suffocate.”

The fact was, Walker’s mind had slid into a hyper-calm phase the instant he realized what was happening, his emotions under lockdown. He’d made sure the boy’s airway wasn’t totally closed, given orders for the two oldest in his group to take care of the others, and then he’d gone to Lara. All the while, a fierce protective fury had raged beneath the calm. He would not lose any more children under his command.

Not as he’d lost so many of the child Arrows, their bodies and minds breaking under the pitiless regime of training, no matter what Walker did to alleviate their suffering. He remembered each and every face, each and every name. They haunted him. He refused to add another ghost to their number.

When he opened his mouth, however, what came out was, “I’m fine,” and it was a response fed by the decades he’d lived in the cage of Silence, his mind still on autopilot. “I’d like to see him.” He reached for her hand again, needing her on a visceral level.

Lara folded her arms.

Every muscle in his body froze, and he barely heard her say, “Tyler would enjoy a visit,” through the rush of blood in his ears.

“What’s wrong?” Only once before—during their turbulent courtship—had Lara pulled away from him. That day, he’d drowned in bleak despair; today, a hot flame of anger licked at him. Because he knew she’d only do something like that if she was hurting. And still she didn’t speak, didn’t tell him what had wounded her. “Lara.”

“You’re doing it again,” she whispered at last, the simmering anger in her tone seeded with a fine vein of pain that cut like a razor. “I know you’re angry, and yet here”—she thumped a fist against her chest—“I feel nothing. Just this mirage of peace that you throw at me to block me from seeing you.” A single tear rolled down her cheek. “Why would you do that, Walker?”

He’d gone motionless at her first words, welcomed the whack of the errant soccer ball that bounced against his leg. Jerking, he kicked it back and gripped Lara’s forearm when she would’ve turned and walked away. “You knew who I was when you accepted my courtship.” If she couldn’t take him as he was, the fractures inside him would be permanent and irreversible.

“And you knew who I was.” Wolf amber brilliant against the lush hue of her skin. “I’m not fragile. I won’t break if you let me see your pain, your fury, your worry.”

It felt as if she’d kicked him in the heart. “I’ve told you things I’ve told no one else on this earth.” He wanted to yell, but his voice came out deadly calm.

“Yes.” Tears shone wet in the amber, her voice dropping to a whisper, “It means everything that you invited me into your secrets. Everything.”

The panic struggled to recede under her passionate vow, hit a snag. “Then why?” Why was she walking away from him, ripping him to pieces?

“It’s not enough to allow me into your past if you shut me out of your present. Our present,” she said softly. “I need to walk beside you, to be your shield as you’re mine. I can’t handle being shut out, being cut off when I know you’re in pain.”

His heart thudded in his mouth, his skin going hot then cold. “If I can’t be that open?” He’d learned too young how to keep his mind contained, his emotions hidden, especially in high-stress situations.

“No, Walker.” Her voice was fierce, the curls that had escaped the clip at the back of her head catching the fading red-orange sunlight as she shook her head. “You don’t get an easy pass, don’t get to give in without even trying. I know the strength of your will better than anyone!”

Chapter 10

WALKER WASN’T CERTAIN what to expect from Lara when he came home that night after a scheduled meeting with packmates whose responsibilities in the den were either similar to or aligned with his own. Maternals, teachers, coaches, other “wranglers,” they got together regularly to ensure no pup missed out on the attention he or she needed to thrive. His head hadn’t been in the game, the need for solitude beating at him, but he’d leashed his chaotic emotions because such meetings were even more important now than they had been before the battle.

As a result of all they’d had to discuss, the meeting had run late, and the apartment was silent when he entered. Looking into Marlee’s room, he saw her sprawled out in sleep, her arms and legs thrown every which way. It made him want to smile. She’d been like that since she was a babe. Silence hadn’t managed to “fix” her before the family defected.

He tugged up her blanket, kissed a soft, sleep-warm cheek, then gave a light knock on Toby’s door, entering only when Toby called out. The boy was now of an age where he needed his privacy, something Walker had to make a conscious effort to remember—to him, Toby would always be his sister’s baby boy, given to him in trust.

“Hi.” His nephew put down the spy novel he’d been reading, the digital cover displayed on his reader a garish orange with black silhouettes.

Walker took a seat on the edge of the bed. “Are you sure you’re old enough to be reading that?”

Toby’s response was a grin.

They talked for a few minutes, with Toby telling him of being put in charge of a junior soccer team. “Pups think rules are suggestions.” He rolled his eyes, but Walker could tell he was pleased by the responsibility.

Ruffling the boy’s hair, Walker rose. “You’ll do well.” The words said so much less than what he felt, his pride in Toby a huge thing.

A steady look. “I know, I just copy the things I see you doing. I want to be like you.”

Heart twisting, he bent down to hug that gangly body, felt Toby’s arms lock around him. And he knew he had much to learn from this boy who was his blood. Toby’s openness of heart was a courage not many possessed. “Don’t stay up too late,” was all he said when he drew back, but Toby smiled the smile of a child who had no doubts about his place in his family’s heart.

“Goodnight, Uncle Walker.”

“Goodnight, Toby.”

Lara was also propped up in bed reading when he entered their bedroom.

He’d never been a man who hesitated, but he did so tonight, unsure how to read her silence. Lara always talked to him, even when she was angry. Walking to the shower without breaking that silence, he shrugged off his clothing and stepped under the heated spray. Once there, he focused not on the way she’d left him this afternoon, striding off without a backward look, but on how she felt inside him, her love unshaken.

Shuddering, he pressed his palms to the tile, head bent under the spray.

His grip on the simple, inexorable truth of her love a bloodless one, he wiped himself off, and hitching the towel around his hips, he walked back into the bedroom. Lara had put down her reader, turned off the light on her side, and lay on her back with one arm above her head…and he saw what he hadn’t earlier.

She was wearing the nightgown he liked best.

Everything came to vibrant life inside him as he realized she had spoken to him. He simply hadn’t listened well enough. Not a mistake he’d make again.

Throwing the towel over a chair, he slid in under the sheet, switched off his own light, and reached for her. She came, warm and soft, and his. He shifted to enclose her with his body, his forearms on either side of her head. “Did we,” he whispered, “just have our first fight as a mated couple?”

Lara felt every ounce of tension leach out of her at that quiet question. When he’d gone into the shower without saying a word, she’d almost burst into tears. Now, she nuzzled at his throat, taking the clean, male scent of him inside, her wolf’s fur rubbing up against her skin. “Yes. This is the making-up part.”

He shifted his weight to settle more intimately between her legs. “In that case, I’m already looking forward to our next fight.”

He was playing with her, she realized, this man who hadn’t believed he had the capacity for such lightness of heart. Throat thick with emotion, she curved one leg over his hip, stroking her hands across the slightly damp skin of his shoulders—he never dried them properly and she usually had to finish the task.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you then took off,” she said, feeling terrible about how she’d avoided his touch. It had been an unconscious effort to protect herself from pain, but the instant she’d cooled down enough to think, she’d realized she’d hurt him, hurt her mate. It had killed her. “I didn’t mean to deny you skin privileges.”

He nuzzled back at her, kissing the side of her temple. “I know. It’s okay.” His jaw, rough with stubble, rasped over her hair. “Will you forgive me, too?”

Her eyes burned at the unvarnished request. “Always.”

Lips closing over her own, his kiss a reclaiming, the heat and weight of his body a tactile caress. She gave herself up to it, up to him, loved him as he loved her, their limbs tangled so completely at the end that she didn’t know where she began and Walker ended. And then the pleasure crashed over them, their bodies locked together as they fell.

• • •

LARA’S cheek was against her mate’s chest when she rose out of the languid haze of desire, his arm around her and her leg thrown over his body, both of them slick with sweat, hearts thudding. “You’ll have to shower again.”

It took him so long to answer, she was half-asleep when his voice cut through the lingering scent of the pleasure they’d found in one another.

“The shielding, it’s instinctive at this point.” A quiet confession. “I had to learn how to create and maintain it as a young male, when I realized my Silence was problematic.”

Because, she understood, fully awake, he’d loved his siblings—and later the children—enough to fight for them, enough that he’d gotten through to an Arrow and a young girl trained by a Councilor. “You had to hide even the faintest trace of an emotional response.” It was a truth she’d realized the instant she’d broken the stranglehold of her own overwhelming response.

A nod she saw in the dark, her wolf’s night-vision acute. “After defection, I knew I had to give the children, Sienna included, the emotional support they needed to thrive, but the fact is, while I can function with that shield lowered during the normal course of events, I’m not always aware of it snapping up in a high-stress situation.”

“I know—I realized.” Had remembered that her strong, quiet, beautiful mate had scars that didn’t show on the outside, that he made certain didn’t show, in order to provide a stable home for the children. “The way I reacted, struck out…I panicked,” she admitted, shifting to look down into his face. “It was the first time you’d gone so remote, to the point where I could barely sense you, and the shock made my wolf so afraid.”

“I’m sorry.” He tugged her down, kissed the corner of her mouth.

Sensing his distress at causing her pain, she petted his chest. “You didn’t know. I understand the shield now, so I won’t panic.” She’d worry, but she’d hold it together, hold him when he came to her. Because he would always reach for her. As he had today. “Just don’t ever do it on purpose, okay?” She brushed long strands of dark blond off his forehead. “I promise I won’t ever again pull away like I did today.”

Walker’s silence was deep, his eyes holding her own until she felt lost in the translucent green. “Why are you so patient with me?” he asked at last, his tone raw. “It must frustrate you that I’m so unlike changeling males.” Men who wore their emotions on their face and made no bones about their adoration of the women who were their own.

Lara laughed, her delight infectious. “I love you because of who you are, not in spite of it, you wonderful man.” A passionate kiss that marked him as hers, made him want to stretch in pleasure like one of the felines.

“I like everything about you”—she continued kiss by kiss—“your integrity, your ability to love so deep and true, your courage, even the fact that you have a limit on how many words per day you intend to speak—” Giggles erupted as he flipped them, reversing their positions.

“Teasing me again?”

“Maybe.”

Tasting her smile, he rubbed his stubbled jaw against her cheek in punishment. She cried foul, tried to push him away, even as her legs tightened around him…the same instant a knock came on the bedroom door.

Lara went quiet, listening with sharp wolf ears.

Reaching out with his telepathic senses, he found his daughter outside.

“A nightmare?” Lara asked, already out of bed and pulling on her robe.

“No, but something similar.” Having rolled off on the other side, he pulled on the pajama bottoms he’d earlier ignored.

They reached the door at the same time. Pulling it open, he picked Marlee up in his arms. Though his daughter always protested she was too big now, Marlee didn’t do so tonight.

Lara made soothing sounds. “What’s the matter, baby?” she asked as they all took a seat on the bed.

Marlee, who never cried, grabbed hold of Lara’s hand as if to a lifeline, sobbing too hard to speak.

“We’re here, sweetheart.” Lara leaned in to brush Marlee’s sleep-tangled hair out of her eyes. “Tell us what’s wrong.” Her gaze met his, the worry in the tawny depths unhidden.

Wrapping one arm around his mate, he brought her close as he tried to speak to their daughter on the telepathic plane. Marlee?

I’m so sc-scared, was all he got out before tears took over again.

Walker wasn’t surprised when a wild-haired Toby appeared in the doorway. The boy always woke when Marlee was in distress. “I went to get her some milk when I saw you had her,” he said, holding up the warmed-up glass.

Walker nodded at him to come in. Putting the milk on the bedside table, Toby took a seat beside Lara and leaned over to tug on Marlee’s hair. “Don’t cry, Marlee-Barley, you’ll turn into a turnip.”

Marlee smiled through her tears at that ridiculous statement and began to sniff, the sobs abating in slow gasps. She remained locked around Walker, however, and her grip on Lara’s hand was white knuckled. “What happened?” Walker asked as Lara brought Toby into their embrace with her free arm.

“I had bad thoughts,” was the unadorned answer. “I woke up and I couldn’t sleep and I started having bad thoughts and they wouldn’t stop.” Anguish in every word as she described what appeared to have been a severe anxiety attack. “I couldn’t make them stop.”

“Will you tell us about those thoughts?” Lara asked softly.

“I thought what if the Council came and took us away again? We couldn’t be a family anymore.”

His eyes met Lara’s—it didn’t take a PsyMed specialist to unravel the roots of his daughter’s fear. Deep within, Marlee was scared of her happiness. Walker understood. He still woke without warning some nights, certain his new life was a dream, that he slept in a sterile cot rather than beside Lara’s warmth, his family safe from harm.

“That’s not going to happen,” he said firmly as Lara raised her free arm from around Toby long enough to wipe away the remnants of Marlee’s tears and smooth back her hair. “We’re part of SnowDancer now, and our pack stands with us.” No one would ever hurt any child in SnowDancer and get away with it.

“Yeah,” Toby said, leaning into Lara’s embrace once more, “plus Uncle Walker and Uncle Judd and Sienna and Hawke are way too scary for the Council.”

Walker’s eyes narrowed when a true Marlee smile peeked out, the storm passing far quicker than he’d expected. What are you doing, Toby? He knew even a slight empath like Toby could draw away some negative emotion.

I just helped her a little. Took the really bad fear away so she could think.

How are you? Experiencing the darkness he’d taken from another was the price an empath paid for his gift.

Fine. I’m conscious of the possible impact of Marlee’s fear, so the panic can’t grab me like it did her.

Making a note to share the details of the telepathic conversation with Lara later, Walker watched his mate pick up the milk Toby had brought. “Marlee? Why don’t you have this, sweetheart.”

Releasing Lara’s hand at last, their daughter scrambled off his lap. “I’m too big,” she said, a flush of red on her cheekbones.

But she accepted Lara’s cuddle and kiss despite her embarrassment, then leaned her back against Lara’s legs while she drank the milk. “I acted like a baby,” she said after downing half the glass.

Toby poked her in the side. “You are the baby of the family, Marlee-Barley.”

“Am not.” A glare directed at her cousin, she finished the milk and put the glass back on the bedside table. “And you’re babier than Sienna.”

“Babier isn’t even a word.” Toby grabbed her body in his arms when she whirled toward him, both of them laughing as Toby pretended to defend himself from Marlee’s “claws.”

Lara smiled and leaned her back against Walker. Wrapping his arms around her, he propped his chin on the springy silk of her curls and watched the children, his lips kicking up at their innocent joy. Then Lara laughed as Marlee let out a perfect imitation of a wolfish growl, sending Toby into a fit of uncontrollable laughter that made his nephew easy prey, and his smile turned into a grin.

My family. My mate.

A fox-bright gaze met his as Lara twisted around to look at him, almost as if she’d heard his thoughts. “It’s nice, isn’t it?” A smiling kiss pressed to his jaw. “Our own little pack.”

“Yes.”

Epilogue

LARA COULDN’T BELIEVE it was already the night of their mating ceremony. Held in the arms of her mate as they swayed to the music from the live jazz band, she looked around the Pack Circle, the dance area in the center surrounded by wooden picnic tables. Those tables held an array of delicacies that had the children and adults both in raptures—her mother, Lara thought with a smile, had no doubt been planning the menu since the day Lara mated Walker.

Giant painted butterflies decorated several trees; Marlee’s contribution to the plan. The wooden creatures had been cut out and glued together by Toby and his friends before being painted by Marlee, Sienna, Evie, Brenna, and a number of the younger members of the pack, including a rambunctious but wildly talented Ben.

“Look at what my baby did,” Ava had said with delight earlier that day, pointing to a butterfly painted with a joyful enthusiasm that made the creature seem alive. “The Stone artistic talent clearly runs true.”

Now, that butterfly and the others shimmered in the fairy lights that lit up the early evening darkness, the sound of their packmates voices and the children’s laughter intertwining with the music to create a harmony unique to this moment.

“Happy?” Walker’s breath brushed her temple, the masculine heat of him making her wolf rub up against her skin, as it had against his hand when she’d shifted for their early morning run.

“So happy.”

The pack’s pleasure in their match had been clear since the day word got out about Walker’s courtship, but Lara hadn’t realized the full extent of it until tonight. Kisses on the cheek, hugs, whispered congratulations accompanied by thoughtful gifts, they kept coming. Walker had found himself shaking hands with people throughout the night, been hugged by countless children.

“Are you having fun?” she asked, aware he preferred to stay out of the limelight.

“I get to celebrate you.” A slow curve of his lips. “It’s a perfect night.”

“Walker.”

Bending his head and sliding one hand around her nape, he kissed her slow and with exquisite patience…so long and deep that howls went up around them. But her mate didn’t release her until he was good and ready. Flustered and pleasured, her hands fisted on the fine cotton of his white shirt, she drew in a trembling breath. “Just when I thought I could predict what you’d do next…”

Walker ran his thumb across her lip, his other hand splayed on her lower back to hold her close. “I love you more than I’ll ever be able to say, ever be able to describe. You’re my starlight on a dark night.”

Eyes burning at the stark beauty and romance of his declaration, she whispered, “You just did.”

He went motionless. “Lara, did you hear that?”

“Yes, of course,” she said, sniffing away the happy tears. “It’s not that noisy.”

Walker’s lips curved, and then he was grinning in a way he hardly ever did outside the privacy of their home. Can you hear this, too?

“Yes, I—” Her eyes went wide as she realized she hadn’t seen his mouth shape the words. “This is impossible.” She knew of two changeling/Psy couples who had a level of true telepathic communication between them, but there were unusual circumstances in both cases. “I don’t have any Psy genes.”

Walker cupped her face, bending his knees so they were eye to eye. “Yes, but you have an ability that may as well be a Psy one. It makes rational sense that there is a connection, even if changeling healing is no longer recognized as a true psychic gift.”

Lara tried to think, lost the thread, her mind a place of delirious chaos. “Let’s talk about the logic of it later.” Bubbling with excitement, she was the one who kissed him this time, nipping at his lower lip, suckling the sensual hurt, her wolf all but bursting out of her skin. “Can you hear me, if I think hard?”

Walker cocked his head, frowned. “No. But it may develop in time.”

Knowing that the telepathy only went one way for now didn’t diminish her excitement in the least, not when she’d just been given the greatest of gifts, the ability to hear the beautiful things her Walker thought about her. “Talk to me,” she whispered, snuggling close. “I like hearing you inside my mind.”

His cheeks creased. Did I tell you how very, very much I like your dress?

“No.” She linked her hands around his neck, his own on the waist of her flirty red halter-neck dress. “And I didn’t tell you how sexy you look in this suit.” The steel gray was perfect on him. “It makes me want to grip this tie and haul you off to our bedroom.”

You won’t hear a protest from me.

Reaching down to fiddle with one of the buttons on his shirt as they continued to sway to the music, she said, “Your starlight?” her voice soft with wonder.

My everything.