Her best friend laughed. “You know you’d bail me out. See you in ten!”
Hanging up, Sienna quickly put in her special contacts, hiding the night-sky gaze that betrayed her identity, then pulled her hair back into a tight ponytail. She’d spoken to Indigo and her own family about her hair, and everyone had agreed the unusual color was no longer an issue, it had changed so much since she’d joined the den. Added to the fact that her friends had taken to calling her “Sin,” plus the contacts, it turned her into someone Ming LeBon wouldn’t even consider worthy of his attention.
That done, she pulled out the cosmetics case Judd’s mate, Brenna, had given her, making up her eyes in a “smoky” way she’d learned from Indigo. Nicki had liked the effect so much, she’d asked Sienna to teach her. That had felt good—being able to share such an innocent thing with a friend. It had made her feel young, not the old woman she’d been since the day she first understood why Ming LeBon wanted her by his side, his own personal monster on a psychic leash.
“Stop,” she ordered the brown-eyed woman in the mirror. “Not tonight. Be young and carefree tonight. Dance, drink, and laugh.” With that, she slicked on poppy red lip color, grabbed a small purse, and stepped out.
“Oh, Jesus Christ, thank you God.”
Startled by the masculine exclamation, she looked up to find herself facing Riordan, a novice soldier a year older than her. “Are you coming out with us?” she asked, closing her door.
“If I wasn’t, I damn well would be now.” He offered her his arm, bare below the short sleeves of a stone gray shirt that looked good on his muscular frame. “Paint yourself to my side, Sin. Real close. I think I feel a chill coming on.”
Shaking her head, she began to walk down the hall, her heels clicking on the floor. A few seconds later, she realized he was trailing behind her. “What’s the holdup?” Glancing back, she caught him red-handed. “Are you staring at my butt?”
Riordan didn’t bother to pretend innocence, his deep brown eyes full of wicked appreciation. “Hey, it’s a nice butt. And those jeans, oh, mama.”
It was exactly the confidence boost she needed. If Hawke refused to acknowledge the pulse of attraction between them—though she’d waited years to grow old enough for him, years where she’d blocked her ears to the gossip about who he was with and when—then she wasn’t going to take it lying down. “Pick your tongue up off the floor, and let’s go. Evie, Tai, and Cadence are probably already in the garage.”
She was proven right. But they weren’t the only ones. Maria was there, too, along with her boyfriend, Lake.
“Hey,” the other woman said, a tentative smile on her face. “I wanted to say sorry. It sucks that you got a worse punishment than me.”
Sienna shrugged. “My own fault.” It would be the last time she let her near-painful response to Hawke get in the way of how she lived her life. “No hard feelings.”
“Could we just . . .” Maria angled her head.
Nodding, Sienna stepped a little distance away from the others so she and Maria could talk in private. “I understand,” she said once they were out of hearing range. “We fought because your wolf wanted to establish dominance.”
“Yeah, well, that didn’t go so great.” A self-deprecating grin. “But what I said about you being cold-blooded—”
“It’s fine.” On edge and angry with herself for being unable to forget Hawke, she’d been feeling raw, vulnerable, had struck out at Maria’s jibe without stopping to consider the fact that the very state of her emotions made the accusation patently untrue.
“No.” Maria put a hand on her arm. “It’s not fine and we both know it’s not true. I was talking any bullshit I could to goad you into a fight. My only excuse is that wolves my age tend to be dickheads.”
Sienna’s lips twitched. “Difficult since you don’t possess that particular body part, either on your head or elsewhere.”
Maria snorted. “I dunno—I did a pretty good job of acting it.” Tucking her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, she rocked back on her heels. “I was meant to be your partner and I fucked with you.” No smile now, dark eyes solemn. “It’ll never happen again. I want you to know I’d have you at my back anytime.”
“Same,” Sienna said without hesitation. In the PsyNet, she’d have looked for the betrayal hidden behind the contrition, but she’d been in SnowDancer long enough to see Maria’s words for what they were—a declaration of both loyalty and friendship. “And it wasn’t all you, you know. I was looking for a fight.” Maria had just provided a handy excuse.
“You sure have a mean kick,” the other soldier said as they headed back.
“Judd makes me train with him.”
“I don’t know whether to be jealous or offer commiseration.”