Heat bloomed low in her body, and she had to focus to catch Sascha’s next words.
“I had Lucas hide it in the aerie before the sentinels got here for a meeting tonight. Otherwise”—a warm laugh—“you’d have been lucky to scrape up a crumb. Sit. I’ll get the tea.”
Sienna nudged Sascha down instead. “I’ll do it—I know where everything is.” Bringing the pot to the table, she put it aside to steep while Sascha cut the slice.
“So,” the empath said, putting the rich chocolaty treat on her plate, “Hawke wants to chase you.”
Sienna froze. “Lucas heard that from all the way over here?”
“Uh-huh. And Hawke knew he would.”
It took Sienna several seconds to process the implications of that statement. “He told me flat out that there couldn’t be anything between us.” Yet he’d just come perilously close to staking another claim.
“Hmm.”
“What?” It was a relief to be able to talk this over with Sascha. While Indigo had become her friend and guide in many ways, Hawke was the one subject Sienna hesitated to discuss with her, not wanting to put the lieutenant in an awkward position.
“I heard what happened at Wild.”
“I could still kick him for that.” Pouring the tea, she pushed one of the quirky tulip-shaped cups toward Sascha. “He treated me as if I was ten years old.” Except for when he’d tapped her butt, kept his hand there. Her thighs clenched at the memory.
“There is that, isn’t there?” Sascha’s tone was gentle. “The age issue.”
“Nothing I can do about that. I’m always going to be younger.” Afraid she’d break the teacup with the force of her grip, she put it down. “But,” she added, voice vibrating with feeling, “I’ve not only survived and gained control of my abilities, I’ve done so outside the PsyNet. Hardly the act of a child.” She’d earned the right to live her life as she pleased. “I’m not about to let His Wolf Highness disregard all that because it makes it easier for him to not recognize—”
Sienna bit off her words, but Sascha didn’t need them. From the moment she’d seen the young X with Hawke, she’d felt it, that tug between them. It had had no name at the start, no definition. Even now, it remained a raw, nameless thing, but it was powerful. Powerful enough to have Hawke overriding his own decisions about keeping Sienna at a distance, powerful enough to have dragged him out of the shadows.
The first time Sascha had touched Hawke with her empathic senses, she’d felt such blood rage she’d been staggered by it. This man, she’d thought, would never love, not so long as that anger was a red haze across his vision. But then she’d seen him with Sienna. Month by month, year by year, the strange alchemy of their adversarial relationship had removed the poison of that anger until what remained was a gleaming, honed blade, still lethal, but far healthier.
However, Sascha had sensed something else that night when Hawke asked her to prove her claim to the E-designation. It was a truth she’d never say aloud, an empathic secret she’d never share, but there was a deep loneliness within the wolf alpha, a part of himself he kept separate even from his beloved pack. If Sienna could reach that wild, broken heart . . .
“An alpha,” Sascha began, wanting to give the other cardinal all the help she could, “needs his woman to come to him stripped bare of all pretense. No barriers. No emotional shields. I am the one person Lucas knows is his without question, the one person who will stand by him no matter what, who’ll tell him the truth even if it’s harsh.”
Sienna, to her credit, didn’t shy from the frank discussion. Instead, those starlit eyes turned midnight in intense concentration. “What about the sentinels?”
“That, too, is a rare kind of trust, but . . .” The bond was near impossible to explain to someone else, but Sienna needed to understand, so Sascha found the words. “With me, he’s never, ever my alpha. He’s simply Lucas, the man who holds my heart.”
“Isn’t that . . . Doesn’t that depth of vulnerability put you in a weaker position, given an alpha’s natural dominance?”
“No, because he gives the same back.” Loved her with all the untamed power and fierce devotion of the panther’s heart. “He gives more.”
“I don’t know if I can have that kind of a relationship with Hawke,” Sienna murmured, “even if I manage to make him listen, make him see.” Not discouragement, more a contemplative statement. “He’s not like Lucas.”
Sascha waited.
“I understand Lucas could and would kill me with a single blow if he considered me a threat to you or the rest of the pack,” Sienna said, “but he smiles and laughs and plays.”
“Hawke’s done more than his share of teasing.” Sascha couldn’t count the number of times the wolf had flirted with her in order to annoy Lucas.