“Means they won’t be hobbled by losing the camp.”
“No, but it will have an impact, and more important, there’s a strong chance it’ll spur them to strike. If we can get them to do that before they’re ready, it’ll be to our advantage.” He tracked Tai and Sienna as they joined forces to get over a stubborn obstacle. “Push the switch when you think it the best time, just give us enough warning that we can hunker down for an assault.”
Judd nodded at the training run. “You’ve factored Sienna into the equation?”
Claws raked along the inside of his skin, drawing blood. “I don’t want her giving herself away unless it’s necessary.”
“But you’re not disregarding her?”
“I’m not an idiot.”
Judd raised a shoulder in a shrug. “It happens with predatory changeling males—you do tend to be protective.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“Why do you think I fit in so well?”
Hawke called Sienna into his office forty minutes later, after she’d had a chance to clean up. “Here,” he said, tapping a spot on the map and restraining the urge to snarl at the memory of the words she’d flung at him by the pool. “If there is an attack, you stand here, and you do not engage unless I give the order.”
A crisp nod, no defiance. “You want to keep me as a surprise gambit as long as possible. I understand.” Her words were calm, practical—as if they’d never had that fight.
His wolf peeled its lips back over predator-sharp teeth. “Pretending to be Silent, baby? Too late for that.”
Flame, dangerous and hypnotic, crawled over the black of her eyes. “Would you prefer I act the part of a hysterical female so you can write me off?”
He gripped the edge of his desk. “Careful.”
“Why?” A look that might as well have come from a pissed-off female wolf. “I’m not the one who seems unable to separate work and pleasure.”
“Feeling bratty tonight, are you?” It satisfied some deep part of him that he’d gotten her riled up so fast—he would never allow or accept distance from his woman.
“Don’t.” An unexpectedly serious response. “Don’t lessen my opinions by calling me a brat. And you know, don’t call me baby either.”
“If you think you can ‘handle’ me, Sienna,” he said as the animal prowled to the surface of his mind, “you’re looking at the wrong wolf.”
“Can we get back to work?” Cool words that ruffled his fur the wrong way.
SIENNA didn’t know how it happened. One minute, she was fighting off the blade of dissonance as she stared at the large, territorial map on Hawke’s desk, with him on the other side, and the next he had a grip on her waist and was pulling her onto the solid bulk of the desk with a speed and strength that left her breathless. She found herself kneeling on the dark wood, her hands on his shoulders what felt like a millisecond later.
“You can’t just—” But his hand was already on the back of her head, and she was being kissed until she couldn’t breathe. Gasping in air when he drew back for the barest instant, she tried to prepare herself for the next kiss . . . but of course, there was way no way to prepare for Hawke.
He’d touched her with exquisite tenderness when he’d brought her to pleasure this morning, but at this instant, he was pure demanding wolf, nipping at her lower lip, sucking at her upper one, stroking his tongue inside her mouth until she knew she’d carry the taste of him into her very dreams. As for his hands, one fisted in her hair, the other gripping her hip—proprietary didn’t even come close.
The temptation to submit was crushing. She’d wanted him for so long, and now that he’d given her the right to touch him, to hold him, she had to fight with her own hunger not to grab at the crumbs he offered. Maybe he was right, maybe they would never mate—but she knew, she knew, that this man with his beautiful wild heart was capable of giving far more than he was willing to risk.
Wrenching away her head, she twisted out of his hold using a trick Indigo had taught her and ended up on her feet on the other side of the desk. “Hawke, there’s—” !! The wordless warning from the primal part of her brain slammed through her a fraction too late—he was already launching himself over the desk and toward her.
Instinct punched to the surface, and she found she’d formed a wall of cold fire between them. He skidded to a halt on the other side, then angled his head in a move that was distinctly not human, touched his finger to the fire. A hissing breath, those wolf-pale eyes meeting hers through the rippling sheet of crimson flame licked with yellow. “You burned me.”
“Well,” she said, shoving tangled strands of hair off her face as her heart thudded double-time, “you didn’t seem to be willing to listen to reason.”