Kiss of Snow

Judd followed him down into the crypt, keeping enough of a distance between them that he was never in any danger of seeing the Ghost’s face.

“Why do you do that?” the Ghost asked. “You know who I am.” Perhaps the only one who did. Even Father Xavier Perez, the third part of their curious triumvirate, had never made the connection.

“If I am ever taken,” Judd said, his words those of a man who knew danger could come as a silent shadow in the dark, “my mind is set with triggers that’ll erase your name from my memory banks at a single mental command. Images are more difficult to remove.”

So he’d made sure he didn’t have any images to erase. “You could’ve ruled.” For all of Judd’s power, the Ghost had never before considered that possibility.

“It would have killed what remained of my soul.”

The Ghost couldn’t recall ever having had a soul, didn’t know if he even understood what it was. “There,” he said, pointing to a shadowy corner of the old and musty crypt.

Judd went motionless as his telepathic senses registered an unknown mind. “Who?” And what had the Ghost done?

The rebel leaned against the crumbling brick wall. “I don’t think you’ll believe me if I tell you.”

Unable to detect any movement from the corner, Judd retrieved a slender penlight from his pocket and walked over to find a dust-coated glass box sitting neatly in the corner. It was about six feet long, a couple of feet deep if that, had fixtures that denoted a number of missing cables. Noticing someone had wiped away the sticky coating of dust near the top, creating a tiny window of clarity, he angled the cutting brightness of the light toward it.

A face looked out at him from within.

It was that of a small, fine-boned woman of mixed ethnicity. Her skin was a pallid brown, her eyes tilted up at the corners even in sleep, her skull smooth. Her hair had been shaved off, he realized, though there was no evidence of any electrodes ever having been attached to her skull. “Who?” he asked the Ghost once more.

“There is no second manuscript,” the Ghost said, walking to stand beside him, “but you have no need of it. I’ve brought you Alice Eldridge.”





HAWKE had made Sienna promise to stay in place when he left to get supplies. She’d broken that promise. But since he’d found her again before he got too grumpy and hungry, he didn’t snarl as he said, “Put up the tent,” and rolled the compact package to where she lay flat on her back, staring at the soft gray of the evening sky. “It’s your punishment.”

Clearly exhausted, she glared at him. “Do you never run out of energy?”

He pushed up the sleeves of his sweatshirt. “I’m alpha. Right now, I’m a hungry alpha who wants to take a bite out of you for making me run the extra miles. Put up the tent.”

She sat up but didn’t touch the tent. “Go bite yourself.”

So, she was feeling pissy. That was fine with him. He liked it much better than the defeated pain he sensed had come close to breaking her earlier today. “Actually, I’d prefer to use my teeth on softer flesh.” He was reaching out to snag her when flames erupted along her back, in her hair. “Sienna!”

She slapped up her hands. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Don’t touch.”

It was sheer hell to obey the order. He hauled her into his arms the instant the lick of red and yellow disappeared. “How bad?” he asked, seeing the pain at the corners of her eyes, knowing of the second layer of dissonance now.

“Bad. But not the dissonance. As soon as the power builds to a certain level, the dissonance either disengages or somehow short-circuits.” Her throat moved as she swallowed. “And it’s building faster and faster—I earthed after you left.”

He felt a lingering sense of ice—cold enough to burn—against his palm as he ran it over the silk of her hair. “Sienna, can the X-fire burn you?” His wolf wasn’t pacing anymore, its focus, the same focus that had helped a fifteen-year-old boy hold together a shattered pack, acute.

“That’s how Xs usually die, and if it reaches that point, then there’s no predicting how far the resulting explosion will spread.” Her smile was tight, painful. “It’s why we’re considered the most perfect weapon on the planet. An X can ‘scorch the earth,’ eradicating all that came before, but the damage to the environment is minimal. Much like after a real fire, the earth bounces back stronger and healthier—and the aggressors have a clean slate on which to build their own empire.”

He saw through the rational speech. “What aren’t you saying?”

“Ming had a theory—that if I could somehow purge my power on a level I can’t achieve with the earthing, I could initiate a restricted burst from the nascent buildup that would consume only me.” Her eyes met his. “If the flames ever turn blue . . . it means he was right. Promise me that you won’t come near me if that happens.”

“Come on,” he said instead of giving her a promise he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep. “Change of location.”