Kiss of Snow

A sound of sheer rage escaped her mouth, and then she was punching her fist over and over against his chest. He let her expel the bitter anger, held her when she lay breathless against him. “I almost wish we’d never found her,” she said, her chest rising up and down as she tried to gasp in air. “I told myself not to hope, but I did.” A tiny secret part of her had been convinced the scientist would wake with the answers just in time to save her.

Other men might’ve given her pretty words of comfort, lies that meant nothing, but Hawke, he spoke to her martial mind, talking through the battle. “We weren’t prepared for that sonic weapon.” His tone told her that wouldn’t happen again. “But because of you, we held the mountains.”

“The city?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

“Leopards held it. A bit of structural damage but limited injuries thanks to the Rats, Judd, and Anthony’s and Nikita’s people. The Pure Psy operatives who survived turned tail and ran.” He stroked his hand down her hair, long and slow and again. “I can feel the cold fire along our bond.”

“Yes.” The battle had only wiped her out for a time. It had done nothing to change the fundamental truth of the power amplification. “It’s at fifty percent.” And it was frigid, until it froze her bones. “It feels stronger.” Darker. More cruel. Fear curled around her throat, tight as a noose. “Can we get farther away from the den?”

Hawke didn’t question her, simply said, “I know a good spot.”

They’d just stepped out of the tent when the power inside of her surged in a violent rage. Her knees locked, then gave out. She would’ve crumpled to the grass if Hawke hadn’t clamped his hands on her upper arms as the X-fire threatened to shove out of her very skin.

“No.” Even this deep into the mountains, the den was too close. Her friends, her family, her pack was too close. “Hawke, I can’t hold it.” Panic beat in her throat. “If I breach, it’ll consume everyone in the vicinity.” Her power had grown even more vast, even more voracious, would move out for miles in every direction.

Stone, steel, plascrete, nothing would stop its ravenous pulse.

Then she saw the scorching yellow and blazing crimson begin to divide and separate into pristine rivers inside her mind, in preparation for a final catastrophic merge. “I’m about to hit synergy!” Turning her into a human bomb of incalculable destructive power, one that would obliterate any trace of two packs called SnowDancer and DarkRiver, of a city called San Francisco, of a mountain range called the Sierra Nevada . . . and keep going.

If you ever go supernova, Ming’s arctic voice, the continent on which you stand might cease to exist.

Ming had been wrong, she realized in that moment when her power was so pure, so clear. There was no might about it.

A warm male hand gripping her own, ripping her from the horrifying understanding of just what she was. “The lake,” her wolf said.

She ran beside him. “It might blunt the impact.” Part of her knew it wouldn’t be enough, that even the deepest part of the lake couldn’t contain the tidal wave of her power, but she had to believe. Then she felt an unexpected psychic burn inside of her, saw that the cold fire was eating away at her network shields, would soon pour out into the SnowDancer web in a violent storm. It had never before threatened to penetrate a psychic network—but she’d never been this close to synergy.

Fear twisted knives of ice through her heart as they hit the water. “Hawke! The X-fire is spreading on the psychic plane. I can’t cut my mental bonds, but you can—”

Wolf-blue slammed into her eyes. “Don’t you dare ask me to hurt you. Don’t you fucking dare.”

Pain ripped her in two, the world already tinged crimson and gold, and she realized her eyes were drowning in X-fire. A single tear trailed down her cheek as the frigid water reached her thighs. “I’ll burn out your mind.”

He continued to swim farther into the lake, pulling her along. “The others?”

The water hit her breasts, soaked into her chest, into her bones. “The web”—she kicked her legs in an attempt to help him—“will collapse without you.” He was the center, the key. Had her family been part of it longer, they could’ve built failsafe bonds, but as it was, the web was a wholly changeling construct, created by ties of blood . . . Hawke’s blood. “The changeling members won’t suffer any ill-effects.

“Walker and Judd”—she gasped past the cold that consumed her—“will be able to drag the children into a smaller LaurenNet.” She ’pathed Judd a warning. Her sweet Toby, and smart, funny Marlee remained unconscious, a small blessing.

“When you die—” The words wouldn’t come, and it had nothing to do with the fact that her body was in the coldest, deepest part of the lake. “When you die,” she forced herself to say, “the psychic shock will tear me from the web, regardless of the links to my family.” He’d become her anchor in every way and losing him would destroy her, ending her life and the threat of synergy. “We should dive just in case, but once separated from the web, I won’t be a danger anymore.”

Her wolf cupped her face, nothing but a wild devotion in his touch, in his voice. “Then what’s there to be scared about?”