Kiss of Snow

He looked up. “Indigo.”


“I’m serious. It also gives him the right to make life-or-death decisions on your behalf should events warrant it.”

“Since when is that necessary in a pack?” Pack was one. Pack was family.

“Since Judd pointed out that if you get incapacitated,” Yuki said with a frown, “it’d make things a lot less complicated if we had the legal papers. Otherwise, anyone who wanted to undermine the pack could use the opportunity to throw roadblocks in our path. I’m annoyed I didn’t think of it myself.”

Hawke had to agree it made sense. Especially since . . . Oh. “It’s because I have no next of kin.” No parents. No siblings. No mate.

Yuki shot him a sharp glance, an abrupt reminder that Elias’s loyal mate and Sakura’s loving mother was also a pit-bull for her biggest and most demanding client—the SnowDancer pack. “I’d rather we never had to use these papers, so don’t get hurt.” Putting the clipboard and its contents back into her bag, she looked at her watch, her glossy black hair swinging to brush her jaw. “Have to run, got a meeting in Sacramento.” The last words were called out over her shoulder as she left.

“I second everything Yuki said.” Indigo leaned forward as if to embrace him. When he stepped back without meaning to, she narrowed her eyes. “You’re in a shitload of trouble if you don’t trust yourself to touch a packmate in whom you have no sexual interest whatsoever.”

“I told you I’d take care of it.”

Realization had her lips flattening into a thin line. “Damn it, Hawke.” Arms folded, she shook her head. “I know what you’re planning, that you think you’re protecting her—but you do this and Sienna will never forgive you. You sure you want to end any chance the two of you might have?”

He caught her gaze, allowing the wolf’s dominance out to play. She held it longer than anyone else aside from Riley could have.

“Damn it.” Blinking as she looked away, she sighed. “You’re a stubborn bastard, you know that?”

“I am who I am.” And what he was, was a man who needed to satiate his sexual hunger before his wolf took the decision out of his hands. Because that wolf would track only one scent.





RECOVERED FROM COMPUTER 2(A) TAGS: PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE, FATHER, ACTION NOT REQUIRED



FROM: Alice <[email protected]>

TO: Dad <[email protected]>

DATE: March 16th, 1971 at 10:13pm

SUBJECT: re: Your Mother





Dear Dad,





Tell Mom the reason I never e-mail her is because she gets the phone calls. I must be fair or one of you will accuse me of favoritism.

Before I forget—thank you both for the gift. The sculpture is extraordinary and will look perfect in my study. You and Mom know me too well.

You were asking about my new project. I’ve barely begun and while my Psy colleagues have agreed to publicize my call for information on the PsyNet, I’ve already hit the first hurdle—the sheer rarity of X-Psy. I only have two signed up to participate so far, but I’m not giving up. That isn’t the Eldridge way.

Say hello to the pharaohs for me.





Love,

Alice





Chapter 7


“I KNOW HE’D chew me up and spit me out, but God, it’s all I can do not to strip myself naked and beg for him to bite me any way and anywhere he wants.”

Overhearing that heartfelt feminine sentiment, Sienna dropped her fourth dish of the day. The chief cook, Aisha, raised a hand and pointed, banishing her to the sinks. She went without argument—scrubbing the hated pots was all she’d been good for since the moment she’d learned of Hawke’s return, her brain scrambled like the eggs Marlee and Toby loved to eat on Sunday mornings.

As if she’d conjured him up by thinking of him, her brother appeared at her elbow. “Wow, that’s a big pot, Sienna.”

Deep warmth spread through her veins. For Toby, she’d do anything. Born with a slight empathic gift, he was goodness, was heart. He made her want to be good, too—even though she knew that to be an impossible goal. X-Psy were born for, and useful for, only one thing.

Destruction.

A hand on her forearm. “Sienna.”

Dropping the pot, she bent to wrap her soapy arms around that gangly preteen body that was no longer that of the child she’d tickled into bed just last year. “How do you always know?” she whispered into his hair.

His arms locked around her neck. “I can see you in our net,” he said, speaking of the psychic network that tied all the members of the family to each other. It provided the biofeedback needed by their Psy minds, was what had kept them alive when they’d defected from the sprawling vastness of the PsyNet. “Your mind goes all icy.”