Kiss of Snow

And José’s bar would’ve been trashed in minutes.

Then there were the leopard and wolf males giving each other dirty looks as interpack flirting took place. Riordan was being watched by at least three cats with violence on their minds, while Lake and Amos were currently glaring with intent at Ebony’s dance partner.

The entire thing had the makings of a clusterfuck.

Shoving away the humans at the bar with rough hands, he reached out and gripped one leather-covered ankle.

Sienna stopped moving.

“Down,” he growled, meeting brown eyes so much less extraordinary than the truth of her cardinal gaze. “Now.”

Music still pumped but the bar had gone silent.

Sienna didn’t immediately obey, and that just infuriated the wolf. “Last warning, baby.”

Holding his gaze, Sienna said, “I’m not breaking any of the Pack rules.”

Every single person in the bar sucked in a breath.

Hawke didn’t pay them any attention. He’d had enough. A single, precisely timed tug and he tilted her off balance. As she fell, he caught her, throwing her over his shoulder. “Out!” he ordered the other wolves as he left.

Sienna, having apparently recovered from the loss of breath caused by his sudden move, began to wiggle and twist. “Let me go!”

He tapped her behind, a short, sharp shock that had her freezing. “Don’t make me any more pissed than I am right now.”

“Bully.” It was muttered under her breath, but he heard it. “You’ve got no right to punish me. None.”

He tightened his hold on her as they hit the cold night air. “You want to talk punishment, fine. What the fuck did you think you were doing on that bar? Were you trying to cause a riot?”

“I was having fun.” Heaving breaths. “Put me down. I can’t breathe with your shoulder in my stomach.”

“Tough.” He didn’t take his hands off her until he dumped her in the front passenger seat of the vehicle he’d driven down. “In,” he ordered her friends, all of whom had obeyed his order to leave.

Tai raised his hand, one arm around a suddenly sober-appearing Evie’s waist as he tucked her into the heat of his body. “I haven’t had a single drink. I can drive the other truck.”

Hawke’s nose told him the young soldier was telling the truth. “Fine.” He looked over the others. “You’re lucky José called me before a punch was thrown.”

Guilt on several male faces, while the women frowned. The men knew damn well what had been building in that bar.

“Next time I get a call like this, I’m instituting a curfew. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

As everyone dispersed, splitting themselves between Elias’s truck and the one Tai was going to be driving, Hawke realized he was about to spend over an hour alone in a confined space with a female he’d made every effort to avoid ever since she hit eighteen. A female who was almost spilling out of her shirt, allowing him glimpses of red satin against creamy gold skin.

Great, just fucking great.





SIENNA glared out the window as her friends scattered. “Traitor,” she mouthed to Evie when the other woman glanced back.

Evie winked at her. “Give him hell . . . baby,” Evie mouthed back.

Sienna’s cheeks flamed as she remembered Hawke using the endearment in that taut, angry tone, which had raised every hair on her body. It probably meant nothing, except that he saw her as exactly that. A child. It didn’t matter what she did, how mature she acted, he only seemed to pay attention to her at her worst moments.

Like tonight.

No, she thought, furious with him—and with herself for continuing to let him affect her this way, that hadn’t been a bad moment. She’d been having fun. Enjoying herself as she had every right to do. He was probably fuming because he’d been pulled out of Rosalie’s bed. Her nails dug into her palms. If she’d had claws, they’d have been out right then, slicing savagely though the seats.

“Not a word,” he snapped as he got into the driver’s seat. “Did you know what you were doing up on that bar?” Not giving her a chance to answer, he continued, “Most of those men were ready to grab you and strip you naked right there.”

Her simmering temper ignited. “I know how to defend myself, thanks to Indigo. And dancing wasn’t a crime last time I checked.”

“I said, not a damn word.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he drove them out of the popular nightlife area.

She snorted, too mad to be thinking about the sanity of challenging a predatory changeling male in the grip of pure raging fury. “How about instead of orders, Mr. Alpha Wolf, you actually stop hiding and talk to me?”

“Don’t push me, little girl.” Quiet, quiet words.