Kiss of Snow

The voice he heard in his mind when he thought of Theresa was never that of the child she’d been, but of the woman she would’ve become. A woman full of warmth and gentleness, a woman who wouldn’t have been a soldier but a maternal female, part of the beating heart of the pack.

“Doesn’t matter,” he murmured, refusing to give up a truth that had shaped so much of his life. “You were my mate. We would’ve mated when we grew old enough.”

The wind whispered through the trees, through his hair. It was a touch he’d felt a thousand times over the years, and always, it had left him centered and calm. Today, however, as he rose to his feet and walked away from the final resting place of the girl who would’ve owned his heart as a woman, he felt strangely dissatisfied, off-kilter.

It wasn’t a sensation either man or wolf enjoyed.





SIENNA was ready to head down to DarkRiver territory with Judd around eight that evening. Seeing Riordan as she left her quarters, she lifted a hand. “Hi.”

“Hey.” He stopped a few feet away, shifting from foot to foot and avoiding her gaze. “You okay? Hawke was pretty pissed when he came down to Wild the other night.”

“You know he wouldn’t hurt any of us.” She made no attempt to hide her shock that he’d even asked the question, it was so incomprehensible.

Riordan colored, looked up. “Uh, yeah. That’s not what I was talking about.”

Sienna stared.

“Jeez, Sin he made it clear you were his.”

A punch of memory—a hard male body holding her close enough to kiss, his voice an intimate roughness against her senses, his hands so big and hot on her skin. “No,” she forced out, “there’s nothing there.” He wouldn’t permit there to be.

“You sure?” Riordan’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “Thing is, no one else is going to come near you now.”

“You’re joking.”

A shrug, a hand thrust through chocolate-dark curls. “He’s the alpha, babe. Only an idiot would try to poach on his territory.”

She gritted her teeth. “I. Am. Not. His. Territory.”

“Hey, look, isn’t that Marlee?”

Sienna turned automatically. Riordan was nowhere to be seen when she realized she’d been had and swiveled back to face him. “Chicken!” she called out before continuing on her way.

She ran into Evie not far from the exit, flat out asked her if the other novice had been spouting bullshit.

Her friend winced. “Um, no. Hawke definitely had the alpha-possessive vibe going on.”

“He doesn’t want me.” Not enough to see past his preconceptions. Her jaw tightened, her muscles tensing as if in readiness for a fight. Stubborn, arrogant, infuriating man!

“Hey.” Evie put her hand on Sienna’s arm. “Maybe that’s good news—seriously, any woman who takes him on is going to need brass balls. Big ones.”

“Are you saying mine are too small?” It was easier to be flip, to stoke the heat of her frustrated anger than to acknowledge the hurt inside of her, the bruise that kept growing ever bigger in spite of all her vows to not allow this pull toward Hawke to savage her.

“Smartass.” Laughing, Evie shook her head. “Look, if there really is nothing going on, he has to make sure the Pack males know that. Otherwise, not only will your dating life go into a death spiral inside the pack, the boys will scare off any other male, changeling or human, who dares look in your direction.”

“No?” Sienna had no interest in dating anyone else, but she would not be humiliated by being claimed by Hawke and then left unwanted.

“You’ve been around the XY component of SnowDancer for several years.” Evie raised her eyebrows. “What do you think?”

“Pack males stick together.”

With that thought circling in her mind, she wasn’t in any mood to see Hawke walking out of the trees near the White Zone, where she’d gone to wait for Judd. His wolf-pale eyes spotted her at once, and he changed direction to block out the night in front of her. “Where are you going?” he asked, as if he had every right to know.

“None of your business.” A dangerous silence greeted her words . . . and she couldn’t help herself. “Unless you’re pulling rank?”

A silence that had her skin stretching tight over her bones, her heartbeat hammering in her ears.

“Had to push, didn’t you, Sienna?” Stepping close, close enough that she had to tip her head back to meet his gaze, he took a long, deep breath. “You changed your shampoo.”

A sudden, melting warmth invaded her body at the sound of his voice—as if he was savoring the scent. “Lara had some samples she gave out to the women in the break room this morning.” The SnowDancer healer had been in an edgy kind of mood, so Sienna had kept her mouth shut and taken the sample when it was shoved into her hand. “It’s wild apples.” She had no idea why she’d said that, why she continued to speak to him.

“I like it.” He lifted his hand to run a strand of her hair through his fingers.

Fighting every cell in her body, she stepped back. “Stop it. No touching. No acting possessive.”