Kiss of Snow

Hawke stroked the wolf at his side, a beautiful creature of deepest black . . . the same shade as the much larger changeling wolf who prowled out to join the circle of watchers. Riaz. The SnowDancer lieutenant stared unblinking at the trespassers with eyes a startling shade akin to ancient gold.

“Depends what you define as sanctuary.” Hawke’s tone was easy, as if this was an everyday conversation. “I’m sure they no longer feel any pain . . . no longer feel anything.”

“Are you saying they’re dead?”

A faint smile. “Now, if I said that, I’d be admitting to murder.” He angled his head toward the woman, and Judd knew the wolf was assessing the truth of her. “Our legal team would frown on that.” Then he did something Judd would have never expected.

Throwing back his head, he howled—the sound eerily beautiful, seeming to come from a wolf’s throat, not a human’s. The wolves around him, wild and changeling, reacted in a split second, forelegs bunching as they launched themselves at the intruders. Only someone who’d been watching with utmost care would’ve seen that their lunge would have them streaming around the woman.

The Psy weren’t paying that kind of close attention. But the woman didn’t clamp her hand around her belly, didn’t try to shield her womb, didn’t attempt to protect her body in any way. Instead, she, like the others, slammed out a hand in a telekinetic thrust that shoved the wolves back . . . and teleported out.

At a speed that meant each had done their own personal teleport.

Judd hissed out a breath. There was no chance of four teleport-capable Tk-Psy—all of whom would’ve been pulled into the Council superstructure as youths—deciding to defect at the same time. No chance. It would provoke too much attention, incite too massive a search. No Council operative would make that mistake—and all four of the intruders had been standing in a battle-ready stance that revealed their training.

“Clear!” one of the SnowDancers called out, holding up a gadget Brenna and the other techs had put together to detect any surveillance devices in their territory.

Only then did Judd step out of concealment. “Somebody suspects we’re still alive.”

Hawke, having crouched down to stroke, touch, and play with the wild wolves that swarmed over him, now rose. “Our demonstration should put that rumor to rest.”

“Especially when it happens to be so close to the truth.”

Hawke’s grin was that of the wolf, amused and dangerous. “You’re lucky I was feeling mellow the day the five of you turned up in our territory.”

Judd knew now that Marlee and Toby had never been in any danger—the wolves balked at harming any child, even one who might be a threat. It was their Achilles’ heel, one the Council could not be allowed to discover, because they were fully capable of breeding and sending in child operatives. “Let me talk to my contacts, see if I can get an idea of who might’ve been behind the fishing expedition.”

“A Councilor has a hand in it somewhere with all those Tks.”

“There is a second option.”

When Hawke turned to him in question, he said, “I didn’t recognize them, but it’s possible they were recruited into the squad after I left.” Arrows didn’t turn against their own, but Judd had defected and, in so doing, broken the covenant. “They might be hunting me.” Feeling a wolf brush against him as he finished speaking, he glanced down at Riaz, who’d wandered over from the other side of the clearing. “Yes?”

But the lieutenant was only interested in Hawke, walking over to sniff at the alpha. Judd was certain he saw the black wolf grin before Hawke warned him off with a low growl. Judd didn’t have changeling senses but he had a brain. Still, he made no comment. Not yet.

IT was late when Hawke returned to the den. He should’ve gone to bed, but instead he tracked a certain scent through the corridors until he located Sienna in the same training room where he’d watched her once before. This, the thing between him and Sienna, he didn’t know where it was going, and yeah, his guilt at claiming her when he had so little to offer continued to be a claw raking his gut—but as proven by his inability to keep his distance, ignoring it was no longer an option.

As for the guilt? Turned out it stood no chance against the piercing pleasure he derived from being in her presence. Locking the door behind himself now, he sat down on a bench to savor the sight of her moving with such lithe grace. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked when she saw him and halted.

She pushed a flyaway tendril out of her eyes. “I was worried.” A statement without sophistication, stark in its honesty. “I wanted to telepath Judd, but I knew he wouldn’t tell me anything without authorization.”

Protecting his own was instinct, but this was her life—a life she’d fought for from the start. He wasn’t about to handicap her by leaving her blind to a possible threat.