PLAY OF PASSION

“Uh-huh.” A grin. “I think they want to make sure I’m not going to crack under the pressure.”


It was then, looking into those amused eyes, that she realized the incredible depth of strength inside him. “It must be beyond hard to know that you could be called upon to track and execute a packmate at any time.”

He didn’t deny it. “The thing is, I was born with this uncanny ability to track my packmates, better than even Hawke’s—so it was obvious what role I was meant to play in the pack. I had to either learn to deal with it or, once I was old enough to understand, give over the mantle so someone else could be trained.”

Though she hadn’t understood until today why he cultivated that air of irresponsibility, she’d known him far too long not to have seen beneath the surface years ago—and to the wolf who was one of the most trusted in the pack. “You never even thought about giving it up, did you?”

“When wolves go rogue”—quiet words, powerful words—“they do things they’d never have countenanced had they been thinking. They attempt to hunt, to slaughter their packmates, children included. If that happened to me, I’d want someone like me on my trail, someone who could find me before I did harm, and offer mercy.”

Emotion a knot in her throat, Indigo stopped and reached up to cup his cheek. He rubbed against it. “Don’t look that way, Indy.” Fingers on her temple, tugging at a flyaway strand of her hair. “SnowDancer is a strong, coherent pack. You know that while I’ve tracked a lot of people, I’ve only had to execute one wolf once I found him—and I don’t think he would’ve judged me for it.”

“He was old,” Indigo said, remembering the sorrow in the den at the elder’s passing. “He had a disease of the mind that somehow evaded the health checks.” But he’d lived a long and happy life before that, been a great-grandfather three times over. “No, he wouldn’t have wanted to harm those he’d spent his life protecting.”

Drew tugged at her hand, his touch warm and solid. “Come on.”

As they walked hand in hand, she considered the titanic shift that had just occurred inside her when it came to this man. Always before, she’d simply not understood a large part of what made him who he was—but now she knew … now her wolf knew.

A glimpse of color, woman and wolf both stilling in wonder.

“Look up,” she said to Drew, “very, very slowly.”

When he obeyed, she said, “To your left a little. Do you see it?”

A long, slow exhale was her answer. “Beautiful.”

The blue-gray bird sat proud and imperious on a snow-dusted branch, its claws providing a firm grip. “Northern goshawk?”

Drew hummed in agreement. “Has the eyebrow stripe, tail looks to be the right size—would love to see that beauty fly through the trees.”

As they watched, the bird angled its head to tell her and Drew it saw them, but that they were beneath its notice. Laughing softly, she was startled when Drew brought their clasped hands to his mouth, dropped a kiss on her knuckles.

It was an affectionate act, a possessive one, too. Her wolf considered it alongside all else she’d gleaned about his nature. “Don’t think I’m not noticing all your ‘mine’ gestures,” she said to see what he’d do.

His lips were on hers an instant later, his free hand cupping her cheek as he made a thorough exploration of her mouth. “That was one, too.”

Her lips twitched. Jerking up a hand before he could avoid it, she slashed a very careful line on his cheekbone. His wolf flared in his eyes in a blaze of wild copper before the human smiled, touched the small hurt. “It’ll heal before we return to the den.” A complaint.

“No, it won’t.” She almost couldn’t believe she’d done that, marked him so openly—there’d be no end of ribbing from her packmates now. “And if it does, I’m sure all the claw marks on your back will do the job.” Predatory changeling men were terrible exhibitionists when it came to flaunting their claim over a woman.

Satisfied by that, Drew moved back and they continued on their trek. “Look,” he murmured almost half an hour later, pointing out a delicate white blossom where it peeked out from between two rocks.

She was about to draw his attention to a fossilized shell in one of the slabs of rock when he froze to predator stillness. Indigo went quiet with him, tilting up her chin in a silent question mark.

Eyes gone wolf-copper crashed into hers as he mouthed, “Psy.”





CHAPTER 25


Indigo let her own wolf rise to the surface, her senses expanding. A moment later, she caught it, the faintest whisper of scent, borne to them on cool mountain air currents. Touching Drew’s hip, she caught his attention and tugged on the straps of her pack.