Tangle of Need

“With,” Riaz added, holding up his own sat phone, “Judd, Riley, Indigo, and me acting as double backups in case of an emergency.”


Hawke glanced at Riley. “I assume WindHaven is flying patrols over the territory?” His lieutenants were too smart not to use every resource available to them.

“I told you he’d figure it out.” Alexei smiled that “supermodel” smile of his—as once described by Tomás … right before Alexei gave him a black eye. “We had to be here. You can yell at us and kick us out, but we’ll just shrug and turn right back around.”

Kenji, his hair dyed a deep purple and sprayed with tiny gold stars, nodded. “We’re like termites—you can’t get rid of us.”

He was alpha, his word law. He also knew when he was beaten.

Wrapping an arm around Jem’s petite form, he squeezed her to his side, his wolf nuzzling at her own in welcome. To have the loyalty of men and women of such strength and heart was a gift—even if it meant he had to face the occasional challenge to his authority. And this particular challenge … it showed a depth of love any alpha would be hard-pressed to repudiate. “I guess we’d better find somewhere for you lot to sleep.”

Cooper snorted, the smooth mahogany of his skin bisected by a jagged scar on the left-hand side of his face. “Who plans to sleep?”

“Not me.” Tomás’s grin was infectious. “I intend to dance till dawn, hopefully with the sexy little wolf I spied earlier, then sneak home before anyone knows I was even gone.”

“I think the single women are wise to you, mi amigo,” Matthias drawled with a grin, one arm around Indigo where she leaned against his muscular bulk. “But don’t worry. I’m sure the grandmothers will appreciate the company.”

Turning toward the big lieutenant, Tomás shook his head, his expression mock solicitous. “I’d be careful if I were you—Drew might deck you again if he hears you’ve been touching his Indy here. Didn’t he whip your sorry ass the last time?”

Indigo patted Matthias’s arm. “They’ve made up.”

“Was there kissing?” Tomás asked, clapping his hands to his chest. “I can’t believe you didn’t invite—”

Having strolled over, Jem grabbed his face between her hands and laid one on him. “There you go, Tommy.”

It was the first time Hawke had seen Tomás speechless. Everyone else cracked up.

Hawke’s wolf bared its teeth in a happy grin—it had been years since alpha and lieutenants had all been in one place at one time, and damn but it felt good. He knew it would be good for the pack as well, a quiet declaration that SnowDancer wasn’t scared or cowed by its enemies into running and hiding.

They were wolf. And they were strong.





Chapter 16


COUNCILOR KALEB KRYCHEK dropped out of the PsyNet and back into his physical body where he stood on the edge of the balcony of his home on the outskirts of Moscow. That balcony had no railing, and the gorge below, swathed in the dark veil of night on this side of the world, was sheer, signaling death for anything that couldn’t fly … or teleport.

His lashes came down, swept back up.

His ability to teleport to individuals meant nothing, not in this particular situation. For some reason, he could not teleport to the one person he’d spent years learning to know, to understand. Opening his psychic eye again, he considered the pathways he’d already traversed. He was getting closer, that much was inarguable. The only question was whether he’d be fast enough to—

Councilor.

Shifting his focus at the telepathic hail, he slipped back into his mind and out again onto the PsyNet, this time devoid of the shields that made him invisible. “Silver.”

His aide’s mind was crystal clear, with none of the hairline cracks that signaled broken or compromised conditioning. “Sir,” she said. “My family did not lose its contact inside Pure Psy in the fight against the changelings, and his most recent communiqué makes it clear the group is stirring again.”

“I assumed as much.” Pure Psy had been heavily damaged but not destroyed by the cold violence of Sienna Lauren’s X-fire combined with a fierce fighting force of changelings, humans, and Psy.

An unusual mix.

Kaleb had watched from a distance, weighing up what the group effort meant for the future not simply of his own race but of the world.

“Their new goal?” he asked.

“Unidentified. Information is being communicated to a select number of individuals on a need-to-know basis. The only fact our contact was able to confirm is that they’ve shifted their attention from the changelings to the Net.”