Tangle of Need

Exhaling quietly, he closed his own eyes and slept with her, skin to skin, his wolf finding unexpected peace in the nearness of a packmate who didn’t judge, didn’t ask things from him he couldn’t give, and who shared her body with a rare kindness of spirit. Adria Morgan was a woman he would never forget, no matter if their liaison lasted a week or a year.

HAWKE glanced at Sienna. She’d been pensive since they’d left the home of Mercy’s parents ten minutes earlier—where Mercy and Riley had broken the news of Mercy’s pregnancy to their respective alphas, though both Hawke and Lucas had known the instant they got within ten feet of the redhead. It was funny how that worked—the previous night, they’d had no clue, but now that Riley knew, it was as if Mercy’s leopard had decided it was okay to allow others in on the secret.

Hawke and Lucas’s unhidden glee at this most primal seal on the DarkRiver-SnowDancer alliance had garnered them a snarl, though everyone was too goofy with happiness to work up any kind of a good mad. However, right that second, his mind wasn’t on the news that had delighted his wolf enough to put it in harmony with the leopard alpha.

“Hey,” he said, switching the car into hover mode to ensure he didn’t crush any of the tiny forest plants in this area. “Are you pining for your country music?” She’d forgotten her portable music player, which she usually connected to the onboard stereo. “Cruel and unusual punishment, that stuff.”

“You liked the one we slow danced to last night.”

“I tolerated it.” The truth was, when they danced, he didn’t hear anything but the whisper of her breath, the beat of her heart, the low murmur of her voice. “Talk to me, baby.” It sounded like an order, and yeah, it kind of was.

A narrow-eyed glance aimed his way. “I should refuse on principle.”

“What if I say please?”

Sienna’s laugh was soft, intimate, that of a woman who knew him, accepted him. She never let it slide when she thought he was pulling shit, but she didn’t bust his ass for acting who he was—an alpha wolf. “I was thinking,” she said, her laughter fading, “about children. We’ve never talked about it.”

It was the last thing he’d expected her to say. “You want babies?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sienna sink her teeth into her lower lip. “I didn’t really consider it before. Because…”

“I know.” His hands tightened on the manual steering wheel at the reminder that she’d lived her life believing she’d die before she ever had a chance to live.

“I’m still scared.” A quiet confession.

Wolf sensing her need, he found a clearing and pulled into it, setting the car down so he could turn, brace his arm along the back of her seat. It wasn’t enough, not for either part of him. Shoving back his seat, he slid her across and into his lap. She came without the least protest, a silent indication of just how troubled she was feeling.

“We have years,” he said. “There’s no rush.”

She sat up so she could look into his face. “It’s not that.”

“Talk to me.”

“It’s a genetic mutation, the X-marker, appearing randomly in the population,” she said, a quiet urgency in her every word, “but there is a very high probability I’ll pass it on to any child I conceive, and I won’t do that, Hawke. I won’t.”

“Hey.” Cradling her face in his hands, he rubbed his nose affectionately against her own. “Changelings don’t like the way Psy constantly mess with the DNA of their offspring, but even we make an exception for diseases that could harm a child’s welfare.” He continued before she could interrupt, his voice fierce. “As far as I’m concerned, your X-fire isn’t a disease. It’s a gift.” It had saved the pack, saved so many lives. “B—”

“Walker’s helix,” Sienna broke in, her skin flushed with the intensity of her emotions. “I know it keeps me stable, but there’s no predicting the result when the X-marker first goes active.” Tears glittered in the midnight of her eyes. “Our baby could burn up, and we wouldn’t be able to stop it.”

He cupped the back of her neck, squeezed gently. “Which is why I was going to say that in spite of the fact I see your ability as a gift, if you want to see a genetic specialist before we try for a child, I’ll be right there beside you.”

“Really?” Slender fingers on his jaw.

“Always,” he said, tucking her hair behind her ear, his Psy with her capacity to love with a passion as wild as the crimson and gold of her X-fire. “But I’m not budging on the hair.” He rubbed the ruby red strands between his fingertips.