“If that’s the use you want to make of your hour on the day.” Yeah, it made him a bastard to force her to miss most of her boyfriend’s big party, especial y when the two were taking the first careful steps into a relationship, but she’d known exactly what she was doing when she decided to engage in a pissing contest with a fel ow soldier.
SnowDancer was strong as a pack because they watched one another’s backs. Hawke would not al ow stupidity or arrogance to eat away at a foundation he’d rebuilt from the ground up after the bloody events that had stolen both his parents and savaged SnowDancer so badly it had taken over a decade of tight isolation for them to recover.
He turned his attention to Sienna—holding on to his temper by a very thin thread. “You were,” he said, the wolf very much in his voice, “specifical y ordered not to get into any physical altercations.”
Sienna said nothing in response. It didn’t matter—her rage was a hot pulse against his skin, as raw and stormy as Sienna herself. When she was like this, the wildness of her contained by the thinnest of barriers, it was hard to believe she’d come into his pack Silent, her emotions blockaded behind so much ice, it had infuriated his wolf.
Maria shifted on her feet when he didn’t immediately continue.
“You have something to say?” he asked the woman, who was one of the best novice soldiers in the pack when she didn’t let her temper get in the way.
“I started it.” Color high on her cheekbones, shoulders tight. “She was just defending—”
“No.” Sienna’s tone was steady, resolute, the anger buried under a wal of frigid control. “I’l take my share of the blame. I could’ve walked away.”
Hawke narrowed his eyes. “Maria, go.”
The novice soldier hesitated for a second, but she was a subordinate wolf, her natural instinct to obey her alpha too powerful to resist—even though it was clear she wanted to remain behind to support Sienna. Hawke noted and approved of the display of loyalty enough that he didn’t rebuke her for that hesitation.
The door closed behind her with a quiet snick that seemed shotgun-loud in the heavy silence inside the office. Hawke waited to see what Sienna would do now that they were alone. To his surprise, she maintained her position.
Reaching forward, he gripped her chin, turning her face to the side so that the light fel on the smooth lines of it. “You’re lucky you don’t have a broken cheekbone.” The flesh around her eye was going to turn al shades of purple as it was. “Where else are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
His fingers tightened on her jaw. “Where else are you hurt?”
“You didn’t ask Maria.” Stubborn wil in every word.
“Maria is a wolf, able to take five times the damage of a Psy female and keep going.” Which was the reason Sienna had been ordered not to get into physical confrontations with the wolves. That and the fact that she didn’t have her lethal abilities under total control. “Either you answer the question or I swear to God I real y wil put you in the pen.” It would be the most humiliating of experiences, and she knew it, every muscle in her body taut with viciously withheld anger.
“Bruised ribs,” she gritted out at last, “bruised abdomen, wrenched shoulder. Nothing’s broken. It should al heal within the next week.”
Dropping his grip on her chin, he said, “Hold out your arms.”
A hesitation.
The wolf growled, loud enough that she flinched. “Sienna, I’ve given you a long leash since you came into the pack, but that ends today.” Insubordination from a juvenile could be punished and forgiven. In an adult, in a soldier, it was a far more serious matter. Sienna was nineteen-going-on-twenty, a ranked novice—letting her actions slide wasn’t even an option. “Hold out your fucking arms.”
Something in his tone must’ve gotten through to her because she did as ordered. A few smal cuts on that creamy skin kissed gold by the sun, but no gouges that would’ve spoken of claws. “So Maria managed to rein in the wolf.” If she hadn’t, he’d have kicked her right back into training. Losing control of your temper was one thing; losing control of your wolf was far more dangerous.
Sienna’s hands fisted as she dropped them to her sides.
Looking up, he met those eyes of absolute, unbroken black. It was clear she was fighting the elemental impulse to go at him, but she continued to hold her position. “How far did you go?” Her control was impressive—and it irritated him in a way it shouldn’t have. But then, nothing about Sienna Lauren had ever been easy.
“I didn’t use my abilities.” The tendons in her neck stood out against the dirt-encrusted hue of her skin. “If I had, she’d be dead.”