Guild Hunter 03 - Archangel's Consort

price, a gift that allowed at least some of their number to survive childhood, have a life. Yet over a hundred years after the icy wave of the Silence Protocol washed away violence and despair, madness and love, the X-Psy are, and remain, living weapons. Silence is their safety switch. Without it ...
    There are some nightmares the world will never be ready to face.

1
     
    Hawke folded his arms and leaned back against the solid bulk of his desk, eyes on the two young females in front of him. Hands clasped behind themselves and legs slightly spread in the “resting” stance, Sienna and Maria looked like the SnowDancer soldiers they were—except for the fact that their hair straggled in a wild mess around their faces, matted with mud, crushed leaves, and other forest debris. Then there was the torn clothing and the sharp, acrid scent of blood.
    His wolf bared its teeth.
    “Let me get this straight,” he said in a calm tone that had Maria turning pale under skin that was a warm, smooth brown where it wasn’t bruised and bloody. “Instead of staying on watch and protecting the pack’s defensive border, you two decided to have your own personal dominance battle.”
    Sienna, of course, met his gaze—something no wolf would’ve done in the circumstances. “It w—”
    “Be quiet,” he snapped. “If you open your mouth again without permission, I’m putting both of you in the pen with the two-year-olds.”
    Those amazing cardinal eyes—white stars on a background of vivid black—went a pure ebony that he knew full well indicated fury, but she clenched her jaw. Maria, on the other hand, had gone even paler. Good.
    “Maria,” he said, focusing on the petite changeling whose size belied her skill and strength in both human and wolf form. “How old are you?”
    Maria swallowed. “Twenty.”
    “Not a juvenile.”
    Maria’s thick black curls, heavy with mud, bounced dully as she shook her head.
    “Then explain this to me.”
    “I can’t, sir.”
    “Right answer.” No reason they could offer up would be a good enough excuse for the bullshit fight. “Who threw the first punch?”
    Silence.
    His wolf approved. It mattered little who’d incited the exchange when neither had walked away from it, and the fact of the matter was, they’d been meant to be working as a team, so they’d take their punishment as a team—with one caveat.
    “Seven days,” he said to Maria. “Confined to quarters except for an hour each day. No contact with anyone while you’re inside.” It was a harsh punishment—wolves were creatures of pack, of family, and Maria was one of the most bubbly, social wolves in the den. To force her to spend all that time alone was an indication of just how badly she’d blundered. “The next time you decide to step off watch, I won’t be so lenient.”
    Maria chanced meeting his gaze for a fleeting second before those rich brown eyes skated away, her dominance no match for his. “May I attend Lake’s twenty-first?”
    “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, especially 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 fellow soldier.
    SnowDancer was strong as a pack because they watched one another’s backs. Hawke would not allow 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, “specifically 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