Psy & Changelings 10 - Kiss of Snow

baby.”
    Of course she’d think that, this healer who worried so much about her pack. “The order was for everyone who bore Lauren blood. She’d already aborted the child by the time I came home.” Everything else, he would have accepted, would have survived, but that act, it broke something inside him. Because even in the PsyNet, he’d worked with children. Dangerous, gifted children, but children nonetheless, and he’d done everything in his power to protect them. Yet—“I couldn’t protect my child.”
    Hearing Lara’s quiet sobs, he turned and took her into his arms, weaving his fingers into her hair. She buried her face against his chest and cried as if her heart was splintering. She understood, he thought, knew that it wasn’t only his unborn child that had died that day. But . . . as Lara cried for the child he’d lost, as she gave voice to the grief he couldn’t express, the tight knot of sorrow inside him began to unravel fragment by jagged fragment.
    “I sometimes wonder,” he whispered, the soft skin of her nape delicate under his palm, “what my son would’ve been like.”
    Lara’s hand spread on the fabric of his shirt. “Tell me what you imagined.” Her voice was raw with weeping, but her strength, it was an enduring flame.
    It took him a long time, but as the water continued to thunder into the pool below, Walker held the warmth of her close and spoke of the son who lived deep within his heart and always would.

     
    HAWKE nodded at Lake as he jogged down to the perimeter in the quiet of the hour before midnight. “Any problems?”
    The soldier shook his head. “Spotted a couple of falcons in the distance when it was light, but they stayed clear of den territory.”
    “Good.” Hawke spent several more minutes talking to Lake, having had a heads-up from Riley about him. Intelligent, Hawke thought, and not only that, but he had the capacity to think outside the box. “Are you happy with your current duties?”
    Lake took a deep breath. “If I had the choice, I’d prefer more complex tasks.”
    “Talk to Riley tomorrow,” Hawke said, because he didn’t want the talented young male getting bored. “He’ll shift your duties.”
    “I understand we’re at high alert after the recent events.” An intent look. “I can wait until we’re better situated to move things around.”
    “No. We’re not going to allow anyone to stifle the growth of our pack.”
    “Yes, sir.” Lake glanced down, back up. “I wanted to say something—about Maria.”
    “Go on.”
    “She’s still pretty cut up about stepping off watch that time. If you could . . .”
    Hawke’s wolf liked the boy better for his request. “I’ll take care of it.”
    “Thank you.” A faint smile. “Sienna should be about five hundred meters to the north.”
    Hawke pointed south. “Go.”
    Lake left with a salute—and a grin.
    Jogging along the perimeter until he caught the rich, vibrant scent of a woman who was well and truly under his skin, he drew in a deep breath of the cool mountain air and leashed his wolf. Demands would get neither man nor wolf anything when it came to Sienna. Neither would orders. This was about male and female. Hawke and Sienna.
    He found her standing watch on a cliff’s edge, keeping an acute eye on everything that passed. Quiet as it was, it took her the barest instant to detect him. “Would you like a report, sir?”
    He narrowed his eyes at her tone, but where the alpha in him would’ve delivered a quick and lethal verbal response to anyone else, that wasn’t the relationship he wanted with Sienna. “No, I’d prefer a kiss.”
    Back as stiff as steel, she said, “I’m working,” but then, to his surprise, glanced back. “I heard about Ameline’s miscarriage.” Her expression was solemn.
    The memory of his packmate’s silent cries had his wolf wanting to lift its muzzle in a mournful howl. “She’s hurting bad, but she’s strong. So is her mate. They’ll survive this.”
    “You sat with her?”
    “Yes.” Controlling the impulse to fist his hand in her hair, tug her close until he could breathe in the warm spice of her skin . . . until he could unwind on the deepest level, he focused on the land that was his home. The night was stunning, the velvet sky dotted with diamonds. “Do you wonder if the Council understands why we’d fight to the last breath to hold this?”
    “Yes.” Her own face lifted to the sky. “The psychologists will have done a full