Psy & Changelings 10 - Kiss of Snow

workup. But they won’t believe you’d refuse to surrender even at the threat of massive casualties.”
    “Some things are beyond logic.” Losing their home would rip the heart out of the pack—it wouldn’t matter if they survived. “We both know that.” He stroked his hand down the thick rope of her braid.
    She jerked away, the truce over. “You ignored me.”
    “Yeah, I did. And I’m not sorry I did it.” Maybe he’d been an ass, but he’d also been right—she had been short-changing herself, had now learned that she could wield and direct the cold fire, choose her targets even at that level of pressure.
    “Surprising.” Sarcasm dripped off the single word.
    “But,” he added with a growl, “I won’t disregard your views about your own abilities next time.”
    Sienna froze at the unexpected statement. “Not much of an apology,” she said, scrambling to reorder her thoughts.
    “That’s because I wasn’t apologizing.”
    Of course not. “Go away.”
    He tugged at her neat braid instead, unraveling it before she realized what he was doing. Gritting her teeth to stop from reacting, she stared out at the hush of the forest as he smoothed out the strands. “You have curls in here,” he murmured from behind her. “Did you braid it while it was damp?”
    That sneaky wolf charm was not going to weaken her defenses this time. “I’m working, in case you didn’t hear me the first time.”
    Arms sliding around her waist, tugging her back against a warm male chest. “I’ve come to keep you company.”
    Reaching back, she pulled her hair out from between them. “I like being alone.”
    A quick nip of her ear. “Such a liar.”
    Folding her arms, she resisted the urge to kick back at him with a booted foot. “This patch is quiet,” she said. “Lake wanted to run tonight, so I’m standing as sentry.”
    Hawke’s arms came up to cross over her chest as he held her impossibly closer, his thighs on either side of hers. “That was one of my first tasks—sentry.” His voice was quiet, full of memory. “The alpha started putting me on watch when I was nine.”
    “Nine?” Far too young, according to SnowDancer’s own rules.
    Hawke chuckled. “I was making trouble—had too much energy and nowhere for it to go. They tried running me to exhaustion, but I outlasted everyone except Garrick, and the alpha couldn’t spend every day with me.”
    Sienna realized she’d relaxed against him, but she was too fascinated by this tiny glimpse into his past to worry. “Were you a good sentry?”
    “No,” he said to her surprise. “I couldn’t stop moving long enough to keep watch.” Another laugh. “So Garrick made me a messenger. I ran constantly along the perimeter, taking messages from one sentry to another, spending time with the soldiers, learning from them.” Looking back, he knew half the messages had been created to give him something to do.
    “It was the best thing Garrick could have done.” The work had not only provided an outlet for his energy, it had begun to teach him the skills he would need in the future—as well as connecting him to the men and women he would one day be called upon to lead.
    “This Garrick was a good alpha?”
    Hawke thought of the slender black man who’d appeared about as strong as a willow branch—and who had fought like a gladiator for his pack. “Yes.”
    “Oh.” Sienna paused. “I guess . . . no one ever mentions him, so I thought maybe he was a bad person.”
    “No.” Hawke forced himself to speak. “They don’t say anything because they don’t want to hurt me.” But it wasn’t fair to the man, the alpha Garrick had been. “Garrick died fighting one of his lieutenants.” The next words were stone fists in his chest. “My father.”
    Sienna’s hands came up to close over his. “You said he was abducted, hurt. He was no longer the man you knew.”
    Hawke’s mind filled with the memory of the agony on his father’s face as blood poured out of his chest. He’d taken his last breath in his mate’s arms, his hand held by his mortally wounded alpha as their already weak healer tried to save them both.
    “Was your father the only one?”
    “No.”
    “Your mother . . . she lost her mate.”
    He never spoke of his laughing, gifted mother and what it had done to her to lose her mate, not to anyone. “There’s Lake, coming up now,” he said instead of answering her question. “I think we should go for a run.” A high pitched