Psy & Changelings 10 - Kiss of Snow

not only aware of their strategy, but capable of predicting it.”
    Hawke’s wolf was howling for blood, but both man and wolf had learned to think past the red haze of rage long ago. “It’ll also get rid of ten of their men at this location, however many the others have found.”
    “Indigo’s team has another group in their sights,” Judd reported on the heels of his statement, “as does Drew’s. Riley’s sector looks clean.”
    It was, Hawke had to admit, damn convenient to have telepaths in the packs. Sienna was paired with Indigo, Walker with Drew, Riley with Faith NightStar of all people. While the DarkRiver F-Psy was a noncombatant, she had the necessary telepathic range. Her mate was acting as her shield.
    Because of that telepathic network, it took only minutes to organize the decoys, another hour to get the transports in position. None of the vehicles could be allowed within range of the grenade launchers—their purpose was simply to distract. In the interim, the changeling teams made their way down to just beyond the scope of the enemy’s telepathic sweeps.
    “Stay out of sight,” Hawke told Judd. “They can’t know we have a Tk on our side, not until it’s unavoidable.” Getting the lieutenant’s nod, he said, “Everyone ready?”
    “Yes.”
    “Time.”
    “Fifty seconds till the vehicles come into view, fifty-two till mobilization.”
    It was a hard, fast battle. That was the only way to win with the Psy, given their ability to obliterate minds with their psychic strikes. There were also no teleport-capable telekinetics in this group, which signed their death warrants.
    Afterward, Hawke stood looking down at the bodies and felt nothing but savage satisfaction. He wasn’t a man who liked to kill, but these people had planned to savage SnowDancer’s young. For that crime, death was the only penalty.
     
     
    SIENNA had never seen the wolves move with such cold, sleek violence. The Psy units stood no chance. Part of her was shocked at the bloody reprisal, but it was nothing to the protective rage that had filled her when she’d seen the grenade launcher, understood the true malevolence of their intentions. For an instant, the X-fire had threatened to slip her grasp, but paradoxically, it was her protective drive toward the pups that had helped her get it back under control.
    It was over in a matter of minutes, and as day turned to night, she found herself walking through the den with a man who had the eyes of a hunting wolf and hair of silver-gold. Today, he’d not only spoken to her about pack issues, he’d treated her as an integral element of SnowDancer’s defenses. Part of her was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, but at that instant, for the first time, she felt like a partner in some sense, not simply a young girl who wore her heart on her sleeve.
    “The cats are holding off on any evacuations, same as us,” he told her as they walked. “Right now, everyone is safer within our protections.”
    “It’ll be quiet,” she said. “When the children are eventually moved.”
    Hawke’s wolf hated the idea of a silent den. “It won’t be forever.”
    Sienna began to turn left as they reached a fork in the corridor.
    “No.” He gripped her hand. “This way.”
    She didn’t say a word, and neither did anyone else who saw them along the way. A few days ago, they’d have been teased, whistled at, and otherwise hassled in the most playful of ways. Today, the mood was somber, everyone aware what was coming. The corridors were emptier than usual, many pack members having gathered in the common areas to talk, take strength from one another. There was no one at all in the corridor paved with river stones and painted with images of wolves at play, in sleep, during a hunt.
    Hawke knew why Sienna avoided this particular exit from the den. She’d damaged the mural once by accident, her X-fire acting as a laser to fracture a small area of the wall, destroy the paint. “I was never angry with you for that,” he said as they entered the painted wonderland.
    “This place . . . it’s important to you.” Her hand curled around his.
    Tugging her to a particular section, he said, “Look.”
    Sienna leaned forward. “It’s a sleeping pup—Oh!” He watched as she traced the second pup hiding behind the broad green leaves, waiting to pounce. “I never noticed him.”
    “She hid a lot of things in the mural,” he said, the ache inside him an old grief. “It was meant to