Psy & Changelings 10 - Kiss of Snow

order to evacuate with a crisp, clear focus, as he had so many others.
    According to Judd, who’d be back to full strength by tonight, surveillance at the South American compound was showing a rising level of activity as Pure Psy’s people began to recover from the virus. The runway would be complete by tomorrow morning, which meant the compound had to be taken out of the equation tonight at the latest, before any of the weapons heavy transports took off.
    Everyone agreed the children needed to be gone prior to that. Because once SnowDancer blew the compound, the war began. There was no hope of peace. Both Nikita and Anthony had attempted to reason with Henry in a last-ditch effort to halt hostilities. The other Councilor’s response had been to try to assassinate them on the psychic plane.
    “Of course,” Lara said, hand settling on his waist. “You’re the perfect choice—the kids will listen to you and feel safe at the same time.”
    Her immediate support of him, made an unexpected warmth uncurl in his abdomen. “Drew’s promised to spy on you for me and report if you’re not eating.”
    “The sneak will do it, too.” Her smile faded too soon. “It’s a hard thing to ask of you right now, isn’t it? To leave her?” She wrapped her arms around him.
    “Sienna would be the first to tell me to go,” he whispered into the softness of her curls, numbing the pain permeating his chest at the thought of the girl he’d never been able to protect. The only thing he could do for her now was to ensure those she loved were safe. “She’d do anything for Toby and Marlee.”
    Lara kissed him, hot and giving and possessive in a way he’d never have expected from her before he’d truly known her. Sliding his hand under her hair, he tilted her head, indulged in the wild sweetness of her for a moment out of time.
    “I’ll contact you as soon as we know anything,” she said when they parted, her lips wet, her eyes determined. “We’ll keep working with Alice.”
    “I know you will.” A piece of him threatened to shatter, a piece that bore Sienna’s name, the name of a girl who was as much his daughter as Marlee. “Take care of yourself, Lara.” Because she owned a piece of him, too, a broken piece she’d somehow soldered back together and that bore her mark now.
    He couldn’t say the words, had spent too long in Silence, but he’d learned other ways to speak. Taking the paperweight she’d knocked off her desk out of his pocket, he put it in her hands. “It’s fixed. As long as you don’t mind more than a few scars.”
    Tears in her eyes, she pursed her lips, shook her head . . . and held the paperweight to her heart. “I love you, Walker.”
    He left with those words held to the most secret part of him, but rather than joining the evacuation, he went up to where Sienna sat beside a wide, blue lake that mirrored the mountains with such perfection, it seemed there was no sky, only an endless vista of jagged peaks touched with snow. When she flew into his arms, he held her tight. And watched the cold fire of an X lick at her hair, over her spine. She wrenched away, her eyes dry of tears, her voice resolute. “I have to earth.”
    He would’ve waited, would’ve done anything he could for the girl he realized had become a woman of courage and strength, but he knew she didn’t want him to see her like this. So he walked forward, cupped her face, and pressed his lips to her forehead. Fight, sweetheart, fight.
    As he turned away, he felt the earth shudder under a pulse of raw power and knew that if he looked over his shoulder, he’d see nothing but a column of wild yellow and brilliant red, a woman consumed in flame.
     
     
    HAVING confirmed that the warehouse the novices had found in the city held the weapons cache, SnowDancer blew the South American camp at midnight.
    Stealth planes flew over the city at three a.m.
    Pure Psy operatives began to appear along the SnowDancer-DarkRiver perimeter an hour later, pouring out from craft that landed just out of range of the anti-aircraft weapons over changeling territory, most covering the remaining distance on foot, while a front guard stood ready for teleportation.
    The intruders were loaded up with so many weapons that had the changelings been relying only on their physical strength, the battle would’ve been over before it began. As it was, Alexei’s sharpshooters, along with those trained by Dorian and Judd, were in prime position to pick off