Psy & Changelings 10 - Kiss of Snow

wolf way—nose to nose, body to body, the kiss an extension of the full-body contact.
    Sienna had done her own shift in a different area of den territory, so there were new things to explore here. But still she almost missed it: a pen, gleaming and dark. Guessing it had fallen out of a packmate’s pocket, she picked it up—the pack was scrupulous about ensuring no garbage littered their land. It wasn’t until it was in her hand that she realized the sleek metallic cylinder wasn’t a pen at all but a high-powered torch, an expensive item.
    The SnowDancers had a small number of them. Used almost exclusively by non-changeling members of the pack—the wolves’ night vision was better than any illumination the torches could provide—they were logged in and out with meticulous precision. Someone was probably in trouble for losing this. Sliding it into a pocket, she walked over to join Lake as he got ready to return to the den.
    Body exhausted enough that there was a chance of a dreamless sleep, she parted with him at the entrance and went to log in the torch . . . to discover each and every one of the pack’s set sitting in the box where they were stored. Hairs rising on the back of her neck, she made a call to Maria. “Can you do me a favor?” she asked when the other woman answered.
    “What do you need?”
    “Go about a hundred meters east of where Lake was standing when we arrived, tell me what you scent.”
    No sounds except for rustling as Maria jogged over. Then, “Psy. I smell Psy.”

     
    HAWKE finished checking out the section where Sienna had found the torch. Like Maria, he immediately caught the harsh metallic scent exuded by some Psy—as if they’d gone so deep into Silence, they’d lost their humanity. Nothing but the most brittle cold remained.
    Sienna hadn’t been cold.
    Warm and curvy and muscled in a supple feminine way, she’d surprised him with the softness of her. They’d always been antagonists, always fought. To have her so sweet and lush against him had been a gift, walking away pure torture. His wolf didn’t understand why he’d done so—to the animal, she smelled like a mature female. It didn’t comprehend that she was a young girl barely become a woman.
    I haven’t been a child since the day they came for me when I was five.
    The memory incited a killing rage within him. He’d always known she’d been conditioned into Silence as a child, but until she’d said that, he hadn’t understood the painful depth of what her gift had demanded from her.
    She’d never played.
    How was that possible? Play was as necessary for a wolf as breathing.
    She played with us.
    It was the wolf’s voice. Scowling, he went to reject the assertion. Sienna had driven him crazy with her tricks since moving into the den. The party she’d thrown to celebrate her eighteenth birthday had ended up with a lot of naked wolves freezing their asses off in the lake, their clothes scattered over so many acres, he didn’t ever want to know that the hell they’d been doing.
    If her intent had been to drive him to the asylum—
    “You confirm it?”
    He’d scented Riley nearing, didn’t startle. “Yeah. Definitely Psy.”
    “Damn.” A harsh exhalation. “They’re really going to do this.”
    “Any word from our sources?”
    “Lucas spoke to Nikita. She says tensions are increasing in the Council, and it’s out in the open now. Henry and Shoshanna Scott are making it clear they think the two of them should lead. Anyone who argues differently is in their sights.”
    “We don’t need to be in the middle of a Psy war.” His duty was to protect his people—the Psy could destroy themselves for all he cared . . . as they’d once almost destroyed SnowDancer.
    Riley said, “No,” but his tone brought up another question.
    Hawke stared at the pine needle–strewn land in front of him, the ground otherwise clear because of the heavy canopy. “You’re thinking the same thing I am—no way is this going to be contained to the Psy.”
    “Like Max pointed out,” he said, naming Nikita’s human security chief, “this region’s already seen as interlinked. No matter what, they won’t leave us be.” A shrug. “And fact is, we’ve bitten back and bitten hard. I think at least part of the Council has decided we have too much power to be allowed to continue as we are.”
    Hawke knew that. He also understood that Nikita and Anthony were the lesser of two evils, but it still pissed him off that