Psy & Changelings 10 - Kiss of Snow

finger toward her. “Behave—unless you want to be naked and under me in about five seconds flat.” Or maybe the wolf wasn’t in control.
    She blinked, swallowed, shook her head. “I don’t think I’m quite ready.”
    Neither did he. Which was why he had trickles of icy water rolling down his neck as he got to his feet. “Do you like the lake?” Not the most subtle change in the direction of the conversation, but he wasn’t exactly Mr. Smooth right then.
    “Yes.” She fell into step beside him. “It’s peaceful.”
    “I used to play down here with my friends all the time as a child.” Rissa had loved jumping in the water in wolf form.
    “Did you love her very much?” Quiet, quiet words.
    Though she’d voiced the question, he could tell from the way she held herself, her face wiped of expression, that she expected him to tell her it was none of her business. It was what he’d have done, had it been any other person of her rank. Except it wasn’t any other person asking this. It was the woman he’d kissed senseless a minute ago, the woman he was sending into a potentially lethal situation tomorrow, the woman who’d had a hold on him since the instant their eyes collided in that dark green glade the day of her defection.
    “We were children,” he began, voice husky with memory. “I only knew her for three years.” They’d spent those three years in each other’s constant company. “We were two of the lucky ones—we found each other early.”
    “How did you know?” There was a deep, haunting curiosity in her face, in her words. “That she was your mate.”
    “I knew.” It was a resonance of the soul, a hunger of the heart, a sweet welcome home he’d missed every day since her death. “I was five years old when she was born and seven when we met. I remember walking along the corridors with my mother the first time I saw her.
    “Later, my mother told me that all of a sudden, I just turned down a hallway and began running.” She’d always laughed as she told that story, his gifted, fey mother with her sea green eyes and wild tumble of hair. “She was so startled that she decided to let me be, see what was so interesting. Until I ran into the nursery.”
    “Was Tarah the nursery supervisor then?” she asked, naming Indigo’s mother.
    “No, and Evie hadn’t even been born.” He couldn’t believe that so many years had passed . . . that Rissa had been gone all that time. “My mother was sure I’d gotten myself in big trouble for interrupting naptime, especially when she found me laughing with a toddler with thick black curls and brown eyes.”
    He would never forget the wonder that had bloomed inside him when Rissa smiled at him. Mine . A crystal-clear thought. As a child, he’d had no understanding of the depth to which that feeling would one day grow—back then, it had been a simple, primal possessiveness. “The healer at the time told me that that was the earliest she’d ever known for a changeling to find his mate.” Some people took years to awaken to each other; Drew and Indigo were the perfect example.
    “That’s so beautiful.” Sienna’s words sang with wonder. “She lived the majority of her life knowing she would never be alone, that someone would catch her whenever she fell.”
    Hawke hadn’t ever considered it in that light, so that Rissa’s short life was touched only with joy not sorrow. “Thank you.” Feeling the most furious tenderness in his heart for this woman who bore so many scars on her soul, he stroked his hand over the heavy silk of her hair. “Stay safe. We have something important to finish when you get back.”
     
     
    LARA tracked Walker down the morning after Sienna and Judd left the den with such stealth, she’d never have known they were gone if she hadn’t gotten up before dawn to check up on Elias and glimpsed them slipping out. When she’d confronted Hawke, pointing out that she ranked as high as a lieutenant, he’d told her what was going on.
    Now, she pushed open the door to the small workspace she knew Walker had commandeered in an isolated section of the den. His tools lay neatly along a bench he’d built with his hands, while the man himself stood at another bench, sanding the edges of a rocking chair so delicate and graceful, she knew it was meant for a young girl. “Did you build that for Marlee?”
    He looked up, taking off and placing his safety glasses aside. “No. It’s a gift for Sakura.”
    It was a kind