Wild Invitation

death, the wolf alpha was violently protective of her.
    Eyes pensive, Sienna fixed the tie at the end of her braid. “He can’t disappear from the den right now, with how unsettled everyone’s still feeling.”
    Hawke’s presence, Walker realized, was helping to soothe their packmates on the most primal level. “You two won’t have had much time alone together.” It concerned him—the alpha and Sienna both needed an opportunity to decompress, take a breath.
    Sienna’s gaze met his, and he knew she recognized his worry, even before she said, “It’s okay. Hawke is certain it’ll only be another week or so before things return to normal.”
    Conscious of Hawke’s instinctive ability to read the pulse of the pack, he nodded. “How are you?”
    “Stable.” Teeth biting down on her lower lip. “As far as I can tell.”
    Walker knew why she couldn’t give him an absolute answer. Sienna had lived her whole life fearing the rage of power that lived inside her—the fact it was no longer wholly uncontrollable would take time to sink in. Looking into the mental network that connected them, he focused on Sienna’s mind. It glowed crimson gold with a beautiful, deadly power that then shot down the familial bond to Walker, feeding into the twisting vortex at the center of his own mind.
    Until the battle, none of them had understood the reason for the formation of the vortex. Now it was clear it acted as a filter for Sienna’s power, stripping her energy of its destructive potential. “There are no signs of a hazardous buildup.” Of the deadly synergy that could turn her into a bomb of catastrophic potential.
    “I initiated a massive discharge of power not long ago,” Sienna said in so quiet a tone that he had to concentrate to hear her, her eyes midnight with tautly held emotion. “According to my estimates, we can’t do a proper analysis until at least the six-week mark post-release.”
    “Agreed.”
    “And I’ll have to continue to monitor the cold fire long-term.”
    “Of course.” He captured her startled gaze when she jerked up her head, this girl who was as much daughter to him as Marlee. “Any Psy with a high-Gradient ability has to do the same—you know Judd is always aware of the exact level of his telekinetic strength.” The act was no longer a conscious one for his brother, but a near-autonomic response. “It negates the risk that he’ll cause an inadvertent injury.
    “A Ps-Psy,” he continued, seeing he had her attention, “has to learn to block his psychometry on a day-to-day basis to ensure he doesn’t drown under the influx of other people’s memories and emotions.” Ps-Psy had diverse specialties within their designation, but the foundation of their power was the ability to pick up “memory echoes” left on physical objects, from a doorknob to a button.
    He switched from verbal to mental speech for his next example.
A telepath
maintains a shield against extraneous“noise” every instant of his or her existence—you learned to do it as a child.
    Sienna blew out a breath, her eyes no longer solid black. “That makes it sound so…normal.” When her X ability had never been in any way normal. “I’ll have to maintain a conscious watch until my mind learns to do so automatically.”
    “It already is automatic.” The cold fire had branded her from the day the X marker first went active, becoming the central fact of her existence. “What you need to learn is how to push that awareness into the background, so it doesn’t dominate your thoughts except when necessary.” She deserved a life free of fear, and he would do everything in his power to make certain she reached for it.
    Never again did he want to see the girl he’d seen after her mother, Kristine’s death. Sienna had been taken for “training” by Councilor Ming LeBon at age five and allowed no familial contact except for limited time with her mother. After his sister’s suicide, the only way Walker had been able to get in to see Sienna had been by using the most cold-blooded and mercenary of rationales—that the young girl was genetically a Lauren and her abilities belonged to the family unit. As the executor of Kristine’s estate, which included her genetic legacy, Walker had rights of access.
    For Ming to deny his claim would’ve breached laws that lay at the bedrock of Psy society. And at that point, the Councilor had still worn his mask of civility; Walker had been granted permission to meet with