Wild Invitation

He planned to have a quiet talk with each child.
    Hawke nodded, the pale strands of his hair vivid in the sunlight. “You’re not the only one who’s had issues. The worsthave been with the older teens, the ones on the cusp of adulthood.”
    “Did you knock sense into their heads?”
    “No.” A slashing smile. “Left that to Sienna and the other novices. Nothing bites worse than being chewed out by those immediately above you in the hierarchy, the people you want to emulate.”
    Walker called over and gave some instructions to two of the boys, before returning to his conversation with Hawke. “I don’t think this”—a subtle nod to the three pups—“is serious. They just need the stability and discipline of pack to settle.”
    “What about Marlee and Toby? Any problems?”
    Walker couldn’t have pinpointed why, but right then, he had the distinct sense of talking to an alpha inquiring about his pack rather than Hawke the man. That alpha had looked out for the Lauren children from the instant he’d accepted them into SnowDancer, regardless of his suspicions of the adults, and Walker respected him for it.
    “Marlee’s young enough to have taken it in her stride”—though his daughter felt far deeper and with more subtlety than most people understood—“but Toby’s having difficulty.” It was Lara who’d noticed his nephew seemed oddly subdued at times. “I’ve spoken to him about it, and I think he’ll be fine.”
    “There’s so much heightened emotion everywhere,” the boy had said, “happiness and relief and worry for what’s coming. It’s hard for me to block it all out, but I’m getting better at shielding.”
    “Sienna,” Walker said, shifting focus. “She’s happy.” A statement, not a question, because he’d seen her this morning, felt her increasing steadiness.
    And that quickly, he was talking to Hawke the man again, rather than the alpha. “I’m her mate, Walker.” It was a growl. “I’d never consciously do anything to make her unhappy, you know that.”
    Yes, he knew. But— “You realize I’m not going to be rational about this.” She was under his protection, and that protection didn’t end simply because she’d mated. It was forever.
    “Yeah, yeah,” the other man muttered. “I won’t take it as an insult since I know logic has nothing to do with the instinct to protect.”
    No, it didn’t. It never had.
    “There are more like me.” A truth he’d understood the first time he’d seen a parent brush the tears off a child’s face. “In the PsyNet. People whose Silence is outwardly perfect, but who’ll fight to the death to protect their young.” Not because those children were a genetic legacy but because of instinct ruled by a far more visceral need.
    “I know.” Hawke, this alpha who’d seen the worst of the Psy race as a child, folded his arms, wolf-blue eyes looking into a future that was spiraling closer with each moment that passed. “Their dawn is coming. Can’t you feel it?”
    “Yes.” In the trickle of fractured Psy heading into San Francisco, in the words of Arrows unbroken, in the increasing desperation of the corrupt to hold onto their power.
    Change was a force that had the world in its ruthless grip.
    For some, the consequences would be devastating. For others, it would be a welcome freedom. Some would fight it, some would embrace it, but no one would escape it. Walker hadn’t expected the painful joy the crashing wave of change had brought into his life, but he intended to hold on to it with an iron grip.
    •   •   •
    AS the days turned into weeks, Lara’s contentment only grew deeper. Walker’s smile was no longer such a rare occurrence, the bond between them a thing of complex and ever-growing beauty, her mate’s voice one she was used to hearing in the warm quiet of the apartment as they talked after the children were in bed.
    She’d convinced herself her earlier fears had been for naught when it happened.
    Two days before Hawke and Sienna’s mating ceremony, she was in the midst of a detailed workup on Alice when she felt a…stutter in the mating bond.
    An instant later, the bond was so calm, it was frigid.
    Shocked into a pained gasp by the sudden absence of emotion, she ran to the small comm unit on her desk and put through a call to Walker’s sat phone. It rang, then went to a message prompt without being picked up, which did nothing to negate her worry. She thought of what he’d told her of