The Psy-Changeling Series, Books 6-10 (219 page)

IN
the middle of a San Francisco street under siege from two Pure Psy units, Judd clutched his head. “No,” he whispered, and then there was no more thought.

 

 

HOURS
away, in a protected safe zone in the middle of a different mountain range, Walker Lauren’s mind went blank as something crashed into him so hard, he didn’t even have a chance to alert the other guardians.
The childre—

Meters away, Toby lay slumped on a tabletop, while Marlee crumpled off her chair and to the floor.

 

 

IN
the den, the command center was thrown into chaos as Brenna fell where she stood. “Judd!” Mariska yelled, slamming to her knees beside Brenna’s limp body. “Find out if anything’s happened to Judd!”

 

 

HAWKE
allowed Lara to heal him first after it was all over, because without him, she would collapse under the weight of the injured.

“Where’s Sienna?” she asked him after she finished healing the remaining damage to his eardrums.

His wolf hated the answer he had to give, the choice he’d had to make. “I had Drew take her up to the lake in the mountains. She’s unconscious.” He didn’t know what other mated pairs saw through the bond, but he saw rippling crimson and gold, their bond so raw and new it was a painful ache.

Right now, the X-fire was a placid pool, the battle had drained Sienna at such a deep level. But it would grow again—colder, stronger, more voracious. When it did, the bond would give him enough warning that he’d be able to take his mate deep into the lake, far, far below the surface. Where he’d hold her as the cold fire consumed them both, its destructive fury dampened by the water. The stone walls of the den, far thicker and stronger than the rocks Sienna had neutralized, and reinforced with titanium plates in places, would protect the pack if the water and the distance weren’t enough.

“Walker and the kids?” Lara’s eyes were haunted when they met his.

He touched his hand to her hair in wordless comfort. “In the same state as Brenna and Judd. Do you want everyone moved here?” Judd had been taken to the bunker in the city, while the others remained in the safe zone.

“No.” She began to heal a female soldier whose brain was swelling inside her skull. “It’s probably better if we don’t move them, since we have no idea why they collapsed.”

“The cats will come up to help once they take care of their own injured.” DarkRiver had taken far less damage, would hold the city and the perimeter against any opportunistic attacks until SnowDancer was functional again. “Take anything you need from me,” he said, his wolf torn between his duty to the pack and his need to be with Sienna.

The only thing that soothed him, that allowed him to hold his focus on channeling pack energy into Lara, was that Sienna wasn’t alone. Everyone in the combat zone had seen what she’d done. Everyone understood the price she would pay. No one would leave her alone in the dark.

It was over five hours later when Judd staggered into the infirmary, supported by Clay and Vaughn. Since Lara, exhausted, needed a break anyway, Hawke sat her down with an order not to move, before turning to Judd as the other male braced himself against a bed. “Brenna?” the lieutenant asked, his voice raw. “My family?”

“Unconscious, but otherwise fine.” Hawke pushed him into a chair when the former Arrow threatened to topple over. “What the hell happened to all of you? Did Henry—”

But Judd was shaking his head. “You.”

Hawke frowned, looked at Vaughn. “Did he hit his head when he fell?”

“Mating bond,” Judd muttered. “Shoved the balance—” It was the last thing he said before he slumped.

Clay caught him before he would’ve fallen off the chair, and together with Vaughn got him into a bed in the same room as Brenna.

“The sonic shockwave was heard as far as the city,” Vaughn told him afterward, “but it wasn’t strong enough to incapacitate.”

“Do we have enough people to cover in case they come back?” He knew Riley had been liaising with the cats, but he hadn’t had a chance to talk to the lieutenant.

A nod. “WindHaven falcons are sweeping over the area now—it was a good idea to hold them in reserve. Rats have city intelligence covered.”

Before Hawke could ask anything else, Vaughn clamped a hand over his shoulder. “Look after your people, Hawke. We’ll handle it.”

Trust, Hawke thought, came in many forms. A baby in his arms. A surge of deadly flame licking over his people. A leopard guarding the gate. “Go.”

 

 

THE
first thing Judd did when he managed to pierce the veil of consciousness at dawn was to check his mate and family were fine. The second was to find Alice Eldridge’s bed, which had been pushed into a quiet corner of the hectic infirmary. She lay as silent and lifeless as ever, her secrets locked inside her mind.

Judd had a conscience. He also knew he might’ve been tempted to tear Alice’s mind apart in a search for answers if it would save Sienna, but whoever had taken Alice had done something to her. Her mind was sewn up so tight it was better protected than that of most Psy—the problem was, Alice’s shields had been locked into place. The only way to penetrate them without a very specific telepathic “key,” now lost in time, would be to kill her.

Exhausted, his head in his hands as he leaned his elbows on her bed, he almost missed the beep on the monitor above the bed. Then it sounded again. Jerking upright, he searched for Lara, saw Hawke carrying the healer into the office where she had a sofa. From the protective way the alpha held her, it appeared she’d lost consciousness, unsurprising given the number of injuries SnowDancer had suffered.

“Alice,” he whispered, turning to clasp his hand around the woman’s thin one as he kept an eye on the electronic readout above her head.

Her eyes fluttered open. So deep and intense was the brown of her irises that it was difficult to distinguish pupil from iris even when she focused on Judd’s face. Her lips parted, as if she’d speak, but her throat emitted no sound. Squeezing her hand, he reached over to snag some ice chips off a trolley to wet her throat.

“Arrow,” she said in a hoarse whisper, but there was no fear in her, only defiance.

“Former.” Perhaps he should’ve waited, but he had to get the information while she was conscious and lucid. “We need to know if you discovered anything about X-Psy that would help save one about to go critical.”

Confusion. “X?”

“Cold fire,” he said. “X-fire.
Remember.
”

Not even a glimmer of recognition and he knew the Ghost had been right. Alice had asked for her own memories to be erased. It had to be the reason why she’d ended up in cryonic suspension rather than assassinated, her abductors needing time to work out how to retrieve the data. However, he refused to give up—she’d been in stasis for so long. There was no knowing how it had affected her mind. “The burning ones,” he said, using every key word he could think of. “Fire. Flame. Synergy.”

An instant of piercing clarity. “Find the valve.”

HAWKE FELT EVERYONE
in the infirmary sag with relief when the first of the healers from the other sectors arrived. They’d asked to come before the conflict, but SnowDancer couldn’t risk putting all its healers so close to danger. But now, they were needed, and nothing could keep them away.

It cost him, but he didn’t leave until the healers pronounced that the injured had been stabilized enough that he could take a break. He headed straight for the woman who was the beating heart of him. The tent Drew had rigged over Sienna’s unconscious body was empty, their packmates having left when they sensed his approach.

It was as if she’d been waiting for him.

“No.” It was a whisper so quiet, even most changelings wouldn’t have heard it. But Sienna was Hawke’s, had always been his, whether she’d known it or not, whether he’d accepted it or not.

“Yes,” he murmured, dipping his finger in a bottle of water and rubbing it over her lips. “Yes.”

A shake of her head, but her lips parted, searching for more. He trickled some into her mouth, making low, deep sounds of encouragement in his throat. “Come on now. Open those pretty eyes for me.”

“Dark.”

He didn’t know what she meant by that, but driven by his wolf, he leaned down to nip at her lower lip. “Hawke,” he said. “That’s the word you need to be saying.”

Lines formed between her eyebrows.

“Hawke,” he repeated, squeezing her hip. “Hawke.”

“Hawke.” It was a sleepy murmur as her eyes flickered open. That cardinal gaze displayed a wild burst of unadulterated happiness for one stunning instant before it was wiped away by shocked horror as she scrambled up into a sitting position. “What did you do?” A mental door slammed shut with such force it shot pinpricks of light behind his eyelids.

Snarling, he gripped her jaw, “Don’t you dare try to block me.” His wolf began to batter at the wall it couldn’t see but could feel, tied as they were by the mating bond, a bond that would never allow that kind of distance.

The barrier broke in an avalanche of emotion, tangling them up until he could sense her in every part of him. Taking in a shuddering breath, he clasped her head between his hands and said, “Try that again and I’ll paddle you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t you talk to me like that.”

The laugh came from somewhere deep inside him. “Good morning to you, too, sunshine.” Then he kissed her. And kept on kissing her until she bit down hard on his lower lip. “What?” he growled.

“Air.”

The gasp gave him the impetus to rein himself back. “Judd said your family is okay.” Hawke hadn’t asked too much more, especially when the former Arrow told him what Alice Eldridge had said before lapsing back into the same comalike state she’d been in since entering the den.

 

 

REMEMBERING
the wrenching sensation that had torn at her before she lost consciousness, Sienna closed her eyes and stepped out into what should’ve been the LaurenNet.

It wasn’t.

She blinked, shook her head.

“Sienna.” Lips on her jaw.

She thrust a hand into his hair. “Stop distracting me.” Yet she turned her face toward his, taking just a little more in spite of the dread that knotted up her throat—and giving, too. He was changeling, touch essential to his happiness. “The LaurenNet is gone.”

His head snapped up. “What?”

“Shh.” She touched psychic fingers to the sparkling wolf-blue and flamehued rope that connected her to Hawke—
oh, God
—but tempting as it was to focus on the beauty and terror of it, she moved on, spreading her psychic senses.

She found Judd first, linked as he was to Hawke. Bonded to him was a mind Sienna was used to seeing in the LaurenNet, though it wasn’t Psy—Brenna. Judd was also connected in a wholly different way to another mind she recognized: Walker. She, too, was connected to both Judd and Walker, and all three of them had direct links to Toby and Marlee.

However, those weren’t the only minds in this web.

Nine other minds, strong and wild in a way she couldn’t explain speared out from the central core that was Hawke, spokes on a wheel. A tenth mind was held closer to his own in a more protective way. All were fortified by natural shields it would take savage force to pierce—a stab of pain, of memory—and not a single one was Psy. A number of other minds connected outward from the spokes.

“I can see Lara, see your lieutenants,” she whispered, amazed by how “messy” this network was, so many intertwined and crisscrossing connections. “Indigo . . . I know her. She’s sparks and strength and
life.
And Drew, bonded to her so deep and strong.” Her heart smiled. “That must be Cooper’s mate.” Ever here, he was protective, her mind tucked close to his.

“Riley. I know him, too.” He was the calm in the midst of the storm, the rock on which every one of them depended. “Strange,” she whispered, seeing how the most powerful bond Riley had disappeared into nowhere. “Mercy.”

Strong, slightly rough fingers on her jaw. “Everyone is safe?”

“Yes.” She touched psychic fingers to the bond that was Lara’s. It wasn’t like the others, and she knew on an intuitive level that the tie between alpha and healer had its own set of rules, as would the links between the lieutenants and the healers bonded to them. So complex. So glorious.

“Sienna.”

Opening her eyes, she met those of a wolf. The LaurenNet, she thought, had held Judd even after Hawke blood-bonded him, because the neo-sentience within the familial network had known they couldn’t survive without him. But what Hawke had done on the battlefield had tipped the balance—and tied as the family was to one another, Judd and Sienna had wrenched everyone into the SnowDancer Web.

“Good.” He kissed her hard. “Now explain to me what the hell you thought you were doing turning yourself into a human torch!”