Tangle of Need (49 page)

“Anthony and Nikita are arranging new bolt holes,” Coop guessed. “Clever, simple, and effective.”

“We can do it,” Riley said, having had his head together with Indigo while the rest of them spoke. “Factoring in DarkRiver, the Rats, and WindHaven, along with certain trained humans we know we can trust in the city, we have more than enough people to cover all the anchors and backups twenty-four seven.”

“Will it leave the territory vulnerable?” Hawke asked, the question that of an alpha whose primary goal was to keep his people safe, even if that meant making a ruthless choice.

Indigo shook her head. “No, we’re in very good shape.”

Hawke’s pale eyes scanned the room. “Yes or no. The decision will affect every single sector of SnowDancer territory, and if we say yes, it puts us on one side of the line in this civil war.”

Riaz’s wolf knew there was only one choice. “Like it or not,” he said, “as the most powerful group in the area, we have a responsibility to the region now.” As Riley had pointed out, changeling packs were insular for a reason, but they were not and had never been, blind to the outside world.

“Riaz is right.” Cooper’s voice. “We can’t just look away while our neighbors are slaughtered.”

“That’s not who we are.” Jem’s statement was echoed by every single lieutenant in the room.

Hawke’s nod held a quiet pride that said he’d expected no other answer. “But, it can’t be permanent.” Implacable words. “Our wolves aren’t made for that kind of political maneuvering—and I have no desire to rule this region or any other. We protect, and when the dust settles, we help the Psy population find their feet.”

An immediate round of agreement, and then they got down to the hard question of exactly how they could protect themselves and the anchors from a Tk. Judd had a simple answer. “Attack with deadly force as soon as they ’port in. No warning.”

HAWKE
walked into his office to find Sienna standing to the right of his desk. Her attention was on the wall and the map that showed the land currently in the process of being replanted—work that was set to hit completion this week. Knowing how it haunted her, what she’d almost done to SnowDancer, the lives she’d taken to protect the pack, he didn’t offer her any platitudes. Instead, tugging her against his chest, he rubbed his chin over her hair, his wolf soothed by her mere proximity. Her arm came around his waist in return, but when she spoke, the words her voice shaped were unexpected.

“Judd gave me the latest update on the deaths in Cape Dorset.” Quiet. Solemn. As she’d been when he’d woken her to tell her the news. “If they obliterate an anchor point in this region, the casualty count will be catastrophic.”

He should’ve learned by now how good she was at ignoring her own emotions to focus on harsh reality, but she still surprised him at times. Would continue to do so, he thought, as long as he lived. There was nothing predictable about Sienna … except for the love he saw in her eyes every single morning, his own personal dawn. “We’ve agreed to help with the protection detail.”

“I want to—”

“No.”

Pulling away, she frowned. “I know you’re worried about Ming, but he’s got to have other priorities right now. I can wear a disguise like I did when I went out with Evie and her family.”

He folded his arms. “That disguise only worked because of the context.” It was the sole reason he’d been able to let her go—because no one would expect Sienna Lauren Snow, cardinal X, to be walking around the city shoe shopping. “You think the people planning to attack an anchor won’t scan the area? The instant after they figure out you’re Psy, they’ll know who you are.” They’d also know the value of that information to those who sought to harness the fury of an X.

Stubborn tension marked her jawline. “I can’t hide forever.” She folded her own arms, feet set slightly apart. “I’m strong enough to take on even a cardinal telekinetic.”

“And I should just forget about the big fat target on your back?” Anger crept into his voice, his wolf’s hackles up.

“Oh, you mean to match yours?” Narrowed eyes. “I’ll stay if you’ll stay.”

Blowing out a breath, he growled.

Sienna stepped closer instead of farther away, dropping her arms. “I thought we already worked this out?”

He’d permitted her to go into battle, permitted her to put her life on the line. That didn’t mean he’d liked it. “Did you forget the fact that I’m a dominant wolf as well as your mate?” He was not sane when it came to the idea of her being hurt.

She rolled her eyes at him, then smiled. One of those sudden, brilliant smiles she gave him every day, smiles that made him feel ten feet tall even as they cut him off at the knees. And when she cupped his face and tugged him down to rub her cheek against his own, her breasts pushing against his folded arms, man and wolf both knew they were sunk.

Unfolding his arms, he ran his hands down her back as she pressed a line of kisses along his jaw. “Not yet,” he whispered, his voice stripped to the core.

Sienna drew back, lines between her eyebrows. “Hawke?”

He was wolf, was alpha. Revealing vulnerability, even to his mate, didn’t come easy. “I almost lost you,” he said, the memory making him want to rage, as he relived how close he’d come to never again seeing
Sienna’s smile. “I need—” He couldn’t complete the sentence, his emotions too raw.

Cardinal eyes devoid of stars stared back at him. “I understand,” she said, and he felt the depth of her perception along the mating bond. “We, both of us, need a little more time to convince ourselves we made it.” Stroking her hands over his chest, she wrapped her arms around him to rest her cheek against his heart.

He hadn’t expected it, that she’d surrender to the violent depth of his need to hold her safe, if only for a fleeting whisper of time. And he knew he couldn’t allow her to do it, couldn’t steal her freedom to assuage his need. “Go,” he said, forcing the words out, “speak to Riley. Ask him to pair you with someone senior and experienced.”

Pushing away from his chest so she could meet his eyes, Sienna touched her fingers to his face. “Beautiful man.”

His claws pricked the insides of his skin, his wolf fighting the human’s decision.

“I’ll stay.” Her palm against his cheek, her eyes luminescent with emotion. “It’s the logical choice.”

When he cocked his head, she said, “If I go out there, you’ll be half insane with worry and of no use to the pack.” She pressed her fingers to his lips to stop him from speaking. “I’d be the same if it was you.” A crooked smile. “I’m making this choice not for you, but for both of us—I’ll have other chances to help the pack in that way. This time, I’ll help by being one of the ones who’ll remain behind to guard our territory.”

Taking her hand, he kissed the slightly rough skin of her palm, that of a soldier, a fighter … and of a woman who understood him in ways no one else had ever done, or ever would again.

Chapter 59

I AM NEVER
letting you go.

Adria held Riaz’s passionate words to her heart during her first watch on anchor detail. But it was hard, so hard, when she knew he had a meeting with Lisette this afternoon. He’d asked Adria if she wanted to accompany him, and the feral wolf in her had swiped at the chance, but Adria wasn’t a jealous, angry woman, wouldn’t allow herself to become one.

So she’d reined in the urge and said no, trusting him to honor her faith.

But she was still a woman who loved. It hurt to imagine him speaking to Lisette, until her every pulse was a razor cutting her from the inside out. Part of her pain was for him, for the agony that had to be tearing him to pieces. To be so close to the one meant to be your mate, only to be denied. It was such a cruel idea, it made her chest ache. Or perhaps the ache was for her, a symptom of her knowledge that this truth would never change—she would never be who Lisette was to Riaz.

At that moment, she could almost envy the Psy their Silence.

The older man she guarded, his hair a dusty gray, his eyes near the same shade, looked up from the papers he was grading. He was a teacher at the university, he’d told her. Anchors didn’t need to work, and often couldn’t because of the mental discipline required of them on the Net, but Bjorn Thorsen was a mathematical genius. “It makes no rational sense,” he’d told her, “to have my knowledge die with me.”

Now, he said, “A wolf in my study. The world has changed indeed.”

Adria liked Thorsen. There was something about him—as if in spite
of his mathematical bent, he had the capacity to see the most nonnumerical of subtleties. “Yes,” she said. “This is the last thing I ever expected to be doing.”

“I’m eighty-five years of age.” He brought up his computer screen, showed her an image of himself as a much younger—and stiffer—man. “At the start of my lifetime, changelings weren’t even a blip on the Council’s radar. I’ve watched your people’s power grow ever stronger, and I’ve watched my people make bad choice after bad choice. This latest state of affairs, it’s no surprise.”

Startled, she turned to lean her shoulder against the wall. “You expected someone to begin murdering anchors?”

“It’s only logical, Adria.” Putting down the pen in his hand, he met her eyes, his gaze holding a fierce power. “If you control the anchors, you control the Net.”

“But they’re killing, not controlling.”

Thorsen shook his head, his face holding the wisdom of someone who had lived well more than twice her lifetime. “Do you not see? Once they have shattered a larger, more critical section of the Net, the ones behind this will make it known they’ll break other parts, murder other anchors, unless those anchors swear fealty to them.”

Adria frowned. “What advantage would that give them? As I understand it, you stabilize the Net, nothing more.” The answer came to her as the last word left her lips. “If you stabilize the Net,” she said, realizing the true level of cold intelligence behind the sadistic plan, “you can destabilize it.” That destabilization had the potential to affect thousands, tens of thousands at a time. “What better way to control the masses than to let them know their very lives hang in the balance.” One step out of line and the Net itself could be collapsed around them, their lifeline extinguished. And unlike the Laurens, most ordinary Psy likely didn’t know
how
to defect into a smaller network, much less have the psychic and psychological strength to pull it off.

“Excellent,” Thorsen said, sounding like the teacher he was. “Of course, such a practice can’t be maintained long term. The reason anchors themselves don’t destabilize the Net and hold everyone hostage, isn’t only because it would be an irrational act, but because we’re so deeply
connected to it, any damage we do rebounds back on us. I might survive it once or twice, but beyond that…” He rubbed at his temples.

Her wolf went on alert. “What’s the matter? Telepathic attack?” If so, she had Judd on standby. He could teleport in and hopefully disrupt the process.

Lines of pain radiated out from the professor’s eyes. “No. Dissonance programming—it appears I am not meant to talk of such things.” He dropped his hand, his breathing rough. “It’s excruciating on one level, but I’ve become somewhat numbed to it over the years.”

“Because a man of learning,” she said, pouring him a glass of water from a nearby jug, “doesn’t like having his thoughts truncated.” He wouldn’t call it bravery, wouldn’t even call it an emotional decision, but he’d made a stand in his own quiet way. “What do you think you’ll see in the next decade of your life?”

His eyes were calm, his answer brutal. “War.”

RIAZ
halted in the doorway of the meeting room on the lower floor of the same art deco hotel in San Francisco. “Where’s Bo?”

Looking up from the other side of the small oval table, Lisette said, “He flew back to Venice an hour ago,” in that distinctive clear tone of hers. “There was another attempt to take Alliance personnel. Everyone’s safe, but he wants to be there on the ground. He assumed you’d be fine working out the final details with me.”

“Of course,” he said, making a mental note to follow up on the attack with her later in the day. As liaison, Lisette should have the most up-to-date information. “Have you been through the communication protocols I e-mailed through? Any problems?”

Lisette’s smile was soft. “Won’t you sit?”

He took a chair across from her, and it was the first time he’d really looked at her since her arrival in the country. The impact was … unexpected. The primal draw he felt toward her hadn’t disappeared, but it had dulled to background noise, leaving him clearheaded and in control. What had him taking a deep, quiet breath was that his wolf, too,
showed no desire to wrench at the reins, to lunge at her. It lay quiet, watchful.

Lisette lifted a hand in a graceful motion, the fine gold bracelet around her wrist sliding lower down her arm. “I have no issues with the protocols. I should’ve told you that in my e-mail, but I … wanted to talk.”

He took in the shadows under her eyes, the paleness of her skin, felt his protective instincts stir. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m sorry.” She swallowed, shook her head. “I don’t know why—” Another head shake before her face crumpled.

“Hey, hey.” Walking around the table, he crouched down beside her, taking her hands into his. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

It took her several minutes to catch her breath. “I haven’t spoken to Emil in a month,” she whispered, her eyes red.

“Ah, Lisette.” Rising, he pulled her into a hug.

She held on tight to him. “I don’t know why I can speak to you about this, why it feels so easy.” Bewilderment. “I haven’t told anyone else.”

Riaz’s wolf understood why she felt so comfortable with him, yet he knew to his bones that she wasn’t the one he’d go to if he was hurting as badly as Lisette was now. There was only one person he trusted enough to lower his guard, leave himself defenseless, only one person to whom his wolf would speak its secrets. The knowledge was another piece settling into place, another filament in the bond between him and his empress.

Squeezing Lisette tight, he released her and nudged her back into her chair. “Why?” he asked after getting her a cup of coffee. “I know you’re crazy for one another.”