Chapter 9

BUOYED BY A bone-deep feeling of rightness, Walker finished a phone conversation with the mate of the leopard healer the following day, then went to supervise an outdoor exercise. It was a half hour into it that Hawke appeared beside him. The alpha’s eyebrow rose when he spotted the three pups, two male and one female, sitting cross-legged on the grass, faces set and arms folded. “Why aren’t those three participating?”

“It’s a punishment.” Walker had learned very quickly that changeling kids hated missing out on a physical activity. “I’ve had some problems since the evacuees returned to the den.” It had disturbed the children to be shuttled off, to worry in safety while their families and packmates fought, were hurt. “A few of the pups think they should’ve stayed behind and helped.”

Shoving a hand through hair the same unique silver-gold as his fur in wolf form, Hawke blew out a breath. “Future dominants, I’m guessing. Hard for them to accept being protected in a situation where they know their packmates are standing in the line of fire.”

Walker understood in a way the pups couldn’t comprehend. It had been brutal for him to leave the den when Lara, Sienna, and Judd remained behind. But it had been necessary, his strength needed to provide a shield for their most vulnerable. “Do you want to speak to them?”

“You’re their handler; your call.”

“Leave it to me.” 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 worst have 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 his schedule for this afternoon—a simple walk with a small group of children under his authority, the aim to work out the parameters of a new project in a stress-free environment.

He’d never risk the children by taking them into a section that hadn’t been cleared by SnowDancer security, and she’d heard no alarms that indicated an attack of some kind. Yet Walker had all but disappeared under the brutal force of an iron control that made her feel like the mating bond was being strangled to death.

Forcing herself to breathe, to think, she decided to walk outside and follow the tug of the bond until she found him. It might end up being nothing but—“No, don’t go there.” With that shaky admonition, she managed to tell Lucy she was heading out, and left.

She’d barely reached the middle of the White Zone, the safe play area for the youngest SnowDancers, when Walker exploded out of the trees, a child’s limp body held in his arms. Healer instinct slammed into force, and she was running full-tilt toward him before she’d consciously decided to act.

“What happened?” It was Tyler in his arms, the boy’s dark brown skin sheened with a thin layer of perspiration that smelled “wrong” to her senses.

“Far as I can figure,” Walker said, chest heaving from the speed of his own run, “he’s had an allergic reaction. An insect bite, maybe a plant. He collapsed after complaining of shortness of breath and dizziness—it was a rapid reaction, less than thirty seconds from complaint to collapse.”

An allergic reaction triggered by a pack’s long-term natural environment was so rare in the changeling population as to be negligible, but there was nothing to say this pup might not be one of the outliers. “Place him flat on the grass.” Ignoring everything else, she put her hands around the boy’s throat, worked to open air passages that had all but closed up. If Walker hadn’t reacted as he had by bringing the pup to her, instead of calling for assistance, they could’ve lost Tyler.

“I’ve managed to open his airway for the time being.” Having bought a temporary reprieve, she checked the boy’s body for any clue as to what had provoked the near-lethal reaction. The presence of a toxin or venom would require a different treatment from a response incited by a plant.

“There.” It was on his ankle, just above his sock. “A sting of some kind.”

Working on him again to ensure his airway remained open and his heart continued to beat, she asked Walker to carry him into the infirmary. “Where’s Judd?” She knew that if at all possible, Walker would’ve alerted his telekinetic brother at the first sign that Tyler was in danger and requested an emergency teleport.

“Other side of the country till eight tonight. With the psychic energy he’s already used over the past couple of days, teleporting back to the den would’ve wiped him out, left him with nothing to help Tyler.”

“I don’t think even a Tk could’ve gotten Tyler to me as quickly as you did.” Lara grabbed a scanner as Walker placed Tyler on a bed inside the infirmary.

Turning to face her, he said, “I have to go. I left the other pups alone and they’re in shock.”

Lara nodded, her concentration on what was happening inside her patient’s body. “Go. I’ll tell you the instant he’s out of the woods.”

Lucy was there to assist after Walker left—with a brush of his hand over Tyler’s tight black curls and a touch of his knuckles to Lara’s cheek. When the boy’s parents arrived, Lucy made sure the distraught couple didn’t disrupt Lara.

Much as Lara understood their worry and fear, she needed to focus. The scanners confirmed what she’d suspected: The venom had provoked an overwhelming negative reaction in the pup’s body, the worst she’d ever seen. The average changeling, child or adult, would’ve perhaps felt a tingling, maybe had to deal with an itchy red bump for an hour or so, but that was it.

Tyler’s entire body was threatening to shut down.

“I’ve got you now. You’ll be okay,” she murmured, injecting him with a drug designed to counteract the worst of the effects, before using her abilities to stabilize the systems of his body. She not only soothed the ragged edges, she worked to make sure he’d never again respond in the same dangerous way to the same type of sting.

If an M-Psy or a human physician had asked her how she did what she did, she couldn’t have explained it except to say that she could sense an imbalance, one at the source of the reaction. All she had to do was nudge Tyler’s body back into the correct equilibrium.

The task took over three hours.

“I’ve eliminated the risk of another extreme reaction,” she said to his parents afterward, rubbing the cramp from the back of her neck. “It should protect him against other allergens as well, but I’m going to keep him in the infirmary, run a battery of tests to make certain.”

“As long as you want.” Hugging Lara, the couple left to sit with their sleeping son.

“Did you call Walker?” Lara asked Lucy once they were alone, having given the instruction the instant she knew Tyler would pull through.

“Yes,” the nurse replied. “He’s still with the other kids, wanted to make sure they were okay.”

Lara had expected nothing less from her mate. “Hawke?”

“He’s not in the den, but I contacted him with an update.” Lucy blocked her when Lara would’ve headed for her office. “You need to sit down, rest. There’s fresh coffee and sandwiches in the break room. I’ll handle anything Tyler and his parents need.”

Exhausted, Lara didn’t argue…but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t relax. Not when the bond remained so icily calm on Walker’s end. The remoteness of it made her want to scream, her wolf clawing at the insides of her skin. She’d looked into his eyes, glimpsed the intense, protective worry ripping him apart, and yet if she were to judge from the bond, she’d say he was unmoved by the near tragedy.

A sob burst out of her throat.

God, she was so angry with him.

•   •   •

WALKER had just escorted the last of his charges home and was about to head into the infirmary to look in on Tyler when he glimpsed Marlee and Toby in the White Zone. They were both involved in their own activities and didn’t see him, for which he was thankful. Leaning against the outer wall of the den, the stone covered with a fine fern that meant it was invisible to aerial surveillance, he drew in a long, deep breath and fought the urge to wrench both children into his arms.

So quickly, he could’ve lost Tyler today.

Releasing the breath he’d taken, he turned to look at the woman who walked toward him, frowning when he realized he hadn’t sensed her until she was almost to him.

“Tyler’s awake.” She joined him against the stone of the den. “He doesn’t remember what happened, which is a blessing, I think.”

Reaching down, he closed his fingers over hers, found them chilled. “How are you?” Her face was drawn, lines of strain around her mouth. “Sienna’s power didn’t replenish you?”

“I didn’t need it. This was more about unmitigated concentration.” She broke their handclasp to wave at Marlee when their daughter looked over.

“And you?” Lara asked softly once Marlee had returned to her conversation with her friends. “It must’ve been terrifying to see Tyler collapse, begin to suffocate.”

The fact was, Walker’s mind had slid into a hyper-calm phase the instant he realized what was happening, his emotions under lockdown. He’d made sure the boy’s airway wasn’t totally closed, given orders for the two oldest in his group to take care of the others, and then he’d gone to Lara. All the while, a fierce protective fury had raged beneath the calm. He would not lose any more children under his command.

Not as he’d lost so many of the child Arrows, their bodies and minds breaking under the pitiless regime of training, no matter what Walker did to alleviate their suffering. He remembered each and every face, each and every name. They haunted him. He refused to add another ghost to their number.

When he opened his mouth, however, what came out was, “I’m fine,” and it was a response fed by the decades he’d lived in the cage of Silence, his mind still on autopilot. “I’d like to see him.” He reached for her hand again, needing her on a visceral level.

Lara folded her arms.

Every muscle in his body froze, and he barely heard her say, “Tyler would enjoy a visit,” through the rush of blood in his ears.

“What’s wrong?” Only once before—during their turbulent courtship—had Lara pulled away from him. That day, he’d drowned in bleak despair; today, a hot flame of anger licked at him. Because he knew she’d only do something like that if she was hurting. And still she didn’t speak, didn’t tell him what had wounded her. “Lara.”

“You’re doing it again,” she whispered at last, the simmering anger in her tone seeded with a fine vein of pain that cut like a razor. “I know you’re angry, and yet here”—she thumped a fist against her chest—“I feel nothing. Just this mirage of peace that you throw at me to block me from seeing you.” A single tear rolled down her cheek. “Why would you do that, Walker?”

He’d gone motionless at her first words, welcomed the whack of the errant soccer ball that bounced against his leg. Jerking, he kicked it back and gripped Lara’s forearm when she would’ve turned and walked away. “You knew who I was when you accepted my courtship.” If she couldn’t take him as he was, the fractures inside him would be permanent and irreversible.

“And you knew who I was.” Wolf amber brilliant against the lush hue of her skin. “I’m not fragile. I won’t break if you let me see your pain, your fury, your worry.”

It felt as if she’d kicked him in the heart. “I’ve told you things I’ve told no one else on this earth.” He wanted to yell, but his voice came out deadly calm.

“Yes.” Tears shone wet in the amber, her voice dropping to a whisper, “It means everything that you invited me into your secrets. Everything.”

The panic struggled to recede under her passionate vow, hit a snag. “Then why?” Why was she walking away from him, ripping him to pieces?

“It’s not enough to allow me into your past if you shut me out of your present. Our present,” she said softly. “I need to walk beside you, to be your shield as you’re mine. I can’t handle being shut out, being cut off when I know you’re in pain.”

His heart thudded in his mouth, his skin going hot then cold. “If I can’t be that open?” He’d learned too young how to keep his mind contained, his emotions hidden, especially in high-stress situations.

“No, Walker.” Her voice was fierce, the curls that had escaped the clip at the back of her head catching the fading red-orange sunlight as she shook her head. “You don’t get an easy pass, don’t get to give in without even trying. I know the strength of your will better than anyone!”