Chapter 3

WALKER’S MIND RACED back over two decades to present him with an image of a small boy with slanted eyes of liquid brown and hair of silky black cut close to his skull in an effort to keep it tamed.

He’d appeared fragile, his bones sticking out against his skin, but that boy, he’d had a will akin to a Lauren and a mind that echoed Walker’s own—a telepath dismissed as a power because his ability was so subtle, so very fine-tuned. Like Walker, Aden had been miscategorized, his power level far, far more dangerous than indicated by his official classification.

Eyes widening a fraction as Aden realized Walker knew the truth. “Will you tell?” A child’s voice, but an ancient’s gaze.

“No.” Never would he betray one of his children. “I’ll teach you to hide the truth better, until no one will ever again find you out.”

“Why?” A flat question.

“Because you deserve to live without fear or pain. I can’t give you that—but I can give you a weapon, show you how to use it so that you can fight when the time comes.”

“Yes, I remember Aden.” As he remembered every single child he’d taught in the Arrow school; every single bruise and broken bone he’d witnessed; every complaint he’d made as a wet-behind-the-ears teacher to the “protective” branch of the training squad, to his superiors, even to the Council itself, before coming to understand that no one was listening.

It could’ve broken him, but Walker had refused to buckle…because he did have the ability to give his charges psychic weapons, and sometimes, he’d even been able to protect them, if only for a short while. He’d kept more than one student after school, ostensibly for detention or extra tutoring—only to tell that child to sleep, to rest, to heal as much as he or she could, safe in the knowledge that no one would drag them out of sleep to face some dark horror meant to turn a child into a perfect killing machine.

So many of the youngest, their emotions not yet crushed under the weight of Silence, had ended up sobbing in his arms at the small kindness. He could still feel the weight of their tiny bodies against him, their tears drenching his shirt, their nascent conditioning fracturing inside the telepathic wall of protection formed by his mind…freedom for a fleeting instant.

Aden, he remembered, had never cried, never broken…and never lost his soul. “He used to shake his head at me when I attempted to keep him back after school”—because the boy had bruises no child should have, his arm showing signs of having been broken and reset over and over—“and tell me to keep one of the younger children.”

“I’m stronger. I’ll survive. They need the rest more than I do.”

Judd turned to face him, his expression intent. Walker rarely spoke of his time in the squad’s schoolroom, and his brother had never pushed. He didn’t tonight, either.

“Aden’s doing the same still,” he said instead. “Leading the squad, protecting the ones who are broken, watching over the children.”

Walker felt a quiet burn of pride for the boy he’d known.

“He asked me to thank you,” Judd continued, “and to tell you that what you taught him has helped save the life, and the mind, of more than one Arrow.”

The words meant everything. “I’d like to speak to Aden when it’s safe for him.” See the man the child had become.

“I’ll tell him.” Reaching into a pocket, Judd pulled out a black data crystal, handed it to Walker. “The names and addresses of the children in the squad’s training program. Should anything go wrong with the Arrows’ plans for the future, we have to get them out.”

Walker accepted the crystal and the weight of the trust Aden had placed in him, old anger twining with new hope. Looking out over the star-studded landscape in the quiet that followed, he spotted several wolves loping out to roughhouse in the clearing below. “Lake, Maria, Ebony, and Cadence,” he said, identifying them by the subtle differences in their size, markings, and coloring.

Lake was the one who lifted his head, gave the two of them a nod.

Walker acknowledged the greeting with a raised hand as Judd said, “It’s good to be home, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” The powers in the PsyNet no doubt considered his family even more of a threat after the revelation of Sienna’s power, might yet attempt to harm them, but that was a fight that would wait. At this moment, everyone he loved was safe, and he was tied to the woman who was his heartbeat by a bond as strong and as tender as Lara herself.

He only hoped that as the days passed, Lara wouldn’t begin to regret the choice she’d made to bond with a man who still carried the shadow of Silence in his every breath.

•   •   •

LARA woke to a kiss on her neck, slightly rough night-cool hands on her sleep-warmed skin. “You’re home.” Turning into Walker’s embrace, she nuzzled at his throat, drawing in the intoxicating scent of dark water hiding a thousand mysteries. “…time is it?”

“Just after six.” A kiss, hot and wet and carnal, his body shifting to cover her own, his hands pushing up her silky thigh-length nightgown, the color a shade of plum so dark it was almost black. “I like this.”

“I know.” Feeling lazy and sleepy and sexy, she lay boneless as he peeled off her panties and returned to his position above her, his body pressed intimately between her thighs. It made her moan, rise sinuously against him. “Come inside me.”

He didn’t argue, simply stroked her with his fingers to check her readiness before pushing into her slow and easy. Her gasp was swallowed up in a kiss, her nipples rubbing against the crisp hairs on his chest as he lifted himself up enough to tug off the nightgown before returning until they were skin to skin.

It was something she’d realized about her mate. Now that she’d broken through the barriers that kept him so remote, he loved skin contact, whether or not it was sexual. He’d never be comfortable with skin privileges when it came to the majority of people—but with her, he was both demanding and so giving it made her heart ache.

Playing her fingers through the hairs that brushed his nape, she locked her ankles at his back and moaned softly at the exquisite feel of him stretching her, filling her. When he dipped his head to lick at her nipples with languorous ease, her nails dug into his back. “More, darling.”

The sense of a masculine murmur, though she heard nothing with her ears, and then he gave her what she wanted. She arched under the sensations, her fingers fisting in his hair. Tugging him up when the pleasure became too much, she kissed her way up his throat and along his jaw to that spot under his ear that always made him shudder. A wet flick of her tongue, a husky request, and slow and lazy turned slow and relentless.

Pleasure rippled over her—not in a crash, but in a languid wave, her orgasm endless. She felt him stiffen, shifted her mouth to his throat, kissing and petting him through his own orgasm until he collapsed on her, a delicious weight.

“That was some wake-up call,” she murmured much later, when he roused enough to shift to his back, with her sprawled half on and half off his body.

He drew circles on her back with his fingers. “I’m glad you approve. As you know, I was a virgin not long ago.”

She laughed at the teasing reminder of how she’d offered to be gentle with him. “You’re a fast learner, Mr. Lauren.” Yawning, she dragged up the sheet to cover them. “How was the watch?”

“Trouble free,” was the concise answer, but then he said, “Judd was there for a while.”

Sensing he meant more than he was saying, she spread her fingers over the taut heat of his chest. “Did he want to catch up?”

Walker was quiet for a long time. “We talked about a boy I once knew. A trainee Arrow.”

And then, as the final vestiges of the night faded from the sky, her mate spoke to her about the schoolroom that had been his for so many years, told her things she understood without asking that he’d shared with no one else, not even his brother. Tears clogged her throat at all that he had witnessed, the pain of the children…and the realization that her mate was inviting her into a part of his life she’d only glimpsed till now, sharing one of his secrets with her.

•   •   •

THAT morning marked the day the pack shifted into high gear, all of the remaining evacuees scheduled to return within the next forty-eight hours. While not needed to heal injuries, Lara was needed nonetheless, as was Walker. The week passed in a rush of helping the pups resettle into the den, soothing their worries, and—for Lara—talking privately with packmates who’d been so badly injured that in any other situation, they’d be dead.

Tai had been dodging her in true wolf style, but near the end of the week she finally cornered him by the waterfall closest the den. Crushed skull, catastrophic damage to internal organs, as well as a laser burn on half of his body, Tai had been so critical, she’d shut herself in her office and burst into tears for a single stolen minute during the aftermath of the battle, her heart breaking at the sense that he was slipping through her fingers.

Taking a seat beside him on the stony outcropping that overlooked the crashing thunder of water, their feet hanging over the edge, she drew in a deep breath of the crisp air. The sky was a stunning mountain blue, the fine spray from the waterfall cool against her skin, but her wolf was focused only on the young male beside her. “How are you, Tai?”

“Fine.” Pure exasperation. “Seriously, Lara, do I look like I need counseling?”

No, he didn’t. Vivid blue-green eyes uptilted at the edges and skin of golden brown, his shoulders broad, he looked strong and young and gloriously alive. But he was a dominant, and admitting weakness was a thing he’d fight with gritted teeth and clenched fists. So she kept her tone undemanding as she said, “Most changelings don’t have to confront their mortality until they’re good and ready.” Male and female alike, they thought they were invulnerable at this age, and that was how it should be. “You were forced into it.”

Tai stared at the waterfall, eyes unblinking. And she thought he’d simply refuse to speak. If he did, there was little she could do about it—yes, she outranked him, but an order would gain her nothing, not with a wolf as strong and as determined as Tai. He had to trust her.

“You know what bugged me the most when I took that blow to the head?” he said almost ten minutes later. “When I realized I probably wouldn’t come out of it alive?”

Breathing out a silent sigh of relief, Lara shook her head. “What?”

“That I’d never have a stupid fight with Evie ever again.” He gave her a lopsided smile, that handsome face suddenly beautiful. “Dumb, huh?”

It eased her worry to hear no bitterness in his tone. “Do you enjoy the fighting or what comes after?”

His grin grew deeper. “A gentleman never tells.” His smile faded into an intensity of purpose that brought a memory into sharp focus; something Hawke had said to her over two years ago—that Tai held the potential to one day be a SnowDancer lieutenant. Now, the young male looked back out over the foaming crash of the water. “There are so many things I want to do with my life, but Evie? She’s at the top of every list I’ve made since the first day I realized neither of us was a pup anymore.”

Evie, too, Lara thought, looked at Tai with the same devotion. “You took your time making a move,” she said, thinking of the man who loved her in the same unwavering way, steady and sure…but with a raw depth of passion that grew ever stronger.

“I had to grow balls big enough to stand up to Indigo,” Tai muttered. “First time I even looked at Evie, I got the ice stare and everything shriveled up.”

Laughing at his reference to the lieutenant who was Evie’s older—and very protective—sister, she nudged his shoulder with her own. “Liar. I bet you were sneaking off with Evie before anyone knew you two were an item.”

A very satisfied grin was her answer.

“I really am okay, Lara,” he said when he spoke again. “I know most guys my age don’t think about death and stuff, but my generation didn’t have a choice. We were born either directly before or after the violence in the den.”

That violence, incited by an ugly Psy “experiment,” had devastated the pack. So many of their own had died, leaving behind pups who were suddenly motherless or fatherless, or in the worst cases, orphans. Tai hadn’t lost his parents, but he’d been surrounded by loss all the same—his uncle, his best friend’s father, his novice-soldier cousin, the list went on. Of course he understood death.

“Has it…your life…”

Wrapping an arm around her in a dominant’s instinctive effort to comfort, Tai tucked her against the wild heat of his bigger body. “You know the shit me and the others pulled when we were younger.” His grin coaxed one out of her. “We weren’t traumatized or stunted. Hell, we grew up proud, and we grew up bold—we saw SnowDancer not only survive, but spit in the faces of our enemies by becoming so strong that they came to fear us.”

Lara thought back to a teenage Tai, to the hair pulling he’d incited in the maternal females and felt the knot in her abdomen unravel. “Have you spoken to Evie about what happened?” Even accepting that he’d thought about death in the abstract, facing his own would have been a harsh slap, and he needed to acknowledge that to someone.

Tai snorted. “You think she gave me a choice? Submissive, my ass.”

Lara’s lips twitched at the affection-laced growl, the last of her concern subsiding. She knew Evie would ensure Tai was healthy both in body and mind. “She’s only like that with you, you know.” Evie was a true submissive, happy to allow Tai’s wolf to take the lead. That didn’t mean she didn’t love him as fiercely as he loved her.

“I know—and I wouldn’t have her any other way.” Arm still slung around her shoulder, Tai nuzzled a kiss into her hair. “So, can I stop hiding from you now?”

Laughing, she cupped his face and kissed him on the mouth with the easy affection of a packmate who’d played with him when he was a babe and bound up his injuries during his terrible teens. “Smart aleck. You can walk me back to—” Breaking off, she smiled at the man who’d appeared out of the trees. “On second thought, shoo.”

“I feel so unwanted.” Waving a quick hello at Walker with that laughing statement, he rose and jogged off toward the den.

“This is a nice surprise,” Lara said as her mate took Tai’s place beside her, his denim-covered thigh pressing against her own.

Quivering with happiness, her wolf tried to nuzzle at Walker, its fur rubbing against the inside of her skin.

“I only have five minutes.” Closing his hand over hers, he brought her knuckles up to his mouth, the unexpected caress making her breath catch. “I saw you kiss Tai.”

She angled her head at the edgy comment. “You’ve been in the pack for years. You know how affectionate we are.”

“You didn’t belong to me before.”

Lara’s first instinct was to laugh, tease him about his unwarranted jealousy, but something in his expression made her pause, think. Touch was a precious thing to Walker, not something he shared lightly. And a kiss on the mouth…it was an act he only ever did with her. “I didn’t know it would hurt you,” she said, kissing his knuckles in turn, “and I’m so sorry it did.”

He curved his hand around her thigh when she released it, squeezed. “I’m reacting badly,” he admitted. “You’re the healer, and the pack has certain rights to you.”

Wrapping her arm around his, she leaned into his body. “I could never withhold my affection,” she said, hoping he would understand. “It would go against my every instinct to do so.”

“I wouldn’t ever ask that of you.” It was a quiet promise, his hair lifting in the breeze as he looked down at her with those eyes the stunning shade of new leaves under sunlight. “I know who you are, Lara. It makes me proud to be your mate.”

Tears threatened. “Ditto,” she said a little shakily.

Reaching out with his free hand, he brushed his thumb over her cheek. “But…not on the mouth, if it’s an adult male. I can’t deal with that.”

The naked honesty of his request hit her right in the heart. “Only you,” she promised, and it was no sacrifice. Affection was affection. She’d find some other way to show it to adult males if needed. “Only ever you.”

Cupping her cheek, he bent his head until their foreheads touched. “I’m sorry—I know I’m being difficult,” he said, and it was a comment heavy with things unspoken.

She rubbed her nose playfully against his, refusing to allow the past to suck him under. “More than one changeling male has been known to go all growly over his mate touching another man—you’re pretty reasonable in contrast.”

A single raised eyebrow that told her he didn’t particularly like that description. Proven a second later by the kiss he laid on her. “I plan to be very ‘reasonable’ tonight,” he threatened when he broke the kiss so she could gasp in a breath.

The smoldering tone made every cell in her body sit up in attention. And as he took her mouth again, she realized her complex, fascinating, addicting mate had taken down another shield, opened another door…invited her deeper into him.