by Nalini Singh
“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!”
Chapter 10
WALKER WASN’T CERTAIN what to expect from Lara when he came home that night after a scheduled meeting with packmates whose responsibilities in the den were either similar to or aligned with his own. Maternals, teachers, coaches, other “wranglers,” they got together regularly to ensure no pup missed out on the attention he or she needed to thrive. His head hadn’t been in the game, the need for solitude beating at him, but he’d leashed his chaotic emotions because such meetings were even more important now than they had been before the battle.
As a result of all they’d had to discuss, the meeting had run late, and the apartment was silent when he entered. Looking into Marlee’s room, he saw her sprawled out in sleep, her arms and legs thrown every which way. It made him want to smile. She’d been like that since she was a babe. Silence hadn’t managed to “fix” her before the family defected.
He tugged up her blanket, kissed a soft, sleep-warm cheek, then gave a light knock on Toby’s door, entering only when Toby called out. The boy was now of an age where he needed his privacy, something Walker had to make a conscious effort to remember—to him, Toby would always be his sister’s baby boy, given to him in trust.
“Hi.” His nephew put down the spy novel he’d been reading, the digital cover displayed on his reader a garish orange with black silhouettes.
Walker took a seat on the edge of the bed. “Are you sure you’re old enough to be reading that?”
Toby’s response was a grin.
They talked for a few minutes, with Toby telling him of being put in charge of a junior soccer team. “Pups think rules are suggestions.” He rolled his eyes, but Walker could tell he was pleased by the responsibility.
Ruffling the boy’s hair, Walker rose. “You’ll do well.” The words said so much less than what he felt, his pride in Toby a huge thing.
A steady look. “I know, I just copy the things I see you doing. I want to be like you.”
Heart twisting, he bent down to hug that gangly body, felt Toby’s arms lock around him. And he knew he had much to learn from this boy who was his blood. Toby’s openness of heart was a courage not many possessed. “Don’t stay up too late,” was all he said when he drew back, but Toby smiled the smile of a child who had no doubts about his place in his family’s heart.
“Goodnight, Uncle Walker.”
“Goodnight, Toby.”
Lara was also propped up in bed reading when he entered their bedroom.
He’d never been a man who hesitated, but he did so tonight, unsure how to read her silence. Lara always talked to him, even when she was angry. Walking to the shower without breaking that silence, he shrugged off his clothing and stepped under the heated spray. Once there, he focused not on the way she’d left him this afternoon, striding off without a backward look, but on how she felt inside him, her love unshaken.
Shuddering, he pressed his palms to the tile, head bent under the spray.
His grip on the simple, inexorable truth of her love a bloodless one, he wiped himself off, and hitching the towel around his hips, he walked back into the bedroom. Lara had put down her reader, turned off the light on her side, and lay on her back with one arm above her head…and he saw what he hadn’t earlier.
She was wearing the nightgown he liked best.
Everything came to vibrant life inside him as he realized she had spoken to him. He simply hadn’t listened well enough. Not a mistake he’d make again.
Throwing the towel over a chair, he slid in under the sheet, switched off his own light, and reached for her. She came, warm and soft, and his. He shifted to enclose her with his body, his forearms on either side of her head. “Did we,” he whispered, “just have our first fight as a mated couple?”
Lara felt every ounce of tension leach out of her at that quiet question. When he’d gone into the shower without saying a word, she’d almost burst into tears. Now, she nuzzled at his throat, taking the clean, male scent of him inside, her wolf’s fur rubbing up against her skin. “Yes. This is the making-up part.”
He shifted his weight to settle more intimately between her legs. “In that case, I’m already looking forward to our next fight.”
He was playing with her, she realized, this man who hadn’t believed he had the capacity for such lightness of heart. Throat thick with emotion, she curved one leg over his hip, stroking her hands across the slightly damp skin of his shoulders—he never dried them properly and she usually had to finish the task.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you then took off,” she said, feeling terrible about how she’d avoided his touch. It had been an unconscious effort to protect herself from pain, but the instant she’d cooled down enough to think, she’d realized she’d hurt him, hurt her mate. It had killed her. “I didn’t mean to deny you skin privileges.”
He nuzzled back at her, kissing the side of her temple. “I know. It’s okay.” His jaw, rough with stubble, rasped over her hair. “Will you forgive me, too?”
Her eyes burned at the unvarnished request. “Always.”
Lips closing over her own, his kiss a reclaiming, the heat and weight of his body a tactile caress. She gave herself up to it, up to him, loved him as he loved her, their limbs tangled so completely at the end that she didn’t know where she began and Walker ended. And then the pleasure crashed over them, their bodies locked together as they fell.
• • •
LARA’S cheek was against her mate’s chest when she rose out of the languid haze of desire, his arm around her and her leg thrown over his body, both of them slick with sweat, hearts thudding. “You’ll have to shower again.”
It took him so long to answer, she was half-asleep when his voice cut through the lingering scent of the pleasure they’d found in one another.
“The shielding, it’s instinctive at this point.” A quiet confession. “I had to learn how to create and maintain it as a young male, when
I realized my Silence was problematic.”
Because, she understood, fully awake, he’d loved his siblings—and later the children—enough to fight for them, enough that he’d gotten through to an Arrow and a young girl trained by a Councilor. “You had to hide even the faintest trace of an emotional response.” It was a truth she’d realized the instant she’d broken the stranglehold of her own overwhelming response.
A nod she saw in the dark, her wolf’s night-vision acute. “After defection, I knew I had to give the children, Sienna included, the emotional support they needed to thrive, but the fact is, while I can function with that shield lowered during the normal course of events, I’m not always aware of it snapping up in a high-stress situation.”
“I know—I realized.” Had remembered that her strong, quiet, beautiful mate had scars that didn’t show on the outside, that he made certain didn’t show, in order to provide a stable home for the children. “The way I reacted, struck out…I panicked,” she admitted, shifting to look down into his face. “It was the first time you’d gone so remote, to the point where I could barely sense you, and the shock made my wolf so afraid.”
“I’m sorry.” He tugged her down, kissed the corner of her mouth.
Sensing his distress at causing her pain, she petted his chest. “You didn’t know. I understand the shield now, so I won’t panic.” She’d worry, but she’d hold it together, hold him when he came to her. Because he would always reach for her. As he had today. “Just don’t ever do it on purpose, okay?” She brushed long strands of dark blond off his forehead. “I promise I won’t ever again pull away like I did today.”
Walker’s silence was deep, his eyes holding her own until she felt lost in the translucent green. “Why are you so patient with me?” he asked at last, his tone raw. “It must frustrate you that I’m so unlike changeling males.” Men who wore their emotions on their face and made no bones about their adoration of the women who were their own.
Lara laughed, her delight infectious. “I love you because of who you are, not in spite of it, you wonderful man.” A passionate kiss that marked him as hers, made him want to stretch in pleasure like one of the felines.
“I like everything about you”—she continued kiss by kiss—“your integrity, your ability to love so deep and true, your courage, even the fact that you have a limit on how many words per day you intend to speak—” Giggles erupted as he flipped them, reversing their positions.
“Teasing me again?”
“Maybe.”
Tasting her smile, he rubbed his stubbled jaw against her cheek in punishment. She cried foul, tried to push him away, even as her legs tightened around him…the same instant a knock came on the bedroom door.
Lara went quiet, listening with sharp wolf ears.
Reaching out with his telepathic senses, he found his daughter outside.
“A nightmare?” Lara asked, already out of bed and pulling on her robe.
“No, but something similar.” Having rolled off on the other side, he pulled on the pajama bottoms he’d earlier ignored.
They reached the door at the same time. Pulling it open, he picked Marlee up in his arms. Though his daughter always protested she was too big now, Marlee didn’t do so tonight.
Lara made soothing sounds. “What’s the matter, baby?” she asked as they all took a seat on the bed.
Marlee, who never cried, grabbed hold of Lara’s hand as if to a lifeline, sobbing too hard to speak.
“We’re here, sweetheart.” Lara leaned in to brush Marlee’s sleep-tangled hair out of her eyes. “Tell us what’s wrong.” Her gaze met his, the worry in the tawny depths unhidden.
Wrapping one arm around his mate, he brought her close as he tried to speak to their daughter on the telepathic plane. Marlee?
I’m so sc-scared, was all he got out before tears took over again.
Walker wasn’t surprised when a wild-haired Toby appeared in the doorway. The boy always woke when Marlee was in distress. “I went to get her some milk when I saw you had her,” he said, holding up the warmed-up glass.
Walker nodded at him to come in. Putting the milk on the bedside table, Toby took a seat beside Lara and leaned over to tug on Marlee’s hair. “Don’t cry, Marlee-Barley, you’ll turn into a turnip.”
Marlee smiled through her tears at that ridiculous statement and began to sniff, the sobs abating in slow gasps. She remained locked around Walker, however, and her grip on Lara’s hand was white knuckled. “What happened?” Walker asked as Lara brought Toby into their embrace with her free arm.
“I had bad thoughts,” was the unadorned answer. “I woke up and I couldn’t sleep and I started having bad thoughts and they wouldn’t stop.” Anguish in every word as she described what appeared to have been a severe anxiety attack. “I couldn’t make them stop.”
“Will you tell us about those thoughts?” Lara asked softly.
“I thought what if the Council came and took us away again? We couldn’t be a family anymore.”
His eyes met Lara’s—it didn’t take a PsyMed specialist to unravel the roots of his daughter’s fear. Deep within, Marlee was scared of her happiness. Walker understood. He still woke without warning some nights, certain his new life was a dream, that he slept in a sterile cot rather than beside Lara’s warmth, his family safe from harm.
“That’s not going to happen,” he said firmly as Lara raised her free arm from around Toby long enough to wipe away the remnants of Marlee’s tears and smooth back her hair. “We’re part of SnowDancer now, and our pack stands with us.” No one would ever hurt any child in SnowDancer and get away with it.
“Yeah,” Toby said, leaning into Lara’s embrace once more, “plus Uncle Walker and Uncle Judd and Sienna and Hawke are way too scary for the Council.”
Walker’s eyes narrowed when a true Marlee smile peeked out, the storm passing far quicker than he’d expected. What are you doing, Toby? He knew even a slight empath like Toby could draw away some negative emotion.
I just helped her a little. Took the really bad fear away so she could think.
How are you? Experiencing the darkness he’d taken from another was the price an empath paid for his gift.
Fine. I’m conscious of the possible impact of Marlee’s fear, so the panic can’t grab me like it did her.
Making a note to share the details of the telepathic conversation with Lara later, Walker watched his mate pick up the milk Toby had brought. “Marlee? Why don’t you have this, sweetheart.”
Releasing Lara’s hand at last, their daughter scrambled off his lap. “I’m too big,” she said, a flush of red on her cheekbones.
But she accepted Lara’s cuddle and kiss despite her embarrassment, then leaned her back against Lara’s legs while she drank the milk. “I acted like a baby,” she said after downing half the glass.
Toby poked her in the side. “You are the baby of the family, Marlee-Barley.”
“Am not.” A glare directed at her cousin, she finished the milk and put the glass back on the bedside table. “And you’re babier than Sienna.”
“Babier isn’t even a word.” Toby grabbed her body in his arms when she whirled toward him, both of them laughing as Toby pretended to defend himself from Marlee’s “claws.”
Lara smiled and leaned her back against Walker. Wrapping his arms around her, he propped his chin on the springy silk of her curls and watched the children, his lips kicking up at their innocent joy. Then Lara laughed as Marlee let out a perfect imitation of a wolfish growl, sending Toby into a fit of uncontrollable laughter that made his nephew easy prey, and his smile turned into a grin.
My family. My mate.
A fox-bright gaze met his as Lara twisted around to look at him, almost as if she’d heard his thoughts. “It’s nice, isn’t it?” A smiling kiss pressed to his jaw. “Our own little pack.”
“Yes.”
Epilogue
LARA COULDN’T BELIEVE it was already the night of their mating ceremony. Held in the arms
of her mate as they swayed to the music from the live jazz band, she looked around the Pack Circle, the dance area in the center surrounded by wooden picnic tables. Those tables held an array of delicacies that had the children and adults both in raptures—her mother, Lara thought with a smile, had no doubt been planning the menu since the day Lara mated Walker.
Giant painted butterflies decorated several trees; Marlee’s contribution to the plan. The wooden creatures had been cut out and glued together by Toby and his friends before being painted by Marlee, Sienna, Evie, Brenna, and a number of the younger members of the pack, including a rambunctious but wildly talented Ben.
“Look at what my baby did,” Ava had said with delight earlier that day, pointing to a butterfly painted with a joyful enthusiasm that made the creature seem alive. “The Stone artistic talent clearly runs true.”
Now, that butterfly and the others shimmered in the fairy lights that lit up the early evening darkness, the sound of their packmates voices and the children’s laughter intertwining with the music to create a harmony unique to this moment.
“Happy?” Walker’s breath brushed her temple, the masculine heat of him making her wolf rub up against her skin, as it had against his hand when she’d shifted for their early morning run.
“So happy.”
The pack’s pleasure in their match had been clear since the day word got out about Walker’s courtship, but Lara hadn’t realized the full extent of it until tonight. Kisses on the cheek, hugs, whispered congratulations accompanied by thoughtful gifts, they kept coming. Walker had found himself shaking hands with people throughout the night, been hugged by countless children.
“Are you having fun?” she asked, aware he preferred to stay out of the limelight.
“I get to celebrate you.” A slow curve of his lips. “It’s a perfect night.”
“Walker.”
