Allegiance of Honor (18 page)

From the private diaries of Father Xavier Perez

March 28, 2074

Nina,

I haven’t written for many days. The Psy assassin and I have been in the mountains, laying a trail to disguise the path that leads to the hiding place of the villagers the other assassins are coming to murder.

I thought we’d fight, spill blood, but this Psy, he tells me to be intelligent, to stop thinking with an alcohol-soaked brain and to remember that we are only two against an entire death squad.

“We can’t win one on one,” he says. “We can win only by stealth and cunning and being smarter than the enemy.”

I’ve never fought this way, in the shadows. Even when I ran with the human rebels in the first months after our village was sacked, we aimed to do violence against those who’d harm our people. Any rebels who died in the course of our campaign were held up as heroes.

The Psy assassin doesn’t know about the rebel cells. I’ll never betray those men and women to a man who might turn on me without warning. But he said something to me that was eerily apt: “Don’t try to be a hero, Xavier. A dead hero can’t help anyone.”

Xavier

NIGHT HAD FALLEN
by the time Hawke and Judd drove up the final track to the den.

Impatience clawed at Hawke. Searching for something to take his mind off the hunger to see his mate, he said, “What time are you and Brenna heading to Cooper’s territory?” He knew the two had plans to visit friends in the satellite den. “Driving, right?”

Judd shook his head. “We decided to catch a quick flight at eight tomorrow, since our visit’s only going to be a couple of days anyway. It’ll give us more time on the ground.” He brought the vehicle into the underground garage under the den. “Good luck with Sienna.” Unsaid were the words that he’d need it.

Leaving the lieutenant to deal with the vehicle, Hawke jogged from the garage to his and Sienna’s quarters. He was halfway there when he realized the mating bond was tugging him in the opposite direction. Reversing course, he ran out into the night darkness and through the trees for nearly twenty minutes until he saw her standing on a rise, looking out over the fields below.

The moon was full tonight, her body outlined against a sky dotted with stars.

It hit him again, that she was his. His mate. Extraordinary and strong and . . . furious.

Wincing at the look she shot him out of cardinal eyes gone a dangerous black, he braced himself. “Miss me?”

She growled before hauling him close for a kiss, her hands buried in his hair. It was a kiss of claiming, of branding, of angry welcome. Groaning, he had his hands on her hips, his body having turned rock hard in a single pulse, when she pushed him away. “If you ever do that to me again, I won’t forgive you.”

He’d expected anger but not this brittle edge to her voice. “Walker was supposed to talk to you, make sure you knew what was going on.”

“My mate should’ve talked to me.” The obsidian of her gaze flickered with a translucent flame, her tone flat.

Hawke’s gut twisted; this wasn’t anger. It was deeper, harder. “You would’ve wanted to come and there was no way in hell I was taking you.” Even the idea of her anywhere near Ming made his wolf threaten to turn into a primal killing machine.

“Look at this!” Sienna held out a hand, on which danced a red and amber flame. “I’m not helpless! I’m the least helpless person in the world!”

Hawke thrust his hands into her hair, gripped. “But you’re mine to protect!” His heart pounded like a bass drum. “If anything happened to you—”

He couldn’t say it, couldn’t even think it. “I’ve lost too many people, baby. I can’t lose you.”

When Sienna cupped his face, her hands were fierce and gentle both. “You won’t. We’re in this together.” Her nails dug a little into his skin. “Trust me! Treat me as your mate!”

“I do!” Hawke’s voice was turning more and more into a growl. “Why would you think otherwise?”

“Why would you hide things from me?” Sienna yelled, her chest heaving.

They stared at each other for a single, endless heartbeat before their lips were locked in a kiss so passionate that Sienna went up in flames around them. He should’ve been worried, but he was never worried with the woman who fucking owned him. Her cold fire always knew pack. And it definitely knew her mate.

He took her to the ground, or maybe she took him. He tore off her
clothes, she tore off his; their naked bodies slid against one another and when he pulled up her thigh and nudged at her with his cock, he found her wet and ready. Then she bit down on his lower lip while clawing his back and it was all over.

He thrust deep, pinning her to the earth.

One stroke, two, and Sienna was clenching so tightly around him that he couldn’t hold back. He gripped her shoulder with his teeth as he came, so hard that he knew he’d leave a mark. Good. He wanted her to wear his mark. Her nails made sure he’d be wearing hers.

The fire flamed hot red, then wild amber around them, a dangerous kiss from his very dangerous mate. A mate who was still pissed off with him when the fire sank into the earth to leave them lying entangled and naked under the stars, neither one able to breathe properly for at least five minutes.

Hawke could’ve dealt with an angry mate. He couldn’t deal with the hurt he saw in her expression.

Hand cradling the side of her face, he said, “I’m sorry.” It was difficult for an alpha to say that, but never to his mate, never when he was fucking wrong. “I was trying to protect you, but I did that by hurting you. I’m so goddamn sorry.”

Sienna’s eyes remained dark, without stars, but she spread her hand over his heart. “I was so terrified for you.”

Hawke thought about how insane he’d go if he knew she was alone with Ming, and wanted to kick his own ass. “I took Judd,” he said, even knowing that was no defense for what he’d done to her, the pain he’d inflicted. “But I was an asshole. I admit it. I won’t do it again.”

Sienna’s lips kicked up a little at the corners, the first stars appearing in her eyes. “I think this may go down in history,” she said as relief punched him in the gut. “An unreserved apology from Your Alphaness.”

“Smart-ass.” He petted her as he spoke, apologizing with his touch as much as with his words. “Seriously—I was thinking with my heart, not my brain.”

“Ugh.” Sienna pushed at his chest. “Stop making it hard to be mad at you.”

Her expression turned on the next breath. “You won’t do it again? Leave me out of a decision that affects both of us?”

Tugging her to his chest as he rolled over onto his back, he brushed her hair off her face. “I promise.”

Sienna nodded. “Okay. I know you always keep your promises.”

The fist around his heart began to open. “Want to know why I went to the meeting?”

When she nodded, he told her, man and wolf both supremely smug when her expression showed admiration for his tactics. “I wouldn’t have expected you to take Judd’s idea and run with it like that,” she said afterward, kicking up her feet. “You’re fiercely intelligent, but you don’t usually think sneaky.”

His wolf decided to take that as a compliment. “Sneaky is for cats,” he growled. “But I have been spending a lot of time with Lucas lately. I guess some of it rubbed off.”

Sienna’s smile was sharp. “I like the idea of messing with Ming’s financial foundation.” Her eyes narrowed in thought. “You know Devraj Santos hates him, too?”

Hawke nodded. He didn’t have any real details on what Ming had done to Dev’s wife, Katya, but he didn’t need them—because what he did know was that she’d been kept captive by Ming LeBon. Dev’s hatred of Ming was something he’d picked up on the last time the Forgotten leader had visited SnowDancer territory to catch up with the Forgotten children embedded into SnowDancer—protected by being claimed as wolves to the outside world.

Hawke had said something about Ming that involved Ming being dead, and Dev had agreed, his voice holding a near-metallic chill that was almost Psy—except for the fury behind it, the rage Hawke could all but taste.

“Katya shot him in the head. The fucker survived.”

Running a hand down the sexy curve of his mate’s back as the memory of Dev’s angry words echoed through his mind, he said, “Arrows have to hate him, too.” That would’ve been easy enough to guess with the
defection of the squad from under Ming’s leadership, even without Judd’s close connection to current active-duty Arrows.

“Hmm.” Sienna tapped her kiss-swollen lower lip with a finger. “SnowDancer can blindside Ming a few times, but eventually he’s going to figure out all our major business entities and start to avoid anything where we could have an impact.”

Hawke bared his teeth. “That’s satisfying on its own.” It would mean the pack was forcing Ming to make financial decisions that weren’t in his best interest.

“Yes, but if we get a few other people involved . . .”

Hawke wasn’t used to playing with people outside his pack—and okay, Lucas, since the cat had proven his loyalty to the blood bond between the two packs. But he could see the positives of Sienna’s idea. “Enough people in on this and it’ll become very difficult for Ming to predict who might have an interest in what—or who might develop an interest.”

Sienna nodded. “Dev has financial expertise but I’m not sure about the Arrows—I know Judd didn’t get any financial training as an Arrow. He learned what he did on his own. We don’t want to put anyone in a bad position.”

Hawke nipped at her lips just because, growled when she dug her nails into him in response. It wasn’t a complaint. “This is only fun if everyone
but
Ming comes out a winner,” he agreed. “I’ll ask Judd to check whether the Arrows have someone with financial smarts. We have people we can lend them if they don’t.” He ran one hand through the dark ruby fire of Sienna’s hair.
Yes,
his wolf thought,
this is better. Working with my mate, coming up with ideas together.

Smiling at him, she ran a finger down his nose. “I feel your wolf prowling in there. You want to run? I have to do a sweep anyway.”

“Yes.” The wolf wanted her fingers in its fur, wanted to nip at her with its teeth, play with her under the moonlight.

Pushing off him, Sienna held out a hand. He took his time rising, enjoying the sight of her nude body kissed by the moonlight and clothed only in the beautiful hair he loved to play with in either form. Her smile,
though, that was the most beautiful part of her. He kept that image in his mind as he shifted, the wrenching pain and stunning ecstasy of the shift rippling through him as his body exploded into millions of particles of light, then reformed in another shape.

It was still him. Always. In either form.

He shook his body to settle his fur into place, discovered his mate was pulling on her jeans. Picking up her T-shirt while her back was turned, he started to pad away.

“Hawke!” Her outraged cry came a second later. “Give that back!”

Huffing in laughter, he upped his pace.

An infuriated scream echoed on the air currents, but Sienna didn’t come after him. When he glanced back, he saw her pulling on
his
shirt—which happened to be torn down one side thanks to her angry, impatient hands earlier. Using the torn halves, she tied the shirt off at the side of her abdomen, then smirked at him and picked up his jeans.

“Guess you don’t need these?” she said before balling them up and throwing them over the side of the rise.

Dropping her T-shirt, he loped back to her and, without warning, nipped her butt. She yelped, clamped a hand over the part he’d bitten, turned to look at him with temper in her eyes. “You are in trouble.”

Fire arced a half centimeter from his nose.

Making a sound more common to a startled pup than a tough-as-nails alpha, he jumped back . . . to hear his mate laughing so hard she could barely take a breath. When he growled again, she just laughed harder. And then she was on her knees and her hands were in his fur and she was pressing her face to his while the jeweled dark red of her hair fell around him and life was perfect.

•   •   •

HAWKE
kept Sienna company all night on her security shift. After their run through the area assigned to her, she told him about her lunch with Kit, the baby cat alpha she insisted on having as a friend.

“Stop growling.” She glared at him from her standing watch position.

He was sitting in wolf form beside her, his fur rippling in the breeze.

He growled again, just to rile her up.

Eyes glinting, she pointed at him. “I think you’ve been hanging around cats too much. You’re getting sly.”

This time, his growl was one of insult.

Her lips twitched. “Got you.” Coming down on one knee to run her hand through the silver-gold of his fur, while still keeping an eye on her watch area, she said, “City’s angry but calm. Word’s gotten around about how quickly the attempted kidnapping was defused, and that’s helping turn aggression into pride.”

Hawke nodded. Strange as it was for a changeling to accept, the humans in the city felt a certain ownership in DarkRiver in the sense that it was
their
pack that held such power. That extended to SnowDancer in the regions where the wolves held sway. The oddest thing was that a number of local Psy seemed to believe the same, feeling more loyalty toward the packs than they did toward the Ruling Coalition. It wasn’t something either Hawke or Lucas had expected or were used to, but as alphas they saw the pragmatic benefits.

And as two men born with powerful protective drives, they refused to let down the people who’d given them their trust—even if those people weren’t pack. That, too, was a situation Hawke could’ve never predicted. Changeling alphas didn’t run for mayor or for any other political office for good reason; their primary and primal focus was the pack.

The latter would never change, but the line of communication between the packs and the other residents of their territories was stronger and more in use than it had ever before been. A threat to any part of that territory was considered a threat to the packs, and as such, their actions protected all who called it home.

“There’s no more news yet on exactly who was behind the mercenaries,” Sienna added. “At least not as far as Kit knows.” Rising to her feet again, she began to walk the perimeter.

He walked beside her.

“Leila Savea remains missing.” Sienna’s tone turned somber. “It’s going
to take a miracle to find her, isn’t it?” Her eyes met his, the sorrow in them potent.

She, too, had once been trapped in a nightmare.

Hawke wished he could tell her that they
would
find the vanished BlackSea changeling, but Sienna didn’t want empty comfort, had experienced too much harsh reality to accept it.

Instead of giving her words that meant nothing, he held her gaze until she nodded, understanding his promise:
No one would stop looking for Leila Savea until they either found her . . . or her body. If, for some unfathomable reason, others stopped, SnowDancer would pick up the baton.

Together, they began to walk again.

At times they talked, but mostly, they just enjoyed being together. As night turned to the gray before dawn, Tai came to relieve Sienna. The young soldier with his big shoulders and slightly slanted eyes of blue-green grinned a hello at Hawke, but he had the good sense not to attempt to tease his alpha about being out all night with his mate. Hawke wasn’t above teasing, but Tai was too young to have earned the right to that much informality.