Tangle of Need (Psy-Changeling #11)(24)

“If you can’t or aren’t able to grasp that,” she said, “I’ll ask Indigo to make sure we’re not partnered up again.” It wasn’t a threat, but the offer of a friend who understood his wolf’s nature. “No harm, no foul.”

Riordan snapped up into a sitting position. “You’re flicking me off because I don’t want to hit you hard enough to bruise?” Simmering fury.

“I’m saying I can’t get better if my partner treats me like fine china.” Her enemies certainly wouldn’t worry about hurting her when they came after her, and not all of them would use solely psychic methods. “I need to be lethal in every way if I’m going to survive Ming and the rest of the Council.”

Riordan blew out a harsh breath. “It makes me so angry that you have to think about shit like that.”

She was the one who shrugged this time. “It’s part of life.” The good things more than made up for the bad.

Getting to his feet, Riordan held out his hand, tugging her up when she accepted the offer. “Okay,” he said quietly. “I’ll stop holding back. But Sin … I’m a wolf. It might get sketchy at times.” A mock punch to her jaw. “Just thump me around the head to set me straight.”

Her smile was in her heart. “Deal.”

Later that night, when Hawke got into bed after a long comm meeting, she snuggled into the wild heat of him and told him of her confrontation with Riordan. “He was much better after, even pulled me up on a couple of mistakes.”

Hawke folded one arm under his head, the other around her, his fingers tracing curving patterns on her lower back. “I was expecting some of that—you’re the only one who can deal with it.”

Because the instant he stepped in, he negated her power. “Thank you,” she said, running her foot over his shin, “for loving me enough to let me fight my own battles.”

He fisted his hand in her hair. “No—some I’m claiming as my right.”

“Okay. As long as you don’t get greedy and try to handle them all.” Sensing his surprise, she braced herself on one elbow and looked down into the incredible beauty of his night-glow eyes, the translucent blue lit with white fire. “Gorgeous wolf.”

“I like the way you pet me.”

“Before,” she said, stroking her fingers down his chest in a caress that pleasured them both, “I used to fight you all the time because it felt as if you didn’t trust me to do anything, as if I had to force you to see me.” She pressed her fingers to his lips when he scowled, went to speak. “Doesn’t matter if it was true or not—that’s how I felt.

“Now I know different … so I can give in sometimes.” Such conscious surrender wouldn’t change his wolf’s respect for her, wouldn’t make him think her any less. It would simply let that wolf know she trusted him with her vulnerability—and that was as important as her own pride.

Hawke moved with quicksilver grace to press her to her back, his muscled thigh pushing between her own, his hand still clenched in her hair. His kiss, when it came, was a hotly tender thing. “So strong, my Sienna, so beautiful.” His mouth, wet and possessive down the line of her throat, making her body arch toward him. “Thank you,” he said in a rumbling echo of her own words, “for loving me enough to understand my need to take care of you.”

“Hawke.”

“Shh … Lie back and think of England.”

Laughter reawakened inside of her, bubbling its way past the raw burn of emotion. “I’d rather think of you.”

She felt his smile against the curve of her abdomen, his jaw rough with stubble that made her shiver as he kissed his way oh-so-slowly down her body.





Chapter 14





THE DAY OF Hawke and Sienna’s mating ceremony dawned bright and clear. Though Adria had done an evening shift, she was up and awake by ten, ready to pitch in with the final preparations. Nell, the maternal female in charge, assigned her to grunt work in the kitchens. Adria was perfectly happy with that—she liked working with her hands, even if it was only to peel two thousand potatoes.

“Hey.” A broad-shouldered man with dark hair and tanned skin pulled up a stool across from her, his smile wide, the dimple in his left cheek giving him a roguish air. “I’ve been sent to join the foot soldiers.” He held up a peeler. “Name’s Sam. You’re Adria, right?”

It was impossible not to smile back. “Yes.”

“I didn’t know Indigo had another sister.”

The mistake was an easy one to make if you didn’t know the family well. “Tarah’s my sister,” she said. “So I’m technically Indigo’s aunt.”

“Bullshit.” Lines between his eyebrows.

Her wolf was at once amused and delighted. “Scout’s honor.” Her parents had been—according to her mother—“deliriously ecstatic” at their surprise pregnancy soon after they’d celebrated the mating of their eldest child.

Indigo had been born a mere four years later.

“Huh.” A long pause as they peeled. “So, you have a date for the mating ceremony?”

It felt good to be flirted with, to exercise her own rusty flirtation skills. “Are you telling me you’re not taken?”