found a mate, found happiness.
Continuing to race through the corridors that were quiet except for the early risers, they tumbled into their quarters together and Sienna locked the door behind them. Hawke shifted in the seconds it took her to do that. Scooping her up in his arms the next instant, he ran into the bedroom to throw her on the bed.
Her hair haloed around her in a ruby-red fan, her face flushed from their run and her breathing rough. “That was fun!”
Coming down over her, he took a morning kiss, his wolf rumbling inside his chest. “I was smiling because I was thinking about what a pain in the butt you were as a teenager.”
“You liked me even then.” She poked at his shoulder. “Admit it.”
“Never.” He grinned and pushed off the bed before her wandering hands made it impossible for him to do anything but strip her naked, make her sigh his name. “You need to eat and then you need to sleep.”
A scowl. “You going to sleep with me?”
Hawke was fully capable of going without sleep, but since SnowDancer wasn’t at any kind of emergency alert, he didn’t need to. “Yes, Sienna Lauren Snow,” he said, drawing out her name because he liked the way it sounded. “I’ll be sleeping with you.”
She sat up and reached back to quickly braid her hair. “Good. Let’s go get breakfast.”
Hawke had recovered the jeans Sienna had thrown over the rise, but had left them—and her T-shirt—cached for later retrieval. Grabbing another pair, he hauled them on, then shrugged into an old black tee before taking her hand.
In sync, with no more need for any further discussion, they made their way together to the room where breakfast was laid out for those packmates coming off night shift or going out on an early-morning shift.
“Sin!” Sienna’s best friend, Evie, waved them over to a table where she sat alone, nursing a cup of coffee. “Hi, Hawke.”
“Good morning.” Bending, he pressed a kiss to her temple, her hair cool black silk under his touch and her eyes deepest gray.
It was extraordinary how differently he saw Evie and Sienna, though they were near the same age. Indigo’s submissive sister was so young in the life she’d lived, so innocent. The alpha in him felt only protectiveness when he looked at Evie, could never imagine seeing her as a woman.
Sienna . . . wolf and man, he’d always accepted her as a strong opponent, even when she’d been too young for him to see her as anything else.
“What are you doing up?” Sienna asked her friend as Evie rose to pour Sienna and Hawke coffee from the carafe on the counter.
Hawke accepted the small gift with a smile of thanks. Had he insisted on getting his own coffee, she’d have lost that sunny light in her eyes, started to feel redundant. She wasn’t. No submissive was. Dominants were the fighters of a pack. Submissives took care of creating the home they protected.
It was a perfect balance in a healthy pack.
“I had breakfast with Tai.” Evie’s cheeks flushed with happiness. “He told me he was taking over from you, so I thought I’d wait.”
Hawke had just accepted a hot bacon roll Evie passed over from the tray that must’ve been brought in a bare minute earlier, when his attention was caught by another woman who’d walked into the otherwise empty room. Alice Eldridge. A gifted human researcher who’d been forcibly put into cryonic sleep for over a hundred years and had woken to find everyone she’d ever known was dead.
Her hair had grown back in the ensuing time, the spiral curls rich brown and gold against brown skin that had regained its glow. Her body, too, was no longer skin and bones. She’d taken up climbing again, regained the lithe muscle tone she’d had before her long sleep. But Alice’s eyes continued to hold a relentless sadness. Unable to see a member of his pack that way, Hawke put down his roll and, leaving Sienna chatting to Evie, walked over to Alice.
She hadn’t yet accepted that she was a SnowDancer, wasn’t sure what her place was in the world, but she was still his responsibility. Not saying a word, he wrapped his arms gently around her, loosely enough that she could escape should she want. She froze like a startled deer.
One second. Two. Three.
A cautious movement.
Alice placed her head against his chest and slid her arms around him.
He tightened his embrace.
All changelings knew that, sometimes, touch