But she didn't. No matter how many times the wolf tried to nuzzle her back to consciousness.
Chapter 53
The Councilors didn't bother to have a full meeting to deal with the Alliance issue. They simply agreed on a course of action and dispatched squads to take care of it. If the Alliance wanted a war, they'd get a war.
But the chairman had miscalculated on one crucial point. The Council chose stealth, not public violence. With the recent surge of hostile behavior by Psy, overt bloodshed would've run counter to their attempts to calm the populace. Instead, things were taken care of with such subtlety, it was impossible to prove Psy involvement.
And the Psy didn't kill everyone. Instead, minds were scanned and dossiers built. The one called "the chairman" had escaped the net, but three of those at the top of the food chain had been tracked and eliminated. The others would be found sooner or later. The worker bees had been left alone . . . with their memories of what had happened intact. Their leadership had abandoned them to take the heat, knowing the assassins would come.
The Psy had had a century to learn the cold logic of demoralizing the enemy.
Now, the paramilitary arm of the Alliance was crumbling from within.
Chapter 54
Lucas and Hawke stood looking down at the badly injured male prone on the hospital bed. "What the fuck happened, Adam?"
"I got shot out of the sky. Like a damn plane." Ignoring the myriad other wounds that marked his body, the tall, heavily muscled man stared at his shattered wing, having remained in half-shift form to allow the wing to set properly. "Fuck, that's going to take weeks to heal."
"Only reason you're not dead," Hawke pointed out, "is because you're alpha in waiting."
"Wing leader," Adam corrected, an odd catch in his voice. "It's you four-legged beasts who have alphas."
"Insulting us?" Hawke drawled, though his mood was anything but buoyant.
Lucas looked over, his own face drawn. "I don't think he realizes he's in our territory and we can bury his body where no one can find it."
"Ha-ha." Adam's sarcasm was rendered less effective by the fact that his normally copper-colored skin was dull with injury - where it wasn't black-and-blue. "Is Naia here? Our healer?"
"Yeah, she was on your tail. With one of your wing-seconds." Hawke raised an eyebrow.
"Shut it," Adam snapped. "She's one of the highest-ranking members of the wing. She needed to be at the meeting." A wince. "Jesus, my head hurts."
"Naia had to shave off your hair to check for injuries," Lucas said. "Turns out you're too hardheaded to hurt."
Hawke folded his arms, forcing himself to focus on this problem and not the one he could do nothing to solve. "But you're not as pretty anymore without those long, silky - what's the word - yeah, tresses."
Adam was giving Hawke the finger when a softly curvy woman with the mystery of the Greek Islands stamped onto her features walked into the room. "Out," she said. "Both of you. He needs to heal."
"We'll go, Naia," Lucas said, his voice quiet. "But we need to know what Adam brought into our territory."
"Nothing," Adam said.
"I might believe it if I heard it from Aria." Hawke scowled.
"There's been a change in the structure of our wing."
"What change?" Lucas asked when the other man fell silent.
"Aria's dead."
Hawke sucked in a breath. "Hell. I liked her."
"She had a good life," Naia said, eyes drowning in sorrow. "She was a good wing leader." A short glance at Adam, and Hawke understood without words why Naia, and Jacques - now the second-highest-ranking member of WindHaven, had come with Adam. Aria hadn't only been their wing leader, she'd been Adam's grandmother. They'd probably been worried he'd blow the negotiation by picking a fight with either Lucas or Hawke just to let off steam. Both men would've understood, but it would've delayed things.
"She was," Lucas agreed. "So we have to deal with your feathered ass now."
"You've been dealing with me for years," Adam reminded them. "Now there's no filter so we have to become friends." The sarcasm fairly dripped. "Did you get the bullets?"