Her own words, as true today as when she’d spoken them to Hawke. Aware the two men on either side of Ming, their hands touching his shoulders, had to be teleporters, she considered how exactly to kill the man she hated beyond all others without injuring his guards. They had done her no harm, and she would not judge them when she herself had been forced to be Ming’s protégée.
“Sienna,” Ming said into the silence, his voice calm, in control, cold enough to burn. “I know you’re out there.”
No, she thought, he didn’t. He was simply taking a calculated risk that the mind he sensed was hers, having no doubt used satellite surveillance images to narrow down the range she might be present in tonight. From the lines of strain on the faces of his teleporters, this wasn’t the first spot they’d jumped to in their attempt to pinpoint her location.
Keeping her silence, she continued to work out the most efficient way to kill him.
“The world is changing,” he said, his military haircut exposing the narrow bones of his face. “While there was no room for an X of your toxic capacity in the previous one, there is now. The Psy will need a new ruling council after the dust settles, and you’re already considered a hero by many.”
Sienna would have laughed at his arrogance, but she had no laughter in her where Ming was concerned. Eyes narrowed, she lifted her hand and looked sideways to meet the gaze of the wolf who had shifted out of the shadows so she could see him. There was no censure in his gaze, only the approbation of a fellow predator.
Nodding, she turned … and set the cold fire free.
Ming teleported out the instant before the fire would’ve hit him, and it smashed into the tree opposite, turning it into ash between one breath and the next. “Bastard’s men were primed to ’port.” It must’ve been brutal, holding their minds on the brink of a teleport for that long.
Hawke shifted in sparks of light and color, the wolf transforming into a male who took her face in his hands and said, “You’ll get him next time.”
It was exactly what she needed to hear. “Yes, I will.”
Her mate wrapped her in his arms, the soft pelt of silver-gold that covered his chest a sensory pleasure as she held him tight.
“He actually thought I might go with him,” she said, the insult violent.
“If you had, it would’ve ended his problems.” Hawke’s voice was not entirely human. “Now, he has to find a way to kill you.”
Recalling her dark emotional response when she’d seen Hawke in danger on the battlefield, she stroked his back, his skin hot silk. “Ming,” she reminded him, “will have to get through you and the pack to get to me.”
“He’ll never succeed.” It was a growl.
“No, he won’t.” The wolves might not have psychic power, but as Henry Scott had learned, it wasn’t only the mind that mattered when it came to war.
Pushing away from him just a fraction, she stood on tiptoe to reach his mouth. “I didn’t get a kiss tonight.” He needed the contact and so did she—to wash Ming’s poisonous words from her mind, to remember she was so much more than he could ever imagine.
“I don’t know if you deserve a kiss,” her mate said, his chest rumbling under her spread palms. “Seeing as you ignored my order to get the hell away from Ming.”
Sliding her hands up over his shoulders when he bent to make it easier for her, she linked her fingers behind his neck. “Are you going to bite me very hard?” she teased, using words her young cousin, Marlee, had apparently once spoken.
“Smart-ass.” Moving his hands down to that ass, he slid them into the back pockets of her jeans.
Hard and dominant though he might be, she thought, surrendering to the hot, wet caress of a kiss he laid on her, her man had a vein of tenderness she was certain no one else, except perhaps the pups, ever saw.
“We have to continue the watch.” It was a rough murmur.
“I know,” she said, though all she wanted was to have him inside her, branding her, loving her. In the lazy, possessive mood he was in right now, he’d rock in so slow and easy, make her feel every thick inch. “I wish it was a few hours later.”
He reached up to pet and fondle one of her breasts with a proprietary hand, not helping to get her arousal under control. “Patience.” Releasing her aching flesh, he stepped away a couple of inches. “You know you like it slow.”
“No, that would be you.” Already keenly missing the wild heat of him pressed up against her, she watched as he shifted, the beauty of it stunning her anew. “I like it fast.”
The wolf huffed with laughter, and then they were running again, the night wind rippling through his fur and kissing her face. In spite of the enraging confrontation just past, Sienna had never felt so content.
Chapter 65
DISMISSING THE M-PSY he’d called to his quarters, an older female who knew the value of discretion, Ming walked to stand in front of the mirror. The flesh-colored thin-skin bandage the medic had placed on his chest hid the majority of the diagonal wound, but he could still see the blistered, red edges.
He’d been only minutely brushed by the whip of cold fire, but it had succeeding in frying through his skin and thin layer of subcutaneous fat to melt muscle and score bone. A second’s delay and he would no longer have internal organs, his body cavity filled with ash.
As it was, he now bore a scar that made it appear as if someone had dug a furrow through his skin with a viciously sharpened spoon. The M-Psy assured him the injury could be repaired, filled in, but Ming had no intention of taking her up on it.
Not at least, until Sienna Lauren was dead.
The girl had just proven she was too dangerous to keep alive, even on a leash.
STANDING on the edge of the property that housed the primary target, Vasquez looked at the Tk who was, at present, his most prized operative, both their faces covered by black balaclavas. Low-tech, but effective as a method to obfuscate identity. Though the Tk would not wear it during the op itself—it compromised his peripheral vision, and there were never any witnesses to worry about after he was done.
Are you certain you can evade the guards? The changelings had proven more dedicated sentries than he’d anticipated, leaving no obvious vulnerability. The organization can’t afford to lose you. However, they had to strike soon, before the impact of their first strike dissipated into nothing.
The Tk took time to study the house, the movements of the outer guard, the second guard hidden from view in a windowless inner room, along with their target. That largely unused room hadn’t been photographed as part of the security file on the anchor, so it was clever of the changelings to move the target into it—but Vasquez was smarter. He and the Tk beside him had run reconnaissance on this property before the Cape Dorset operation, taken their own backup images.
As they had of a number of anchor homes in the region.
The reason they hadn’t planted a transmitting camera inside was because the anchor’s home, like those of her brethren, underwent a deep security scan every week. Vasquez couldn’t risk that the bug would be found, the transmission tracked back to him.
I only need a second to disable the animal inside, the Tk said at last. The one outside will not make it to the room in time.
I can provide a distraction. He took out a gun. Will that be sufficient?
A nod. Wait until I give the signal.
Chapter 66
RIAZ HAD PULLED rank and taken the inside watch on the anchor—since they were dealing with a Tk, chances were high Adria would be safer on the outside perimeter. Of course, he hadn’t been stupid enough to actually say that. “You look like you want to bloody me,” he’d muttered, deliberately ruffling her fur. “Walk it off before you scare our charge.”