“Yes.” Walking out beside him, she grabbed an apple from the bowl by the door.

Drew’d already taken a bite of his by the time she polished it on her shirt and bit in. The crunch was satisfying, the sweetness refreshing, the air outside the den a cool caress. As a partner, Drew was flexible and intelligent, and they had no problems mapping out a strategy for the lesson.

That lesson, when it rolled around the next afternoon, went down like a house on fire. Surrounded by her peers, dirty and dusty and sweaty, she felt a sense of absolute rightness. This was home.

Nothing and no one was going to push her out.

SIENNA went to avoid Riordan’s kick, but knew she’d moved a fraction of an instant too late. She winced at the whack she was undoubtedly about to get to the ribs except … nothing happened. Blinking, she realized he’d pulled the kick. Nothing wrong with that—she did it herself all the time in training, because the aim wasn’t to beat your fellow combatants bloody, but to teach and test one another. The only problem was, Riordan should’ve still tapped her hard enough that she’d remember her error.

Something hot and dark and infuriated boiled in her blood. “What was that?” she demanded, halting the session.

“What?” He shoved a hand through his chocolate-dark curls.

“That excuse for a kick.”

“You stopped us to critique me?” He scowled. “You can do that after—let’s get back to it before I go gray.”

Already stressed over the mating ceremony the following day, Sienna was not in the mood for male wolf bullshit. “How about I incinerate your hair so you don’t have to worry about that?” It just slipped out.

She waited for fear to fill eyes that had always looked at her with friendly affection, stomach curdling at her error—she’d playfully threatened Hawke with singed eyebrows, but had been so careful not to remind the rest of the pack of what she was. But instead of fear, all she got was an “aw shucks” grin and a shrug. “I figured you wouldn’t want to be bruised for your big day tomorrow.” Charming eyes, big and brown and guileless.

It almost made sense. Except now that she thought about it, she realized he’d done the same thing during their last training session—only he’d been a bit more cunning about it, grazing her so she knew she’d been “hit.” However, in spite of his boyish charm, Riordan was a dominant. The more she pushed him to admit what he’d been up to, the more intractable he’d get. “Okay,” she said with a smile she hoped didn’t betray her bloodthirsty mood. “Thanks. Ready?”

He dropped back into the correct stance.

Not giving any warning, she went at him full tilt—her foot connected hard with his ribs, her elbow with his jaw, her fist with his stomach. She did keep her blows away from his pretty face, since he had a date for the ceremony. However, when he blocked her moves but made no aggressive ones of his own, she narrowed her eyes and went to kick him upside the head, which, if it connected, would surely create a nice big black-and-blue bruise down one side of his face.

“Fuck!” Slamming up a hand, he gripped her ankle the instant before she would’ve made contact with his skull and flung her away and to the ground, coming down on top of her an instant later, his much heavier body pinning hers facedown on the mat. “You trying to kill me?” It was a growl.

Instead of replying and though he’d knocked all the air out of her, she went to slam her head back into his face. He jerked out of the way with another brutal word, setting her free. Pressing up to take a seated position on the mat, she raised an eyebrow at Riordan when he gave her a distinctly wary look from where he sat on the other side. “Oh, sorry,” she said with sweetness that would’ve done a candy bar proud, “were we only pretending to train?”

Another growl, this one harsh and from the chest. “You’re my alpha’s mate,” he snapped out with a raw anger she’d never before witnessed in him. “My wolf can’t hurt you.”

It knocked the air out of her all over again. She’d been so focused on how packmates would feel about her now that they knew of the cold fire, she hadn’t really considered the more direct effect of her relationship with Hawke—especially since her closest friend, Evie, had been so easy about it. But the fact was, she wasn’t just Sienna Lauren, novice soldier and Riordan’s friend anymore. She was Sienna Lauren Snow, mate to the SnowDancer alpha.

Stunned by the far-reaching implications of Riordan’s statement, it took her several long seconds to formulate her reply. “An alpha can be challenged,” she said slowly, “so lower-ranked soldiers can get aggressive toward him, and by extension, his mate.”

Sighing, Riordan fell backward, until he lay flat on his back. “Do you know what Hawke would do to me if I hurt you?”

“Not if the injury happened in this context.” No matter his protectiveness, Hawke would never get in the way of her development and growth as a soldier. He’d taken her to the mat more than once when he thought she was getting lazy with her physical training—not to mention, he was the one who’d thrown her into that physical training in the first place.

“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.