If it hadn’t been for Judd’s ability to teleport in for far more clandestine visits, paired with Walker’s skill at creating telepathic vaults that allowed Sienna’s mind privacy from Ming’s constant surveillance—a skill Judd had learned, then passed on to Sienna—they might never have reached beyond the dull shell she showed the world.

“The cold fire,” he said now, wrenching his mind back from the past and the icy rage it continued to incite in him, “is a part of you but no longer the most important facet of your existence.”

“No,” she whispered, a dawning wonder in her expression, “it isn’t, is it?” Her mouth curved, a burst of delighted laughter escaping her throat…and his mind filled once more with images of the infant she’d been, a sparkle to her eye that had captured him from the instant he first met her, mere days after her birth.

“If anything happens to me”—Kristine’s fingers so gentle as she tucked the blanket around the tiny body in Walker’s arms, a silent indication of her imperfect Silence—“you will watch over her?”

“To my last breath.”

When Sienna, her smile lingering in her gaze, stood and took a step toward him, he rose, opened his arms, and held her close as he once had the babe his sister had borne. You’ll fly, Sienna, he said, his heart aching that Kristine wasn’t here to see the incredible woman her daughter was becoming. Higher and stronger than those who would’ve caged you could ever imagine.

•   •   •

LARA’s wolf was padding happily around her skin after a quiet pulse along the mating bond that was Walker’s touch, when her eye fell on the glass spiral of blue and green he’d repaired for her after it shattered.

“It’s fixed. As long as you don’t mind more than a few scars.”

Her chest grew tight as it always did at the memory. That was the thing with Walker—he didn’t say a lot, didn’t make big gestures, but when he did speak…“I am so in love with you,” she whispered, thinking of the way he’d held her, listened to her, spoken to her in the intimate dark of their bed.

Her quiet, strong, intensely private mate was coming to her, one step at a time.

If only patience would reap the same rewards with Alice. The human scientist lay unresponsive under Lara’s hands as she checked the woman’s vitals, her flesh pallid, her bones far too close to her skin. Lara continued to seek answers for the other woman, but having been able to unload her frustration had helped put her back on an even keel, and she was able to nudge Alice from her consciousness once she left the patient room.