He wanted to shake her. The weakest part of the plan was the one her life hinged on. "Get dressed. We're going to Hawke's place."
Fifteen minutes later, they gathered downstairs. He told Nate and Mercy to remain behind to guard the safe house.
Tamsyn frowned. "It's only me left here now. Why don't you let me come along and then you don't have to leave two sentinels behind."
"You're our healer." Lucas touched her cheek. He'd been harsh with her the night before. "We need you safe so you can patch us up if anything goes wrong."
Her jaw set but she didn't argue, hugging him tight instead. "Be safe."
Hawke's den was located deep in the Sierra Nevada, almost at sub-alpine level. Lucas drove up the nearly invisible track in his four-wheel drive, cursing as branches scraped along the sides.
"If it was only you and your pack, you could've run with them," Sascha said, her eyes staring out at the gray early-morning light. Darkness had fled in the time it had taken them to drive this far.
"If it was only me and my pack, we'd never have had a chance to save the girl at all."
Her organizer chimed unexpectedly into the small silence. She checked the message. "It's Mother. I'll ignore it. If she asks, I'll tell her I forgot to take it with me."
"Enrique?"
"I have a feeling he's too busy with keeping track of the NetMind's search for the killer." She leaned forward and squinted. "I can't see them."
"Of course not. That's their job." Vaughn and Clay were racing beside them as they drove into Hawke's territory, having left their vehicle a couple of miles back. They were fully capable of infiltrating the SnowDancer den and had done it before with Lucas by their side. Dorian had driven in ahead of them, dumped his vehicle, and taken to the trees. He'd already called in on a secure line to tell them he was situated above the den.
"Is that the house?" Sascha pointed to the barely visible walls of a large lodge, half-hidden by the trunks of the firs that lined the slope leading up to the clearing.
"No." He grinned at the wolves' cunning. "But it's sure fooled a lot of would-be attackers."
"It's a front? It looks so real."
"It is real. It's just not their hideout." Circling around the house, he stopped the car. "Stay inside until I'm beside you."
For once, she didn't argue. "This is your world, Lucas. I'm a novice."
He cupped her cheek in a fleeting caress before exiting the car and walking around to her door. No wolf would take him in the back. In the same way, Dorian would never shoot at an unarmed wolf from his position in the canopy. They were animals but both packs had a kind of honor most of the Psy would never understand. If it came to a fight, it would be face-to-face, hands against hands, claws against claws, not a sniper's bullet.
Still, he wasn't going to take chances with his mate's life. He scented the air to ensure Vaughn and Clay were with him. As he'd expected, their scents had been joined by those of several wolves. None were venturing too close. Good. He pulled open Sascha's door and she stepped out.
He shut the door. "Stay behind me." Already, he was placing his body in front of hers.
"I can feel five emotional signatures I don't know," she whispered, real soft.
His brows raised. "I didn't know you could do that."
"I've been practicing." She sounded almost proud of herself, as though she was getting past the fear that she was "flawed." "Vaughn and Clay are circling us, one in front, one behind."
"Let's go." He started to walk into the forest, which appeared to go on endlessly, the dark green firs so close together they blotted out the sun. They walked for five minutes before he found the rutted path half-hidden by carefully strewn forest debris.
"Usually," he told Sascha, "if you got this far, there'd be a welcoming committee awaiting you. Nobody's ever found a single bone of the missing." The predator in him appreciated the efficiency.
"Do you think they eat them?"
He grinned at her gory attempt at a joke. "Nah. Even wolves have higher standards than to feed on human carrion."
Her hand rose to his shoulder. Something taut in him relaxed. His mate was starting to trust him on a level so deep she was completely unaware of it.
Thirty minutes later, they finally reached the end of the winding path, only to find themselves up against the craggy stone face of a mountain that seemed to reach for the sky. It looked like the path simply stopped, an illusion that had protected the SnowDancers for years.
"Open up, Hawke." He allowed his voice to carry. Leopards and wolves were their solitary audience.
A few seconds later, the bottom of the mountain magically started to crack open. The "door" slid back just far enough to allow them to enter. Lucas could feel Sascha's fascination at the structure but waited until they were inside to speak. The door closed behind them without any hint that it had ever been open.
Sascha's gasp echoed off the stone walls as lights came on all around them, illuminating a long tunnel beautifully paved with river stones. Paintings graced every surface, the artist having used the rock of the tunnel as a canvas. The scenes were of the wild, of wolves running, of the different faces of the forest. There was something hypnotically beautiful about the images. Beautiful and dangerous.
"Welcome." Hawke stepped out of the shadows and raised a brow. "Should I let your sentinels in?"
"No need." Lucas smiled. Vaughn and Clay were already inside. Dorian was to remain on the outside.
Hawke's eyes betrayed nothing but Lucas knew the other alpha was pissed that his people had managed to get inside... again. "Care to share?"
"Everyone needs secrets. Don't tell me you can't get into our safe houses."
Hawke scowled. "What about mutual trust?"
Sascha laughed and both men turned to look at her, their beasts fascinated by the purity of the sound. It was, Lucas realized, the first time he'd ever heard her laugh. The possessive need in him tightened to the most aching kind of tenderness. She meant more to him than she'd ever know. If she died, so would his heart.
"You're like two wild animals who aren't quite sure you believe the other's offer of peace. I wonder how long you'll circle around each other before you decide." She shook her head, those eerie eyes sparkling with feminine amusement. At that moment she was everything the beast in him craved, woman and passion, laughter and play, sensuality and hunger.
Lucas felt Hawke take a deep breath. When he looked back at the wolf, he read a simple message on his face: If she weren't yours...
"But she is," Lucas said, one predator to another, one alpha to another.
Sascha, who was staring at one of the paintings, didn't hear. "These are lovely, Hawke." She turned to him. "Is the artist one of your pack?"
Hawke's face seemed to harden till it was as unfeeling as the rock upon which the paint had been laid. "She was." He jerked his head behind him. "Let's go."
Troubled eyes met Lucas's when he went to take Sascha's hand. He shook his head - he knew nothing of the artist.
"They live underground?" Sascha asked after they'd been walking for five minutes, going steadily deeper.
"Some of them. This functions as their Pack headquarters." Before the SnowDancers had become as feared as they now were, group after group had tried to find the hideout in order to take them down. They'd all failed. Until DarkRiver. Lucas and his sentinels had not only found the den, they'd infiltrated it. Their sole purpose had been to leave behind a simple message.
Don't hurt us and we won't hurt you. DR.
A day later, a response had been found in Lucas's lair.
Agreed. SD.
Sometimes it was good being an animal. In the world of the Psy and even in the human world, such negotiations could've taken months. In the years following that initial contact, they'd started to edge warily toward a more workable relationship. But that simple rule remained - don't hurt us and we won't hurt you.
Hawke turned right ahead of them.
"What's on the left?" Sascha asked, looking down that corridor.
"Homes." When they'd first breached the tunnels, DarkRiver had ensured the SnowDancers knew that they'd been near the homes of their pups and had left without doing harm. There was no clearer indication of friendship.
A few minutes later, they came to another fork. The corridors went off in several different directions. Ahead, they could see rooms opening up and people walking about. Hawke took them through the rightmost corridor and stopped in front of a closed door.
Beside him, Lucas felt Sascha's whole body go quiet. "Hawke," she said, an odd note in her voice. "What can I feel behind that door?"
Those icy eyes met theirs. "You'll see." Pushing open the door, he walked in.
Lucas went in ahead of Sascha, every one of his senses primed for trouble. Vaughn and Clay were already nearby, having taken human form and put on stolen clothing to throw the wolves off their scent. It would be hard getting out if something happened. Hard, but not impossible. Otherwise Lucas would've never brought his mate here.
However, what awaited them in the room wasn't anything he could've prepared for. Five people of varying ages sat around a large circular table. They didn't smell like wolf. Then one of them raised her head and night-sky eyes met his. "Christ!" He let Sascha enter but left the door open.
Sascha knew who the five people were the instant she saw them - Nikita had told her the details of the case. "The Lauren family," she whispered. She'd never known the ages of the five Psy who'd disappeared into SnowDancer territory, had never expected any of them to be children, because even after everything she'd learned, she hadn't been ready to admit that her own people would so callously turn their backs on the most innocent of the innocent.