"I'm sorry." He tugged her down, kissed the corner of her mouth.
Sensing his distress at causing her pain, she petted his chest. "You didn't know. I understand the shield now, so I won't panic." She'd worry, but she'd hold it together, hold him when he came to her. Because he would always reach for her. As he had today. "Just don't ever do it on purpose, okay?" She brushed long strands of dark blond off his forehead. "I promise I won't ever again pull away like I did today." Walker's silence was deep, his eyes holding her own until she felt lost in the translucent green. "Why are you so patient with me?" he asked at last, his tone raw. "It must frustrate you that I'm so unlike changeling males." Men who wore their emotions on their face and made no bones about their adoration of the women who were their own.
Lara laughed, her delight infectious.
"I love you because of who you are, not in spite of it, you wonderful man." A passionate kiss that marked him as hers, made him want to stretch in pleasure like one of the felines.
"I like everything about you" - she continued kiss by kiss - "your integrity, your ability to love so deep and true, your courage, even the fact that you have a limit on how many words per day you intend to speak - " Giggles erupted as he flipped them, reversing their positions.
"Teasing me again?"
"Maybe."
Tasting her smile, he rubbed his stubbled jaw against her cheek in punishment. She cried foul, tried to push him away, even as her legs tightened around him...the same instant a knock came on the bedroom door.
Lara went quiet, listening with sharp wolf ears.
Reaching out with his telepathic senses, he found his daughter outside.
"A nightmare?" Lara asked, already out of bed and pulling on her robe.
"No, but something similar."
Having rolled off on the other side, he pulled on the pajama bottoms he'd earlier ignored.
They reached the door at the same time. Pulling it open, he picked Marlee up in his arms. Though his daughter always protested she was too big now, Marlee didn't do so tonight.
Lara made soothing sounds.
"What's the matter, baby?" she asked as they all took a seat on the bed.
Marlee, who never cried, grabbed hold of Lara's hand as if to a lifeline, sobbing too hard to speak.
"We're here, sweetheart." Lara leaned in to brush Marlee's sleep-tangled hair out of her eyes. "Tell us what's wrong." Her gaze met his, the worry in the tawny depths unhidden.
Wrapping one arm around his mate, he brought her close as he tried to speak to their daughter on the telepathic plane.
Marlee?
I'm so sc-scared, was all he got out before tears took over again.
Walker wasn't surprised when a wild-haired Toby appeared in the doorway. The boy always woke when Marlee was in distress. "I went to get her some milk when I saw you had her," he said, holding up the warmed-up glass.
Walker nodded at him to come in.
Putting the milk on the bedside table, Toby took a seat beside Lara and leaned over to tug on Marlee's hair. "Don't cry, Marlee-Barley, you'll turn into a turnip." Marlee smiled through her tears at that ridiculous statement and began to sniff, the sobs abating in slow gasps. She remained locked around Walker, however, and her grip on Lara's hand was white knuckled. "What happened?" Walker asked as Lara brought Toby into their embrace with her free arm.
"I had bad thoughts," was the unadorned answer. "I woke up and I couldn't sleep and I started having bad thoughts and they wouldn't stop." Anguish in every word as she described what appeared to have been a severe anxiety attack. "I couldn't make them stop."
"Will you tell us about those thoughts?" Lara asked softly.
"I thought what if the Council came and took us away again? We couldn't be a family anymore."
His eyes met Lara's - it didn't take a PsyMed specialist to unravel the roots of his daughter's fear. Deep within, Marlee was scared of her happiness.
Walker understood. He still woke without warning some nights, certain his new life was a dream, that he slept in a sterile cot rather than beside Lara's warmth, his family safe from harm.
"That's not going to happen," he said firmly as Lara raised her free arm from around Toby long enough to wipe away the remnants of Marlee's tears and smooth back her hair. "We're part of SnowDancer now, and our pack stands with us." No one would ever hurt any child in SnowDancer and get away with it.
"Yeah," Toby said, leaning into Lara's embrace once more, "plus Uncle Walker and Uncle Judd and Sienna and Hawke are way too scary for the Council."
Walker's eyes narrowed when a true Marlee smile peeked out, the storm passing far quicker than he'd expected.What are you doing, Toby? He knew even a slight empath like Toby could draw away some negative emotion.
I just helped her a little. Took the really bad fear away so she could think.
How are you? Experiencing the darkness he'd taken from another was the price an empath paid for his gift.
Fine. I'm conscious of the possible impact of Marlee's fear, so the panic can't grab me like it did her.
Making a note to share the details of the telepathic conversation with Lara later, Walker watched his mate pick up the milk Toby had brought. "Marlee?
Why don't you have this, sweetheart." Releasing Lara's hand at last, their daughter scrambled off his lap. "I'm too big," she said, a flush of red on her cheekbones.
But she accepted Lara's cuddle and kiss despite her embarrassment, then leaned her back against Lara's legs while she drank the milk. "I acted like a baby," she said after downing half the glass.
Toby poked her in the side. "You are the baby of the family, Marlee-Barley."
"Am not." A glare directed at her cousin, she finished the milk and put the glass back on the bedside table. "And you're babier than Sienna."
"Babier isn't even a word." Toby grabbed her body in his arms when she whirled toward him, both of them laughing as Toby pretended to defend himself from Marlee's "claws."
Lara smiled and leaned her back against Walker. Wrapping his arms around her, he propped his chin on the springy silk of her curls and watched the children, his lips kicking up at their innocent joy. Then Lara laughed as Marlee let out a perfect imitation of a wolfish growl, sending Toby into a fit of uncontrollable laughter that made his nephew easy prey, and his smile turned into a grin.
My family. My mate.
A fox-bright gaze met his as Lara twisted around to look at him, almost as if she'd heard his thoughts. "It's nice, isn't it?" A smiling kiss pressed to his jaw. "Our own little pack."
"Yes."
Texture of Intimacy Epilogue
LARA COULDN'T BELIEVE it was already the night of their mating ceremony. Held in the arms of her mate as they swayed to the music from the live jazz band, she looked around the Pack Circle, the dance area in the center surrounded by wooden picnic tables.
Those tables held an array of delicacies that had the children and adults both in raptures - her mother, Lara thought with a smile, had no doubt been planning the menu since the day Lara mated Walker.
Giant painted butterflies decorated several trees; Marlee's contribution to the plan. The wooden creatures had been cut out and glued together by Toby and his friends before being painted by Marlee, Sienna, Evie, Brenna, and a number of the younger members of the pack, including a rambunctious but wildly talented Ben.
"Look at what my baby did," Ava had said with delight earlier that day, pointing to a butterfly painted with a joyful enthusiasm that made the creature seem alive. "The Stone artistic talent clearly runs true."
Now, that butterfly and the others shimmered in the fairy lights that lit up the early evening darkness, the sound of their packmates voices and the children's laughter intertwining with the music to create a harmony unique to this moment.
"Happy?" Walker's breath brushed her temple, the masculine heat of him making her wolf rub up against her skin, as it had against his hand when she'd shifted for their early morning run.
"So happy."
The pack's pleasure in their match had been clear since the day word got out about Walker's courtship, but Lara hadn't realized the full extent of it until tonight. Kisses on the cheek, hugs, whispered congratulations accompanied by thoughtful gifts, they kept coming.
Walker had found himself shaking hands with people throughout the night, been hugged by countless children.
"Are you having fun?" she asked, aware he preferred to stay out of the limelight.
"I get to celebrate you." A slow curve of his lips. "It's a perfect night."
"Walker."
Bending his head and sliding one hand around her nape, he kissed her slow and with exquisite patience...so long and deep that howls went up around them. But her mate didn't release her until he was good and ready. Flustered and pleasured, her hands fisted on the fine cotton of his white shirt, she drew in a trembling breath. "Just when I thought I could predict what you'd do next..." Walker ran his thumb across her lip, his other hand splayed on her lower back to hold her close. "I love you more than I'll ever be able to say, ever be able to describe. You're my starlight on a dark night."
Eyes burning at the stark beauty and romance of his declaration, she whispered, "You just did."
He went motionless. "Lara, did you hear that?"
"Yes, of course," she said, sniffing away the happy tears. "It's not that noisy."
Walker's lips curved, and then he was grinning in a way he hardly ever did outside the privacy of their home. Can you hear this, too?
"Yes, I - " Her eyes went wide as she realized she hadn't seen his mouth shape the words. "This is impossible." She knew of two changeling/Psy couples who had a level of true telepathic communication between them, but there were unusual circumstances in both cases. "I don't have any Psy genes." Walker cupped her face, bending his knees so they were eye to eye. "Yes, but you have an ability that may as well be a Psy one. It makes rational sense that there is a connection, even if changeling healing is no longer recognized as a true psychic gift."