Caressed By Ice by Nalini Singh Page B

men.” Sometimes, he wasn’t even sure he was human, not a monster. “Of course, if I want revenge, I’ll simply send Sienna your way.” His niece could make Hawke lose his cool faster than any other man or woman in the den. “She’s been in a particularly…interesting mood since you forced her to train with Indigo.”
    Hawke’s face darkened. “Keep that damn brat away from me—she’s more trouble than a pack of rabid cats.” He reached behind himself for a map. “I need a man to keep an eye on some stuff in the eastern quadrant.”
    Judd walked over to look at the large sheet of plaspaper as Hawke rolled it open across his desk. “Isolated area, no habitation within miles,” he said, orienting himself. “Includes a segment of the outer perimeter.” That perimeter was the den’s first—if farthest—line of defense. That put his placement there in a new light. A test?
    Hawke pointed to the border section. “We’ve had reports of people encroaching. Might be human or nonpredatory teenagers playing chicken, but we need to know if it’s something more. No unnecessary contact. I need intelligence before we make a move.
    â€œIf it is kids, a good scare will make them mind their manners. If it’s adults from a predatory species, they know the rules.” That unauthorized access meant death. The SnowDancers weren’t particularly forgiving and Judd had seen the bodies to prove it. It was why they had not only survived, but become the most powerful pack in California.
    â€œUnderstood.” Rusty sections of his mind stretched awake in anticipation.
    â€œIt’s pretty damn lonely out there.” Hawke glanced up. “You might not touch another person for weeks. I’ll set you on a rotation—two weeks out, one week in. Most of my people in isolated areas do it that way.”
    â€œTouch is a changeling need.” As important, apparently, as eating and breathing. He’d observed how aggressive they became without it. During Brenna’s recovery, she’d often been surrounded by packmates.
    What very few knew was that in the hardest sessions, the ones where she’d wanted no one in her pack to see her, but had needed the tactile contact, it was Judd who had held her. Oddly, she had granted him skin privileges—the right to touch—almost from the start. It had been the first time he’d had such sustained contact with another. She’d been soft. Warm. Trusting. And highly disturbing to his Psy senses.
    â€œI’m designed to work alone.” Nature’s gift to him.
    Hawke took him at his word. “There’s an old cabin here.” He indicated a spot close to the boundary that delineated the area into which the SnowDancers would accept no unauthorized entry. Their territory was so broad that it covered several regions where other species lived and worked, and they were more lenient about access in those sections, but the massive tract of heavily forested land stretching out in all directions from the den was sacrosanct. “It’s fully equipped with comm equipment. You can use it as a base.”
    Â 
    Judd left within the hour, having decided to cover the considerable distance on foot with the aid of his Tk abilities. It would both speed him up and serve the purpose of releasing some of the psychic energy built up in his system.
    As he began running across the snow at a speed that would’ve shocked the wolves, he considered Brenna’s probable reaction to his sudden departure. She was confident enough, had enough wolf arrogance that she’d be considerably annoyed if he wasn’t there when she came looking. However, given that he was no longer her sole source of information about Psy-related material—and especially after what he’d told her to do yesterday, she might not even notice that he’d left.
    His hands tightened on the straps