Looking down into her pleasure-drenched expression, he whispered, "No. I'm the lucky one."

He held her gaze for every long, deep stroke, luxuriated in the touch of her hands down his back as she tried to bring him impossibly closer, gloried in the secondary wave of pleasure that turned those wolf-bright eyes hazy...and took him under in a passionate storm that short-circuited his every nerve.

HE came to, collapsed beside his mate's body, his thigh pinning both of hers and his arm over her breasts, his face turned toward her own on a single shared pillow. Breathing was an effort, but since Lara seemed to be having the same problem, he was content to lie there, hot and sweaty and happy.

Happy.

It was the wrong word to think tonight, the wrong key to turn after the flash of memory at the dinner table.

Fingers against his nape, rubbing at the sudden rigid tension. "Walker?" The past shoved at his defenses, and it took all of his strength to fight the urge to let it spill out. "I don't want to taint us with what was."

Lara nudged at him until he shifted his body enough to allow her to turn to face him.

"We're stronger than memories, stronger than hurt." A luminous smile. "We're a mated pair, a family."

So simple, so powerful, her words smashed the dam inside him. But it took him time to speak, time to think past the violent crimson haze incited by this particular fragment of the past. Lara didn't shove, didn't attempt to force. No, his mate simply nuzzled close and held him, as if she knew he needed her touch at this instant more than ever before.

"The day the rehabilitation order was authorized," he began at last, his voice a harsh rasp, "when I came home to find Yelene packing because she didn't intend to let her genes die out with mine" - the reason she'd aborted their unborn child with cold-blooded callousness - "I discovered she'd put in a call to pull Marlee and Toby out of school." Jagged, brutal, the words cut at his throat, made him bleed.

"It's okay," Lara said, her distress open. "You don't have to tell me if it hurts."

He fisted his hand in her hair, anchoring himself in the warmth and heart and wildness of her. "No, I need to tell you." Needed her to accept him in spite of the terrible mistakes he'd made and the pain those mistakes had caused.

"Yelene had every intention of telling both children to pack up their belongings for donation to charity, because they'd be vegetables after the brainwipe of rehabilitation, with no use for any of it." Horror colored Lara's eyes.

"That's not Silence, Walker, that's cruelty."

Walker stroked his hand down her side, felt the rage that vibrated through her. "It was as if she had never been their guardian," he said, the insight making no more sense now than it had then, "never vowed to care for the children."

A growl came out of Lara's throat.

"Healers might have trouble with killing, but if that woman ever ends up in front of me, I will carve out her heart without anesthetic."

Shifting his position so that he was braced over her, he rubbed his cheek against her own and spoke the worst truth of all. "I was the one who chose Yelene to be my co-parent." He'd been so careful, had read through multiple PsyMed reports on each candidate, done a deep background and personality check before he settled on Yelene.

And still he'd failed to protect the vulnerable lives under his care.

"I will never forgive myself for that." Regret spun razor-sharp blades in his gut. "The way Marlee looked when she realized her mother had abandoned her - so small and broken; the way Toby went rigid and silent when he understood he'd lost another maternal figure, it's on me and it always will be."

"Don't you let her evil eat away at you," his mate said, her hands cupping his cheeks, forcing him to hold eyes of wolf amber grim with purpose. "You aren't superhuman - and you aren't a foreseer, that you could predict the future. You made the best choice in the situation you were in."

Claws pricked his face as her wolf rose closer to the surface. "Yelene's cowardice belongs to her alone. When she was asked to take a stand, she broke, while you put your life on the line and did everything in your power to protect your family. Remember that, not a woman who saved her skin and lost everything else."

When he would've spoken, Lara shook her head, voice steely as she continued. "You will forgive yourself." It was a command. "Because if you don't, your unnecessary guilt will taint your happiness - and Walker? The children take their cues from you. If you don't step fully into the light, neither will they."

Trembling because he knew she was right, he pressed his forehead to hers. "I want them to misbehave," he whispered. "I want them to talk back to us and throw tantrums." The children were both so good that he worried some part of them feared another terrible rejection. "When they do, I might just start to believe they'll be okay." Lara's lips curved, the emotion in her smile a punch to the gut. "It'll happen. Have faith in their strength and our love." Claws retreating, she patted his cheek. "They do have Sienna as an example, after all."

And his niece had been a "devil child," according to Aisha (who had a soft spot for said devil child after all the dishwashing Sienna had done in the kitchens in recompense for her misdeeds). "They'll have to work hard to beat her record of punishments." He'd never admit it to Sienna, but some of her now infamous stunts had made him want to grin with pride.

"I put my money on Marlee," Lara said. "There's a bit of 'devil child' in her, too, according to my mother, bubbling under the surface."

Walker rubbed his jaw. "I've heard it's the quiet ones you have to watch out for." Lara had murmured that to him in a voice hoarse from screaming her pleasure not long ago. "I'm backing Toby."

"You're on, Mr. Lauren." Claws running lightly over his back, her smile softening and gentling. "It's all right, Walker. Let go of the past. It has no claim on you anymore."

He knew he was too heavy for her, but he shuddered and covered her body with his own, her arms and legs coming around him, one of her hands stroking through his hair. "It's all right, darling," she said again. "It's all right." Embraced by her on every level, the warmth of her within his very heart, Walker did what his mate had ordered and broke the final rusty chain that tied him to the life he'd lived before defection...taking the first steps on the road to forgiveness.

Texture of Intimacy Chapter 9

BUOYED BY A bone-deep feeling of rightness, Walker finished a phone conversation with the mate of the leopard healer the following day, then went to supervise an outdoor exercise. It was a half hour into it that Hawke appeared beside him. The alpha's eyebrow rose when he spotted the three pups, two male and one female, sitting cross-legged on the grass, faces set and arms folded. "Why aren't those three participating?"

"It's a punishment." Walker had learned very quickly that changeling kids hated missing out on a physical activity.

"I've had some problems since the evacuees returned to the den." It had disturbed the children to be shuttled off, to worry in safety while their families and packmates fought, were hurt. "A few of the pups think they should've stayed behind and helped."

Shoving a hand through hair the same unique silver-gold as his fur in wolf form, Hawke blew out a breath.

"Future dominants, I'm guessing. Hard for them to accept being protected in a situation where they know their packmates are standing in the line of fire."

Walker understood in a way the pups couldn't comprehend. It had been brutal for him to leave the den when Lara, Sienna, and Judd remained behind.

But it had been necessary, his strength needed to provide a shield for their most vulnerable. "Do you want to speak to them?"

"You're their handler; your call."

"Leave it to me." He planned to have a quiet talk with each child.

Hawke nodded, the pale strands of his hair vivid in the sunlight. "You're not the only one who's had issues. The worst have been with the older teens, the ones on the cusp of adulthood."

"Did you knock sense into their heads?"

"No." A slashing smile. "Left that to Sienna and the other novices. Nothing bites worse than being chewed out by those immediately above you in the hierarchy, the people you want to emulate."

Walker called over and gave some instructions to two of the boys, before returning to his conversation with Hawke. "I don't think this" - a subtle nod to the three pups - "is serious. They just need the stability and discipline of pack to settle."

"What about Marlee and Toby? Any problems?"

Walker couldn't have pinpointed why, but right then, he had the distinct sense of talking to an alpha inquiring about his pack rather than Hawke the man. That alpha had looked out for the Lauren children from the instant he'd accepted them into SnowDancer, regardless of his suspicions of the adults, and Walker respected him for it.

"Marlee's young enough to have taken it in her stride" - though his daughter felt far deeper and with more subtlety than most people understood  - "but Toby's having difficulty." It was Lara who'd noticed his nephew seemed oddly subdued at times. "I've spoken to him about it, and I think he'll be fine."

"There's so much heightened emotion everywhere," the boy had said, "happiness and relief and worry for what's coming. It's hard for me to block it all out, but I'm getting better at shielding."

"Sienna," Walker said, shifting focus. "She's happy." A statement, not a question, because he'd seen her this morning, felt her increasing steadiness.

And that quickly, he was talking to Hawke the man again, rather than the alpha. "I'm her mate, Walker." It was a growl. "I'd never consciously do anything to make her unhappy, you know that."