Not as he'd lost so many of the child Arrows, their bodies and minds breaking under the pitiless regime of training, no matter what Walker did to alleviate their suffering. He remembered each and every face, each and every name. They haunted him. He refused to add another ghost to their number.

When he opened his mouth, however, what came out was, "I'm fine," and it was a response fed by the decades he'd lived in the cage of Silence, his mind still on autopilot. "I'd like to see him." He reached for her hand again, needing her on a visceral level.

Lara folded her arms.

Every muscle in his body froze, and he barely heard her say, "Tyler would enjoy a visit," through the rush of blood in his ears.

"What's wrong?" Only once before  - during their turbulent courtship - had Lara pulled away from him. That day, he'd drowned in bleak despair; today, a hot flame of anger licked at him.

Because he knew she'd only do something like that if she was hurting.

And still she didn't speak, didn't tell him what had wounded her. "Lara."

"You're doing it again," she whispered at last, the simmering anger in her tone seeded with a fine vein of pain that cut like a razor. "I know you're angry, and yet here" - she thumped a fist against her chest - "I feel nothing. Just this mirage of peace that you throw at me to block me from seeing you." A single tear rolled down her cheek. "Why would you do that, Walker?"

He'd gone motionless at her first words, welcomed the whack of the errant soccer ball that bounced against his leg. Jerking, he kicked it back and gripped Lara's forearm when she would've turned and walked away.

"You knew who I was when you accepted my courtship." If she couldn't take him as he was, the fractures inside him would be permanent and irreversible.

"And you knew who I was." Wolf amber brilliant against the lush hue of her skin. "I'm not fragile. I won't break if you let me see your pain, your fury, your worry."

It felt as if she'd kicked him in the heart. "I've told you things I've told no one else on this earth." He wanted to yell, but his voice came out deadly calm.

"Yes." Tears shone wet in the amber, her voice dropping to a whisper, "It means everything that you invited me into your secrets. Everything." The panic struggled to recede under her passionate vow, hit a snag. "Then why?" Why was she walking away from him, ripping him to pieces?

"It's not enough to allow me into your past if you shut me out of your present. Our present," she said softly. "I need to walk beside you, to be your shield as you're mine. I can't handle being shut out, being cut off when I know you're in pain."

His heart thudded in his mouth, his skin going hot then cold. "If I can't be that open?" He'd learned too young how to keep his mind contained, his emotions hidden, especially in high-stress situations.

"No, Walker." Her voice was fierce, the curls that had escaped the clip at the back of her head catching the fading red-orange sunlight as she shook her head. "You don't get an easy pass, don't get to give in without even trying. I know the strength of your will better than anyone!"

Texture of Intimacy Chapter 10

WALKER WASN'T CERTAIN what to expect from Lara when he came home that night after a scheduled meeting with packmates whose responsibilities in the den were either similar to or aligned with his own. Maternals, teachers, coaches, other "wranglers," they got together regularly to ensure no pup missed out on the attention he or she needed to thrive. His head hadn't been in the game, the need for solitude beating at him, but he'd leashed his chaotic emotions because such meetings were even more important now than they had been before the battle.

As a result of all they'd had to discuss, the meeting had run late, and the apartment was silent when he entered.

Looking into Marlee's room, he saw her sprawled out in sleep, her arms and legs thrown every which way. It made him want to smile. She'd been like that since she was a babe. Silence hadn't managed to "fix" her before the family defected.

He tugged up her blanket, kissed a soft, sleep-warm cheek, then gave a light knock on Toby's door, entering only when Toby called out. The boy was now of an age where he needed his privacy, something Walker had to make a conscious effort to remember - to him, Toby would always be his sister's baby boy, given to him in trust.

"Hi." His nephew put down the spy novel he'd been reading, the digital cover displayed on his reader a garish orange with black silhouettes.

Walker took a seat on the edge of the bed. "Are you sure you're old enough to be reading that?"

Toby's response was a grin.

They talked for a few minutes, with Toby telling him of being put in charge of a junior soccer team. "Pups think rules are suggestions." He rolled his eyes, but Walker could tell he was pleased by the responsibility.

Ruffling the boy's hair, Walker rose. "You'll do well." The words said so much less than what he felt, his pride in Toby a huge thing.

A steady look. "I know, I just copy the things I see you doing. I want to be like you."

Heart twisting, he bent down to hug that gangly body, felt Toby's arms lock around him. And he knew he had much to learn from this boy who was his blood.

Toby's openness of heart was a courage not many possessed. "Don't stay up too late," was all he said when he drew back, but Toby smiled the smile of a child who had no doubts about his place in his family's heart.

"Goodnight, Uncle Walker."

"Goodnight, Toby."

Lara was also propped up in bed reading when he entered their bedroom.

He'd never been a man who hesitated, but he did so tonight, unsure how to read her silence. Lara always talked to him, even when she was angry.

Walking to the shower without breaking that silence, he shrugged off his clothing and stepped under the heated spray.

Once there, he focused not on the way she'd left him this afternoon, striding off without a backward look, but on how she felt inside him, her love unshaken.

Shuddering, he pressed his palms to the tile, head bent under the spray.

His grip on the simple, inexorable truth of her love a bloodless one, he wiped himself off, and hitching the towel around his hips, he walked back into the bedroom. Lara had put down her reader, turned off the light on her side, and lay on her back with one arm above her head...and he saw what he hadn't earlier.

She was wearing the nightgown he liked best.

Everything came to vibrant life inside him as he realized she had spoken to him. He simply hadn't listened well enough. Not a mistake he'd make again.

Throwing the towel over a chair, he slid in under the sheet, switched off his own light, and reached for her. She came, warm and soft, and his. He shifted to enclose her with his body, his forearms on either side of her head.

"Did we," he whispered, "just have our first fight as a mated couple?" Lara felt every ounce of tension leach out of her at that quiet question.

When he'd gone into the shower without saying a word, she'd almost burst into tears. Now, she nuzzled at his throat, taking the clean, male scent of him inside, her wolf's fur rubbing up against her skin. "Yes. This is the making-up part."

He shifted his weight to settle more intimately between her legs. "In that case, I'm already looking forward to our next fight."

He was playing with her, she realized, this man who hadn't believed he had the capacity for such lightness of heart. Throat thick with emotion, she curved one leg over his hip, stroking her hands across the slightly damp skin of his shoulders - he never dried them properly and she usually had to finish the task.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you then took off," she said, feeling terrible about how she'd avoided his touch. It had been an unconscious effort to protect herself from pain, but the instant she'd cooled down enough to think, she'd realized she'd hurt him, hurt her mate. It had killed her. "I didn't mean to deny you skin privileges."

He nuzzled back at her, kissing the side of her temple. "I know. It's okay." His jaw, rough with stubble, rasped over her hair. "Will you forgive me, too?" Her eyes burned at the unvarnished request. "Always."

Lips closing over her own, his kiss a reclaiming, the heat and weight of his body a tactile caress. She gave herself up to it, up to him, loved him as he loved her, their limbs tangled so completely at the end that she didn't know where she began and Walker ended. And then the pleasure crashed over them, their bodies locked together as they fell.

LARA'S cheek was against her mate's chest when she rose out of the languid haze of desire, his arm around her and her leg thrown over his body, both of them slick with sweat, hearts thudding.

"You'll have to shower again."

It took him so long to answer, she was half-asleep when his voice cut through the lingering scent of the pleasure they'd found in one another.

"The shielding, it's instinctive at this point." A quiet confession. "I had to learn how to create and maintain it as a young male, when I realized my Silence was problematic."

Because, she understood, fully awake, he'd loved his siblings - and later the children - enough to fight for them, enough that he'd gotten through to an Arrow and a young girl trained by a Councilor. "You had to hide even the faintest trace of an emotional response." It was a truth she'd realized the instant she'd broken the stranglehold of her own overwhelming response.

A nod she saw in the dark, her wolf's night-vision acute.

"After defection, I knew I had to give the children, Sienna included, the emotional support they needed to thrive, but the fact is, while I can function with that shield lowered during the normal course of events, I'm not always aware of it snapping up in a high-stress situation."

"I know - I realized."

Had remembered that her strong, quiet, beautiful mate had scars that didn't show on the outside, that he made certain didn't show, in order to provide a stable home for the children. "The way I reacted, struck out...I panicked," she admitted, shifting to look down into his face. "It was the first time you'd gone so remote, to the point where I could barely sense you, and the shock made my wolf so afraid."