A wild call to his alpha wolf…

“Run with me,” she said, turning her head to a sudden gust of wind, glossy black hair buffeted, eyes flashing gold in the sun.

He stopped short. In those eyes—in the lift of her head and the lines of strong, straight shoulders, in rangy legs promising long, ground-eating strides—he suddenly remembered something of what he was.

“Run with me,” she said again, looking out over the remaining fields of the fairgrounds to the thick tangle of irrigated wooded borders between the tended green land and the natural desert grit.

Nick looked out at that land and he looked at the woman flinging wild in his face and, without even realising it, he grinned again, dark and just as feral as she. All wolf.

Available in May 2010 from Mills & Boon® Intrigue

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Sentinels: Wolf Hunt

by Doranna Durgin

Sentinels: Wolf Hunt

By

Doranna Durgin

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Doranna Durgin spent her childhood filling notebooks, first with stories and art and then with novels. After obtaining a degree in wildlife illustration and environmental education, she spent a number of years deep in the Appalachian Mountains. When she emerged, it was as a writer who found herself irrevocably tied to the natural world and its creatures—and with a new touchstone to the rugged spirit that helped settle the area and which she instils in her characters.

Doranna’s first fantasy novel received the 1995 Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Award for best first book in the fantasy, science fiction and horror genres; she now has fifteen novels of eclectic genres on the shelves. Most recently she’s leaped gleefully into the world of paranormal romance. When she’s not writing, Doranna builds web pages, wanders around outside with a camera and works with horses and dogs. There’s a Lipizzan in her backyard, a mountain looming outside her office window, a pack of agility dogs romping in the house and a laptop sitting on her desk—and that’s just the way she likes it. You can find a complete list of her titles at www.doranna.net, along with scoops about new projects, lots of silly photos and a link to her SFF Net newsgroup.

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This is for my friend Lorraine Bartlett/Lorna Barrett, for all the stuff behind the scenes, and for Writers Plot!

With my thanks to the Magna Owners of Texas, who helped me find just the right motorcycle for Jet.

Mythos

Long ago and far away, in Roman/Gaulish days, one woman had a tumultuous life—she fell in love with a druid, by whom she had a son; the man was killed by Romans, and she was subsequently taken into the household of a Roman, who also fathered a son on her. The druid’s son turned out to be a man of many talents, including the occasional ability to shapeshift, albeit at great cost. (His alter-shape was a wild boar.) The woman’s younger son, who considered himself superior in all ways, had none of these earthly powers, and went hunting other ways to be impressive, acquire power. He justified his various activities by claiming he needed to protect the area from his brother, who had too much power to go unchecked…but in the end, it was his brother’s family who grew into the Vigilia, now known as the Sentinels, while the younger son founded what turned into the vile Atrum Core.

Glossary

Sentinels: An organization of power-linked individuals whose driving purpose is to protect and nurture the earth—as befitting their druid origins—while also keeping watch on the activities of the Atrum Core

Vigilia: The original Latin name for the Sentinels, discarded in recent centuries under Western influence

Brevis Regional: HQ for each of the Sentinel regions

Consul: The leader of each Sentinel brevis region

Adjutant: The Sentinel Consul’s executive officer

Aeternus contego: The strongest possible Sentinel ward, tied to the life force of the one who sets it and broken only at that person’s death. Meghan Lawrence has placed one of these on Fabron Gausto, reflecting any workings he performs back on himself

Vigilia adveho: A Sentinel mental long-distance call for help

Monitio: A Sentinel warning call

Nexus: The Sentinel who acts as a central point of power control—such as for communications, wards, or power manipulation

Doranna Durgin

Atrum Core: An ethnic group founded by and sired by the Roman’s son, their basic goal is to acquire power in as many forms as possible, none of which is natively their own; they claiming to monitor and control the “nefarious” activities of the Sentinels

Amulets: The process through which the Core inflicts its workings of power on others; having gathered and stored (and sometimes stolen) the power from other sources

Drozhar: The Atrum Core regional prince

Septs Prince: the Atrum Core prince of princes

Septs Posse: A Core drozhar’s favored sycophants; can be relied on to do the dirty work

Sceleratus vis: Ancient forbidden workings based on power drawn from blood, once used by the Atrum Core

Workings: Core workings of power, assembled and triggered via amulets

Prologue

Marlee Cerrosa, stuck in a boring internal security meeting where everyone else had more seniority than she, pretended her cell phone wasn’t ringing.

Is he insane, calling me here?

She smiled apology at the others, wishing that the Mission Impossible ring tone didn’t come through quite so clearly. Their understanding amusement came through just as clearly, along with a hint of condescension—although she didn’t imagine they knew it showed. She was the youngest on this Brevis Southwest team, and the most human of those working internal tech support—barely enough Sentinel blood to be here at all. And so she still worked out of a corner cubicle, batting cleanup and grunge work. They knew she could do more; it was nothing personal. A matter of putting in her time, earning her way up.

Just how much more she could do, she didn’t think they knew.

And she was sure they didn’t know who’d just called. Or that although she scribed notes during the meeting, looking as concerned as anyone about the recent system aberrations, she knew exactly how those aberrations had occurred. She didn’t blame the Sentinel field agents for their concern about security, but she knew better. There was no actual breach.

Just…a little sharing.

They needed a reality check.

When the meeting finally ended and they all gathered up for their predatorial meat-heavy lunches, Marlee grabbed up her Tecra computer tablet and her chilled Scooby-Doo lunch box with fruit and salad and went up to the roof for some fresh air and some privacy, not to mention the best cell phone reception in the building.

A place she could use her phone scrambler without question.

“I can’t believe you called me here,” she said, as soon as he picked up the phone. “I can’t believe you called me in the middle of a security meeting.”

“Oh, come. Don’t tell me it didn’t give you a thrill. A deep, secret little thrill.” His tone was beguiling…personal.

She hated that.

“I’m not doing this for thrills.”

“Ah, there, now.” He backed off; he always did. It was how she knew he needed her.

But dammit, he always tried—getting personal, making insinuations—and she was tired of it.

“Nick Carter will be out in the field,” he said.

She didn’t question it, as unlikely as it seemed—for the brevis adjutant rarely went into the field, and when he did, he didn’t go alone. After all, Nick Carter, Sentinel shapeshifter extraordinaire, was the primary assistant to the Brevis Southwest Consul. Brevis Southwest, Brevis Northwest, Brevis Central…north into the Canadian regions and south into Latin America. All huge swaths of land overseen by men of too much power and tied by allegiance to their Brevis Nationals—although men at Nick Carter’s level usually wielded that power from behind closed doors.

But he wouldn’t have said it unless he knew. Not this man. “I need you to interfere with his incoming communications. Phone, e-mail…whatever.”

She laughed out loud, as ill-advised as it was. “You must be kidding.”

His brief silence served as a response. “I want a virus on his personal computer system—turn it into mush. I want them locked out.”

Now she let her own silence speak. She leaned against the giant EVAC housing structure on the roof—there, where she’d set up her lawn chair and shadescreen, habitually hiding from the sun even on this relatively pleasant early November day. Up on an old town roof in Tucson…the sun always seemed warm to her.

He said sharply, “You can do these things.”

It wasn’t a question.

She said, “I don’t work for you. I take suggestions when it comes to keeping the balance. If I didn’t truly believe—if I hadn’t seen—” She didn’t finish the thought. They both knew why she did what she did. Because the field Sentinels, the shapeshifters…

They were far too powerful. They called themselves protectors of the earth, but they’d gotten above themselves…beyond themselves. And while Marlee didn’t think the Atrum Core family branch had taken the right path when choosing to work against their druidic brothers those thousands of years ago in a Roman dominated Britain, she could understand why they felt the need to do it at all.

For not only could the Sentinels shift to another shape—each to his own, and invariably something powerful, something predatory—they often took on enhanced abilities even in human form. Keen of vision, keen of hearing, of scent…swift on foot, strong in hand. And most of them had their own individual talents. Wards, healing, shields…there was the field agent in northern Arizona who rode power, and who had been in not one but two scandals. How brevis had cleared him a second time, Marlee couldn’t imagine.

It was for men like him that she did what she did, driven by a childhood of watching subtle injustices and power plays. Made her small changes, her small interferences. Helped to keep the balance between the Sentinels and the Atrum Core, without actually benefiting the Core.

She watched a raven swooping down between the redbrick buildings, knowing that it, too, might well be a Sentinel, and happy it came no closer. “What you’re asking will expose me.”

“Ah, no,” he said. “Not my Marlee. You’re too important to us all. We’ll make sure you’re covered. And while this level of interference might seem extreme, it’s only temporary. A few days at most.”

Cover her? She’d assumed she wasn’t the only Sentinel in her position—mostly human, but come of long-established bloodlines. Not quite special enough to fit into this world, but with eyes open far too wide to merge happily into the world that knew nothing of Sentinels or Atrum Core or the ancient battle between them.

But she hadn’t truly considered how many others might be right here at brevis with her.

“I would not ask, my Marlee…” He let the words trail away, the implication clear enough. If I had a choice. If it weren’t important.

She hated the way those words made her feel. She loved the way those words made her feel.

As if he possessed some part of her…as if she’d forever given up something of herself to this man who was so used to taking what he wanted. And yet…as if she was making a difference, here among people who assumed she couldn’t. As if she was the only one who could.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she told him.

Chapter 1

He saw her in stages.

Pure feral grace…

Surrounded by the chaos of the Pima County Fairgrounds with a complex breed ring and performance dog show cluster in full swing around him, Nick Carter caught only a glimpse of dark, lithe movement as the woman ducked wind chimes at a sheltered display and disappeared around the end of the vendor row. And though his vision was full of pop-up shade shelters and colorful wares, people lingering in the wide aisle with a variety of dogs ranging idly along beside, the desert’s seasonal wind gusting and lifting swirls of fine desert grit until it was all one big dance of color and motion—

In truth, in that moment, he saw only one lean woman: swift, bordering on rangy, dressed in black beneath an early winter desert sun. Black fitted vest with no shirt beneath, black crop pants, black leather shoes, tight to her feet. Black hair, short and artfully mussed. Pure bed head. Pure feral grace in her movement, taking her so quickly out of his sight.

He saw it all in that instant—a stranger, on his turf. A shifter, so obvious and yet unknown.

Forget about the troubles within brevis regional, forget about the increasingly problematical stealth amulets being employed by the local Core. Hell, forget about the very concerns that had brought him out here, signs that Fabron Gausto had returned to run amok once again.

Pure feral grace…

Not here. Not without his permission.

He followed her. Around the end of the vendor row, past the main building with its reserved grooming stations, show superintendent’s table, and show committee setup. Past the tall wire exercise pens teeming with packs of small breed dogs, all of whom invariably crouched or cowered or rolled over as Nick passed by—and now all of who still lingered that way from the woman’s recent passage.

At least he knew he was on the right trail.

Another glimpse of her, nothing more than a blackshod heel, a toned calf—but still his shoulders and nape tightened. It was her, all right.

It wasn’t a trespass he could allow to stand. Not with the entire Southwest regional office compromised from within, the aging consul a man who hadn’t taken his javelina boar in years, Nick’s own handpicked Sentinel echelon team wounded and recovering, and dammit, every sign that they were all still defenseless against the recently employed stealth amulets.

And as incongruous as it seemed, not with the recent incidents at dog shows in the area—dogs stolen, dogs missing. While the local law had chalked up such problems to animal rights activists, Nick had the feeling it was more ominous than that; it smacked of the Core’s endless experiments to harvest power that didn’t belong to them. With the Core, ominous was never simple, never moral.

And someone always died.

She’s only a woman, he tried to tell himself, as a twinge of the absurd touched him—chasing after that lean form here on the busy dog show grounds when he should have been interviewing the breeders he’d come to see. Except…

Not “only a woman” at all. He could recognize the wolf in another as easily as he could see it in a mirror, in his own hoarfrost hair and pale green eyes—but mostly in his manner, as though at any moment the civilization might simply fall away, leaving gleaming teeth and laughing eyes and blood-spattered fur.

And he knew it because of how very often he’d been counseled against it. Blend in, he’d been told in training. We will always know you, but no one else should. And so he’d cultivated the expensive haircuts and the expensive suits and the other trappings of civilization that somehow never seemed to fool anyone.

This woman wouldn’t fool anyone, either. She wasn’t quite tame—no matter how she might try, whoever she was. And that was the most important point. Whoever she was. Because here in Brevis Southwest, Nick should know her. Field Sentinels—those who could take another form—were not thick on the ground in any region, and if Nick hadn’t actually worked with each of the Sentinels in his region, he nonetheless knew their dossiers.

Not this woman’s.

Nor had anyone reported anything unusual from other regions—Sentinels gone missing, Sentinels gone traveling, Sentinels following a trail across borders. She was a complete unknown, an anomaly during restless and uneasy times when Nick could not afford anomalies.

So through the outdoor show rings he followed her, giving wide berth to the obedience rings and the utility dogs who performed exacting feats of scent discrimination and directed retrieving. Farther yet, where the agility dogs barked excitement through their courses, the teeter slamming to the ground and handlers shouting top-speed course corrections with the panicked note that meant oops, too late.

Here, Nick was at home—the very reason he’d come here today, hunting interviews with handlers and owners. Of the brevis Sentinels, he was the one with a pack of retired show dogs. He was the one with coowned dogs on the circuit, a common arrangement in the world of showing and breeding.

He was the one to whom the affected handlers would speak freely.

To judge by the startled expressions the woman left in her wake, the number of people doing double takes over their shoulders…she not only didn’t fit into this world, she hadn’t ever learned to glide through it, either.

Just past the agility grounds, he stopped—with nothing beyond but groomed, remote fields bordered by a man-made tangle of trees and brush. Past that, a midland desert choked thickly with its own native growth—creosote and brittlebush and wild, gorgeous bird-of-paradise, all scattered about with a variety of cactus. But right up close, a field of nothing but informally parked cars, people going to and fro…but none of them startled, all of them chatting happily as they juggled gear and tugged along rolling carrier wheels, their conversation lost in the flapping of the shade canopy setups behind him.

An elusive scent played hide-and-seek on the gusty breeze; Nick whirled.

There she was.

Waiting for him.

Everything that first glimpse had promised—rangy athletic grace even in stillness, only a few feet away and tucked up against the back side of the agility scorekeeper’s tent. Her features came as no surprise at all, they so suited the rest of her—short, mussed hair a glossy black, wide-set eyes a deep whiskey gold and tipped up at the corners over the world’s most amazing cheekbones, and a wide, serious mouth that wouldn’t have to say a word if she only ever let those eyes speak for her.

Only a foot away now, and an unexpectedly swift step brought her closer. She found his gaze, direct and unflinching. “You’re following me.”

“You meant me to.” He said it without thinking, while his mind caught on her voice—lower than he’d expected, smoothly musical, the edges of the words softened by the slightest of unfamiliar burrs, the faintest softening of consonants.

“Did I?” She cocked her head slightly as she examined his words, his demeanor—everything about him.

“You don’t belong here,” he said, but he kept accusation from his voice. For now. “Were you looking for me?” And on second thought, more warily, “You didn’t come here about the missing dogs.”

At that she smiled again. Slowly. She shook her head. “No,” she said. “Not about the missing dogs.” She glanced over to the agility rings, where an overwrought Border Collie flung itself around its own made-up course as the judge signaled fault after fault and the handler laughed helplessly. “They are but infants.”

It startled him, as much as he hid it. So a wolf would think, indeed—for compared to a wolf pack’s complex social structure and interaction, the domesticated dog led a simplified and limited life. He thought of his own rowdy, cheerful pack of little hounds. “They have their charm.”

But her response had been too honest, too true. She’s not involved—but she’s not one of mine…

Before he could take that train of thought any further, she said, “You knew me,” and she said it with some satisfaction.

He found himself smiling—all wolf. “How,” he said, “could I not?” And then, narrow-eyed, “Is that why you’re here? To see if I would know you? To see if I would follow you?”

“To see if you could,” she said.

She’s not involved, she’s not one of mine…

“There’s protocol,” he said, the reality of it pressing in. Too many things happening, here in Southwest. “You need to check in with brevis if you’re—”

“Run with me,” she said, turning her head to a sudden gust of wind, glossy black hair buffeted, eyes flashing gold in the sun. Wild invitation from a wild child grown.

He stopped short. In those eyes—in the lift of her head and the lines of strong, straight shoulders, in rangy legs promising long, ground-eating strides—he suddenly remembered something of what he was.

“Run with me,” she said again, looking out over the remaining fields of the fairgrounds to the thick tangle of irrigated wooded borders between the tended green land and the natural desert grit and caliche and sand, filled with thorns and things that bit and stung and knew how to survive their harsh land.

Nick looked out at that land, and he looked at the woman flinging wild in his face, and without even realizing it, he grinned again, dark and just as feral as she. All wolf.

She hadn’t expected him to respond to her—not personally, not in any way. She’d expected to fail.

She hadn’t expected to respond to him.

She’d seen pictures—flat and uninteresting, without scent or texture. They hadn’t told her what she truly needed to know. They hadn’t revealed the deeper truth of him.

They hadn’t told her he was alpha.

Not alpha as reckoned in the world of cities and people, as among the Sentinels or the Atrum Core. Meaningless, those appellations. But alpha in the truest sense of the word.

So now she’d found him, and now she’d drawn him in, and now she knew she would not fail.

But now, she wanted to.

Not an option.

This open area in which they spoke held little shelter for changing—nothing more than ugly plastic portable bathrooms tucked beside the scorekeeper’s tent. Jet wrinkled her nose at them and targeted the informal parking lot beyond—full of oversized vans, small RVs, and big SUVs.

A moment earlier, he’d been amused. But she’d left him with his civilized human thoughts too long, and now he held out a beckoning hand. A commanding hand, as if he had every right to demand her response.

She supposed he did, when it came to that. But she tipped her head just so, and she dropped her jaw in light wolfish amusement…and she backed away. Just a step, then two…hesitating in invitation.

“Later,” he said, his voice grown hard in a way that didn’t quite match the yearning in his pale green eyes. Humans might have trouble reading the truth of those eyes, but she had no such hindrance. He held firm nonetheless. “You’ve got questions to answer.”

“After. If we run,” she told him, jogging a few easy strides away from the hustle-bustle barkbarkbark before hesitating again—knowing just the pattern of tease and entice, though he’d likely not recognize it until too late. For all his wolf, he was far too human to see the subtleness of what she could wield.

“No,” he said, though his glance at the spit of woods as it reached through this field showed him to be just a tad more perceptive than she’d thought. A little faster.

And so she moved again, body fluid and beguiling, expression clear. Romp with me.

He shook his head. “I’m not bargaining. I want you out of the field until you’re formally cleared.”

She couldn’t help a laugh. “That is for no man to say. I am my own person.” Not strictly true at the moment…but true for so much of her life that it clung to her, curled up inside her and aching to be set free again.

“You,” he said, and those light green eyes darkened as he lowered his head slightly, “are in Brevis Southwest. Without permission or notification.” Not a good sign, that challenging look, or the set of his shoulders. If he wanted to take her, he could.

Then never let him get close enough. She slipped farther away, a few light-hearted steps toward the beckoning woods. “After,” she repeated. She closed her eyes, flung her head back, let flared nostrils scoop in the scents of this man-made wild spot that had outpaced any attempts to keep it tamed. A hundred yards away, the scattered cars defined the edge of the parking area, more sparse than the clustered vehicles around the entrance to the performance grounds they’d just left. The noises and odors of that place had grown more distant, and the woods, the desert beyond…they called all the more loudly.

And besides, she was close enough now.

This human form could run, too.

Run she did, straight for the woods, all smooth easy speed and loping strength, taking advantage of his momentary surprise to gain ground. And once there, she didn’t hesitate. She spun to face him even as she toed off her shoes; she tugged impatiently at the buttons of the vest. So confining, these clothes! She skimmed free, rolling them into a quick, practiced ball and standing to face him, wearing only Gausto’s necklaces on this lean, naked human form, skin tightening against the shadowed breeze.

He stopped short at the sight of her, eyes gone dark, jaw gone hard. He took a step toward her—

She smiled, showing teeth, and crouched into a tight ball of flesh, reaching within to free the wolf. It swelled from inside her, a rising wave of relief and power, swirling blues and grays that expanded to obscure her from the world and the world from her. But that veil quickly shrank back, showing her the world now through her wolf’s eyes. And still she showed her teeth, a laughing curl of lip—a challenge. Come run with me if you dare.

He took it as such—but he took off none of his clothes. All the specially made Sentinel clothes with their warded pockets and natural materials—useless to one whose changes had been instilled by the Core, triggered over and over and over until she learned to do it herself, then trained with powerful aversives to remain human while they taught her more.

His gaze latched on to her even as the glorious flicker of blue lightning gathered—her first sight of a Sentinel’s natural change, flashing and strobing until he finally closed his eyes and lifted his head just so—and then the light obscured his form, twining and crawling around him until she had to look away—if only for an instant, and then she drank in the sight of him, well-pleased.

They stood together for an instant—close enough for him to have snagged her, had he truly wanted to. Black, rangy wolf-bitch with long legs and a gleam in her eye. Hoarfrost gray wolf, a big male with substance and power and size. Two wolves in the midst of humanity—strangers, but, as wolves were wont, confident in their quick assessment of one another, their equally quick camaraderie. Nick Carter as wolf relaxed more easily than as human, relying on an instinct that told him she was only just what she was. Wolf-bitch, comely and strong and wanting a good run.

In unexpected choreographed unison, they each gave a good shake—an ear-flapping, tail-popping shake, dismissing the residual energy of the change. After that, his tongue lolled out, ever so briefly. And then he seemed to remember why he’d followed her this far, and his ears canted back and his muzzle tightened over his teeth.

Time to run, oh, yes. At first full-bore, slipping through the trees like darkness and shadow, irreverence on the run from authority. But soon enough it became obvious to her…he could have caught her at any time. Caught her and shoulder-checked her off her feet; caught her and grabbed her up by the scruff. Instead he merely flanked her, waiting…giving her, ultimately, the chance she’d asked for before he demanded his answers—and she finally broke free of their subtle sparring and blew out of the woods and into the desert.

She’d been waiting here for days, lurking at the edges of the fairgrounds at night and coming in during the day to hunt for him as she’d been told. So she already knew the trail, and already knew the best paths in the desert—the way to the nearest wash, the cholla thicket where the jackrabbits thought they could hide, the barrel cactus damaged by an illegal off-roader, now a temporary source of juicy pulp and water.

She led him there, and they trotted along the wash, bumping shoulders. She made a quick, flirty dive at his foreleg; he snarled horribly and pretended to go down; they tooth-fenced there under the bland midday winter sun, the wind gusting at their fur, a cactus wren shrilling a warning above them just in case their fierce mock growls had gone unheard by any potential prey within reach.

She ended it by leaping to her feet and loping back toward the woods, pushing speed and surprised that he could keep up with her, too used to the larger males who couldn’t match her lithe movement. But they reached the woods together, found the shade and the cool dirt together, pressed themselves down behind the cover of leaves to watch the distant fuss and bother of humanity.

A nudge of her long muzzle and refined nose brought his head down; she commenced to cleaning his face—his eyes, his strong cheeks, his ears. The only submission an alpha would give, to a wolf-bitch of his choosing.

Of his choosing. That’s what this was. That was what it had turned into, beyond her intent and surely beyond his, but inescapable and irrevocable. And so he gave her such trust, this man who had tried to stay so distant and yet had let the wolf in her beguile the wolf in him, half-closing his eyes to tilt his head into her caresses.

Maybe that’s what made it so hard to trigger the amulet, the one Fabron Gausto had given her—the one that was meant to immobilize him, to fetter him. Maybe that’s why his widened eyes, pale and green, held such stunned betrayal as the power of the thing surged up and wrapped itself around him, catching him even as he bolted upward, a snarl on his lips. Maybe that’s why, as his body stiffened and trembled and then went limp, she thought she heard a cry of denial invade her own private thoughts.

Or maybe that had just come from within, after all.

Chapter 2

“Bring him in, Jet.”

Fabron Gausto had said those words with confidence. No doubt he’d fully expected Jet to obey.

He had every reason to.

Confused by the changes in her life, by the changes in her body, Jet had accepted the things done to her at Gausto’s hand…so that she might survive them, as so many had not done. And when he held the rest of her pack hostage to her good behavior and sent her out to take down the enemy—one, he’d said, who would see her coming and yet never truly see her at all—she’d had every intention of doing just that.

But he’d been wrong. Nick Carter had truly seen her. He’d recognized the wild in her; he’d seen her nature.

He’d seen her heart.

And she’d seen his.

The feelings were strange to her—they came differently than they had before Gausto had forever altered her. Sweet and hard and twisting, more complex…conflicting desires, conflicting needs. She didn’t know how to reconcile them…what to do with them.

She knew only that she needed time to understand them.

And so instead of bundling the stricken wolf into an unwieldy package on the back of her sleek, growly Triumph Tiger motorcycle, alone, she’d ridden the thirty-one miles north to Oro Valley much more quickly than she should—speeding and ducking and dodging through traffic, nipping at the heels of larger vehicles and sprinting on by, close enough to catch the hint of unease in the other drivers’ expressions.

Also against directions, that aggressive riding—but if Gausto had expected anything else, it only proved that he’d learned less about her world than she had about his.

This route, she’d practiced extensively, though she knew few others. She peeled off I10 and onto Route 77 without second thought, skimming west of the Santa Catalinas and through Oro Valley, up to the foothills of the Tortolinas. She left bike, helmet and leather biking jacket in the sprawling driveway of the desert estate, parked in the shadows of stately, groomed saguaro that looked no happier, leashed by civilization, than she. Past the unobtrusive guards with a lift of her lip they pretended not to see; past the entry landscaping cameras that showed of her approach.

Gausto knew, then, that she came alone.

He waited for her.

Past the public entrance to the house, the big double front doors of rustic wood enclosed by decorative steel privacy screening, and around the side to the entrance. Unlike the front half of the house, this hallway was narrow and dim, unexposed to exterior light; it led to rooms with no windows and no escape.

Jet had reason to know.

It led, too, to the far workroom, a deep place of murky memories and illness and brethren trapped and dead.

But today Jet went to none of those places. She went instead to the tiny vestibule of a room that was hers alone—flat off-white walls with token but classic southwest texture, a plain overhead fixture with a dim bulb, a tiny rectangular window near the ceiling. To her furniture, her cot, a small trunk of clothes and the chair where Gausto would be sitting.

He was.

Never taken unaware, that was Gausto.

He sat with his legs crossed and his hands quiet in his lap, but Jet was not complacent of him. Not this man, with his precisely tailored suit, his silver flashing jewelry, black hair drawn back in a tight tail at his neck. And dark eyes—cold, flat eyes. He didn’t wear amulets as so many did here; Jet had heard enough to understand that somehow, he was protected. Fully, completely protected from any workings anyone might try on him.

She was human enough to feel bitter envy at this fact, and wolf enough not to show it.

“Jet,” he said, using her name with flat authority. Well he might; he’d given it to her.

And she did as she’d learned; she showed him submission. The form was her own—down to one knee, hands quietly on the other, body twisted ever so slightly aside in token exposure, head tipped just as subtly to show her throat. Always a careful balance, there—she’d seen those flat eyes of his go alive at the sight of her tender flesh, and she thought that even in his fully human existence, he felt the flicker of impulse to go for her throat.

Especially when he was angered.

Slowly, she went down to one knee. Slowly, she gave him her vulnerability. Her very caution seemed to please him.

“You failed,” Gausto said. “I’m surprised. Perhaps I didn’t explain the stakes carefully enough? Another demonstration—” He stopped as Jet stiffened, and smirked slightly in the satisfaction of it.

She wanted to tear his throat out.

And she could have done it, could have shifted and been on him before he so much as moved from the chair. His blood would have splashed across these walls, his mysterious ward of protection of no use against her teeth and speed.

But she didn’t. Not with the scent wrapped around this house, ever reminding her…her pack, trapped beneath, some already dead at Gausto’s hand, the rest awaiting salvation only Jet could provide.

It should have been enough. It would have been enough. But Gausto had also promised her something else again.

Freedom.

For Jet, freedom had turned complicated and elusive—much more complicated than the simple return of a pack to the distant mountains from which it had come. For among them, Jet was no longer fully wolf…nor completely human. She was Gausto’s prize tool, his thing. That he would even contemplate releasing her…

He must want Nick Carter very much.

But Jet, in spite of her own best efforts, was not as biddable as she was meant to be.

Now she tipped her head just a little more, looking up for permission to speak. He made her wait for it—of course he made her wait—and then gestured assent, pleased with his own benevolence. She said, “I found him.” She used the words carefully; he had made it clear he found her natural way of speaking displeasing.

Nick Carter, she thought, had not minded at all.

“But you did not bring him back.” Gausto flicked invisible lint from his knee. “Finding him is no great accomplishment, little Jet. Did I not provide you with the details of where he would be, and train you in the exact route, the correct clandestine approach? Finding him was nothing. But I also gave you amulets to use on him. My dear wolf-child, all you had to do was take him aside and trigger the amulet as you’ve been trained.” He regarded her with disdain at the corners of his mouth. “You will try again tomorrow. And the next day, if necessary. But Jet—mark this well. For each day you fail, one of your pack members will pay the price.”

After an instant’s spike of alarm, she schooled herself. As long as he still wanted Carter, her packmates would not die. Because if she truly failed—if she died in the attempt or she died at Gausto’s impatient hands—he would need them to start again. And her pack was not such a very large pack that he could afford to discard any one of them.

Not until he’d given up on Carter.

And still, she couldn’t stop herself from saying, too quickly, “I have him.”

Gausto snorted, most genteelly. He must be in a mood. He was far from genteel when it suited him. “My dear, don’t insult me. The cameras would have shown him to me when you arrived.” His eyes narrowed. “But you’re smarter than that. Explain yourself.”

She straightened, watching to make sure it didn’t displease him—but he’d forgotten about such subtleties. He often did. It only proved to Jet that he was far less civilized than he pretended to be—but the same could be said about any of the humans she’d met here. “I found him. I used the amulet.”

Gausto’s expression swapped out triumph with a frown. “Then why have you not brought him to me?”

“I had questions,” Jet told him, and thought it reasonable.

“Questions?” Gausto repeated, his tone instantly telling her he thought no such thing. “It is not your place to have questions, Jet. It is not your place to think. You do as you’re told, when you’re told, how you’re told.”

“But if I understand, I do it better.” She tipped her head, looked at him in cublike question…she’d learned early that he interpreted this as an eagerness to please. “Yes?”

It did indeed settle him, if only infinitesimally. She took the moment. “I don’t understand your world,” she told him. “He is alpha, your Nick Carter. Is this how it is done, the challenge? From behind?”

Gausto sucked in a sudden breath; Jet knew she’d misspoken badly, but had no idea how—sometimes it seemed to her that the truth was not his truth. His lips thinned. He reached for her, and she forced herself to be still, not to react—not to cringe or lift her lip or retreat, all hard-learned lessons—as he grasped the short, romp-fluffed hair at the back of her head, digging his fingers in to pull hard. “Nick Carter,” he said, “has committed crimes against my people. He is alpha to nothing of mine, do you understand that?”

Jet understood that Nick Carter knew alpha where Gausto knew bullying. She understood on a level so deep it needed no words. She understood that where Gausto held sway over her through dint of his cruelty and advantages in this human world, through his ability and willingness to manipulate her and change the very essence of what she was, Nick Carter had connected to her with heart, with the things he had chosen not to do as well as those things he had done. He had run with her; they had forged an afternoon together with the instinctive, spirit-deep communication of creatures who could not lie about their souls.

He had not bullied her. He had not snarled her into submission. He had not gone beyond fairness to coercion.

Maybe that’s why, somehow, she had left a piece of herself behind with him, felled by that amulet right along with him.

If Gausto noticed her distraction, he didn’t indicate it. “Nick Carter is a criminal and he must be stopped. And unless you don’t care anything about protecting your own people, that’s all you need to know.”

But Jet already knew much, much more.

He’d almost made it. Had almost bolted up out of reach, out of range.

He’d thought she might be so many different things…from undeclared field agent to outright rogue—until there at the end, when her shift had gone so differently, he began to realize she might be something else altogether.

But he’d never thought she could be Core.

And he hadn’t realized it would shred something deep within him to have it so. He didn’t know her; he hadn’t done anything more than let his guard down for an uncharacteristic lupine romp. Or so he’d thought.

He knew better now.

Too late for that.

Barely conscious enough for the thought, gasping under the weight of the triggered amulet and the poison of it in his system, he nonetheless found it hard to reconcile the betrayal with her subsequent flight, leaving him tucked away here in the wild strip of growth protecting the outlying fairground fields from the desert.

Hard to think at all.

The amulet, triggered, hung around his neck with a stench he couldn’t avoid—corruption and coppery astringency and sharp acrid wisps of power—sickening him. His human form could have grasped the amulet and wrapped his hands around it and if he suffered for it, he could still break it. Unique, this skill in action. A mere handful of field Sentinels had seen it in use; fewer yet within Brevis Regional. She couldn’t have known. Coincidence. Luck. But it left him no less trapped. No less sickened.

And getting sicker.

He hadn’t realized it at first. Gone down hard and fast, the proverbial ton of bricks, darkness not only closing in on him but clenching down tight. He’d woken already panting, tongue lolling onto the scant, gritty leaf cover, to find her crouching over him—back to her human, clothed, and the pure wolfish scent of her cutting cleanly through the amulet stench. “I don’t want this,” she’d said, resting her hand in his thick ruff, black hair painted heavily with silver. And she’d opened her mouth to say something else, but after a hesitation, rose silently to angle out of the trees.

Moments later, a powerful motorcycle engine roared to life, settling to a growl…moving away at uncertain low speed on the off-road terrain and then abruptly smoothing out, shifting up in pitch, and winding up for asphalt…fading quickly into the distance.

The silence sat most heavily on him in that moment—the realization. Only Fabron Gausto would break the rules of the uneasy Sentinel-Core detente so completely—and only Fabron Gausto had little to lose, and everything to gain.

Gausto had already deeply embarrassed his Core Septs Prince, using forbidden blood workings on Meghan Lawrence and Dolan Treviño this past spring. But he’d been released for Core justice, for even the brevis regional adjutant—the consul’s executive officer—didn’t take the fate of a Core drozhar into his hands. Not with relations between the Core and the Sentinels already teetering.

Not with Brevis Regional Southwest so vulnerable, with field ops gone subtly wrong and bad luck plaguing them, and confidence in the ageing consul wavering.

Nick didn’t think Dane Berger—consul, Sentinel, and javelina boar—was in on the deeply buried conspiracy, but his willful blindness had allowed things to get this far. Far enough that his original adjutant had been killed and Nick, after only a year in his place, could see the growing danger.

But not well enough.

Gausto, in trying to redeem himself, had then sent a Core team to the San Francisco Peaks in northern Arizona, Joe Ryan’s high desert turf. And if Nick had initially targeted Ryan as the cause of the area’s problems and sent Lyn Maines to investigate…well, maybe it was the best thing he could have done after all. Now the Peaks were secure, and Gausto…

Gausto must be desperate. Enough for an all-or-nothing bid. Nick could all but hear that flat, arrogant voice in his head, inveigling the septs prince. Leave me my life, and I’ll give you Nick Carter. And then, because neither he nor the Core could be tied to any such operation, he’d found someone else to do it.

Someone wolf.

Pure feral grace.

Something wrenched inside him. He thought at first it came from the amulet, but a sudden flash of whiskey gold eyes, of laughing invitation—of the perfect flirtatiousness every wolf knew with her partner, pure and unfettered—and the twist of pain sent him thrashing in the underbrush.

Not just the amulet. The amulet’s working, reacting to the energies within him. That deeply, she’d reached him.

Sonuvadamnedbitch.

He took the battle inward, eyes unfocused and halfclosed, the heat of the day reaching him even in this protected shade but the panting gone beyond mere heat. It ate at him, this amulet. Wormed around deep inside his body and chewed away at the foundation of him. Worse than maybe she’d thought—or Gausto, for that matter. Because Nick was pretty sure Gausto wanted him alive.

For Gausto liked to play.

He cleared the murk from his mind, shoving away whiskey gold and edgy movement, a flash of black…he focused on his inner voice, gathering it, channeling it—pulling together a wordless adveho, sent straight to Annorah at brevis—their communications star still intensely determined to prove herself with perfection after her misjudgment during the Peaks incident. Not coincidentally, the single brevis-based operative currently in his small circle of trust.

But the adveho, the call for help that no Sentinel would ignore, went nowhere.

His focus faded; his awareness of the details around him faded, too. The scents, the sounds, the active fairgrounds so very close and yet way too far away to do him any good…

Didn’t mean he wouldn’t try. One inch at a time, rolled on his chest, head too heavy to lift. Paws, pushing against dirt and weeds…slipping, losing strength…hind legs splayed out behind like a puppy on ice. Barely budging the weight of him. But still…budging.

Try again.

And again.

Gausto wouldn’t get him without a fight. And if it meant fighting those whiskey gold eyes and pure feral grace…

So be it.

Try. Again.

Chapter 3

Jet washed her face in the tiny bathroom down the hall from her own room. It calmed her. She liked the sensation, and the soap, and the lotions—even the very basic scentless hand lotion provided in this bathroom. She liked shampoo and conditioner and flinging her head back from the faucet to send water droplets flying from her hair.

It didn’t make sense, that. She was wolf, and wolf needed none of those things. But she liked them nonetheless.

She had this time because Gausto was fielding a phone call—one he thought she couldn’t overhear. He’d never bothered to test her hearing; Jet thought he had guessed it was more acute than any born human’s but simply didn’t think it mattered to know how much.

His mistake. For Jet was a made thing, might be a temporarily controlled thing…but she wasn’t truly bound to him, not by blood nor pack nor heart.

And she knew what it was to be wild. More, she wanted it back.

Gausto had that tone in his voice, now. The deference. Only one man brought that out in him—his Septs Prince.

Gausto’s was a pack of many localized packs, Jet had decided. Gausto ruled one of the local packs…but just barely. He’d made too many mistakes, shown too many weaknesses, and now the alpha of all the packs combined was displeased with him.

And no wonder. Gausto still considered his mistakes to be bold strikes against Core prey, worth the risk and worth the failure. But Jet knew the difference—and she could see it in the eyes of his men. The occasional flares of doubt, the fears that Gausto would lead them to disaster.

Wolf packs were not so very different. They were simply less forgiving.

And so she not only heard his phone call, she understood the byplay of it. Leaning over the sink to peer at her face in the small mirror and search for any sign of the wolf, she quite absently absorbed Gausto’s words.

“He’s as good as contained.” Gausto’s trouser legs brushed against one another with the faintest susurrus of cloth against cloth; his footsteps sounded slightly gritty against the thin floor covering as he paced. “That amulet was developed specifically for him.” A pause. “I still don’t know how he’s evaded so many of our more subtle amulet attacks over the past year. But once I get him here, I’ll find out.”

The eyes, Jet decided. Still wolf there. But not the face—features too refined, jaw a little too sharp. The nose was good—a strong nose, even a hint of a bump at the bridge. And the mouth…it was not wolf at all, but she liked it. She touched her lower lip with hesitant fingers, prodding the fullness of it, feeling the pliability.

Unaccountably, thinking of Nick Carter. Of how well she knew him, through those moments with his wolf. Of how the thrill of it still lingered with her…and how the cold hard dread of what she’d done still sank deep.

“Later this afternoon,” Gausto said, his voice still carrying that oily note, the one that came through when he thought he was smarter than everyone else but didn’t dare say so to the Septs Prince. “No, not at all—we’re completely covered. If anything, given my agent, they’re going to think it was one of their own.”

Nick Carter, Jet thought, had the wolf in him—right there on the surface, visible for all to see even if they didn’t recognize it. His hair, for one thing. True hoarfrost, dark hair brushed with gray…not just black and white hairs intermingled, as she’d seen in some of the Core guards and the one woman who’d tended her through the early transition.

And his eyes—not just the pale green color, but the nature of his gaze itself—steady, self-knowing. Alpha eyes. But more than all that, the way he moved, all that strength and smooth power, the impression that he always knew where he was and where everyone else was, always knew just where and how to place himself to keep the advantage. She wondered if she, too, showed the wolf in her movement.

They had to see it, she decided. The other humanborn. They just didn’t know what it was.

“Security has scrubbed this place clean,” Gausto was reassuring his prince. “I’ve got a table waiting for Carter. He’s going to talk like he’s never talked before.” Jet looked away from the mirror, startled, toward the sound of Gausto’s voice. Toward the meanness that had come into it. “Before this day is over, he’s going to understand just how much I owe him.”

Jet froze there, the towel still in her hand, the dread drilling deeper. She didn’t understand all the implications of those words, but she didn’t have to—she understood his intent.

She understood for the first time that to get what he wanted, Gausto used not only threats and punishment, he used untruths. That Gausto intended not to force postponed negotiations as he’d told Jet, but that he intended to acquire information. That he intended to do it with pain…and that he looked forward to inflicting that pain.

More than that. He yearned to do it.

And he was using her to make it happen.

Marlee pondered her options. Log sheet up on her monitor screen, an Apache phrase book open on her desk—idle background reading—and the phone headset hooked over one ear. “No, seriously,” she told the field Sentinel calling in from the home. “Check to see if it’s plugged in.” And then she waited past the annoyance, the denial, the sudden silence—all the while thinking about delivery options for the virus Gausto had ordered her to insert into Nick Carter’s computer—if only they knew—and just about convinced she’d need a hand delivery. Finally she heard the sheepish acknowledgment that the Sentinel’s monitor plug had indeed wiggled loose.

“You’re welcome,” she said, keeping her voice to strict customer service cheer. She knew she was better than this. Underutilized, underappreciated. But if she was going to stay here—if she was going to stay above suspicion—then she had to use the team spirit that ran through this office like a braid of loyalty.

Loyalty to Nick Carter, of course.

The virus. Yes, it would take a hand delivery. And she’d do it today, while Carter was out at the fairgrounds pretending he was still a field Sentinel after all.

She pulled off the headset and picked up the thumbnail drive beside her keyboard, turning it thoughtfully in her hand. No big deal to create a work order for a nonexistent problem, head for Carter’s office, and infect his machine while she was “assessing” it.

“Did you really just ask me if I had the right day?” The voice was pleasant alto and just barely familiar, and at the moment it had a touch of tooth. It also wasn’t far from Marlee’s cube, there in the entry aisle of the IT section.

Something about the responding voice made Marlee want to lean into the sound of it, soaking up…something. Power. Security. Grounding. She closed her eyes against the impulse and shuddered. Sentinels. They had a sway over people that no one else could imagine. Just like Carter, trying to cover up the truth of what he was with GQ haircuts and GQ suits and still managing to suck the air out of Marlee’s lungs anytime he walked into a room.

Now this one said, with just the right surprise, “Me, imply that you had our appointment mixed up? I don’t think so. Don’t think I’d do that.”

“Nick was supposed to be here,” the woman said. “Today. Now. It’s time to get this Vegas thing sorted out. You were set up and it’s time everyone knew it.”

He snorted. “That’s not what you said not so long ago.”

She didn’t back down an inch. “Just be glad I’m on your side now.”

“That’s the truth.” His reply was somewhat fervent, and they’d said enough, then—Marlee knew exactly who they were.

She cleared her throat and leaned back in her chair. “Hello? Can I help you?”

Not that she wanted to deal with Lyn Maines, Carter’s tracker friend, or Joe Ryan—the very Sentinel who’d very nearly destroyed the balance of the San Francisco Peaks. And Lyn—when she’d first gotten here, when she was helping Carter find the Liber Nex manuscript out on Encontrados Ranch where Dolan Treviño had gotten tangled up with coyote’s daughter Meghan Lawrence…

Then, she’d had her head on straight. Then, she’d been dedicated to keeping the Sentinels honest. But Joe Ryan had turned her somehow, and now she was no better than all the rest. Using illicit power to take advantage of those who didn’t have it.

“This place overwhelms me,” Lyn murmured now. “All the trace…” She and Ryan came around the doorway, a few matter-of-fact steps while Marlee dredged up a smile of greeting and kept it there—until Lyn stopped short, startled.

Ryan reacted with the wary responsiveness that told Marlee he knew the meaning of the expression on Lyn’s face, and she struggled to maintain her own composure, realizing instantly that the pictures she’d seen of Ryan conveyed nothing of the man himself. Mountain lion shifter, he was easily a foot taller than Lyn, maybe more. Where neat, petite Lyn barely showed her ocelot—just a certain smudgy look at the outer edges of large eyes that the average person would take for makeup—Ryan pretty much oozed his cougar. Tawny hair gone short and dark at the nape and temples, a solid, muscular presence, fresh scars still healing—a powerful man used to wielding power.

Marlee kept her smile where it was. “If you’re looking for Nick, he’s not here. I think he’s out in the field today.”

“This morning, maybe,” Lyn said, sounding distracted. Overwhelmed by trace, she’d said. “He’d have called if he was delayed.”

Ryan’s hand lingered at her waist. “Things aren’t always like that in the field.”

“That’s what I’ve heard,” Marlee agreed, adding a little laugh. She thought it convinced them, and relaxed a little. They didn’t, after all, have any idea she’d been sitting here thinking about planting a virus in Carter’s private system.

Her computer dinged at her, a cheerful little instant message notification. Like Pavlov’s dog, she glanced at it—and froze. Just for an instant, seeing the screen name there. FG347. Acprince. So subtle. And lately, not nearly enough care. Too pushy, too cavalier with her security, too assured of her compliance. She was no puppet, doing his bidding unquestioned. She was no traitor.

She only wanted to make sure the Sentinels didn’t grow too cocky.

Done? Gausto asked her in his IM.

She hit the space bar with a casual thumb and then the return, barely glancing at the keyboard. An empty reply—a message of her own. Back off. I’ll let you know.

Maybe it was time to see if she could work with someone else as contact. Fabron Gausto made her feel…

Dirty.

“You’re busy,” Lyn said. “Sorry about that. We just thought we’d look around rather than disturb the whole building by having Annorah page him.”

Right. Annorah. Carter’s pet communications Sentinel. Another whom Carter seemed determined to keep on active duty regardless of her behavior in the field. Marlee wondered that Lyn could even say the woman’s name so calmly, given Ryan’s injuries at the time. True, she hadn’t meant for the consequences to be as grim as they’d turned out…

But that was the problem, wasn’t it? Sentinels interfering, and thinking oops was reaction enough when things went wrong.

“No problem,” Marlee said. “His system’s been a little hinky lately, so it’s possible he tried to mail you an update and it just didn’t reach you.” Ooh, nice one. Lay the groundwork there for when the virus took Carter’s communications down.

“So, listen, if you see him…” Lyn said, and let the words trail off. Ryan had gone silent, contemplating Marlee in a way that made her itchy. Sentinels. They were all like that.

“No problem,” Marlee said. “You’ll be here for the afternoon?”

“A while,” Lyn agreed. She nudged Ryan with her hip. “Let’s check with his admin. Nick might have set him to digging up information on the clerk who—” she glanced at Marlee and didn’t finish the sentence. “Anyway, it’s worth a try.”

“You done here?” he asked.

“Everything I need,” she told him, which made little sense. Marlee waited for them to turn around, and then frowned fiercely at their backs.

They’d hardly gone when her computer dinged at her again.

When?

Admit it. More than just annoying and pushy. These days, Gausto downright scared her.

Jet pushed the Triumph into the tree line, just enough to obscure it—here, on the desert side of the buffer zone, where she’d done as directed and cut the barbed range fencing to approach from this angle. She toed the kickstand down and gave the sleek leather seat an absent pat of appreciation.

Gausto had bought this bike expressly for her, and try as she might to treat it with the same disdain she applied to everything human he forced upon her, she couldn’t help that since her awakening to nonborn human, this one thing had restored to her the fleeting taste of running wild. Powerful on the road, quick with speed, sleekly responsive to the lean of her body…it floundered a little in this brief foray off-road, but she loved it no less for that.

So she patted it and she left it, jogging silently through the man-made belt of wooded overgrowth to where she’d left Carter—unharmed but incapacitated, and no doubt cursing her.

But Nick Carter was gone.

Instant panic assailed her. He can’t be gone. For she’d seen the results of this amulet—Gausto had shown her, using one of his own men, so she’d know what to expect. So she’d trust him.

Never that.

But she trusted the consistency of the amulet, and Nick Carter should be here. The same as tranked and bound. Gausto would blame her if he had escaped. And worse—as she stood there, staring at the place he’d been, the flattened foliage and scuffed sandy soil—worse—

She wouldn’t see him again.

That made her stop. Made her frown. For it wasn’t part of her world, that bereft feeling. He wasn’t part of her world.

Or he hadn’t been.

But now…

Now he was.

She gave a little shake—a stress-release shake, flowing through her neck and shoulders—and she put herself back in her wolf-thoughts. Letting her primal self take over, even in this form.

Her primal self saw clearly past the emotions and found the trail. Bent twigs, disturbed soil, crushed leaves in this place where so much was spiny and waxy and hard to damage at all. Her nose scented it; her eyes saw it.

And more. There was sickness here…a certain raw flavor of effort and distress.

It was a trail she could follow. But she did it with care, not assuming anything in this strange place with its many people, so close. One slow step at a time, confirming the sights, the sounds—checking out of this shadowed buffer zone and into the bright sunshine full of dogs and huge white tent canopies and people and noise, a loudspeaker announcing in the background about Sporting Group and Ring Five.

Busy people. No one looked at her, or noted her slow movement among the trees. And so she tracked.

Not that it took long.

He hadn’t gone far.

He shouldn’t have been able to move at all, but…

He wasn’t moving anymore.

Too late, too stupid.

He’d figured it out, all right. The amulet strung around his neck held a containment working, but…so much more.

The more Nick tried to break it, to fight it, the more it drove back at him, insinuating itself into his energies—replacing good with bad.

Poisoning him.

Realizing it—realizing how far it had already gone—he did the only thing left to him. He poured everything he had into one final effort. All his intent, all his focus—clawing his way across the ground, one excruciating inch after another, hind legs splayed out behind him. He had no thought for what he’d do if he was spotted or if he broke free, only that narrow little goal. Move. Break the working. Leave the amulet smoking.

Find the woman who’d left him here. The Core agent in wolf’s clothing. That, too.

Move.

But it occurred to him, finally, that he no longer made progress. That what felt like heart-bursting effort from within resulted in nothing without—only his head sinking toward the ground, lolling off slightly to the side with his mouth barely open to pant. Air puffed past his flews. Heavy sickness spread through his body, weighing it down.

The next panting breath brought an influx of scent, both ambrosia and anathema.

She was back.

He growled, a ridiculous and weak token—but an unforgiving noise. A statement.

She’d come in her human form, all black-clothed and lithe. She made a noise of dismay; she went to one knee beside him. With all the effort he had in him, he raised his growl to something distinctly audible.

It gave her not an instant’s hesitation. Her hand landed on his ruff, fingers kneading in. For a long moment, she said nothing—for that long moment, his growl hung between them. Unmistakable.

Until he had to break it off and resume panting, more heavily now, eyes slitting closed.

“I don’t understand,” she said, and frustration laced through her words. Frustration and more. Grief.

Nick didn’t think it was for him.

“He said you wouldn’t be hurt.” Her accent, whatever it was, came thick. Or no accent at all, perhaps—a difficulty in forming the words. A slight speech impediment, almost Castillian in nature. “He said he wanted only to talk.” Her fingers kneaded his fur, then smoothed it. “When he said you took the wolf, he made it sound…wrong. Stealing. Faking.” Nick growled at her again…but it came weaker. Barely there at all. “Yes,” she told him. “He was wrong about that. And this…I can see how it harms you.” She found the thong around his neck—the amulet strap she’d placed there herself—and her hand hesitated.

Nick tried to growl again. Somehow it came out as a faint whine.

“He said he wouldn’t hurt my pack.” She covered her face with her free hand—an unusual gesture, putting the back of her wrist against her nose, her hand loosely curled and oddly graceful. As if the hand itself wasn’t as familiar as the paw. “He said if I did this…”

Nick panted. The amulet worked on him, tugging at all the corners of his being. Fever washed over him.

She repeated, slowly, “He said if I brought you to him…”

Breathing suddenly seemed like too much effort. His lungs burned; he realized he’d let them lie fallow for long moments and dragged in a gulp of air.

Quite suddenly she bent over, laying her face against his—nuzzling him ever so slightly. Just as suddenly, she straightened again. “I think he lies,” she said. “He will do to my pack what suits him, no matter what I bring him.” A gentle lift of his head and a flick of her hand, and she removed the amulet thong. “No more do I heed him. You, I help. And my pack…I save on my own.”

Instantly, breathing seemed natural again. And if his body shuddered with waves of flame and ice, he nonetheless had his growl back.

She gave a little laugh, laying her head against his for a long, long moment. “Good,” she said. “That suits you. Now be the human again, and take yourself away from here. Gausto will not wait long before he comes for us.”

Chapter 4

Gausto.

Nick had known it, of course. Or guessed it, the moment that amulet went over his head. But to hear her say it…

A wave of dizziness swamped his thoughts.

She stood up and back, and made as if to fling away the amulet—stopping herself at the last moment. “No,” she said out loud, a lurking anger behind her words. “Someone else could find it.”

It shouldn’t matter. It had been triggered; it had connected with Nick. Separated from him, it was worthless.

Or should be. With Gausto, you never knew. The man seldom cared about consequences when he drove for power.

So yeah. Best not to take chances. As she tucked the amulet away in a tight front pocket, he lifted his head—wobbly at that, but still a significant improvement. Not for long—it thunked back to earth, a jarring thud.

In an instant, she was there beside him. “You have to take the human,” she said, cradling his head in her hands, lifting it to face him nose-to-nose. No fear, not even with his crazed eye and the snarl on his lips. She stroked his face from the muzzle back, awakening all the myriad nerves there, flattening his whiskers. Past his cheeks and the massive carnassials that could have sheared off her arm, firmly down his ears…tugging ever so slightly and waking those nerves, too. Bringing him back, even if his head still lolled in her hands. “Nick Carter,” she said, “I heard him talking. He wants you. He will hurt you. Do you understand this?”

He snarled for her.

“Be the human,” she told him, one more time, whiskey-gold gaze latched onto his with ferocity. “I must leave this place, too.”

Too many things gone unspoken there—too many pieces unknown.

But he heard her urgency. He believed it. Be the human.

Easier said than done. Took every fuzzied bit of concentration he had. He thought she’d back away, giving him space—but when humanity settled around him, there she was, still holding his head—turning it, gently, so he wouldn’t end up face-first in the goats’ head burrs and stiff ground cover—and then releasing him.

She did it like someone who’d been there.

He coughed, clearing his throat of weakness—or trying to. “What?” he rasped, and made it clear enough with an unyielding gaze that he referred to her. “Who?”

She shook her head. “I have to go.” Right. To help her people. Whatever that meant. “You have to go, too. He won’t wait long.” She shook her head again. “He almost sent men with me, but his prince spoke loudly of not being caught. I think, though, that they are not far behind. So go, now.”

“Not without you,” Nick said. He made it to his hands and knees, limbs shaking visibly, a feverish hot and cold chasing itself through his bones—but he didn’t take his gaze from her. Didn’t release her. “Who…” Too much going on in brevis these days to ignore that fact. “It matters…”

“It matters to me,” she told him. “But it is not yours to have.” She rose, a fluid motion, and strode away down the buffer zone. No looking back…but there, at the edge of the trees, the slightest of hesitations.

But then she moved on.

And Nick’s shaking arms gave way, and he plowed down into the dirt without grace. He spat an unequivocal curse and rolled over to his back, wiping dirt from beneath his lip with the careless and uncoordinated swipe of his wrist.

All right. Fine. He hadn’t intimidated her into sticking around. It had been a long shot. He tried Annorah again, got nowhere—his focus was too scrambled, his energies likewise. So he needed to get up on his feet and find his way across the fairground to his car. Or at the least, onto the agility grounds where someone would have a phone.

Because he had no doubt his mystery betrayer-and-savior was right. If Gausto was behind this, if he’d had any doubts of the outcome…he wasn’t far off. Or his people weren’t far. No matter how the Septs Prince had instructed him.

Get up. Walk. Stagger. Crawl, if he had to. To the phone, in the car. Across the show grounds. Gausto would seed these grounds with his people if he realized that Nick was here, loose and vulnerable. And unlike the Sentinels, the Core agents carried guns. Guns and amulets and no compunction about damaging their prey.

His fingers twitched; fever cold chased him. And he realized, some moments later, that he hadn’t moved at all.

Son of a bitch.

…no, still hadn’t moved at all.

He didn’t hear her coming.

There she was, standing over him, and in his mind he rolled up and sprang to his feet and he caught her—claiming every bit of the intimacy she’d established with her invitation to run in the desert, every bit of the conflicted tangle between them, driven into place with her four-footed romp and lighthearted play.

But no, he still hadn’t moved at all.

“You,” she said, glaring down at him. “Have. To. Go. Are these the wrong words?” She made a frustrated noise deep in her throat, something that probably hadn’t started out human. “He said it would not hurt you.”

Nick coughed out a laugh. He hunted words, found only another wry truly amused laugh, even if it turned into a groan of effort as he did, finally, roll back over to his elbows. “Honey, he lies.”

“Jet.” She leaned over to grasp his upper arm, hauling him halfway to his feet with one smooth effort. He staggered into her, but she took advantage of the movement, hauling him forward.

“Jet?” he asked, the word a gasp as she slipped under his arm, wiry strength in that lean frame. “Where—?”

“Can you drive to leave this place? No. Then you come with me.”

“Wait!” Still a gasp, but more emphatic—and when she hesitated, there on the edge of the desert, he managed to keep his own feet. “Compromise.” Because he’d gathered this much—she was on the run, as of now. Breaking away from Gausto, and lucky she’d be to survive more than a few hours of that defiance. “You have no place to go. I have no way to get there. Come with me. ”

She stared at him, the lowering sun slanting down to light whiskey-gold eyes into a glow. More of a glower, really—a demand. “Did that make sense?”

Nick waved off such details. “In fact,” he said, “it didn’t. But I think you understand me. Because I’m pretty sure I understand you.”

She snorted. “You understand nothing,” she told him. “But I will take you to your place, and then if it pleases me, I will consider staying.” She adjusted her grip on his arm as it draped over her shoulder, and turned back to the motorcycle propped up against the tree line, a blazing red Triumph Tiger for which he couldn’t help but make a sound of appreciation. Pride flashed across her face. “Even if they are near, they will not catch us,” she said—and then cast him a dare of a look. “As long as you don’t fall off.”

He didn’t fall off.

It was a tall bike, but she handled it ably on the desert caliche and once on the road, shifted smooth and fast up to speed. Good thing, that smoothness—the back suspension wasn’t adjusted for his weight, and it wallowed.

They managed the turn onto Houghton; he clamped his hands at her hips and lurched into her back. He sent her across the bridge to the access road and south, staying off the highway. They cruised down along the Pantano wash, and then onto the little side roads toward Pisto Hill and towering Rincon Peak. The developments fell away and turned into worn, distant homes, baked dry in the sun over the years. A country store and post office, a small farm supplies store, a mom-‘n’-pop grocery…

Nick didn’t truly see any of them, sidetracked by the tremendous effort of staying upright on the motorcycle, of hanging on. And his dimmed and fuzzy senses were otherwise full.

Of her. Jet. The scent of her, swirling around them with the billowing dust, settling into his pores. More wolf than anything he knew, the scent of fresh clean wild and honest effort and some edgy unknown element that came through as pure Jet.

Then again, that was the problem, wasn’t it? More wolf than anything he knew. Because far too much about her didn’t mesh with Sentinel blood. Not the scent, not the way she’d changed, not the way she spoke.

Not the way she worked with Gausto.

And here I am, bringing her home. Lurching and slumping against her until the strong, athletic lines of her body became familiar—until his hands took for granted what they would find when he adjusted his grip, and yet still that shape—the flex and stretch of steady muscle as she handled the tall bike, the neat curve of her ribs and the quiet tuck of her waist, the swell of her hips and the push of a gorgeously rounded ass against his thighs—made him greedy for more.

Dumb bastard. She’d poisoned him. She’d left him helpless for Gausto.

And then she pulled me out of there. Saved his wolf hide.

Dammit, I can’t think. He leaned his forehead against her shoulder, let it settle there.

Eventually, he realized they’d stopped again—that she needed direction. “Little,” he told her. “Adobe…Beagles.”

She turned her head; her voice came muffled by her helmet, full-face sport helmet in stark red and white against black. “I don’t understand.”

But Nick wasn’t going to be much help. The best he could do, as he slid down against her back and tipped off the bike, was not take her with him.

Jet stared at him, oddly bereft without the sensation of lean, hard muscle pressing up against her, the warmth of his hands at her waist. He sprawled in the dirt at the side of the road—gritty pale sand scattered over caliche, full of rock and dryness and surrounded by all things spiny. An ocotillo soared above him, its thin, spindly arms offering no shade; a cactus wren churred nearby and flittered away.

Her hand slipped the clutch; the bike stalled out. Silence settled around her, until the sound of her own breathing within the helmet magnified, filling her mind with a surreal susurrus of white noise.

She’d never been out on her own before in the human world. Entirely on her own. Not on an assignment with carefully learned routes, not accompanied in the Tortolita foothills while learning to ride the bike. Not accompanied by Gausto out on training runs on the street. No one looking, literally, over her shoulder.

It was simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying.

And what of Nick Carter? Did it even matter?

Oh, yes. That answer came swiftly and inexplicably. It didn’t particularly make sense, not with so much inner drive to simply start this bike and step it swiftly through to sixth gear, heading out to some wild place where she could change to wolf and gather herself to save her pack.

But, oh, it mattered. Sitting here in the silence at the side of an ill-defined desert road…she was just as fettered as ever, this time by the sight of Nick Carter, sprawled ungainly in the dirt. A scant breeze stirred his hair, ruffled by wind and dampened by sweat here in this dry climate where the air sucked away perspiration before it ever had a chance to soak anything.

Sick. Damaged by the amulet, in spite of Gausto’s assurances. Not likely to survive out here in the open.

Run. Oh, run. Do it now. The instinct spoke strong in her—spoke smart.

Jet lifted her head, gazing around the foothills—the fingerlike extensions of raised earth, extending every which way—some low and long, some sharp and high. Here, in this spot, she saw no houses, no buildings. No humans at all. A power line in the distance; a windmill pulling a slow turn in another direction, a barely visible stock tank beneath it. Run, Jet. Do it now.

Jet started the bike, and her hands on the clutch and throttle felt like someone else’s—so fundamentally wrong, neat fingers and trimmed nails folding gracefully around the clutch lever on one side, the throttle and brake lever on the other.

And, as though they were someone else’s, they throttled the bike up and forward, feathered the clutch to a release point, and sent her off down the road.

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