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.
