hadn’t deserved to die. She’d known him. He’d been only moderately skilled and not as hard-edged as most, taking his punishments without complaint. He hadn’t been nice to her, but he hadn’t been cruel, either.
She approached Ian Scott with one hand hooked into the grocery bag strap and the other in her purse and on her pepper spray—and even so, she hesitated.
She thought she’d known what to expect. Not just from the week before, but because she’d seen head shots—the faintly lengthened nature of his canines in that often rueful smile, the pale and unruly nature of his hair, silver by nature and smudged with faint streaks of black. She should have been prepared for the impact of those pale gray eyes rimmed with black, and for the striking contrast of dark brows and dark lashes. The snow leopard, coming through. Not all of the Sentinels showed their other so strongly, but this man...
Even standing there, he had a physical grace. Even not as tall as some of the Core posse members, even not as brawny.
She thought she’d known.
But she hadn’t been this close to him on the trail. So she hadn’t really known at all.
It took everything she had to offer him a steady smile. “Hi,” she said, taking advantage of an opportunity she hadn’t expected when she’d set out to survey this Sentinel retreat in person. “I’m so embarrassed, but when I left my rental this morning I didn’t realize how similar these yards are—”
“And they aren’t well numbered,” he finished for her, as polite as any man should be, but his eyes...never to be mistaken for anything but a predator’s eyes. His muscles ran strong and well-defined beneath a bright red sport shirt, his shoulders wide and body lean. Just as it had the week before, her body flushed with the awareness of what he was.
She swallowed her reaction, nodding to the drive beyond this one. “It might be that one. I’d recognize it if I went back for a look. But I don’t want to intrude.”
“I’ll come with you, if you’d like,” he said. “As long as you don’t taze me.” Those eyes flicked to her purse.
She lifted her hand from it. “Pepper spray,” she said without apology.
“Of course, pepper spray.” He said it amiably enough. “I wouldn’t worry too much about intruding. That driveway goes to a cluster of rentals. You won’t be the first person to look around.”
It was, she realized with surprise, his way of politely giving her space to move along on her own. For that instant, it flummoxed her; she was unused to such courtesy. Something fluttered in her chest, and she thought it might have been regret.
But in the next moment she jerked back, stumbling as his expression changed entirely—turning feral and predatory and triggering the fear that not only came of knowing what he was, but of seeing it in him. Oh, God he’s going to—
And he did, planting his hands on the wall to leap over it in one smooth—
The blow came from behind, so suddenly she had no warning—just the impact, the wrenching twist of her shoulder, and her instinctive grab at her purse. She scraped against the adobe, losing the purse after all—and only then seeing the cyclist behind her.
Ian came over the wall feet first. The cyclist went flying, the bike went flying, the purse went flying...
Ian landed on his feet.
The cyclist scrambled up and away and somehow thought he would make it. Even Ana knew better, dazed and clinging to the wall—and stunned all over again by Ian’s speed as he pounced. She winced in anticipation as he landed on the man, poised for a fierce blow—and then slowly relaxed as he drew himself up short, one knee on the man’s chest, his knuckles resting at the man’s throat in an aborted strike that would have been fatal.
“Bad move,” he told the man. If he was breathing hard, Ana couldn’t see it.
But she could see the man’s face. And she knew him.
The shock of it piled on to the shock of the attack and kept her pinned to the wall, struggling to understand.
He was Core, she was sure of it. She couldn’t fathom it. Why would Lerche seek to sabotage the assignment he’d given her?
She came back to her wits as Ian Scott scooped her purse from the ground. Her attacker pedaled wildly away, not quite steady on the bike.
“What—?” she said, far too nonsensically.
“You okay?” Ian said, and held out the purse.
“Yes, I—” She rubbed her arm, taking the purse to fumble for her phone. “I should call the police—” Not because she truly thought it best, but because she thought it was the thing to say.
He sidestepped the matter—no surprise. Sentinels eschewed official notice as much as the Core. “I’d rather offer to see you home again. You have any idea why that guy would be targeting you?”
For the moment, she forgot her script. “What do you mean, targeting me?”
“He’s been lurking at the end of the street, watching you.”
Ah. She understood now. Someone hadn’t trusted her to get this job done on her own...and then hadn’t trusted her enough to let her in on the plan. She groped for words that would ring true. “I can’t imagine it was personal.”
“Didn’t smell like coincidence,” he said, his fingers tapping lightly against the wall. Surely the man sat still every once in a while. “It smelled like—” He stopped himself.
She had the sudden understanding that he spoke literally, and she remembered again who this man was—no matter his charismatic presence or his beautiful eyes. He was Sentinel, and he was the Southwest’s best amulet specialist. If the Core had sent out a posse member who carried amulets...
Even Ana could sometimes perceive the regular amulets, like a stain in the air. Many Core members couldn’t, and it wasn’t considered a necessary skill. But of course he’d know, and far better than she would. And of course he’d want to avoid the cops. The Sentinels and the Core kept their encounters off the books.
“You’re probably right,” he said, making an obvious choice to relinquish control of the conversation. “Coincidence.” He bent to pick up her groceries, scattered as they were from the encounter, and appropriated the bag so he could reload them. “You’re all scraped up. Come on inside, we’ll get you fixed up.”
She hesitated a moment too long. He added, “Fernie is inside, too. She’ll slap my hands if I do anything you don’t want me to.”
For that moment, she froze. She heard the unspoken message there—the potential that there were things she might want him to do. His eyes told her as much, seeing her absorb the meaning, confirming it—smiling just there at the corner of his mouth.
Run away. Run fast.
Run to safety, where the flush of her awareness wouldn’t expand into a flush of wanting—of wondering what it would be like to be touched by such strength and consideration. As if this man might just give back as much as he received.
She
