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
