posture entirely, suddenly.
No, Mark thought at her, inching closer. You can’t buy that.
“You hit her.” But the doubt crept through to her voice.
His voice sounded stronger. “I was defending myself!”
The doubt settled in. In spite of her instincts, in spite of what she’d seen, in spite of what she was and the training behind her…
The man tore away from her faltering grip; he grabbed her shirt, bunching the fabric between her breasts and jerking her headfirst into the brick beside him.
And then he, too, was gone.
Watch her. Just watch her.
Mark took a step forward, anyway. And another, and—
No. Not yet. Not against orders. Hands bunched in painfully tight fists, he faded in behind a carefully tended tree, deciduous park luxury in the middle of the valley desert. Tayla sprang back to her feet, spitting mad, with every intent of following her quarry—but a car engine roared to life in the nearby parking lot, tires squealing…popping the car over the lot’s speed bumps and out the exit.
Not even a cheetah could run that fast.
She swore—and then she abruptly tested the wind, head lifted as she tasted for power trace and found it, looking directly toward his hiding place. Mark froze—but she shook her head slightly, dismissing him. Knowing there was a Sentinel somewhere in the area, just as she knew the park was clear of anyone else, and not figuring it had anything to do with her. She swiped a hand over her forehead—she bled there—and over a lip now glistening with blood instead of lip gloss, and she cursed again. And then she quite suddenly took her cheetah, buff and black-spotted gold, dropping down, lithe and leggy, bounding out across the grass and into the darkness.
Away. A failure. A hunter losing not to wits or strength or speed, but to confidence skewed. Gut instinct ignored.
You’ll see it, Nick Carter had told him.
And Mark had.
Doing something about it…
That was something else altogether.
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