Kitabı oku: «Sentinels: Wolf Hunt»

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.

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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.

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.