Sentinels: Wolf Hunt

Meghan stood beside him—pure lean cowgirl in worn, hard-worked jeans and boots and a rolled-sleeved flannel shirt over a snug tank top—her features a bit sharp and her eyes faintly tipped up at the outside, coyote eyes in shape if not in color. No one, Marlee thought, should be that comfortable standing next to Dolan Treviño.

And there was Annorah, come out of her communications shell. Annorah, Marlee could admire. Envy, even, for her vast skill, uncoupled with physical prowess as it was. But not trust. Not when she’d worked with the others so closely, even if she was still atoning for her misjudgment in her first and last field assignment.

The final member of their little group, she’d been watching. Maks, who took the tiger. He was big; he was quiet. He’d been badly hurt in Flagstaff, and he hadn’t quite been released from care. Why he didn’t bear a grudge against Joe Ryan, Marlee couldn’t figure.

With Marlee hesitating on the edge of them, Meghan said, “It won’t be long, Maks. You look so much better than the last time.”

Treviño snorted. “You mean back when his eyes were still crossed?”

Maks muttered something Marlee couldn’t hear, but it was short and sweet and emphatic, and it made Ryan snort in laughter.

“A happy ending is nice when you can get it,” Lyn pointed out, not nearly as relaxed as the rest of them—as if she ever was. “Even Michael is recovering, and I honestly thought Shea was dead. But Nick—”

Meghan ran a hand over the wall beside her. Never just a simple gesture, with Meghan Lawrence—she was always reading the wards around her, soaking them in and sorting them out. “Do you really think…?”

Ryan shook his head. “He’s been out of contact for a couple of hours, that’s all.”

Completely? That startled Marlee; she wondered what Gausto had done to Carter’s cell phone. And why hadn’t Annorah been able to reach him?

Ryan added, “But it’s time to find him.”

Treviño shifted, impatience on his face. “Dane doesn’t need to get wind of this.”

The consul. Not a man many people saw; not a man considered at the top of his game. Not anymore. Ryan agreed, apparently. He snorted, no amusement at all this time. “Not Dane, not his people.”

“I think it’s already beyond that,” said Annorah, a plump woman who moved with strength and assurance. “I don’t think you’re getting it. I haven’t been able to reach him at all. There’s only two ways that happens—one is if he’s been closed off somehow. The other is if he’s…” She hesitated, looked uncomfortable, and said it anyway. “Dead.”

Meghan frowned. “What if he’s sleeping?”

“Then I still get a sense of him. He can shield me out, too—not many can, but he’s got the way of it. But I can still sense him.”

Marlee said, without really planning on it, “I bet he’s just caught up in that dog show.”

As one, they turned to her. Oh, crap. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just…well, I need to get through, and I got caught up in your conversation.”

“No problem,” Ryan said, so laid back that she floundered a little. Had she been wrong—? Then again, he had that reputation: laid back, easy to take lightly…until it was too late. That new scar…a cogent reminder. Now he added, “You’re not worried?”

She found a smile, offered it up. “The thought that Nick Carter can’t take care of himself at a dog show…” She shrugged. “Nick is good at what he does. It’s not convenient, having him out of touch like this, but he’ll be back soon and we’ll figure it out.”

Meghan shared her smile. “It’s hard to imagine things going wrong on quick check into disappearing dogs.”

“He thought the disappearances might be tied to bigger things,” Annorah said, a bit sharply—defensively. Had a crush on her boss, did she?

It was then that Marlee realized she was reveling in the moment. Tense at the prospect of being caught, yes. Anxious to make sure she walked the line she’d set for herself without crossing it, yes. But she also knew more than they did—if not the exact nature of Carter’s disrupted communications, she at least knew who was behind them. She knew that there were parts of it they hadn’t even discovered yet, and weren’t likely to discover. And she knew it would be over when she removed the virus—half a day of disruption.

She knew all those things, and it made all the difference in the world. Didn’t it?

“Back to work,” she said. “But it’d be great if someone lets me know when you hear from him.”

“You know,” Meghan said, her words drawn out with the pondering of it, “I’m thinking that it’s a good day for a dog show.”

Marlee wondered at the relief she felt.

Maybe not so complacent after all.

Can’t be good.

Dry, hot ground dusting close by his face, full of sharp desert scent. The sun beating on his chest, his legs…his shoulder grinding into hard, gritty caliche. Can’t be good.

Could be hours before anyone found him here. Longer.

He tried to consider the amulet, to consider Jet, to understand how the one was tied to the other, and to pull together what little he knew. She’d been with Gausto. Now she was on the run. She had answers that he needed.

He couldn’t trust her for a moment.

He had no idea what she really was.

And he wished like hell she would get her ass back here so he could find out.

But since she was running, and since no one would find him here, and since his Sentinels had to be warned that Gausto was making some sort of move…

This time, he really did roll over.

And found himself staring at a pair of black leather lace-ons, soft slipperlike shoes over sturdy, well-arched feet that would have been happier barefoot.

“I found it,” Jet said. “Little adobe Beagles. Maybe.”

He hadn’t heard her bike. He looked for it, dull and thick and slow to think.

“I left it there,” she told him. “You would fall. So we walk.” She stepped back to look at him, hands on hips, head cocked…frowning. “Or I carry you.”

And she did.

Jet rubbed her feet. These shoes hadn’t been meant for walking alongside a desert road, and they definitely hadn’t been meant for carrying a man over her shoulders across that same terrain.

Gausto’s men had thought her freakishly strong, like the Sentinels they hated so much. She thought herself no more than what was necessary to survive.

And now she had no way to get inside that small adobe house, which was nothing like Gausto’s ostentatious residence. More welcoming; more lived-in. A human den. She took Nick through the side yard gate instead, trailing a hand over the fence coyote rollers and taking note of the small tricolored and red-patched hounds who gave her instant berth, circling at a distance with their noses lifted to scent the air—hanging ears, bright eyes, tentatively wagging tails, brows wrinkled in worry…but seeing her. Knowing her. Not daring to bark at her.

She lowered him from her shoulder-carry into a patio lounger and stepped back to look around, finding the back door—steel security screening with a geometric design that couldn’t hide its stout purpose. Locked.

No matter. He was in the shade. And there was water. Jet had already dumped her jacket and her helmet in the front drive; now, after a thoughtful glance at the dog water buckets, she stripped her shirt off, bundled it up, and dunked it.

She carried it back to Nick Carter, letting it drip all over his face…letting it trickle into his mouth. The flush on his face highlighted the hard line of his cheek and the echo of it in his jaw; even in the shade, the strong light of the desert day brought out the silver scattered on his eyebrows, made the silver hoarfrost of his hair shine bright.

She pulled his shirt up, became impatient with the inconvenience of buttons, and ripped it aside so she could sit on the edge of the lounger, spreading water over his chest. Goose bumps rose on his skin, tightening his nipples and raising the hair, more silver than black, that grew crisply across his chest.

She thought, then, of their desert romp. She closed her eyes and felt it—the connection they’d forged out among the cactus and creosote, the wolf in them driving past human concerns and human interference. Deep and pure and as strong as any instinct…stronger than any rational understanding. It had resonated in her then; it tingled in her now.