Sentinels: Leopard Enchanted

Until Fernie said, in understanding admonishment, “Ian.”

He snapped a look at her. Her eyes widened; she took a sharp breath. But she held her ground, because that’s what she was here for. “Ian.”

His snarl was as much acquiescence as temper. He paced onward...but tucked the leopard away.

Mostly.

“All right, Fernanda,” he said, pausing by the fence. He found his fingers tapping against the rough, pinto bean bark of the hand-peeled latillas; he stilled them.

Maybe a run. Better than a hike up in the Sangre de Cristo trails, at least until he was certain the previous week’s activity hadn’t roused any interest. Strange that an aggressive mountain lion hadn’t been reported.

The narrow Santa Fe River Park ran east-west before them, a riverbed greenway full of cottonwoods and trails. He drifted to the front of the compact yard, through the groomed pines to the thick old adobe wall—four feet near the open gate, stepped up to five feet and then six to meet the tall latilla poles at the corner; another group of stout blooming hollyhocks festooned the transition from adobe to the old fashioned poles. The rest of the fencing was just as idiosyncratic, done in stages to include a high adobe corner in the back and token rail fencing along the property line. Typical of these old Santa Fe properties, where bits and pieces had been added over time.

A dirt road stretched out before them, defining this barely developed privacy in the middle of Santa Fe. The Sangre de Cristo mountains loomed to the east, marching northward to Taos and Colorado—over fourteen thousand feet high, full of bear and cougar and pristine air, tall pines and craggy outcrops. Perfect for a snow leopard.

That had pretty much been the whole point. Nick Carter, Southwest Brevis Consul and definitely the boss of Ian, could have sent him to any one of the Sentinel retreats, from oceanside to low desert scrub. Instead he’d sent Ian from their Tucson base of operations into the high cool mountains for his snow leopard to love.

Ian had simply been too preoccupied with what he’d left behind to truly walk away from it.

Atrum Core bastards.

Two thousand years earlier, the strictures of their cold war with the Core hadn’t been so important—not when druids held sway and Romans were trying to beat them down. Then, the Sentinels hadn’t tried too terribly hard to hide their developing nature, their mandate to protect the Earth—and the Core hadn’t even considered hiding their intent to gather power, ostensibly to make sure the Sentinels didn’t get out of hand.

Mostly it had been seen as a power struggle between two half brothers—and maybe, mostly at the start it was.

But the Core turned to dark ways and corrupted energies to achieve its goal, and the Sentinels honed their skills—and the world changed around them until both factions were in agreement over the need to remain undetected. Their conflict went underground, a worldwide détente with certain understandings: no direct offensives, no breaking cover. Theirs would be a cold war.

Until the Core’s most recent Southwest drozhar had gone rogue. Thanks to his silent amulets, too many Sentinels had been killed or wounded—especially the full-blooded field Sentinels. Those who took the shape of the other within.

Like Ian.

Atrum Core bastards.

“Go take a run,” Fernie said, startling him. “You think I can’t tell that you’ve gone off inside your head again?”

He growled at her.

She waved it away. “Go,” she said. “Run. Think about something else.” And she left him in the yard, returning to tend the cause of the yeasty sweetness wafting out into the yard.

What good was it to have a great growl when people ignored it? Ian propped his foot against the wall and retied his laces. All right, Fernie. A run.

But if he was distracted, he wasn’t oblivious. He saw well enough that he was no longer quite alone. Never mind the male cyclist at the end of the road...the woman coming his way deserved plenty of attention.

She walked along the edge of the dirt and gravel with a green cloth shopping bag tucked over one shoulder and a small leather shoulder bag over the other, wearing a lightweight blazer over a creamy shirt that shimmered with her movement and set off the olive tones of her skin. Her tidy jeans were more smart than casual, and they highlighted her every move. Even from here, he found his gaze drawn to the delicate set of Eurasian features, from the distinct tilt of her eyes to the defined elegance of her nose.

She hesitated several properties away, eyeing the typical adobe wall, gravel driveway and gate—and then, rejecting it, looked ahead to the next property. And finally to this one, where Ian leaned against the wall, watching her. She picked up her pace, walking with more purpose—no longer looking at house numbers, but at him.

All right, Fernie. First her, then a run.

* * *

Ana knew better than to assume anything about this man. She’d seen what he could do. She’d heard what he’d done.

The Core soldier playing the part of a hapless hiker on the mountain 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?