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