Sentinels: Leopard Enchanted (Harlequin Nocturne) Read online

  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?

  She came back to her wits as Ian Scott scooped her purse from the ground. Her attacker pedaled wildly away, not quite steady on the bike.

  “What—?” she said, far too nonsensically.

  “You okay?” Ian said, and held out the purse.

  “Yes, I—” She rubbed her arm, taking the purse to fumble for her phone. “I should call the police—” Not because she truly thought it best, but because she thought it was the thing to say.

  He sidestepped the matter—no surprise. Sentinels eschewed official notice as much as the Core. “I’d rather offer to see you home again. You have any idea why that guy would be targeting you?”

  For the moment, she forgot her script. “What do you mean, targeting me?”

  “He’s been lurking at the end of the street, watching you.”

>   Ah. She understood now. Someone hadn’t trusted her to get this job done on her own...and then hadn’t trusted her enough to let her in on the plan. She groped for words that would ring true. “I can’t imagine it was personal.”

  “Didn’t smell like coincidence,” he said, his fingers tapping lightly against the wall. Surely the man sat still every once in a while. “It smelled like—” He stopped himself.

  She had the sudden understanding that he spoke literally, and she remembered again who this man was—no matter his charismatic presence or his beautiful eyes. He was Sentinel, and he was the Southwest’s best amulet specialist. If the Core had sent out a posse member who carried amulets...

  Even Ana could sometimes perceive the regular amulets, like a stain in the air. Many Core members couldn’t, and it wasn’t considered a necessary skill. But of course he’d know, and far better than she would. And of course he’d want to avoid the cops. The Sentinels and the Core kept their encounters off the books.

  “You’re probably right,” he said, making an obvious choice to relinquish control of the conversation. “Coincidence.” He bent to pick up her groceries, scattered as they were from the encounter, and appropriated the bag so he could reload them. “You’re all scraped up. Come on inside, we’ll get you fixed up.”

  She hesitated a moment too long. He added, “Fernie is inside, too. She’ll slap my hands if I do anything you don’t want me to.”

  For that moment, she froze. She heard the unspoken message there—the potential that there were things she might want him to do. His eyes told her as much, seeing her absorb the meaning, confirming it—smiling just there at the corner of his mouth.

  Run away. Run fast.

  Run to safety, where the flush of her awareness wouldn’t expand into a flush of wanting—of wondering what it would be like to be touched by such strength and consideration. As if this man might just give back as much as he received.

  She took a sharp breath, using it to slap herself back to reality. There would be no running, no matter how smart it would be. Because getting inside the house had been part of her assignment all along.

  Get inside the house. Plant the silent amulet.

  And maybe, finally, she would gain not only the respect and belonging she longed for, but also the safety that came with it.

  Chapter 2

  Hollender Lerche hated adobe.

  He hated flat roofs and stucco and chunky viga pine columns and pretentious entry arches, and he hated a high altitude climate that thought it could be desert and yet still had far too much snow in the winter.

  Still, he should be grateful. Many from Tucson had died during the illicit attack on the Sentinels; others had acted too publicly and paid the price at the hands of the worldwide septs prince.

  In the wake of that attack, Lerche had merely been assigned to this small city—an annoyingly artsy place that had persistently remained the region’s capital city. He didn’t have to be told that his future rested on his quiet success. The septs prince would turn a blind eye to certain events as long as they brought results—but not for an instant if they brought more embarrassment.

  For now, results meant taking out Ian Scott.

  A man who had so conveniently ambled into Lerche’s new territory, leading him straight to the quaint little retreat property—and to opportunity.

  Lerche looked out onto the rolling piñon and juniper foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountains and narrowed his eyes as if that spearing glare could blast the high grasslands into something more palatable. When someone rapped politely on the sliding glass door behind him, he ignored them. This second-story patio was his Do Not Disturb zone.

  But eventually he left the squintingly bright sunshine of the morning and returned to the oppressive gloom of thick textured walls. The man inside greeted him with an unusual combination of resentment and defiance.

  “Mr. Budian,” Lerche said, which meant many things at once—a greeting, a demand for a report...a demand for explanation.

  David Budian stood before him not in the neat suit of an active posse member or the dark slacks and shirt also allowed those working strenuous field positions. Nor was he the usual stature of such field agents—the classic deep olive skin and black hair, set off by silver studs and rings. Budian was a man of middling complexion, middling height, middling features.

  None of that came as a surprise—the man’s appearance was why Lerche assigned him to particular activities with particular anonymity. Even Ana, as naive as she was, would spot a man of brawn and classic full-blooded complexion.

  But it surprised him to see Budian in torn clothes and bruises.

  Lerche said, “Have you compromised us, Mr. Budian?”

  Budian looked as alarmed as he should. “Drozhar—”

  “Don’t suck up.” Drozhar was a term held by regional princes, as well as the world septs Prince. Not a posse leader. Not even when the posse was as large as the one Lerche now commanded here in Santa Fe. “I want to know what’s happened!”

  “I observed Ana as ordered. She was dawdling, so I provided an opportunity for her.” Budian’s self-satisfaction made it to his face in a way he likely didn’t realize. “You know how those Sentinels are, sir. If they see a chance to meddle, they’ll take it.”

  Lerche sat at his massive desk, relaxing into the padded chair. He brushed his hand across the black gleam of the surface, displacing invisible dust motes. “True enough. Did you achieve results?”

  “I gave him a chance to play the hero and he took it. If that little dirt-bred bitch can’t make something of it, then she’s as hopeless as I think she is.”

  “Mind your tongue, Mr. Budian.” Lerche’s words held no heat; it went against everyone’s instincts to use a woman in an important field operation. But Ana was everything they needed—petite, beautiful with an elegant delicacy and utterly determined to prove her worth to them...without the faintest idea that she never could. “She knows nothing of that thin Sentinel heritage, and I want it to stay that way.”

  “Until it’s too late, you mean,” Budian suggested.

  Lerche smiled. “Exactly so, Mr. Budian.” And then he would be free of her. “Just exactly so.”

  * * *

  Ana found herself sitting in cool Santa Fe comfort—saltillo floors and kitchen counters, hand-painted Talavera tiles set in the walls around the light switches and along the counter backsplash, gauzy curtains under shaded windows. The air was redolent of spices and oils and the scent of something baking. Something good.

  Ian had introduced himself, and Fernie—Fernanda—and had handed her a damp washcloth, disappearing with “Be right back.”

  Ana waited on a spindle-backed stool at the breakfast bar and patted the cool cloth against the road rash beneath her elbow, near to dizzy with the conflicting experiences of being in such a homey welcoming atmosphere while within the grasp of the enemy.

  Especially an enemy who kept her on edge in every way.

  Ian—the enemy—returned to the kitchen in a billow of what seemed to be his usual energy, dropping a tub of salve on the counter. “This stuff will speed the healing.”

  Fernie put a hot tray of muffins on the sideboard and sent Ian a disapproving frown. “A gentleman would help her take care of such awkward injuries.”

  “Oh,” Ana protested. “You can hardly call them injuries. A few scrapes and bruises—fewer than that cyclist had, I’m sure.”

  Ian stepped back. “A gentleman respects the boundaries a lady sets.” But his gaze met hers with amusement, as if they were somehow in this together.

  She understood why. Fernie obviously ruled this house—a so-called corporate retreat—with an iron pot holder. Of medium stature, with a plump figure and shining strands of gray in her black hair, Fernie’s Latina and Native heritage came through in both her features and th
e gentle roll of her words. Given Fernie’s position here in the house, Ana guessed that she wasn’t a full-blooded field Sentinel—one of those with roots deep enough to reach to their lurking other within.

  Looking at Ian, Ana would never doubt it of him. Even if she hadn’t actually seen his snow leopard the week before.

  But field Sentinel or not, Fernie was obviously formidable and just as obviously possessed of an uncanny ability to read beneath the emotional surface of those around her. She cleared her throat at Ian as she tapped the previous tray of muffins loose from the cups.

  Ana pressed her lips together in a smile. “Well,” she said, and offered Ian the washcloth, “maybe under the circumstances...”

  “All right, then.” He stopped tapping to whatever rhythm ran in his head to take the cloth. The same hands that had taken down the cyclist became surprisingly gentle as he turned her arm to see the scrape.

  “Don’t you ever sit still?” she asked, not truly having meant to say it.

  Fernie laughed, placing a selection of muffins on a plate and sliding it within reach along with butter, a knife and napkins. “Not that anyone’s observed so far. What brings you to Santa Fe, Ana?”

  Oh, nothing of importance. Just spying on you.

  “A quiet vacation,” she said, in spite of the fact that she’d lived here for months now, along with the rest of Lerche’s posse. They’d had no idea the retreat existed until Lerche had tracked Ian to it. “The Georgia O’Keeffe museum, the plaza, the pueblos, the Indian Market... I meant to come with a friend, but family issues cropped up.” She shrugged, comfortable with the amiable cover story Lerche had given her. “It’s a little strange to be here without a travel companion, I admit.”

  Fernie sent Ian a pointed glance. “You see? You could be doing something other than fretting. See the sights with this woman!”

  Ian glared at Fernie, not Ana. “I do not fret,” he said, even as he dabbed her arm. “And I don’t need mothering.”

  Fernie ran a trickle of water into the sink, briskly rinsing dishes before stashing them in the dishwasher. Ana only got a glimpse, but she was pretty sure the other woman smiled behind her noncommittal noise of response. And Ian, with his mix of annoyance and affection...