Mine to Possess

After a hasty conference, both changelings had jumped out of the moving vehicle. Clay had gone cat. Meanwhile, Dorian had taken to the trees, rifle in hand. Right now, she knew his sniper’s eye was located on the door to the cabin. The predators were ready to pull her out if this proved to be a trap.

Half-sick with hope and fear, she stood in place, in spite of her need to get inside, waiting for the signal that would tell her no danger had been scented or sighted. When she glanced to the side, it was to glimpse a pair of night-glow eyes hidden in the forest. They blinked once. Go.

Vividly conscious of time ticking down, she ran to the door and pushed it open. She was prepared to find anything…except what she did find.

Jon and a little girl lay on their backs on the dirt floor.

With a soft cry, she dropped to her knees and checked their pulses. Both beat strong. It calmed her as she waited for Clay to come. But the seconds ticked past without any sign of him. Something had to have gone wrong. Her instinctive urge was to run out to help.

Clay watched Talin walk in, his senses on high alert. A shift in the wind brought him Dorian’s scent…and that of another. The leopard listened to what the wind told it and knew he could leave that scent to Dorian. The other sentinel was already moving.

He kept his eyes on the cottage into which Talin had disappeared only a second ago. But he wasn’t blinded by focus-he heard the crack of a twig several meters away as someone stalked toward his mate. Fighting the protective urge shoving at him to move and get Tally out of there, he stayed in place, listening, watching.

The ugly metallic/dead/cold scent of Psy mingled with the more astringent odor of gun-cleaning fluid. His predator’s mind immediately understood that they had either missed a sentry or triggered sensors their ally had not known to disable. He lowered himself into a crouch, hidden in the vegetation. He’d told Tally to stay inside the cottage until he or Dorian came for her. Trusting her to stick to the plan, he turned his attention to the intruder.

The man came into sight seconds later. Dressed in black, he moved with the careful gait of a trained soldier. But that wasn’t what interested Clay. It was the emblem on his shoulder. Two snakes locked in combat. The leopard bit back a growl. That was the same uniform as those that had been worn by the men who had butchered the DawnSky deer clan in an unprovoked attack.

The Psy male’s eyes glinted pure black, no whites, no stars. He could be telepathing.

Clay had to make a split-second decision. If this was their contact, killing him would gain them nothing. But if it wasn’t, he had to take the man out. An instant later, the male made up his mind for him by going down into a shooting stance and taking aim at the door of the cottage.

Clay didn’t bother with finesse. If the Psy felt him coming, he was dead. So he attacked in a heavy, silent rage. The Psy managed to turn slightly before Clay’s claws hit his chest, smashing him to the forest floor. A burst of pain slammed into his brain but he was already ripping out the other man’s throat.

However, even with that thousandth-of-a-second warning, the Psy had managed to get in enough of a psychic blow that Clay’s nose bled as he shifted into human form and picked up the body, wiping away the blood with his hand. The body had to be disposed of and in a way that didn’t give away changeling involvement.

He spent precious seconds wrapping the body up in a tarp from the back of the truck and dumping it in the bed. It was a good thing Tally and Jon weren’t changeling; otherwise, they would have detected the scent of death. Aware of time counting down, he nonetheless returned to the site of the kill and covered his tracks. The Psy soldier would appear to have vanished into thin air.

“Oh, God,” Talin whispered, gritting her teeth and staying in place as the clock ticked over to ten minutes past nine. Clay was a sentinel, she told herself. He would defeat whatever enemy roamed the woods. Trying to distract herself, she brushed the hair off Jon’s and the little girl’s faces. The little one was clearly of Persian origin, her skin a dusky brown, her bone structure fine enough for a princess.

Her hand moved to settle the little girl’s shirt and that was when she found it. The note was short and to the point.

The drugs will wear off in a few hours. I couldn’t have them attempting an escape before the correct time. After they leave here, both these children need to vanish-if they turn up alive, my life is forfeit. So, I hold you to your human honor after all.