Doranna Durgin - Sentinels - Alpha Rising

“Cool,” said Faith. “Hey, Javi, I got some power powder to try in it. It’ll turn your mouth blue.”

“No, no,” Javi said, following her anyway. “ Mi madre would whip my behind if I come home with a blue mouth.”

“She would not.” Faith’s words floated back over her shoulder as she rounded the corner of the barn overflow, and Lannie knew that Javi’s mouth didn’t stand a chance. So did Holly, to judge by the amusement lighting her expression—though that faded when she looked his way.

“You, too,” he said. “Especially you.”

She dusted at the hay on her legs. “And then?” When he only looked at her, she said, “Then what? We’re going to Cloudview, I know. But I’m here for a reason. Do we have team-building games to play, or do I have homework, or are you going to put me on a shelf while you do other things?” Before he’d had time to truly consider that, she added, “One thing they should have warned you—I like to keep busy.”

“I can arrange for another load of hay,” Lannie said, deceptively mild.

“Sure,” she said, just as evenly.

“What’s next specifically,” he told her, “is that we dust the hay out of our hair and get something to drink. Then I’d like to take a few moments to sniff around the well house—you can come or not, as you please.”

He wasn’t sure if sniffing around qualified as busy or boring, and in truth he wasn’t sure he wanted her along. He’d just as soon take the wolf for this particular task, and he didn’t think she was ready for that yet. When it came to that, he didn’t think he was ready for it. Not to ride the edge of the most primal part of himself while she was nearby.

“And then Cloudview,” she said. “I know . But after that. I don’t get the sense that you have any sort of plan when it comes to me.”

Lannie stood taller in a stretch, rotating one shoulder slightly. “I tend to play it by ear.”

“Awesome,” Holly said flatly. She pushed away from the hay bales. “Since we have such a good plan, we might as well get to it.” She headed for the front of the overflow area—a tall, three-sided pole structure—and turned in the direction of the store, striding across the ground like she owned it.

Lannie watched the languid roll of her hips and wanted to follow. The wolf watched the casual strength in her and growled, chafing, wanting to follow.

Lannie made them both wait, and settle, and swallow back the wanting . Only then did he allow his feet to move, strangely distant from the earth and from the new pack song he already ached to call his own.

* * *

Holly avoided a flat, shrunken prickly pear, her thighs aching from the distinctly uphill hike. Lannie Stewart moved with assurance, familiar with the terrain and taking his own strength for granted. When he stopped and checked back for her, she knew for certain it was only for her sake, and not because he found himself winded.

But Holly was glad to suck in air. She was fit—she was damned fit—but she’d already helped unload twenty tons of hay and she was fit at sea level .

He nodded up ahead, and she belatedly saw the upper half and roof of a wood structure that looked more like a community pit toilet than any official well house, clearly placed just beyond the crest of this slope. “I’d like to take a look around before we add more footprints to the area.”

“You want me to stay here.” She realized it with surprise. Some part of her had enjoyed these silent moments of climbing the hillside together, no matter the effort, or the fact that she hadn’t wanted to be here in the first place. Still didn’t want to be here.

But that didn’t mean her best option wasn’t to wait this situation out, going through Sentinel hoops until she could walk away.

Lannie eyed her as if he was trying to read her thoughts from her face, and nodded. “Only a few moments. Catch your breath, look around. There’s more going on in this forest than you think.”

She wouldn’t have called it a forest at all. But she only nodded, plucking a final stray piece of hay from her shirt, and he hiked on without her.

She watched until he moved out of sight, hidden by a trick of terrain and brush, and then sat herself down to look around. Low, flat cactus here...bushy treelike things dotted along the hill and set on gravelly, sandy soil. Sparse clumps of bunchgrass offered barely a hint of green, and the occasional long-needled pine towered over all.

“Forest,” she snorted. But she wrapped her arms around her knees and tipped her face to the sun, realizing for the first time the true impact of its heat. A quick relocation to the shade of a spicy cedar brought out goose bumps, and she finally put herself half in, half out, and rested her forehead on her knees.

Maybe she shouldn’t have. Maybe she should have kept moving. The quiet gave her space to recognize a strange, small edge of unease running through the center of her—a ripple of vertigo, and an escalation of what she’d experienced on arrival. She put her hand to the ground, eyes still closed, absorbing the textured feel of the cedar sheddings—tiny dry twigs, gritty soil, the angular hump of an exposed root. The connection steadied her in some way, but her sense of unease failed to fade.

Lannie had been right. She needed more water. Something to trail her fingers in, something to fiddle with.

Then again, it was nothing that going home wouldn’t fix. A reasonable altitude, a reasonable humidity and a sun that didn’t feel so close. Anyone would feel disoriented.

Song intruded, humming into her thoughts with such an insidious ease that she startled when she finally recognized it there, jerking her head up to scan the hill where Lannie had disappeared. She caught the glimpse of flickering light, a coruscation of energy; the song swelled and then faded. What the—?

Holly clambered to her feet to squint up the hill, swiping her hands off against the tough material of her work pants, hesitating on the verge of hiking on up. Lannie had had plenty of time to look around, and what if he—

He came into sight at the crest of the hill, appearing from between two junipers to wave her onward, and she suddenly understood. Lannie had gone uphill to take his other—whatever his other was. The light, the energy, even the humming song—those had all been the edges of his return to human. And now he stood there waiting for her, all matter-of-fact confidence and underlying strength.

She hiked the last hundred feet more quickly than she’d thought she had left in her, and greeted him with demand. “Was that you?”

She didn’t truly expect his frown. “Maybe,” he said, and thought about it until he shook his head. “Did it bother you?”

“Bother?” She found her hand was still gritty, the thin soil pressed into the lines of her palm, where she’d grabbed at the ground in her reaction to that song. She realized, too, what she really, really didn’t want to admit—that her body had responded, humming along in its own way, and that now it had warmed to him in a clear defiance of how she felt about Sentinels, being here and being anywhere near him in the first place.

Good God, she wanted him.

Except she didn’t. She didn’t want any part of being here, Lannie Stewart included. So she, too, finally shook her head. “It didn’t bother me,” she said. “It surprised me. It was rude .”

He pondered that, watching her with an awareness she wasn’t sure she liked. “Probably so,” he allowed, and left it at that, switching his attention to the well house now completely within view. “There’s nothing much up here. They didn’t waste much time trying to chase Aldo off.” He shook his head. “Just an old man taking a smoke.”