Doranna Durgin - Sentinels - Lynx Destiny

“Listening,” Kai told her. “Shh,” he said, close to her ear and barely putting sound behind the words. “To learn.” He stroked her hand with his thumb again.

Regan’s hand jerked beneath his.

“Shh,” he said again, coming back to himself. “You’re safe. You’re …” His voice trailed off; he seemed suddenly aware that his head had tipped forward against hers, that her pale gold hair tickled his face and the beguiling scent of it tickled his nose. His hand had slipped around her waist to press across her stomach, and he was suddenly aware of the flutter in her breathing. “Regan,” he murmured, and nuzzled behind her ear.

“Not safe at all,” she whispered. And she turned in his arms, her hand coming up to cup his cheek; he leaned into it as she leaned in to him, her mouth closing in on his.

DORANNA DURGINspent her childhood filling notebooks first with stories and art, and then with novels. After obtaining a degree in wild-life illustration and environmental education, she spent a number of years deep in the Appalachian Mountains. When she emerged, it was as a writer irrevocably tied to the natural world and its creatures.

Doranna received the 1995 Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Award for best first book in the fantasy, science-fiction and horror genres; she now has over fifteen novels spanning an array of eclectic genres, including paranormal romance, on the shelves. When she’s not writing, Doranna builds web pages, enjoys photography and works with horses and dogs. You can find a complete list of her titles at www.doranna.net.

Sentinels:

Lynx Destiny

Doranna Durgin

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is for sweet Belle Cardigan Corgi: PACH Cheysuli’s Silver Belle, CD RE MXP5 MXPS MJP6 MJPS PAX2 XFP EAC EJC CGC. Run fast, run clean and take all my love with you.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Excerpt

Chapter 1

You may have driven my mother mad, but you won’t do it to me.

Regan Adler gazed out at the intensely rugged vista of the Sacramento Mountains—vast slopes of ponderosa pine, towering cliffs and deep blue sky, all nearly nine thousand feet high. It should have been inspiring; it should have been invigorating.

Regan scowled out over that beauty. “Don’t you dare talk back to me,” she muttered at it.

The land said nothing back. After a moment, her sturdy blue roan gelding snorted impatience, and Regan released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. The gelding’s winter hair curled damply under her hand as she patted his neck; he’d shed out in another month or so, but the April noonday sun already beat down hard, and they’d covered only half the generous acreage attached to the Adler family cabin.

For now, Regan Adler focused on getting reacquainted with this place to which she’d vowed she’d never return.

“Yeah,” she said, when the horse snorted again, bobbing his head in suggestion. “It’s not your fault that Dad’s away, is it?” Or that Regan was trapped here, caretaking the place for some unknown length of time while her father recuperated from a back injury with his brother in El Paso. Although he was still a man in his prime, this was no place for a man—or woman—who couldn’t hold his own against winter snow, the woodstove or the long hike off the mountain if the truck didn’t start.

Another shift of her weight, and the horse moved forward again, placing his feet carefully in spite of the spirit in his movement. She’d already come to appreciate this canny little mustang and his responsive nature; his good judgment left her free to hunt the boundary markers on a land that hardly seemed changed since she’d been here last.

The horse snorted again, but it held a different sound; it came with a head raised and small ears pricked forward. Regan sat deliberately still in the saddle, quiet and balanced and waiting.

Plenty of bear up in these parts. Plenty of tree trunks and shadows and juts of land to hide a bear even nearby.

“Shh,” Regan said softly as the horse trembled briefly beneath her. “It’s not exactly safe to go bolting off through the woods, either.”

Neither ear swiveled back to acknowledge her. Not good. “I was thinking admiring thoughts about you a moment ago,” she told the horse, laying one hand on that sweaty neck—feeling the tension there. “I’m trusting you to keep me safe.”

Safe...

The word eased through her mind, an unwelcome susurrus in her thoughts. Oh, just perfect.

Safe...

“I heard you the first time,” she snapped. “Stay out of my head!”

Even silent, the whisper crawled across her skin.

Regan gritted her teeth. You may have driven my mother mad, but you won’t get me.

And the horse exploded into bucking beneath her.

* * *

Kai hadn’t meant to intrude. He hadn’t meant to alert the horse, never mind spook it.

The woman had been sitting the blue roan with a comfortable grace, well mounted on the compact creature. The sun beat down on a battered straw cowboy hat, glinting off the amazing pale gold of her hair as it trailed down her back in a single braid. She stayed quiet when the horse detected Kai, alarmed at the unfamiliar lynx-and-human mix of scents; she’d scanned the woods, as aware as the horse—and as aware as Kai—of the dangers that lurked in this natural beauty.

And Kai responded instinctively, as he did nearly everything. He imbued his thoughts into the land, making it an offering...a reassurance. An intent to stay silent and unseen, here where he tracked the other recent intruders in this place.

He hadn’t expected her to hear the ripple of his message so clearly.

He really hadn’t expected her to react so strongly.

It put the horse over the edge into bucking, right there on the slant of the earth, a tangle of deadwood to one side and a tight, scrubby cluster of knee-high oak to the other. Not wild bucking, but without footing and without space.

Kai didn’t expect it when the woman came off, either.

The horse didn’t hesitate for an instant. Reins flying, stirrup leathers flapping, it whirled and bolted away.

But the woman didn’t move.

Kai crouched to the earth, appalled...his broad lynx paws spread over humus and twig, his claws flexing momentarily deep, and his concern rippling out as loudly as his reassurance a moment earlier.

Her voice rose from amidst the scrub oak. “I’m fine,” she said, with sharp annoyance. “Now butt out.” The words slapped back at him through the land, a light smack of retribution, and Kai crouched even lower, his ears slanting back and his mouth opened to a silent snarl of protest...and surprise.

He pulled back into himself and did the only thing he could—the thing he’d wanted to avoid in the first place. He reached for the human within himself—stretching out into his shoulders, straightening long legs. He put noise into his feet so she would hear him coming with his human stride, and moved through the woods as though he had no habitual cause for silence—and as he reached her, he pretended he hadn’t heard her earlier words, or felt that stinging slap. “Are you all right?”

His voice came out rough with disuse, a voice with a rasp at the best of times. She seemed to understand him regardless, though she didn’t respond directly, and she didn’t yet get up. She lay tangled in the oak, one bent knee upright and casual. “He was sure there was a bear. You must be it.”