Sylvia Day - A Touch of Crimson

He dropped a pat of butter onto his hash browns. “I said I was being observed, not that I’m a troublemaker.”

“Okay then.” She pushed aside the remnants of her breakfast. “What are you being observed for?”

He shoveled a massive forkful of potatoes into his mouth. After he chewed and swallowed, he said, “There are some who think I show Alpha traits.”

“Alpha. Like top dog? King of the hill? Master of all he surveys?” She nodded. “Totally.”

He paused with another heaping forkful suspended halfway between his plate and his lips. “You’re not helping.”

“What?” She leaned back into the booth. “What’s wrong with that? Better than being a Beta male for sure. I mean, they have their uses and all. But really, women are looking for sexy, hunky Alpha males. We like that take-charge, take-no-shit, bad-boy vibe. It really does a number on us, which I’m sure you’ve noticed in the course of your seventy-some-odd years of living.”

Elijah exhaled in a way that conveyed endless patience. “Women aside,” he said drily, “it’s not good to show Alpha traits when you’re a lycan.”

“Why not?”

He stared at her for a long moment, as if debating what to say or whether he should say it at all. “The Sentinels are supposed to be the only Alphas. The lycans are supposed to look to them for guidance, not to each other.”

The gravity in his voice sobered her. Lindsay waited until their waitress had topped off her coffee and moved on to another table, then asked, “What happens if it’s decided that you’re an Alpha lycan?”

“I’ll be separated from the others and… I don’t know. Alphas don’t come around very often, so I don’t know what happens to them. I’ve heard rumors that they’re kept together and used for non-field assignments, like interrogations, but frankly I don’t see how that would work. You can’t put a bunch of Alphas together and expect them to play nice. But maybe that’s the point-make us kill each other, so the Sentinels don’t get their hands dirty.”

“I can’t believe Adrian would condone that.”

“After working with him, I’m not sure he’s fully aware of how the lycan system is run.” He grabbed the top half of an English muffin and eyed the amount of butter already on it. “He’s out there in the trenches, more so than any other Sentinel I’ve seen. He’s always on a hunt. He hadn’t been home in almost two weeks when you saw us in Phoenix. We’d taken out a rogue minion just a few hours before we ran across you.”

“He’s been away from home for days now.”

Elijah opened two jelly packets and scraped the contents onto his muffin. “Yeah. Hunting is what he lives for. It’s his way.”

She blew out her breath. It was her way, too. The only way she knew. “Okay, you’ll think this is crazy, but… what about going into business with me? Bounty hunting maybe? Private investigations? You’d still be hunting. Plus, I’ve got a score to settle that I could really use your help with. We both know I need someone to be the level-headed voice of reason.”

He paused in the act of chewing, staring at her, then washed down his food with half a glass of orange juice. “You think I can just quit?”

“Hey, I’d have to quit my job, too.”

“The only way out of working for the Sentinels is death.”

Lindsay’s pulse stuttered. “What are you saying? You’re prisoners? Slaves?”

He resumed eating. After he swallowed, he said, “I think I’m gonna bring another lycan on board.”

“Okay, ignore the big question. I’ll worm it out of you eventually. As for another lycan, do whatever you think is best. I trust you. I don’t suppose it’s a woman…? I’d feel a lot better about you having to babysit me if you had some fun doing it.”

His green eyes sparkled with laughter.

Realizing how that sounded, she groaned. “That came out wrong.”

“No, it’s not a woman. Just someone who could use a little time away, too.”

“Is he an Alpha?”

Elijah shook his head. “He’s not. Thank god.”

More than anything he’d said, it was the relief in his voice that gave Lindsay chills.

Adrian exited Yellowstone into Gardiner, Montana, just after dusk. He’d located Helena and Mark early in the morning, then held Damien and Jason back until nightfall, giving the two lovers one last day together.

It was a concession the Sentinels obeyed without question but couldn’t understand. Love in the mortal sense was unknown to them. They didn’t grasp the desperate desire, the aching longing, or the purity of joy a mortal felt in finding the other half of his or her soul.

Adrian knew those extremes far too well, but this time with Lindsay was novel in many ways. He couldn’t stop thinking about her, couldn’t stop comparing her incarnation to the ones that had come before. He was used to starting from scratch, but there were always certain constants he’d come to expect. Lindsay deviated from the pattern to such a degree that he could find few markers with which to map their interactions. It was all new and uncharted. And he was captivated by the mercurial emotions she roused in him.

“What are you going to do, Captain?” Damien asked as they entered the small town on foot.

“Arrangements have been made for the lycan to join the Hokkaidō pack.”

“I still think you should put him down,” Jason said. “If ever there was a time to make an example out of a lycan, this is it. When this gets out-”

Adrian cut him off with a look. “It’s not going to get out.”

He’d tracked Helena’s other lycan guard first, catching up to her halfway to Cedar City en route to the Navajo Lake pack. Her destination showed the strength of her self-preservation instincts. Given the opportunity to flee while the Sentinels were distracted by Helena’s desertion, she chose to head to the nearest pack instead. Without hesitation, she had agreed to never speak of Mark and Helena again for the rest of her life. For her loyalty and common sense, Adrian had offered her reassignment to his pack, a promotion she’d readily accepted. He had learned long ago that positive reinforcement was a far better motivator than fear and intimidation.

“Once Mark is in Japan and Helena is Anaheim,” he continued quietly, “we’re all going to forget the last four days. None of us wants to deal with what will happen otherwise.”

A Sentinel and lycan affair. The two running away together. The consequences of that choice. All of it would be a ticking time bomb, giving ammunition to the malcontents. With the recent spate of vampire attacks and the infection he’d witnessed in Arizona and Utah, he couldn’t risk unrest among the Sentinel ranks now. The balance he’d preserved for so long was crumbling around him. If he lost control of the Sentinels, nothing would save the world from the chaos that would ensue.

Because of the pressing need for secrecy, he’d conducted the entire hunt thus far without any technological help, unable to risk leaving a trail by using Mitchell Aeronautics resources. Being able to track Helena’s rental car via GPS would have shortened the hunt, but he hadn’t been in a hurry. Affording her a few days of whatever happiness she could find while on the run was such a small concession, and it was the only one he could make. The longer she was AWOL, the more volatile the situation became.

“You and Helena can’t be the only ones to form attachments,” Jason said.

“No.” Everything seemed to be coming to a head at once. Or maybe it felt that way because he was still reeling from Lindsay’s decision to leave him. She was being selfless for him. He had to try to be the same for her, which might mean letting her go.

“You can’t be surprised,” Jason went on. “We’ve been on this mission forever.”