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.
Clay ran in as her watch clicked over another minute. "We only have four minutes to get out of the surveillance zone." She stuffed the note into her pocket, picked up the girl.
Clay was already out the door, Jon thrown over one shoulder. "It'll be enough." He dumped Jon onto the truck's single benchseat and pulled on his clothes at lightning speed. Going around to the passenger side door, she was inside with her own precious cargo by the time he turned the wheel. "Go!" Strapping in Jon beside Clay, she held the girl tight and pulled the remaining strap over them both as Clay started driving at a breakneck pace no human could have managed, his reaction time close to zero.
He didn't slow when Dorian wasn't waiting for them at the arranged spot. "He'll be fine."
Talin said a quick prayer for the other sentinel. With Clay's insane driving, they were on the road away from the cottage in the nick of time, just another outwardly beat-up farm truck among others. "How are the kids doing?" he asked once they were clear.
"Good," she whispered. She sat with one arm around Jon's shoulders, the other crushing the girl to her. Releasing her white-knuckled grip, she flexed her fingers, touched their cheeks to reassure herself they were okay. "Good." Jon was bruised and both children had dark circles under their eyes, but they were alive. "We'll talk to him after...about what happened."
"He'll be okay, Tally." His tone was rough, tender. "We made it, didn't we?"
She gave him a startled glance. "Yeah, we did, didn't we?" But she wasn't quite sure they had.
"I had to eliminate a threat," he said a few minutes later. "We'll be taking a short detour to dispose of it."
Her throat dried up. "In the truck bed?"
"Yeah."
He had killed for her. Again. The hairs on the back of her neck rose at the thought of her proximity to the result. But she was no hypocrite. Neither was she a child any longer. "It had to be done." Her arms tightened on the children's bodies. "Let's clean it up before they wake."
Clay's gaze met hers again and those forest-in-shadow eyes were incandescent with a fierce kind of joy. It shook her.
Had he expected her to run from him again?
The kids were awake by the time Dorian made it back. Dawn was edging the horizon and Talin was so happy to see him unhurt, she gave him a huge hug.
His smile was startled, less charming and more open. "Hey, hey, I'm good. No one saw anything but a pissed-off student hitching a ride after his girlfriend dumped him in the middle of nowhere."
She drew back and looked him up and down. "Where did you get those clothes?" He was wearing a T-shirt bearing the logo of a death metal band over his own black jeans. He'd also found a disreputable headscarf, which effectively hid his distinctive hair. She looked closer. "Did you put mud in your hair?"
"All part of being resourceful." Draping an arm around her neck, he walked them back to the plane. Clay was standing outside with little Noor in his arms. The girl had wrapped herself around him upon waking and hadn't let go since. Talin hadn't been the least surprised when Clay handled the attachment without a blink.
"Ready?" Dorian asked.