Beauty's Beast - By Jenna Kernan Page 0,30

along. Better to keep it with her. If she used part of her coat to tie it in her hair, if she wasn’t too rough in her bear form, the feather might stay with her.

Something caught his attention, and he turned to glance behind them. She followed the direction of his gaze at some undergrowth, finding no sign of the others.

“More Halflings?” she whispered.

“Just one, I think,” he said and then raised his voice to be heard. “Aldara?”

A moment later a woman darted from behind a tree dressed in only a simple formfitting sky-blue T-shirt and tight denim shorts. They had a keen resemblance. Aldara’s waist-length straight blond hair was similar. Her skin tone was even paler than Alon’s as if she were Scandinavian, rather than Native, with only the barest blush of pink on her cheeks. Nearly albino, except for those eyes, Samantha thought. His sister was shorter than Alon by more than a foot, athletic, slim, but still curvy.

“Samantha Proud, let me introduce my younger sister, Aldara.”

Aldara narrowed her blue-gray eyes on Samantha and glared. She seemed like a wild little animal, and Samantha didn’t know if she should extend her hand or run.

Chapter 8

Aldara’s gaze flicked over Samantha and then returned to her brother as if dismissing her as unimportant.

“The Beta Pack is on their way back and I located the Gammas. They’re close. I see you found the Deltas.”

“Yes, but they won’t go and they attacked Samantha,” said Alon.

This news did not seem to surprise or concern Aldara in the least. She shrugged. “Small wonder.”

“We can’t go without the Gammas.”

“Together we can make them understand. The Betas and Gammas can help us. I saw another ghost. We need to go.”

The look on Alon’s face had Samantha hugging herself. Nagi’s scouts, she realized. Alon had told her so.

“I have to take Samantha to the house. Then we’ll go after the Gammas again.”

Now Samantha had Aldara’s attention. She turned her flashing eyes on Samantha and curled back her lip to show strong white teeth. “Didn’t you tell it to remain there? I thought animals could follow simple directions like ‘sit’ and ‘stay.’”

“Aldara.” Alon’s voice held a warning.

“She’s one of them.”

“None of her family has ever attacked our kind.”

Aldara folded her arms and glanced away.

“She is our guest,” said Alon.

“An uninvited guest,” Aldara objected.

“My guest,” insisted Alon, his voice holding unmistakable menace.

Aldara threw up her hands as if conceding the point. “Well, it’s taking too much of your time. We need to move them now. The Beta say they spotted two just east of us. They could be here anytime.”

Alon grabbed Samantha by the elbow. “I’ll catch up.”

He turned and marched Samantha away. Behind them, Aldara growled.

* * *

Alon guided Samantha along the worn animal trail that he knew as well as his own face, faces, oh, hell. She’d seen them, the young ones in their natural form, the shape in which all born of Nagi began their lives. Changing to smoke came next, almost as soon as they were born. Why couldn’t they change to smoke to be born and keep their birth mothers from dying in labor? It was one of many questions to which he could find no answer.

At puberty they turned handsome, losing the gray cast to their skin, learning to transform quills to the fine pale hair. This was the same time the Ianoka, born of Tob Tob, assumed their animal form, according to his mother, Bess.

Did Samantha find them horrible? Of course she did. They were horrible, hideous, the stuff of nightmares. Walking, talking monsters.

She would now find him repellent. It hurt him to think of her rejection, even though he had not yet experienced it. But he would. Surely he would.

He glanced back, making certain that Aldara didn’t come at Samantha from behind. He and Aldara had argued last night. She favored bringing the young ones to safety as soon as they gathered them all and letting Samantha fend for herself. He didn’t think Samantha would survive the hunting ghosts or Nagi’s marauding Ghostlings without their protection. Aldara did not think Samantha was their problem regardless of her father’s connection to their mother. But Alon could not leave Samantha.

Aldara needed him. Samantha needed him. He felt torn in two.

He brought her within sight of the house and left her there.

“Is it safe here?” she asked.

He knew nowhere was safe any longer.

“Our packs will not intrude here.” But any outsider would look there first.

“Nagi’s ghosts?”

He hesitated, not wishing to lie to her. He