VISIONS OF HEAT

Above him the moon hung, a bright disk in the sky, visible even through the thick canopy. For long moments, he stood and watched it through the dark filigree of reaching branches. Both man and beast were drawn to the glimmering beauty, though neither could’ve said why. It didn’t matter. Tonight the jaguar was in charge and it simply accepted what the man would have been tempted to think about.

A whisper of scent in the breeze had him lifting his nose into the air. Pack. A second later, he identified the scent as that of Clay, one of the other sentinels. Then it was gone, as if the leopard male had realized Vaughn’s prior claim to this range. Opening his mouth, Vaughn let out a soft growl and stretched his powerful feline body. His lethally sharp canines gleamed in the moonlight, but tonight he wasn’t out to hunt and capture prey, to deliver merciful death with a single crushing bite.

Tonight, he wanted to run.

His loping gait could cover vast distances, and usually he preferred to run deep into the forests that sprawled over most of California. But today he found himself heading toward the populated lake city of Tahoe. It wasn’t hard to walk among the humans and Psy even in his cat form. He wasn’t a sentinel for show—he could infiltrate even the most well-guarded of citadels without giving himself away.

However, this time he didn’t actually enter the city proper, drawn to something unexpected on the fringe of it. Set back only a few meters from the dark green spread of the forest, the small compound was protected by electrified fences and motion-sensor cameras, among other things. The house within was hidden behind several layers of vegetation and possibly another fence, but he knew it lay inside. What surprised him was that he smelled the metallic stink of the Psy around the entire compound.

Interesting.

The Psy preferred to live surrounded by skyscrapers and city, each adult in his or her own personal box. Yet deep within that compound was a Psy, and whoever that person was, he or she was being protected by others of their kind. Rarely did a non-Council Psy qualify for such a privilege. Curiosity aroused, he prowled around the entire perimeter, out of range of the monitoring devices. It took him less than ten minutes to discover a way in—the Psy race’s sense of arrogance had led them, once again, to disregard the animals with whom they shared the Earth.

Or perhaps, the man thought within the beast, the Psy just didn’t understand the capabilities of the other races. To them, changelings and humans were nothing because they couldn’t do the things the Psy could with their minds. They’d forgotten that it was the mind that moved the body, and animals were very, very good at using their bodies.

Climbing onto a tree branch that would lead him over the first fence and into the compound, the cat’s heart beat in anticipation. But even the jaguar knew he couldn’t do this. He had no reason to go in there and put himself in danger. Danger didn’t bother either man or beast, but the cat’s curiosity was held back by a deeper emotion—loyalty.

Vaughn was a DarkRiver sentinel and that duty overcame every other emotion, every other need. Later tonight, he was supposed to be guarding Sascha Duncan, his alpha’s mate, while Lucas attended a meeting at the SnowDancer den. Vaughn knew Sascha had agreed to stay behind reluctantly and only because she’d known Lucas could travel faster without her. And Lucas had only gone because he trusted his sentinels to keep her safe.

With a last lingering look into the guarded compound, Vaughn backed down the branch, leaped to the ground, and started to head toward Lucas’s lair. He hadn’t forgotten and he hadn’t given up. The mystery of a Psy living so close to changeling territory would be solved. No one escaped the jaguar once he was on their trail.





Faith stared out the kitchen window, and though only darkness looked back at her, she couldn’t shake the feeling of being stalked. Something very dangerous circled the fences that kept her isolated from the outside world. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself. And froze. She was Psy—why was she reacting like this? Was it the dark visions? Were they affecting her mental shields? Dropping her arms through sheer strength of will, she went to turn from the window.

And found she couldn’t.