LITMIR.BIZ

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voice, using her childhood pet name? Whispering into her head? Or had this place simply stolen so much from her mother that now it sounded like her?

      “You can’t have my life,” she told it, a snarl of defiance—and didn’t know if she was talking to the land, or to herself. To whatever had started inside her that would slowly erode her sense of self until she didn’t know where she started or where she ended.

      Beware...

      Regan stopped, cocking her head to the sudden change. That had certainly not come from within—that sense of alarm and foreboding. It hadn’t been part of her morning so far at all, no matter the unsettled nature of her ruminations.

      She turned from it, just as she had turned from the affectionate greeting—she did what she’d always done in these unsettled moments, reaching out to the artist within herself. Her practiced eye found the beauty in the stark lines of a fallen tree, the sharp shadows of the morning and the contrast of the orange-brown pine bark against the ferns splashed across the rugged slope. She picked out shape and detail, and her hand twitched, reflexively reaching for watercolors, for oils...for a smear of pastel in a wild, expressive movement.

      By the time she saw the boundary tree, she’d almost forgotten why she’d come out here in the first place.

      But as she pulled the flutter of stretchy, orange tape from her pocket, ready to take another wrap around the tree, the warning sensation hit her again. Stronger.

      BEWARE...

      She didn’t snap back at it this time, or wonder at it or even resent it. She simply reeled in it, alarm twisting the pit of her stomach, and her fingers tightening over the tape.

      It didn’t matter that it wasn’t her alarm. It was still real. And it felt like...

      A cry for help.

      * * *

      Beware...

      The whisper of warning slapped within Kai, reverberating...and bounced back out to the land. With it came a twist of pain, and a still unfamiliar but unmistakable taint.

      The Atrum Core.

      After a moment there came a faint echo of awareness—one that would have been imminently welcome had it not been for the Core presence. Regan Adler, not far away.

      Kai moved out as lynx, broad paws stepping through dew, a luxury in the desert. Ration your lynx, his family had often told him. Keep your balance.

      But that had been long years earlier, before his family had left him here to survive with a home carved out of the mountains, a bank account rarely touched and the weepy enjoinder that neither the Core nor the Sentinels could ever know what he could do. What he was.

      If the Sentinels knew, the Core would know. And if the Core knew, they would stop at nothing to kill him.

      That didn’t mean Kai would let them slink in here to poison the land. He moved through the shadows of the morning, staying on the cool north slope where the vegetation ran thicker, the dew lingered longer and the ground sank beneath his feet. The sickening vapor of Core workings swirled around them all, skimming the ground like a living fog. Kai lifted his lips in a silent snarl, flattening whiskers—cursing, as he could while lynx. The ugly energy held no structure, no directive, and Kai could discern no purpose behind it.

      But by the time he’d circled along the slope and curved into the sparser cover of the southeast exposure, he had a good idea where it came from. He planned his steps accordingly—and his temper rose with each.

      They weren’t quite over the boundary and onto Adler land. But they were close. They’d found the spot where the dry creek spilled out near the dirt Forest Service access road; like many before them, they’d followed that rocky path uphill to the spot where it spread wide—where rainwater and snowmelt sometimes pooled and where Kai himself often slaked his thirst as both human and lynx.

      Kai had been patrolling that spot for years. Careful hikers—those who packed out what they brought in—he left alone. Careless hikers...

      One way or another they didn’t stay.

      Kai didn’t plan for the Core to stay.

      He found them arrayed around the dry pool, the ground scuffed around them and rocks carelessly overturned. There were three of them—the first of the Core he’d ever seen. He watched them for some moments, paws spread wide over the ground, short tail restless—lashing as it could.

      It surprised him that they were so recognizable. Big, beefy men, one of them in a suit with an expensive sheen and fall of cloth, the other two in serviceable black slacks and dark gray short-sleeved shirts under identical black jackets. They all bore silver at their ears, silver on their wrists and fingers, and dark olive skin tones that owed nothing to the sun. The suited man had his dark hair pulled back in a short club at his nape; the other two wore utilitarian styles, long enough to lick at their ears and collars.

      And while the suited man watched, the others were hard at work. Two large metal cases lay by the side of the dry pool, open to reveal padded, sectioned interiors. One case still held its original contents—gleaming piles of dark metal, glinting dully in the uneven trickle of light through the overhead pines. Kai narrowed his eyes, finding it painful to focus on those metal disks for reasons he couldn’t discern; his lynx’s vision preferred motion to stillness and muted colors into smears of similarity, but never had it simply slid away from an object under examination.

      He quit trying and focused on what they were doing, instead.

      Not that it made any more sense. Loose piles of the metal disks sat one off to the side in the dry pool, and Kai couldn’t see so much as feel it steaming with the same dark and desultory emissions that now crept over the land.

      The men gave it a wide berth, murmuring to one another as they moved efficiently around a second pile, placing additional disks to make four enclosing corners while the suited man uttered short directives.

      Kai growled into the morning. Deep in his chest. Deep in his heart. The suited man’s head jerked up; he’d heard it. He heard it again when the land picked up the sound, rolling it along the slopes and down the dry creek bed. The other two heard it as well, stopping their work to look around.

      The suited man spoke sharply to them, his manner peremptory. But as they returned to work, he also pulled out a gun, scanning the woods above and around them.

      Kai growled again. He imbued it with threat and intent and sent it out through the living forest, letting the trees thrum with it.

      You are not welcome here.

      The two men stood, backing away from their work to join the third in searching the woods—and distracting him in the process. Kai took advantage to slink closer, paws spread wide and silent on the ground, long legs coiled beneath him.

      “There aren’t supposed to be any Sentinels in this area!” one of the men argued. He was stouter than the other and held himself with stiff awareness that they weren’t alone—and a wariness of the woods that bespoke his utter lack of familiarity. “That’s why we’re here.”

      The suited man offered no sympathy. “And that’s exactly why we’ll stay. Now finish cleansing those amulets—we need the blanks.”

      Cleansing those amulets... Core pollution. The very equivalent of dumping toxic waste.

      “It’s a trick of the terrain!” the suited man snapped at the extended hesitation from his minions. “Sound carries out here. Now get back to work!”

      Kai’s tufted ear twitched with satisfaction and no little derision. Sound did carry in these woods—but it carried uphill, not down. If these men knew no better than that, it didn’t matter that they were three to his one. He could deal with them as he had to.

      Never had he taken on a human before—never had he used his quick strength to overcome another. But he’d spent a lifetime on the hunt...on his own, whether fighting off aggressive, hungry coyotes or bringing down his own prey. And he’d spent

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