Circling back, Lucas came close to sneaking up on the sentinel, but he moved out of reach a bare instant before Lucas dropped down from the tree limb he'd been padding along. They greeted each other with throaty rumbles and then set off. It was something beyond price to run like this, to let the night air whisper along his fur, to blend into the darkness until he was only a shadow and Clay an orange-black blur.

Running with his sentinels was one of the things every alpha did to strengthen the bonds of loyalty. Lucas had no need to do that with Clay. Like Vaughn and Nate, the sentinel had been tied to him since the night they'd hunted down and savagely ripped every single male member of a roaming leopard clan into tiny little pieces. It had been changeling justice. An eye for an eye. Vengeance to lay his parents' souls to rest.

Now he ran with the sentinels because they were tough, fast, and dangerous enough to test him to the limit. No alpha could afford to let his skills slip. Though they were more civilized than their wild brethren, an alpha's rule would only be accepted as long as he was strong enough to lead the pack. And such strength wasn't always of the body.

The Psy thought the changelings stupid because they sacrificed the wisdom of their elders in favor of young blood. The Psy didn't know anything. The sentinels withdrew from frontline positions as they grew older because they had to be physically invulnerable - Nate was already on the lookout for his replacement. Upon retirement as a sentinel, he would become one of Lucas's advisors, his rank undiminished.

If Lucas retained the incoming sentinels' respect as he aged, they'd take over the physical role he played in the pack-meting out Pack justice and keeping Pack discipline. During such times, those who didn't understand their ways often came to believe that the strongest of the sentinels had become the new alpha. Changelings saw no need to educate them otherwise.

But that was in the unknown future. Right now he had to be the most lethal of them all, savage and brilliant. Because not only was the pack watching but so were the SnowDancers. One hint of weakness in DarkRiver and the wolves would come down on them in a hail of teeth and claws.

He couldn't allow his inexplicable attraction to one of the Psy sway him from his goal. More depended on this than merely the sating of vengeance. After DarkRiver had realized the existence of a serial killer preying on changeling women, they'd warned all other changeling groups in the killer's hunting grounds. Every single alpha had wanted to go for the jugular - none more so than the wolves.

Lucas had insisted on taking on the job of hunting the killer because in spite of losing Kylie, he was the lone alpha who could still think. It was as if the blood that had christened him had also given him the ability to see beyond the dark-red glimmer of fury and retribution.

The SnowDancers had reluctantly handed him the reins because his pack had lost a member while theirs hadn't. But their patience was limited. The wolves knew that sooner or later, the killer would strike them too. The second that happened, all bets were off - the SnowDancers would begin to hunt down the Psy and the Psy would retaliate, leading to war on a catastrophic scale.

Lucas slept deeply after the exertion of a run that had left even Clay exhausted. He'd expected only darkness but the most exquisite pleasure welcomed him into his dreams.

Slender fingers traveled down his front as he lay sprawled on his back, exploring him so carefully that he felt owned. No woman had ever come close to owning Lucas Hunter, but in this dreamworld he allowed her to play. After endless moments, the fingers stopped their stroking and he felt the brush of wet heat against his nipple. His dream-lover was taking her time licking circles around it, arousing him to fever pitch. Opening his eyes, he tangled a hand in the silky curls cascading over his chest.

Her head rose and night-sky eyes met his.

He wasn't surprised. The panther in him had found Sascha Duncan enticing from the start and in this dreamworld, it was okay to let that fascination free, to indulge his feline curiosity about this most unusual woman. Here there was no possibility of war and she was no longer an emissary of the enemy.

"What do you think you're doing, kitten?" He let his gaze wander over the dark honey of her bare skin.

Those eyes widened in shock. "This is my dream."

He chuckled. Even in his dreams, she was as willful as she was in life. He'd begun to suspect that not everything was efficiency with Sascha. No, sometimes she just liked sharpening her claws on him. "I'm at your mercy."

She made an annoyed sound and sat up on her knees. "Why are you talking?"

He folded his arms behind his head, delighted by the sight of her lush breasts displayed so beautifully for him. He liked this dream. Even the panther was pleased. "Don't you want me to?" He made it a temptation.

"Well..." She frowned. "The whole point is to taste you... I guess you'd never be silent in bed."

"You're right." He watched her watch him. Her eyes held such pure heat that he felt branded. The alpha in him wanted to reach out and tangle his fingers in the shadowed triangle of curls exposed by her kneeling position, but he was wary of shattering this strange dream.

"Can I?" She ran her fingers along the markings on his face, her lower lip caught between her teeth. "Do you feel my touch?"

He wanted to bite down on that sexy mouth she was teasing him with. "Every stroke." The markings were highly sensitive and he was very, very choosy about who he let touch them.

"I've been wanting to stroke them since we first met." With a sigh, she leaned down to place a row of kisses along the jagged lines. The deep rumble of his purr seemed to startle her but it wasn't a bad kind of startlement - he felt her nipples harden against his chest. After exploring his face to her satisfaction, she sat back up, raking her nails gently down his chest.

"Harder, kitten. I won't break."

She took a shaky breath and did as he'd asked. "Cats like to be petted." It was a soft murmur.

"I told you we're picky about who we allow to pet us." He ran a hand up the outside of her thigh.

She shivered. "Why would I dream of you touching me? I want to touch you."

"But if you're dreaming of me, wouldn't I be touching you?" He was delighted by this odd dream, which felt almost like reality, except of course the real Sascha would never display her emotions so openly.

"Yes... you're very territorial." A frown line appeared on her forehead. "You'd want to mark me. My subconscious must be filling in the gaps."

He tried not to grin. "Who do you let pet you?"

"Psy don't get petted." A hint of sadness flickered in those eyes he was starting to be able to read.

"Maybe you've been hanging around with the wrong people." He stroked his hand to the curve of her buttock and stopped. "I'd take great pleasure in petting you."

Her breath came out in a gasp. "Me first," she whispered, leaning down. "It's my dream. Just a taste," she said again. "That's all, just a taste."

He would never say no to being petted by this exotic female who fascinated him. Not when she looked at him with fire not ice in her gaze. His hand clenched on her bottom as she nibbled, licked, and sucked at his nipple with the utmost attention to detail. She didn't stop him when he ran his fingers down her thigh, luxuriating in that honeyed skin he wanted to lick all over.

Her mouth moved to his neglected nipple, one hand reaching down to scrape the nails up his thigh. He growled softly in the back of his throat. She looked up. "What does that mean?" Her hand had dropped to lay against his inner thigh, excruciatingly close to his rock-hard erection.

Her head tilted slightly to one side and he remembered her questions in the car. Odd that his subconscious would remember that small giveaway gesture, but then again, this whole dream was odd. Not that he was complaining.

"It means keep doing exactly what you were doing." He moved his hand around her bottom and slid down to lightly rub at the wet heat of her entrance, sending the scent of her desire flaring into the air.

She gasped and pulled away. "Not yet."

He was used to taking control but there was something in her eyes that told him she'd disappear if he pushed any harder. He put his hands back under his head, telling her without words that he was hers to play with. For now. As if she'd heard the unspoken caveat, she moved down the bed and straddled his thighs midway up his legs.

He looked his fill of that lush female body and knew he was going to mark her when he took her. Nothing hurtful. Just a bite or two, a playful nip here and there in places where no one could mistake their meaning. Sascha Duncan was going to be Lucas Hunter's woman.

Night-sky eyes wide, she wrapped one slender hand around his jutting erection. He shuddered. "Tighter."

She squeezed and then began to move her hand up and down. "Why does this make me feel good?" Her voice was heavy with sexual heat, her breath coming out in soft pants. "There was nothing about this in the manuals."

Moving his hands from behind his head, he reached down and pulled her forward by gripping her thighs. She came only so far and not far enough. "What?"

"I'm caressing you and yet I'm the one who feels... pleasure." The last word was a moan as he grew even harder in her hands.

Lucas was used to sex, used to sensual women who knew what they were doing, but this Psy with her questions and her strange innocence had him so desperately hungry, he was starting to lose the ability to think. "Suck me, kitten. Taste me." The raw demand came from the animal heart of him.

She didn't scare. And he was pleased. "Taste you? Yes... I have to taste you... have to satisfy the craving." Scooting down his body, she knelt on all fours, knees between his legs, hands on his hip bones. Then she dipped her head and began to taste him as he'd asked.

He clenched his hand in her hair, telling himself not to buck as his body demanded. The sweet suction of her mouth was the most intense pleasure he'd ever experienced. When he saw lights flicker behind his eyes, he knew they were shifting from human to cat, cat to human. Only the most extreme edge of arousal could make him lose that much control.