His jaw tightened as he lifted his head, drawing in the scents surrounding him, and quickly, automatically separating them. Something was out there; he knew it, and he should be able to smell it. It made no sense that the answers he sought weren't on the air around him.

He could smell the scent of Lyra's brothers. They had shown up that evening, carrying bread when they left. Damn their hides. He had considered mugging them for one insane minute. He could smell the lumber they brought, sitting in her backyard, and the smell of charcoal on the air from the steaks they had grilled for dinner. But there was no scent of an intruder.

He flexed his shoulders, knowing the rain could be distilling the smell, knowing he was going to have to venture into it and hating the thought.

He moved silently from the porch, careful to stay in the shadow of the small trees he had taken the time to have planted before he moved in. Most were firs of some type, evergreens that never lost their concealing foliage. They were spaced at just the right distance to provide the concealment he needed as he made his way along the perimeters of his property.

There.

He stopped at the far corner, lifting his head to breathe in roughly, feeling the rain against his face, the ice forming in the sodden length of his hair. But there was the scent he was searching for, and it was on Lyra's property.

He turned his head, and his eyes narrowed, searching for movement that wasn't there, yet the scent of it was nearly overpowering.

Where are you, bastard? he growled silently as he made his way to the stack of lumber, using it to conceal himself from the back of the house, allowing him a clear view of her back porch as he thumbed the safety off on the powerful weapon he carried. Icy rain ran in rivulets down his hair, his arms, soaking the flannel shirt and jeans he wore. He pushed the chill and the feel of wet fabric out of his mind. He had trained in worse conditions than this for years.

He breathed in again, sifting through the scents until he could determine where this one was coming from. The wind was blowing in from the west, moving across the house and through the small valley the housing development was situated in. The scent was definitely at the back of the house. It was too clear, too thick with menace to have been diluted by the shrubbery in the front yard.

The moonless night left the yard nearly pitch-black, but the DNA that made him an abomination also made him capable of seeing much more clearly than the enemy stalking the night with him.

It wasn't a Breed. He could smell a Breed a mile away. But neither was it a harmless threat. He could feel the menace in the air, growing thicker by the moment.

Moving from the concealment of the stack of lumber, he edged his way closer to the house. Even more important than locating the threat was keeping Lyra in the house and safe. She was so damned feisty, if she even thought anyone was in her backyard she would be out there demanding answers and ignoring the danger.

He moved around the little wooden arch that held the bench swing, carefully sidestepped the beginnings of a flowerbed he had seen her working in days before, and slid along the fence that separated her property from her neighbor on the other side.

He could feel the intruder. The itch along the back of his neck was growing more insistent by the moment. He paused, bending low beside an evergreen bush as he scanned the area again.

And there he was. Crouched at the side of the house and working his way to the porch. Dressed entirely in black, the bastard might have escaped notice if Tarek hadn't caught the movement of the whites of his eyes.

He was good.

Tarek watched as he made his way to the electrical box at the side of the house. Too damned good. Tarek watched as a penlight focused a minute sliver of light as the intruder worked. When he was finished, Tarek bet his incisors the security system had somehow been canceled. The lights were still on, and not even a flicker of power had been interrupted. But there was an edge of satisfaction in the way the black-clad figure now made his way to the back door.

It wasn't happening.

Tarek moved quickly, raising his gun, aiming, only to curse virulently as the figure turned, jerked, and raised his own weapon.

Tarek rolled as he heard the whistle of the silenced weapon. Expecting, foolishly perhaps, for the assailant to turn and run, he came to his knees, aiming again, only to be slammed back to the wet grass as the gun was kicked from his hand.

He rolled to the side and jumped to his feet. His leg flew out to connect with a jaw, and he heard the grunt of pain as the other man went backward, flailing for balance.

Tarek whipped his knife from its sheath, prepared now as the other man came at him. He kicked the gun from his hand, turned, and delivered a power kick to his solar plexus, snarling as he flipped around to see the bastard coming for him again, armed with a knife as well.

At the same time, the back porch light flared, blinding him for one precious second as the assailant made his move. Pain seared his shoulder as the knife found its mark before he could jump back.

A gunshot blasted through the night. The sound of the powerful shotgun made both men pause, breathing roughly before the assailant turned and ran.

"Like hell," Tarek snarled as he rushed after him, his feet sliding in the muck beneath his feet before he found traction and sprinted behind him.

He almost had him, dammit. He was within inches of

throwing himself against the other man and bringing him down when another silent shot whistled past his head, causing him to duck and throw himself to the side instead.

The sound of a vehicle roaring down the street shattered the night. Tires screamed as the car slammed to a stop, voices raised demandingly, then it peeled from the front of the house as Tarek raced to get a glimpse of it.

"Fuck! Fuck!" His curse filled the night as the black sedan, no plates of course, roared away.

The assailant was well trained and obviously came with backup. The suspicion that it was the Trainer he was searching for filled his mind. But why go after Lyra? The man was smart enough, well trained enough that he could never have mistaken which house to attack.

On the heels of that suspicion came the knowledge that he, the hunter, could very well become the hunted. And it looked as though Lyra had been drawn into the middle of the war playing out between the Council and their now-free creations.

"The police are on their way," Lyra screamed from the back door. "Tarek, are you okay?"

At least she was still in the house.

A growl vibrated through his chest as he turned and ran back to the yard, locating the knife and illegal machine gun from the now-muddy yard.

The back door was open, and there she stood, dressed in a long gown and matching robe, holding that fucking shotgun like it could protect her.

He snapped his teeth together as he heard the sirens roaring in the distance and stomped to the house.

"Do not mention me, do you understand?" he ordered as he stopped in front of her, staring into her wide, shocked eyes as she blinked up at him.

"Do you understand me, Lyra?" he hissed impatiently. "Do not mention me. After they leave, I'll come back. Do you understand?"

He reached out to grip her arm, pulling back at the sight of the blood trickling to his hand. Fuck, his shoulder burned.

"You're hurt." She swallowed tightly.

The sirens were getting closer.

"Lyra." He bent close, breathing in her scent, her fear. "Did you hear me?"

"Yes. Why?" Her breasts were rising and falling roughly, her pale features emphasizing her large, dark eyes.

"I'll explain later. I promise." He grimaced painfully. "As soon is they leave, I'll be back. I swear, Lyra. But don't tell them what happened."

His cover was shot to hell if she even hinted at him. The police would converge on his house, and he would be forced to tell them exactly who he was. Good-bye assignment, good-bye Trainer.

She nodded slowly, glancing back into the house as the sound of '.he sirens echoed around them.

He nodded fiercely before turning and disappearing into the night. The cut to his shoulder wasn't life-threatening, but it was Jeep. He was going to have to take care of that first. He disappeared into his house as the police units whipped onto the street and skidded to a stop outside Lyra's house. He locked the door quickly, taking precious seconds to pull off his boots before moving through the dark house.

What the hell was going on?

He stripped off his clothes in the laundry room, dropping the cold, soggy clothing into the washer before taking a clean towel from the cabinet and wrapping it around his arm. Damned blood was going to stain everything.

He strode quickly upstairs, moving through his bedroom to the bathroom where he could take care of the wound to his shoulder.

As he cleaned and carefully stitched the wound, he sifted through the earlier events, trying to make sense of them. Why had someone attempted to break in to Lyra's house when it was clear she was home? Burglars waited until their victims were in bed, most likely asleep, or gone. They didn't break in while lights blazed through the house, and they sure as hell didn't hang around after they were clearly caught. And they weren't as well trained as Lyra's burglar had obviously been. That wasn't an attempted robbery. It was a hit. Why would anyone want to kill Lyra, unless it was to get to him? A warning? And if it was that damned Trainer, how the hell had he learned Tarek was tracking him?

He smeared gauze with a powerful antiseptic before laying it over the stitched wound and taping it securely in place. Then he dressed and waited. He stood at his bedroom window, watching, waiting, as the police talked to Lyra, wondering how well she would heed his earlier warning. Praying she would. Knowing it might be better for both of them if she didn't.

Chapter Four

He was a Breed.

Lyra answered the questions the police asked, filled out and signed a report, and waited impatiently for them to leave. Thank God she hadn't called her brothers before jerking that shotgun up and racing to the back door. She hadn't even thought of it. She had watched through her bedroom window as the moon broke past a cloud, shining clearly on the figures struggling in her backyard. She had recognized Tarek immediately.

Tarek Jordan was a Breed.

She had seen it in the fierce glow of his amber eyes as the light had shined into them, in the overly long incisors when he had snarled his furious orders on the back porch.

It made sense.

She should have suspected it from the beginning.

He had lived in the house beside her for months. His obvious discomfort in doing things most people did every day of their lives should have clued her in. The haunted shadows in his eyes.

His inability to cut grass should have told her something immediately. All men knew at least the rudiments of cutting grass.

The joy he found in a freshly made cup of coffee and homemade bread. As though he had never known it.

She had thought him a computer geek. That wasn't a

computer geek fighting in her backyard. That had reminded her of her brothers, practicing the tae kwon do they had learned in the military. He had reminded her of an animal, snarling, his growl echoing through the yard as he fought with the attempted burglar.

She should have known.

She had followed every news story, every report of the Breeds, just as her brothers had joined in several of the missions years before to rescue them. They had told her the tales of the ragged, savage men and women they had

transferred from the labs to the Feline Breed home base, Sanctuary.

Men near death, tortured, scarred, but with the eyes of killers. Men who were slowly being fashioned into animals—

killing machines and nothing more.

"There's nothing else we can do, Ms. Mason," the officer taking her statement announced as she signed the appropriate line. "We've called your security company, and they'll be out here tomorrow to repair the system."

"Thank you, Officer Roberts." She smiled politely as she handed the papers back to him, wishing they would just leave.

"We'll be going now." He nodded respectfully. It was about time.