Lupi 04 - Night Season

Feehan, Katherine Sutcliffe, and Fiona Brand)
    CRAVINGS
(with Laurell K. Hamilton, MaryJanice Davidson, and Rebecca York)
    ON THE PROWL
(with Patricia Briggs, Karen Chance, and Sunny)

NIGHT SEASON
E ILEEN W ILKS
    BERKLEY SENSATION, NEW YORK

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    NIGHT SEASON
    A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author
    Copyright © 2008 by Eileen Wilks.
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    ISBN: 978-1-1012-0700-0
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PROLOGUE
    I N the east, dawn smeared a promise across the inky sky, but air and earth were dark yet. At an abandoned house just outside Midland, Texas, a pair of headlights shut off. A man and a woman climbed out of a 2005 Toyota Corolla.
    â€œI keep thinking we’ve forgotten something,” the woman said as she popped the trunk. She was tall and angular, with a runner’s build and with strong shoulders—not pretty, but striking. She wore jeans, hiking boots, and a dark sweater. No makeup. Her hair was long and straight, a medium brown; her skin, an indeterminate tan that looked more Anglo than not; but she had the broad, high cheeks and strong nose of her mother’s people, the Diné. Navajo, as outsiders named them. “I always forget something.”
    The man gave her a singularly sweet smile. He, too, was tall, angular, and athletic; his only remarkable facial feature was his eyes. The gray of a winter sky, they were heavily lashed and set off by the dark slashes of his brows. Some might guess him to have Native American blood as well, based on his coppery skin and black hair. They would be wrong.
    â€œWe have everything on our list,” he said as they pulled camping equipment from the trunk. “If we failed to plan for some need, we’ll make do.” He paused. “You’re frightened.”
    She nodded, though she looked and sounded almost placid. “Not all the way to real panic yet. About a six on the ohmygod scale.”
    â€œWell, then.” He put down the duffel bag he’d been holding and folded her in his arms. “Let’s see if we can get it down to a four, at least.”
    â€œMmm,” she said after a moment, the sound muffled by his neck. “Yes, but we won’t get much done like this. My anxieties say inaction would be fine, the lying rats. That we can just can stand around and nuzzle each other. But your queen is going to expect promptness, I think.”
    â€œAmong other things. She’s a