A Feral Darkness by Doranna Durgin Page A

But not perfect ones. Sammi, who weighed enough that Brenna worried about her health and who never seemed to catch her breath, nonetheless used that breath on endless streams of verbal worrying. "Brenna!" she said, as though Masera weren't even in the room. "I wondered why I didn't see you out front. I wondered if you'd heard about that dog pack—you're right in their territory, aren't you?"
           Before Brenna had a chance to answer, Masera said, "No one's seen a single member of that pack."
           Sammi ignored him, making her soda selection automatically enough that it was obvious she knew this machine well. "I hope you're being careful."
           "Sunny's crated," Brenna said, but she glanced at Masera and realized right away that his own words had been deceptively offhand in delivery; his eyes were watching every nuance of the conversation. "Hold on," she said, balling up the plastic wrap that had held her peanut butter and jelly sandwich and twisting in her chair to toss it out. "I'll walk back up front with you."
           "Finish your lunch," Masera said, nodding at the remaining baggie of carrot sticks as he swallowed the last of his coffee; Brenna winced at the thought of how hot it must have been. "I'm through here."
           It stopped her short, her hand in the act of stuffing the carrots into her Warrior Princess lunch box. He didn't wait for her response, but stood—or tried to. It seemed to take him by surprise, as though his attention had been so diverted that he'd forgotten his battered status. But he pushed himself to his feet, straightened with effort, and tossed his coffee cup at the giant bin in the corner of the room, gathering up his papers.
           "Don't forget to come spend some time in the tub room," she said, and gave him a dare-you smile. People forgot she could do that; she had one of those wholesome faces, the kind that take on cheerful as their default expression. Her eyes even tipped up a tiny bit, as if they were always smiling. Sometimes she stood in front of the mirror and tried for sultry , but couldn't ever pull it off. Not with that chin—strong, in a strong jaw, and with a definite cleft. Or with those lips, which had a little uplift in each corner and, just like her eyes, always seemed to imply a smile even when just in repose. And her nose...just hopeless. Not that it didn't suit her face, but maybe that was the problem. It wasn't quite what you would call perky, not with that subtle bump on the bridge of it, but it was darn close.
           Taken together, her features made people assume certain things of her. Because of her face, they thought her to be incessantly cheerful, and possibly just a little naive. Because she was tall and lean unto gawkiness, with big hands and bony shoulders and a body that, although it had decent dimensions, couldn't seem to assemble itself in gracefully, they somehow thought her to be unsophisticated in a charming way, perhaps even someone to be protected, as her father always had.
           But she wasn't. She could meet a challenge as well as anyone, and stand up for herself along the way. And that's what her smile said to Masera, a smile she'd startled herself with because she never bothered to use it on people who couldn't manage to perceive it, and here it was. Some part of her had realized the truth before her thinking brain…that he could see beyond her features, beyond her appearance.
           The hard smile surprised him briefly, much as she'd meant it to—but it didn't seem to put him off, also as she'd meant it to. There was something about him that intensified, leaping to meet that look; something in those hooded eyes.
           "Wait till you heal up from whoever kicked the tar out of you," she told him. "You don't want to have to call me in to lift a dog for you."
           "Like you did for Roger," Sammi said with a wicked little grin—right on cue, her eyes lighting at the