Sentinels: Jaguar Night Read online

  “There are others like her. Like Dolan. They’re called the Sentinels, and they take the form of…coyotes. Jaguars. Other big cats, other carnivores…”

  “Sometimes herd animals,” Dolan said. “But not often.”

  “Yeah,” said Anica, still muttering. “Because it wouldn’t be sexy to turn into a cow.”

  Dolan coughed and turned away, but Meghan easily saw the glint of amusement in his eye.

  “Are they the ones who did this?” Jenny demanded, indicating the ranch with a swooping gesture. “Your Sentinels?”

  That turned him serious fast enough. “We don’t wield those kinds of powers,” he said. “We build wards; we shape existing power to influence natural processes. Some of us shepherd the earth’s power while we’re at it.”

  “Healing,” she murmured, and looked down at her ankle—and then over at Meghan. “And you. Do you…all this time, have you been a…” She couldn’t seem to bring herself to say it.

  “No,” Meghan said sharply. “I knew of the Sentinels through my mother. But she died for them, and they let her.” She glanced at Dolan as his gaze went hooded, and without thinking about it, she privately added, Not your brother. They let him die, too. I know that now.

  His eyes widened briefly; he looked away, his jaw clenched. Caught up in his own grief from that day. And—she felt it from him—gratitude.

  “And if the Sentinels didn’t do this—” Anica copied Jenny’s wide gesture “—then who did? Someone sure as hell wields those kinds of powers.”

  “There’s always a bad guy,” Meghan said, darkly bitter. “The same people who killed my mother. They’re called the Atrum Core. They want something that my mother was hiding.”

  “The lost Ark of the Covenant.” Anica looked at Dolan. “But you’re no Indiana Jones.”

  Meghan felt his quick flicker of annoyance. She could have told him that her friend was only protecting herself; that she hid her fear with sharpness. But Meghan thought he might just deserve to be on the receiving end of that sharpness. Too arrogant, by far…just like the Sentinels, whether he liked it or not. Too used to playing games with other people’s lives.

  He gave her a startled look; guilt spiked through her. She hadn’t meant for him to perceive that from her. But…she gave the thoughts another look and discovered she stood behind them.

  Jenny looked as though she might just faint. “Just how long has this been going on? Just how many of you are there…?”

  “Not so many that we can spare any of us,” Dolan told her. “We’ve been fighting them ever since two brothers of different fathers in Rome-occupied Britain squared off against each other. Over two thousand years.”

  “One of the brothers had a druidic father,” Meghan said, her words coming from the stories her mother had told her, suddenly more real than they’d ever seemed. “The other had a Roman father. And the Druid’s son could take the form of a fierce wild boar…”

  “But the Roman’s son had only the limited amuletbased powers he learned to steal from others.” Dolan nodded. “In the end, the Druid swore to protect the world from his Roman brother—to hold vigil. Vigilia, they were called—but in recent times we’ve just translated it to Sentinel.”

  “And the Atrum Core?” Anica asked. Her sharpness was fading; she looked smaller than she had. Finally overwhelmed beyond what any attitude could cover.

  “We named them,” he admitted. “Over the years. We didn’t expect them to like it, but they took it for their own.”

  “Dark core,” Meghan said. “Fits them. I wonder if they see the irony.”

  “What irony?” But Jenny’s question came warily…fully aware now that the answers might not be reassuring.

  Meghan could well understand that. “The Roman claimed to gather power only to keep the Druid in line. Even human, the man was stronger and quicker than everyone else. And although no one had yet developed ward craft, he could perceive the potential energies. The Roman saw that as a threat…but in the end, it was his own craft that evolved to threaten innocents.”

  Anica snorted. “I can’t believe they’d want you to tell us any of this. Your Sentinels. Or even the Atrum Core.” She said those words with distaste, the same way she might pick up a dead mouse. However shaken she’d been, she was already bouncing back. Tough, that Anica. Meghan felt a prickle of pride for her friend—and one of guilt. Maybe she should have said something sooner after all.

  Dolan looked away, off into the hills. “If they’d kept their timetable, it wouldn’t have come to this.” But she felt his stab of guilt join hers, and she prodded it—and suddenly she knew. He wasn’t supposed to have come. He’d done it anyway, counting on the team’s imminent arrival. And he’d stirred up the unexpected…and now their backup was delayed.

  Now they were on their own.

  He gave her a quick, startled look—she knew he’d felt her presence, her invasiveness. And though suddenly she didn’t feel quite as welcome—as if he’d tried to close doors against her—she knew she could stay there, so close as to have been joined, if she wanted.

  But she’d seen enough. Enough to back away, emotionally dizzy—still throbbing with the awareness of him and the recent touch of his hand, and yet…so many reasons for fury. For resentment.

  If you choose to look at it that way.

  She wasn’t the only one who knew how to intrude, it seemed.

  But Dolan turned back to Anica. “The Sentinels are fairly regulated…we have a brevis regional structure, plenty of red tape and hoops to jump through. But the regional Core septs are family-run; their drozhars—princes—have more freedom…and more power. The local drozhar is a man named Fabron Gausto.” He stopped, his jaw working on emotion. “Let’s just say I’m acquainted with him. And the only way we’re going to get through this is if we work together…not if we’re wasting energy just figuring it out.”

  Jenny turned on him with unprecedented bitterness. Jenny, who so keenly felt the loss of any animal, along with their fears and pains. “If you weren’t here, there’d be nothing to get through. Luka wouldn’t be gone, the sheep wouldn’t be gone, half this ranch wouldn’t be scorched and burned—”

  A flare of matching resentment took Meghan, resonating in her. Her nostrils flared at the acrid scent of charred flesh and wood; her hands tingled from the herbs she’d applied to Jenny’s ankle.

  And Dolan took a deep breath, looking directly at Meghan. His voice sounded rough…exhausted. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe you’re right.”

  Jenny startled; she hadn’t expected agreement. Meghan took her arm, just as startled—and unaccountably moved. Unaccountably proud. The resentment faded away. And she realized out loud, “Once the Core moved into this area looking for the manuscript, they would have found me. They’d have come for us anyway. Maybe not this night, maybe not this way…” She looked to Dolan, a dare of a glance—no platitudes, no patronizing reassurance.

  He didn’t give them. He said, “Probably so.” But he didn’t meet her gaze, even knowing she could see clearly in the darkness now. He looked off to the mountain slope rising behind the ranch and he said, “The thing is, now they know I’m still alive. And the Core’s local drozhar—” He stopped, glanced back at Meghan and shrugged. “He’s not going to let that stand. They’ll be back.”

  Chapter 13

  They rounded up the sheep, housing them in two horse stalls. Dolan dragged the dead animal away, far into the woods, and left it for the coyotes and vultures. In the background he heard Meghan calling for Luka until her voice broke, and when he returned he convinced the women that Jenny and Anica should stay at the ranch house—the only fully warded structure left on the property. They brought in Jenny’s dog, who distrusted the smell of them all—not just the smoke, but the biting, bitter smell of the flame devil itself.

  Anica took the couch, Jenny the guest bed…and Dolan pulled off his boots and jeans in Meghan’s room, scrubbed his face, hands and arms in her bathroom and eased into the bed beside he
r sleeping form. Tonight, in here, they were safe. The rest of the ranch…not so much.

  But if Meghan had guessed, she hadn’t protested…she might well have picked up from him the terrible danger of manipulating wards when exhausted to this extent. And the Core would need time to recover from the night’s work as well. Whoever had created amulets for the probes and flame devil—the remnants of which would be just inside the boundaries somewhere—that person would need rest, too.

  Come the following days, they’d repair and reinforce the wards as they repaired the ranch. And Dolan would call brevis regional and pry that team away from Tucson, whatever it took. And then somewhere in there, they’d find the manuscript.

  He couldn’t allow himself even a moment’s doubt.

  Meghan lay on her side, sheets slipping away from the strong, refined line of her shoulder, smoothed into the dip of her waist, tightened over the curve of her hip. He rested his hand there, tucking himself up against her; the tight muscles of her bottom spooned in against him, caressing him. The hum of her proximity, the warmth of her body, the trust in her murmur as she recognized his presence, turned into him slightly, and fell back into deep sleep…more than enough to arouse him. But not fiercely; not as it had been before. Comfortable and satisfying and enough just to be what it was—an exhausted man holding his lover through what remained of the night.

  Dolan woke to weight settling on his legs, shifting up to his hips, offering a sweet swell of pleasure. Not quite awake enough for understanding, he nonetheless did what any sane man would do—he pushed into it, a groan rumbling from his throat and then a gasp as the pleasure pulled at him, tight and demanding.

  Meghan. Daylight and morning and Meghan, helping herself.

  She sat on him, her hands traveling the planes of his torso, her own sensations reverberating along his very receptive nerves. Clean and ginger-mint spicy, her skin still damp on his, her body still unexplored. He opened his eyes to find her watching him, still clothed in the clinging tank sleep shirt, but minus any bottoms whatsoever. A sharp jolt of heat wrung a gasp from him, loud and unrestrained.

  She leaned over him. “Shh. Hear them?”

  He did now. Bumping around the kitchen—cabinets opening and closing, the screen door opening with what was meant to be quiet, someone’s footsteps on the porch. Jenny and Anica—and still Meghan moved, so he clenched his teeth on another groan and lifted his hips, trembling as she trembled. Through those clenched teeth, he managed, “Are you sure?” Sure about this? He’d felt her turmoil clearly enough the evening before, her fast-shifting emotions. And no wonder, given the events of the past few days. His sudden presence in her life…the sudden precipitation of their entwined nature.

  She gave a short laugh. He felt it through her body, even though she hadn’t taken him in yet; air slipped through his teeth in a hiss of want. She was ready enough, all heat and softness; she tortured them both with her gentle movement even as she finally answered his question. “No,” she said. “Yes.” I hate you, I love you, I want you gone, I can’t live without you. “I don’t even know you!”

  His fingers clutched the sheets. “You do,” he said. No one has this without knowing.

  “Maybe I do,” she murmured, and raised herself, hovering over taking him in. Hovering…

  The sheet tore beneath his fingers.

  Meghan gave a short, breathless laugh and eased down over him. He arched up to meet her, his head tipping back, his neck tight and straining. He faintly heard the screen door close, the sound of running footsteps; Jenny’s call to her dog. The house was theirs.

  Meghan whispered, “Go for it.”

  And he did.

  “Still certain?” he asked of her as he emerged from her bathroom—an obvious modernization in this old house, full of saltillo tile and southwestern mosaics. Towel over his shoulder, jeans not yet buttoned all the way up—he got a start when she turned from her jewelry box, still fastening the back of a tiny onyx earring, to let her gaze linger on his body. Dressed in work jeans with a flat narrow belt still hanging open and another tank top—this one with Encontrados printed across the front—she watched him with an expression that in no way matched her practical appearance. He felt himself grow hard, and he growled, “There’s only one place things will go if you give me that look.”

  Her surprise echoed gently through the both of them; she hadn’t realized the hunger lingering in her eyes. She picked up the second earring, closing the top drawer of the scarred old chest of drawers with her elbow. “Certain?” she said, a stall in response to his question, though it seemed like forever since he’d asked it. She just as quickly realized she’d never fool him, and sighed. “I guess I’m not certain of a thing, except that we need to protect this ranch. No—” she shook her head “—that’s not true. I know I can’t stay away from you. I know that even standing here in the same room stirs up all kinds of things in me—and that—” she looked pointedly at his groin “—is the least of it.”

  He mimed a blow to his heart. “You wound me.”

  She grinned. “Okay. Maybe not the least of it. There’s a thing here between us. I get that. I just haven’t figured out exactly what it is or what it’ll be. But I do know we have this ranch to protect, and that manuscript to find—and that means figuring out the rest of it later. They’re okay out there, aren’t they?”

  Her sudden change of subject threw him for a moment—but he could never truly be confused over meaning where Meghan was concerned. Not any longer. “The Core prefers to attack at night. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be watching, but the risks are lower…and I’m betting there are animals to be fed.”

  “I’m betting they’ve already been fed,” Meghan murmured. “That reminds me…we had the farrier on the calendar today. I’ve got to cancel that…and Chris was going to come out and work with Jenny to settle the new gelding. I don’t want him anywhere near here—or the two who were coming to help shift hay—”

  “Warn them off.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “Drama,” she said. “Right from the start, drama. Showing up at the round pen with your dire warnings, taking the jaguar right there in front of me when you left…the world’s a stage, huh?” But when he merely looked at her, entirely unused to being called on such things, she grinned and said, “Never mind. I’ll just phone them and reschedule. I think it’ll raise fewer questions, don’t you?”

  “Right,” he muttered, still off balance.

  And she seemed to damned well know it. She leaned against the chest of drawers and crossed her arms. “Speaking of the Core,” she said, “Last night, I got the distinct impression that there’s more at stake than the manuscript. In fact, it sounded a whole lot like there might be a grudge thing going on with you and the local Core’s prince.”

  Dolan frowned, the edge of his thumb passing idly over the faded scar on his side—not one she’d seemed to notice, and he caught himself, letting that hand rest low on his hip. Confrontational. More his style. “He finds me annoying.”

  “You might have said something. I’ve got a couple of traded memories, and sometimes I hear you pretty clearly in my head, and sometimes I just get little hints. Your mind isn’t an open book or anything.”

  Thank God for that. “Would it have changed anything?” He lowered his voice, nearly hitting gravel…hiding defensiveness. He wasn’t used to that, either.

  She shrugged. “That’s not the point.”

  “Coffee,” he said desperately. If she’d flung the words at him, he’d have known his role—the same role he’d had since his brother died. The defiant one. The rogue. Dark and dangerous. But this civil conversation left him no easy knee jerks, no easy patterns into which he could fall.

  “Sex would be better,” she said, heading out to the kitchen. “But I don’t want to wear you out. Big day ahead. Fixing the ranch, fixing the wards…”

  Sex would be better. Holy damn cow. She’d done that on purpose.

  And to good effect.

  N
ewly warned not to underestimate this woman, Dolan rescued the shirt he’d washed in the shower and flapped out the wrinkles, hanging it to dry in her open window. He reached for the phone by her bedside, but only until he heard her voice in the kitchen—a matter-of-fact message-leaving voice. The farrier. The smell of brewing coffee hit his nose as she made another call, this one to Chris. He’d thought her tone casual enough, but the kid somehow caught whiff of trouble; she had to convince him not to come out and make sure everything was okay.

  The moment he heard her finish the call, he picked up the phone. No better way to reestablish his balance, his dark and dangerous rogue attitude, than to have a sweet conversation with brevis regional.

  “Carter,” he said, barely giving the man time to answer the phone. “Where the hell is that team?”

  Carter came back at him just as quickly. “Is this where I remind you that you went in early? That the consul didn’t want you out there at all?”

  “Two days early,” Dolan said, falling into a near growl—and finding the familiar role to be a relief even as his ire rose. “We’re long past the consul’s timeline, and you know it. I don’t give a damn if you’ve got the whole team there—send them on! Your latecomer will only be two hours away once he finally gets there.”

  “She,” Carter said absently. Dolan heard the ticketytick of a keyboard, knew Carter was checking up on the missing team member. “You’re not the only one with things going on. She’s in the middle of something else. It’s wrapping up—”

  “Forget her! Didn’t anyone at brevis feel what happened out here last night? The Core took this to civilians, Carter.”

  His response was dry enough. “We felt it. I have the reports to prove it.” The rustle of said pages reached Dolan through the phone line. “No doubt they were coming after you. As far as we can tell, Gausto has his little contingent hunkered down in Sonoita. I’m not so sure last night wasn’t a ploy to drive you to the manuscript.”