Now he ranged out ahead with Treviño, while Lyn sneezed in a violent cluster and wiped her eyes clear of tears, and Ryan went distant and puzzled, returning his vague attention to them to say, “There’s something going on, but I can’t…” and then he went distant again.
“Is he okay?” Marlee asked, aghast to see him so vulnerable here in the enemy’s den.
“I’m shielding for him.” Lyn’s tone might be dry, but her affection was clear. “He’ll be back in a moment, unless there’s something really big going on—and we frankly don’t expect it. The Core doesn’t have that ability.”
“Usually,” Ryan muttered, taking a few steps down the hall as the other two men fell in before him, covering him. But though the hall was longer than it should have been—longer than the house allowed, literally dug into the hillside backing it—it only took a moment before he came to the short stairs and the doorway the two downed men had been struggling with. “In here,” he said. “Something.”
“Out here.” Treviño grabbed Marlee, pushing her back against the wall. “I knew we shouldn’t have brought her.”
And then she saw that Gausto had a whole small army pouring in at the end of the hallway. With guns. And bullets. And twitchy trigger fingers.
Stun guns. Knock-out drugs. No-kill policies. Whose great idea was that?
Gunfire sounded from the hallway beyond the jumbled shelves and closed door—and if the pounding ceased, the ruckus multiplied. Gausto smirked; it colored his words. “If you let me out of here before they break through, I might be lenient with you. Otherwise, you can damned well expect the worst.”
Nick ignored him. Jet was the one who mattered now. If he could give her back her wolf, they might just—barely—make it out of here.
He closed out the chaos of the hallway—the filtered screams, the solid thump of something slamming against the wall. He balanced himself, setting his feet more widely, coiling his thin remaining power—drawing it out from every corner of himself, gathering it…ready to strike. Connecting them as strongly as he could, absorbing every facet of her—her hair brushing against his bare shoulder, her breath against his neck, the tiny cool spot she’d so recently licked. Her body pressed against his—breasts firm, abdomen toned and tight against his, hips curving under his hands, legs very nearly twined between his. He shut away the burn and throb of a wound laced with whatever Gausto had put on that tranquilizer dart-turned-weapon, and felt only Jet.
She must have realized, at the last minute, that he had no intention of using a scalpel. She startled as he found the scar on her back, focusing on it—finding what was within, matching it, pulling up the energy to counter it.
To destroy it. Knowing the miniature conflagration the process often triggered…not knowing what it would do to her. He whispered again, “This is going to hurt.”
And then he went for it.
Jet stiffened; she lost the air in her lungs, a warm gust against his collarbone. He steeled himself—he forced himself. Going for it. Going after it, a wolf after prey. She jerked; her fingers clamped into his bare arms, biting deep…she jerked again, crying out.
Going for it…
All his efforts, all his energy. Because if he didn’t manage it, then neither of them was going anywhere. Gausto would win. Driving down through the muffling interference of her flesh, getting his teeth into the metal and its corrupted power—
Jet threw her head back and screamed.
Oh, my God, Marlee cried—inside her head, out loud into the chaos—she had no idea. She crouched down in the corner by the door, making herself as small as she could, the stun gun thrust out before her as if it would stop a bullet or even as if it would stop one of Gausto’s men. Change, change already!
And quite abruptly realized what she’d demanded, silently or not. Change, so you can use your full Sentinel strength against them. Change, so they could take advantage of the strength and skills for which she’d resented them all these years. Change, so they could even the odds—so they could maintain their no-kill directive without being killed.
But Treviño had gone down already—a vest shot, leaving him stunned and then leaving him mad, lurching for cover. Ryan was tucked in at the open doorway halfway down the hall—how he’d made it there, Marlee wasn’t sure. Lyn and Maks covered as best they could, laying down a few shots with a semiautomatic taken from one of the downed men…and a few shots was all it had.
From behind the door beside her came a haunting scream, full of agony and fear. A woman’s scream. Lyn jerked around to look at the door in alarm, exposing herself—Maks pulled her back to the dubious cover behind his own body.
Nothing kept Gausto’s men back but their fear of the Sentinels; nothing kept them from steady fire but their fear of return fire. But they’d realized there would be nothing more than sporadic plinking; they’d realized the team had not shifted.
They’d gotten bolder.
“Change!” Marlee shrieked, very much out loud. “Would you just freakin’ change already!”
Resistance. The amulet within Jet fought back. Wellcrafted, well-protected…a strong working. Gausto shouted at him—railing for freedom, scrabbling at the hard-tied kennel door…just plain trying to break his concentration.
Not now. Nick held to the amulet, pouring power into it, keeping Jet close as she twisted against him, one scream leading into another, no room for more than a sobbing breath between—not until she gave a deep, gasping groan and went suddenly limp. Dead weight and he just as suddenly wasn’t strong enough to carry the both of them, desperately juggling his grasp on her with his attention on the amulet with his attempt to make their descent a gentle one—feeling some last gasp of himself strike out at the amulet as he took them down.
Cold, hard floor; warm, scented Jet; gunfire in the hallway and shouts of fear, something new slamming up against the door. Limp and utter emptiness and still that thin veneer of resistance remaining. Just a little more… He dredged it up from somewhere…his soul, perhaps. His own wolf. His heart.
The amulet shuddered within Jet. Jet shuddered around it. She gulped air, a convulsive breath; she thrashed briefly in his grip.
And this time her cry was of triumph.
But Nick could barely hear it any longer.
Marlee blinked at the speed with which they did it. With Ryan glancing back at Treviño “—Hell, yes!—” and Lyn’s expression taking on a sudden resolute determination—Lyn, who had left Gausto with his recent and permanent limp.
As for Maks…he simply did it. Pulled free the Velcro on his flak vest, a quick series of jerks and the garment hadn’t even hit the tiled floor before he pulsed in blue-white light, a crescendo of gathered lightning that stabbed through the hall until Marlee had to turn her face away, eyes closed—and even then, the cascade of flares kept her blinded for what seemed like a deadly long moment.
But it blinded their Core opponents, too. And they knew as well as Marlee what it meant. Cursing, the sound of scrabbling…they were pulling back.
Marlee opened her eyes with trepidation. Maks filled the hallway directly before her, massive Siberian with vibrant striping and silent presence. Lyn, quick and nimble in her gloriously spotted ocelot, darted around him and down the hall; Ryan gazed back at Marlee with dusky green eyes, wise eyes, and she knew she was being told to stay put.
Treviño didn’t so much as bother to look her way. Heavy-boned jaguar, already on the hunt, padding down the hall at a silent trot that nonetheless resonated strength and power.
But Maks didn’t follow. For from beyond the doorway—a door battered and damaged and nearly pulled off its hinges—the woman screamed again.
No, not that. Not quite a scream. A shout, a cry—something feral and soul-deep and full of welcoming victory. Maks looked at that door, great gold-green eyes an eerie reflection of his human’s golden brown, and Marlee must have been crazy because she quite clearly understood his intent, scrambling out of his way.
And Maks took on the door
.
The shouting, the gunfire, the heavy assault against the door behind the shelf barriers she’d made, Gausto’s shouts of rage as he rattled the cage door…Jet heard it all and cared about none of it.
Here, in Nick’s arms, she was herself again. Tangled on the floor, her back on fire and her body still twitching from the power Nick had poured into her, she was nonetheless herself. Complete and secure, exultation swelling into a howl at the back of her throat.
It burst free, sweet to her own ears—a song from her deepest wolf.
But celebration didn’t last long. Not with Nick so still beside her, beneath her; his hands fell slack from her hips. She nudged him, a hand on his arm, and shook him when the nudge didn’t work.
His head lolled on the stained concrete; his eyes fluttered open, making a brief attempt to focus before they rolled back again.
He was all right. She had to believe that. He had given of himself, given everything of himself, but he would be all right.
The door shuddered, a rending sound, and shifted in the frame. The shelves blocking it groaned.
“Let me out, Jet—I can help him. In exchange for my freedom.” Gausto’s voice had taken on a desperate tone. There, behind the bars he clutched, the cage still lashed closed, he looked a battered and broken figure. Lamed in body, crippled in power…he could no longer hurt them. “You were never spiteful, Jet. Release me, or they’ll kill me!”
Jet’s gaze flickered to the besieged door. Nick had shown none of the ruthlessness that Gausto had once assigned to him; she did not expect it from his people, should they prevail. And Gausto’s minions had never defied him. Kill him? “I don’t think they will,” she told him simply. Not for the sake of doing it. “You are safer in there.”
“Bitch!” Gausto railed at her. “Pretending to be human! You gave yourself to him, didn’t you? You were mine, Jet, you had no right—! Mine!” Words failed him into sputtering, saliva gathering at the corners of his mouth, his knuckles white around the bars of the cage. He grasped at composure, managed to snarl, “If you think I’m helpless in here, you’re laughable. I have amulets—”
Which he could use only on himself. Jet turned away—turned back to Nick. Stroked the side of his face—and realized that his breathing came shallow and erratic. Sudden panic gripped her. What had he done? She prodded him; she poked him. He didn’t so much as stir. Behind her the door groaned and the shelves shifted and her time ran out. He’d done this so they could turn to wolf and escape, and yet…here they were.
Still trapped.
“Nick,” she said, low and urgent—running her hands along his body as if she might find some answer there, bending down to nip along his collarbone, letting the wolf take charge. “Nick—” But no, there was nothing, nothing at all.
Because it is all inside me. And now she was whole, she was complete and fulfilled and strong and free, and she didn’t need what he’d given her any longer.
He couldn’t take it. And she had no idea how to give it back.
And the door groaned and the shelves shifted and Gausto’s words beat nonsensically at her ears and on impulse she bent to Nick and kissed him, thinking of the way they’d touched each other—the way it had felt to change beside him, shared energies sweeping through them. She reached for the intent of the change without making it—hovering there, with the energies triggered, the faint flicker of blue-white lightning tracing around her and through him.
“What are you doing?” Gausto demanded, panic in his own voice. “What the hell are you doing?”
As if she even knew.
But she knew the pliancy of Nick’s lips beneath hers, the hard muscle and bone beneath her hands. She knew that moment of touching him, intertwining energies that had not, perhaps, ever been meant to intertwine. She held herself there, in that place, and she pushed herself at him. Blindly, ignorantly…bluntly.
No question as to whether she reached him; he jerked as though snake-bitten. His eyes opened, wide and startled; pale green stared back at her from so very close; his mouth froze beneath hers. She pushed again—his eyes widened; his body jerked, arching slightly. His breath gusted out to mingle with hers. And she pushed, and he gasped a surprised noise and she pushed and he cried out, carrying her right up off the ground as his body tightened—and then before she could do it again, up came his hands to cradle her head—fiercely, possessively—and his mouth came back to life, owning her.
That much, she also knew.
He kissed her with fervent intensity, until she let the edge of the change die back, leaving her fully human with wolf within; she forgot the cold, stained concrete and Gausto’s raging and the conflict beyond the door—
Until a hard impact on the door knocked the top hinge askew and Gausto cursed soundly. Nick broke away from her, and if it felt abrupt, he softened it with the lingering hand at the side of her face, gentle when the rest of him had gone hard and alert. “There’s no point in that,” he said, and his voice rasped, strained by agony under Gausto’s hands. Jet twisted to see, and found Gausto pulling an amulet from his pocket.
“You underestimate me if you think I’m going to be caged by your kind.” Gausto’s hand closed over the amulet; the other rested at the leather-tied cage door, where the tight knot on the outside of the bars had resisted his efforts to work it loose. He looked directly at Jet. “You can still come with me. We have our differences, but I value you. I will protect you. I made you, Jet. No one understands you better than I do.”
Jet sat up, Nick’s shirt askew around her, and she narrowed her eyes at Gausto. “You are mistaken,” she said. “You don’t understand me at all. You never have. And after what I have seen of you, I will stop you at any price.”
“Good.” Gausto sneered a smile at her. “Because that’s what you’ll have to pay.” He stepped back from the cage door, holding the amulet up. Jet only knew he’d activated it when Nick reacted, climbing halfway to his feet—his back smeared with bloody streaks and his legs uncertain, but no hesitation on his face. Only alarm.
And behind the crush of shelves, a huge, reaching paw pushed briefly through the space at the edge of the crumpling door, gold and orange and white. Jet gave it a startled growl of surprise, but Gausto only looked even more resolute. He shrugged out of his suit coat; he unbuttoned his shirt, still holding the amulet. “Do you feel it?” he asked Nick, unbuckling his belt. “It comes up a little slow, but I’ll still be out of here before—ah!—small price, that pain…” He put the amulet around his neck as the huge orange and gold paw raked shrieking claws across metal, and he smiled at Nick—a terrible smile, all teeth and hard, cold gaze. It didn’t waver, even as he jerked, losing breath; when he straightened, he stepped out of his pants, tossing them away; he stepped out of his boxers and stood tall, with no attempt to hide his stirring erection. “Nothing personal,” he told them. “The workings have their own mind.”
“Don’t do this.” Nick made no attempt to rise fully; he’d put himself in front of Jet, who still fought the lingering burn deep inside her back. “Those are my people—you’ll face all of us. But it’s not too late to—”
Gausto laughed. “Too late for you,” he said, and then he had only an instant’s warning—enough for uncertainty to flicker over his face, and then his eyes snapped open wide and his head snapped back and his arms flung away from his sides and his entire body sounded a silent scream, a puppet held aloft and dangling. A black wave of power trumpeted out from his body; from the hallway, a great beast snarled in startled alarm. Nick ducked his head, one hand out to shield his eyes, the other reaching back to Jet. Waves and concentric waves of black power oscillated from Gausto, coming faster and faster—raising the hair on his head even as it raised him to full arousal, his eyes open incredulously wide and his voice spiraling in an upward cry.
Fear forced its way out Jet’s throat. She grabbed Nick’s hand, held it hard—made herself watch as the power throbbed to a climax, taking Gausto with a combination of ecstacy and agony
and slamming out a thunderous clap of sound. She didn’t duck—she stopped herself from that—but she blinked. And when she opened her eyes again, she found herself looking at wolf.
No. Not wolf.
Something akin to wolf. Something close enough to pass, but which instantly raised her hackles, tightening the skin all along her spine.
Nick breathed a curse.
The creature—Gausto—leaped for the leather around the door, plying his teeth. Huge in the cage, bigger than any natural wolf, he seemed at once awkward with his body and reveling in the power of it. Massive paws with curved talonlike nails, a dark gray bristly coat heavy with musk, and teeth that looked more like tusks in a broad, short muzzle with a faintly pushed-back nose…
And the leather parted instantly beneath those teeth.
Nick swore again, more vehemently. Gausto rattled at the door latch, working at it with teeth and tongue.
“Get out of here,” Nick told her sharply. “Take Eduard’s route.”
“He is twice your size!” Jet drew back in protest, barely glancing away to the room door as that huge paw clawed marks in the metal but made no progress. “I won’t go! Together, we do this!”
He turned on her, a snarl on his face—and, she realized with shock, fear in his eyes. Fear for me. “Get out!” And then, with frantic intensity, drawing them both back toward the exam table, “He’s new to this form. He doesn’t know how to use it. He doesn’t know how to think like a wolf or how to fight like one.”
“We both run,” she told him, desperate, tugging him for Eduard’s escape door—but at the look on his face, slowly released him, understanding. Standing back. “No. I know. He can’t be allowed to live. Not like this. Not with that amulet.”
His was the smallest, most humorless of smiles, an infinitesimal shake of his head. “Heart,” he said. “You showed me myself.”
Fierce, wild panic seized her; it took a moment to realize why—that she saw the inevitable in his eyes. “Not alone!” she snarled, and she threw herself at him as he triggered his shift—swift and sure and surging through her, sensation and emotion and yearning. It swept her into her own change, the different energies mingling greedily with his—blue-white aurora and white-blue lightning licking and flickering together.
Sentinels: Wolf Hunt Page 20
